Sometimes things go wrong

Well, Dan and I have been brewing for over a year now. For the most part we've been pretty happy with the things we've made. Still, the bottom line is we don't know what we're doing all the time and sometimes things go wrong. Although to be fair, Dan had absolutely nothing to do with this batch, so I'm the one who went wrong. I'm going to blame this failure on lack of planning. I put this recipe together while I was ordering ingredients for another recipe, so I had no time to really think about what I was doing. Not that excuses matter.

The thought I had when I was doing this was to make an Irish red ale that would be easy to drink and lighter, with a subtle smokiness. What I got was completely different.

The beer has a really odd smell to start. It's dark fruit & apple, and reminds me of a lot of the darker Belgian beers we've had. There are some chocolate notes, very much in the background, but more prominent was a bit of a solvent note.

The beer had no head at all when I poured it. There were a few bubbles but they disappeared almost immediately. The beer has a much darker color than I expected. It's a darkish brown, with a touch of red instead of a light brownish red.

The taste is fruity and decidedly Belgian again, with a smoky aftertaste in the mouth. I'm really not sure how Notty ended up being so fruity. There's also some estery flavors going on, the only thing I can think of was that the fermentation temp was high. There's really no hop flavor, and just a bit of chocolate as it warms up. Definitely not the caramel malt flavor I was going for.

In the mouth the beer has a decent level of carbonation, but the bubbles are very sharp. It's got a moderately light body, not really the lightest I've ever had but not terribly malty either. It's got no real substance to it. There's kind of an oily feeling in the mouth as well. I carbonated it towards the high end for the style at 2.5 volumes in a range of 2.1-2.6.

Overall it wasn't bad. It just wasn't what I wanted. I've spent a lot of time pointing out all the flaws, but really it still doesn't taste bad at all. I certainly haven't had a hard time drinking it. The problems are that the smoke isn't nearly as subtle as I had wanted, and it was supposed to be caramel flavored instead of fruity. The fermentation temps had to be high somehow.

The recipe was:

6lbs light dry extract

1lb pale malt

6oz roasted barley

4oz carared

4oz peat smoked malt

1.2 oz fuggles @ 60 minutes

.5 oz fuggles @ 30 minutes

.4 oz East Kent Goldings @ 30 minutes

1 oz East Kent Goldings @ 15 minutes

Mashed for 60 minutes at 152 in 3 quarts of water, fermented with a packet of dry Nottingham yeast.

If I had to do this again, I would have nixed the peat smoked malt entirely, or at least cut it down to 1 or 2 oz, thrown in a decent bit of caramel malt, either 60 or 40L, mashed at a higher temperature for more unfermentable sugars, and either cut the roasted barley down or removed it entirely.

At least it's clear. Live and learn.

- Adam

Terrapin Capt'n Krunkles Black IPA

For anyone particularly interested in the beer scene, black IPAs are kind of the "in" thing right now. As a style, it's not really recognized yet by the BJCP, but there's some talk of creating a classification called "Cascadian Dark Ale" for it. It's been debated as to whether there's enough difference to give it it's own style, or if it's more of a "hoppy stout" or a "dark IPA". Regardless, this type of beer is popping up more and more in the craft brewing scene. Capt'n Krunkles is one such beer, and it's in our glasses today.

The beer pours a dark black color, with just a hint of red in it. The head is a light tan, about 1/4 finger thick and fluffy. Some lacing is left, but the head had only a moderate retention.

The smell is strongly hoppy, with citrus overtones. There's a grapefruit smell to it, probably from some Cascade. Dan said he wasn't really getting that but more of a pine aroma, which I can see a little bit, but I'm really feeling more of the citrus. I'm also getting a little bit of roast in the smell, but it seems mostly hop dominated.

The taste initially is a smooth, roasted quality that gives way to a slightly grassy hop flavor and a strong bitterness in the back. There's also some spice in the back of the mouth. I feel like there may be a bit of coffee in the back, but it's covered over by the hop bitterness.

The beer actually feels a bit light in the mouth, not really watery, but it's a little on the airy side. It's got a sharp carbonation, medium-high to high. It's not overcarbonated though. There's kind of a oily coating in the mouth from it.

Overall this beer is a delicious hop-head focused offering. The dark beer flavors don't come through a ton, but the hop is very in your face. It really doesn't seem like 7.5% either, although I am feeling it a little bit. I'm definitely glad I tried it, and I wouldn't turn it down again.

- Adam

Dark Horse Brewing Tres

Well, I'd say this was a fairly successful trip to the beer store. We ended up getting a bunch of stuff that I'll have to keep myself from drinking for a very long time, and a few things for the near future. Among the more exciting finds were a bottle of Dogfish Raison D'Extra, Beer Geek Brunch Weasel, Fantome Saison, Old Numbskull, and Le Saint-Bock Enigma. We also had Ballast Point Victory at Sea Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter on tap, which was absolutely fantastic. If I ever find a bottle of it I'm definitely getting it.

Up for tonight though, we have Dark Horse Brewing's Tres, a blueberry stout. This beer pours a thick, black color, and looks almost like motor oil coming out of the bottle. It has a 1 finger dark tan head, somewhat fluffy in appearance, that began dissipating quickly.

Immediately on opening the bottle, I noticed a scent of blueberry. This surprised me a bit since I really expected the blueberry to be completely buried in the stout. This aroma lingered underneath for a while, but gave way to some more traditional scents of roast and coffee.

The flavor has a significant roasted flavor, completely dominating the profile. A slight dull bitterness lingers in the mouth after swallowing for quite a while. I can taste the blueberry on the very tip of my tongue, but only just slightly. It does add something, but as I expected the flavor really just isn't strong enough to come through the bold stout flavors. Other than that, there's just a bit of dark, unsweetened chocolate that I noticed.

The mouthfeel of the beer is a little bit of a weak spot for it. The carbonation levels are fairly high and sharp, and actually gives it a light bodied feeling. It was a little bit off from what I expected given the dark and thick appearance of the beer. There's just a touch of warmth in the throat, probably more from the carbonation than the alcohol level since it's only 4.5% ABV.

Overall, it did taste excellent, with bold and robust flavors as well as a little subtlety from the blueberries. The carbonation was definitely a bit too high for my tastes, and maybe was a little distracting. It absolutely was worth having, and surprised me with how well the blueberries actually worked in such a dark beer.

- Adam

Wort Chiller!

I'm pretty excited right now. I just got my new wort chiller in from ebay. After my last brew session I decided it was an absolute necessity. I did my first full-boil in my new 7.5 gallon pot, and it took forever to cool the beer down. Over 2 hours of swapping out cold water in the sink, stirring constantly, and using every bit of ice we had in the house, and I was only able to get it down to around 80 degrees. Hopefully it turns out well, I'm using a Belgian yeast strain that works well at higher temperatures so I'm not too worried about it. In any case, the wort chiller should do some wonders for cooling the beer down quickly.

I also just finished up with reading Designing Great Beers. I have mixed feelings on this book, since there is a lot of good information in it, but it's usefulness seems very limited. Half the book is on the basic ingredients, how they are used, and a lot of formulas to allow the homebrewer to get an accurate measurement of what they're doing. The only problem with this part is that most if not all of the formulas are easily done for you by any sort of brewing software. The second section of the book is an in-depth look at particular styles. The information in this section goes through the various beers that made it to the final round of the National Homebrewer's Competition in 1993 and 1994, and tells you what malts and hops were found in the different styles, and in what percentages they were used and how they were added. The main complaint I had about this section was the range of styles they failed to cover. Considering the format, I would have expected them to cover all of the BJCP styles that are part of the competition. However, they completely ignored every Belgian style, smoked beers, and other various styles. For the styles they covered, the information is great, but you could get similar information yourself by browsing the recipe database over at homebrewtalk.

I just started reading Radical Brewing as well. So far so good, this book is written in an entertaining and informative fashion, and I'm hoping it will give me some inspiration for some crazy beers. It's been a few months since I've come up with any particularly interesting new recipes. Dan did just come up with a Honeydew Kolsch, which should be pretty delicious. Now I just need to remember to write something up the next time I drink something tasty.

- Adam

Another random update

Every so often I get the urge to try and cellar something. It hasn't really worked out for me too well so far since I generally like to drink whatever new beers I have in my house. It's difficult to keep them around when I'm running low on new or interesting beers to drink. Now that I'm brewing pretty regularly I haven't run out of beer in a while, so I figured it might be easier. Last night I picked up a few things I'm hoping to keep for a while. To start, I got a bottle of Brewdog's Paradox Islay Batch 009. This beer is already aged a bit, from 2008 or so I believe. I found it collecting dust in State Line. I also picked up a few bottles of 08/09 Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout from Caps & Corks, since they had 2 bottles hidden in the back. Dan and I have decided to check around whatever liquor stores we can find to see if we stumble on anything rare or interesting. So far it hasn't been too intense, these 2 beers aren't particularly old or rare. Of course, they also weren't too expensive. At some point we'll have to check some other good shops so I can build up my collection.

Brewing seems to be going well still. I'm sipping an interesting brew I came up with, an attempt at a marshmallow stout. There's no actual marshmallow in it, just lactose and vanilla with a smoky stout base. It's not quite what I was hoping since there's not a lot of sweetness to it, but it does have a nice smooth & easy to drink quality. I could see myself making this again with a few tweaks. It didn't have much head, so upping the carbonation level and adding some carafoam would be a good start. I think it could probably use some more vanilla as well. I'm not even sure how much I ended up using, it was something in the realm of 1 tsp at 10 minutes in the boil and another 2/3 tbsp at bottling. Adding it earlier on was definitely a good idea since it was extremely strong tasting after bottling until it blended in a bit, then it practically disappeared. I'm not sure if more lactose would be a good idea or not. It may also be a bit too bitter on the back end. I could probably stand to take out the chocolate malt, but if I did I think some more special roast or smoked malt would need to take it's place. Well.. we'll see.

- Adam

River Horse Hop Hazard

So I picked this up partially because of the artwork on the bottle - which is pretty awesome, and partially because it was called Hop Hazard. I actually thought it was an IPA at first, but it's not. It's actually an American Pale Ale, so I feel kind of cheated already. I pretty much don't like pale ales a lot.

The beer poured with a substantial head, about 2 fingers of thick foam. Head retention on this seemed pretty good, it lasted for a while and stuck to the side of the glass. The beer was a CLOUDY deep tan. They weren't kidding when they said it was unfiltered... our beers have turned out much clearer than this. It's almost unattractively cloudy.

The smell is balanced between hops and malt. I was expecting a lot more hoppy smell from a beer called hop hazard, but it's still pleasant. It had a mix between grassy and citrus hop aromas, with a sweet caramel smell to it. There's also a little grainy aroma that comes through.

The taste is a bit sweet and citrus at first. I got a somewhat substantial bitterness in the back of the mouth. It's a more hop-dominated flavor than I was expecting based on the smell. There's also a bit of a weird tang to it on the tongue. It's decently balanced, although I really get a lot more bitter from the hops and not a lot of the flavors you would generally associate with hops. The bitterness really sticks on the tongue and lasts for a while. It kind of reminds me of unsweetened tea. After a while the citrus starts to come through in the aftertaste as well, with a distinct orange flavor. It's almost what you would get from a beer with a slice of orange in it.

The beer has a good level of carbonation, in the medium-heavy range. It has a substantial heaviness to it for a pale ale, definitely a medium bodied beer that might be slightly on the full side. It's a bit much stylistically but I'm not holding that against it. It seems like there's little to no coating in the mouth from the beer, and just the slightest warmth from the alcohol.

I'm a bit torn on this beer. Stylistically it's all over the place. At 6.5%, it's high on alcohol for a Pale Ale. It's pretty much as dark as a pale ale can get, it's cloudy, and despite what they claim on the bottle it doesn't taste particularly balanced. On the other hand, I usually find pale ales bland, boring, and flavorless. This actually tastes decent, although not my favorite, and it's definitely not bland. I don't think I'd buy it again, but if someone offered it to me I wouldn't turn it down. I certainly wasn't looking forward to being done with the glass and moving on to something else. With me, for a pale ale, that's really saying something.

- Adam

Revisiting

So today is a day of re-visitation for me. For the first time ever we're going to make the same recipe we've already made once before. Depending on the availability of cherries, we're going to make the Chewy Cherry Wheat again, or (more likely given how early in the year it is) we're going to make Aberinkula, our Imperial Brown Ale. This is my favorite beer we've made to date, and I'm really looking forward to seeing if we can replicate what we made the first time. This is the same beer we recently sent to the National Homebrewers Competition, which should be judged this week. It involved 8 lbs of grain, 6 lbs of extract, and 5 ounces of hops.

Meanwhile while I wait for Dan to get home so we can brew, I'm going back to the Dominion Oak Barrel Stout. I had this beer at a Superbowl party in 2009, and remembered that I really enjoyed it. I hadn't had it again since, and I wanted to see if it stacked up to the memory of it. Looking back at the review I posted, it actually is even better. There's no oily sensation to it or fast-food smell. The taste is still really good. I'm surprised a little bit, since I figured in the last year my palate would have changed at least some. All in all, it's nice to be able to go back to something and just enjoy it.

- Adam