Travels

 I've been on a writing and brewing hiatus due to travels and starting a new job, so it's catch up time.  Doin' some brewin' today and reminiscing on the fine selection of lagers I recently had in Nepal. Of course by fine, I mean that they all tasted the same.  But they came in big bottles and were cold in the heat and humidity of Pokhara, so I can't complain too much.

I'll veer from beer for a minute to mention the Raksi.  This is the "local wine" we had after trekking in the Langtang valley.  This particular raksi was made from fermented potato mash.  Sounds like vodka you say?  Well it tasted like it too, just a watered down version served hot.

Needless to say, upon my arrival back to the US after a couple weeks, I was looking for some good ales.  I was in Arizona, so I picked up this selection of mostly AZ brewed IPAs that I am so very much looking forward to sampling, comparing and reviewing.  Cheers to good beers!!

Vernal Minthe Stout

This new seasonal from Ska is an awesome after dinner beer.  Brewed with peppermint, spearmint, cocoa and vanilla.  I love the mint in stout!  And I love that it is subtle.  The last seasonal I had of theirs was the Mole Stout with chocolate and spices, which I found to be a little hard to drink a whole can and it gave me heart burn.  I think that restaurants should switch from Andes candy on the check to Minthe Stouts.  I know it would keep me coming back :)

Doin' Brewin' - Belgian Blonde

On a windy spring day, the air full of red dust sweeping in from the Ouray Valley, you may see a girl running back and forth, back and forth from her house to her garage.  Sometimes carrying a giant pot, buckets, hoses, some strange copper thing.  What is she doing?  Brewing beer of course!

Spring in the mountains equals wind.  And today was particularly windy which forced me to move my brewing operation to the garage in hopes that I don't get completely contaminated by whatever is floating in the air.  In anticipation of my mom coming for a visit I am trying to have mom-friendly beers on tap, which means minimal hops.  This is hard for me, so I decided it would be a good opportunity to try to come up with a belgian blonde and try a few things I've never used before like red wheat and Safale T-58 yeast.

In my experience the progression of introducing non-craft beer drinkers to "real" beer is to start with stouts, browns and red, which has so far been a success.  This time I am going to introduce a bit more hops with the ESB and this Belgian Blonde.  We'll see how she likes it.

Somehow I completely missed the mark on my OG coming short at 1.040.  I was hoping to hit closer to 1.052 but I may have misjudged how much sugar I would get from the red wheat and Vienna.  I have also been playing with mash volumes.  But either way I don't really mind lower ABV beers.  I can drink more beers with less headaches :)

I really like the way this beer turned out.  Very drinkable.  Nice light golden color, a little haziness from the wheat.  On the nose slight not over powering esthers from the yeast.  Finishes hop bitterness instead of belgian sweetness.   Again, another beer not brewed to style, but that's the fun of homebrewing, you can have it your way.

Batch Size	5.000 gal	Boil Size	5.750 gal
Boil Time	60.000 min	Efficiency	70%
OG	1.057	FG	1.014
ABV	5.6%	Bitterness	33.4 IBU (Tinseth)
Color	5.0 srm (Morey)	Calories (per 12 oz.)	190

Fermentables

Total grain: 12.000 lb

Name	Type	Amount	Mashed	Late	Yield	Color
Pale Malt (2 Row) US	Grain	8.000 lb	Yes	No	79%	2.0 srm
Vienna Malt	Grain	2.000 lb	Yes	No	78%	4.0 srm
Wheat, Red	Grain	2.000 lb	No	No	84%	2.5 srm

Hops

Name	Alpha	Amount	Use	Time	Form	IBU
Amarillo	8.7%	0.500 oz	Boil	5.000 min	Pellet	2.8
Cascade	6.4%	0.500 oz	Boil	20.000 min	Pellet	6.3
Cascade	6.4%	0.500 oz	Boil	60.000 min	Pellet	10.3
Amarillo	8.7%	0.500 oz	Boil	60.000 min	Pellet	14.0

Yeast

Name	Type	Form	Amount	Stage
Safbrew T-58	Ale	Liquid	0.000 tsp	Primary

Face down brown

This snowy spring day in April brings me back to winter days x-country skiing in Telluride.  Of course I didn't get out the skis because there was only about 4 inches of wet snow that started to melt as soon as it hit the ground and will probably be gone tomorrow, but I did get out a Face Down Brown.  The second of Telluride Brewing Co's beers to be canned.  Second to be canned, because it was a gold metal winner at the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup last year.  And well deserving of the awards, I'd say.  Nice and nutty malty but with a little hop kick making it not as sweet as the usual brown.  Very drinkable for this hophead.  As they say at the brewery,  "...don’t be afraid to get down with the best Brown around".  

Doin' Brewin'- ESB

A while back I made an accidental ESB.  I was going for a hoppy red ale, but I didn't have enough hops on hand, so I went to a friends house and raided his freezer.  I ended up using Santiam hops, which I hadn't heard of.  Instead of bright American hoppiness, I got mellow noble hoppiness and a beer that more resembled and ESB.  While not what I was going for, it was delicious.  So I tweaked that recipe but went full on english hops with Fuggle and EKG.  This is most definitely a bitter English bitter.  Bitter up front but finishes with a nice toasty maltiness from the Victory malt.  I almost exclusively use US-05 yeast because it is consistent and clean, but this time I went for the S-04 english ale yeast.  It didn't disappoint and did just as it said it would; fermented fast but with a lower attenuation rate leaving me with a final gravity of 1.016.   The low final gravity contributed some nice sweetness to balance it out and a lower ABV of 4.4%.  So good!

Batch Size	5.000 gal	Boil Size	5.750 gal
Boil Time	60.000 min	Efficiency	70%
OG	1.050	FG	1.016
ABV	4.4%	Bitterness	22.9 IBU (Tinseth)
Color	11.0 srm (Morey)	Calories (per 12 oz.)	180

Fermentables

Total grain: 10.500 lb

Name	Type	Amount	Mashed	Late	Yield	Color
Cara-Pils/Dextrine	Grain	8.000 oz	No	No	72%	2.0 srm
Carared	Grain	16.000 oz	No	No	75%	20.0 srm
Pale Malt (2 Row) UK	Grain	7.000 lb	Yes	No	78%	3.0 srm
Victory Malt	Grain	2.000 lb	Yes	No	73%	25.0 srm

Hops

Name	Alpha	Amount	Use	Time	Form	IBU
Fuggles	4.5%	0.500 oz	Boil	60.000 min	Pellet	7.9
Golding	5%	0.500 oz	Boil	30.000 min	Pellet	6.7
Golding	5%	1.000 oz	Boil	5.000 min	Pellet	3.5
Fuggles	4.5%	0.500 oz	Boil	20.000 min	Pellet	4.8

Dry Dock- Hop Abomination

Picked up a six pack of Hop Abomination last week and thought "Yay! Another IPA in cans!  And I've never even heard of this brewery.  How fun!"  

On Friday I left for a quick brewery tour weekend in Denver.  When I'm in the city I feel like I should do what most country people do and take advantage of being able to buy things in stores, but I hate shopping and the only thing I could think to buy was grains.  So my friend says that there is a great home brew shop... on the other side of town.  But it's okay because it is also right next to a great brewery, so we can go.  Perfect!

Well we get to The Brew Hut and I immediately recognize Dry Dock Brewing.  Turns out I had been there before and I loved it.  Great beers, great atmosphere and free popcorn!  So 2 days and 58lbs of grain later I get to have to Hop Abomination on tap at a brewery, it turns out, I'd already been to.

For the second time around, neither Dry Dock nor the Hop Abomination disappointed.  When poured out of the can you can see the hoppy goodness floating around.  Usually I have an aversion to solids in my liquids but for hops, I'll get over it.  A nice full body is followed up by a very resiny hoppiness.  As they describe it,

 "A hoppy warship of an IPA. Massive
amounts of floral, citrus and tropical
hop flavors lurk beneath ivory
whitecaps, swirling amid glowing
golden seas, waiting to conquer
your palate with their bitter
deliciousness. Our take on an
American favorite."

I agree!

Doin' Brewin'- Smoked Porter

In preparation for beautiful weather and barbeques, I'm brewing a nice and smokey porter.  This beautiful weather is getting me excited for campfires that leave your jacket smelling for a week.  I'm hoping this beer will have that essence smokey campfire essence.
Just kegged over the weekend, it's just as good as I imaged.  Porter may or may not be the best label.  It's somewhere between a Rauch and Porter I think.  What would you call a beer that is lighter in color and bitterness than a Porter, but not as smokey as a typical Rauch?
Nice creamy mouth feel makes it an easy drinker.  And at 6% it doesn't leave you stumbling home from the picnic.
 

Batch Size	5.000 gal	Boil Size	5.750 gal
Boil Time	60.000 min	Efficiency	75%
OG	1.058	FG	1.015
ABV	5.7%	Bitterness	33.7 IBU (Tinseth)
Color	21.6 srm (Morey)	Calories (per 12 oz.)	192

Fermentables

Total grain: 14.250 lb

Name	Type	Amount	Mashed	Late	Yield	Color
Pale Malt (2 Row) US	Grain	10.000 lb	Yes	No	79%	2.0 srm
Rauch Malt (Germany)	Grain	3.000 lb	No	No	0%	2.0 srm
Chocolate malt Pale	Grain	8.000 oz	No	No	60%	250.0 srm
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L	Grain	8.000 oz	No	No	74%	40.0 srm
Roasted Barley	Grain	4.000 oz	No	No	55%	300.0 srm

Hops

Name	Alpha	Amount	Use	Time	Form	IBU
Santiam	7.2%	0.500 oz	Boil	5.000 min	Pellet	2.3
Santiam	7.2%	0.500 oz	Boil	30.000 min	Pellet	9.0
Warrior	13.7%	0.500 oz	Boil	60.000 min	Pellet	22.4

Yeast

Name	Type	Form	Amount	Stage
Safale S-05	Ale	Dry	2.232 tsp	Primary