Category Archives: homebrew

Red Rice Lager, HBC 2018, shuck & jive

Posted on by
8

IMG_4202 copy

I can still remember reading this dude’s book for the first time. I remember distinctly that it felt like a call to action, but even so, I think that year’s edition of MD would have had a hard time imagining what a seismic, life-changing decision that fateful first five gallons of Extra Pale Ale wort actually represented, charting a course and starting a common thread to run through the next couple-three decades and connecting me with a network of like-minded deviants (Summit Brewing founder Mark Stutrud’s term, not mine; but I wear it with pride) all over the world. Continue reading →

Schloß Wolfenstein Alte Hundchen Dunkel

Posted on by
23

I’ve found I tend to get excited about oddly specific (and admittedly sometimes just odd) things; not quite phases, more like a recurring orbit. Hard bop. Rorquals. American wheat beer. Tradition hops.

courtesy hachenburger.de/hopfengarten

Continue reading →

brew day: Saison sans Merci

Posted on by
50

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Time is utterly without mercy, fleeting by in blur until there’s just a midden heap of brew days, barbecues, and fishing trips that could have been. This is about closing down summer and the thirties, about getting back on the blog horse, grabbing what’s left of the daylight in the midst of transitions. A silent brew session in anticipatorily fall-like weather. Porter that isn’t quite ready to be porter, a saison turning dark for autumn.

Well, at least I’ll have some damn beer on tap.

Saison sans Merci
Target OG: 1.055

Grist:

Mash:

  • 152°F for 75′
  • 170°F for 10′

Boil:

  • German Brewer’s Gold (pellet, 6.2% aa) at 60′ to 30 IBU

Fermentation:

  • Chill to 85°F, O2 and pitch with Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison – for that classic flavor
  • After ~48 hours, pitch Wyeast 3711 French Saison – for quicker attenuation, because time is without mercy

.

recap: NHC 2014

Posted on by
10

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

To be honest, I worked a lot and didn’t get out much, but what I did see of this year’s National Homebrew Conference was great – a little more intimate than Philly, I picked up a couple new books to read; there was lots of interesting homebrew (see beet juice Berliner Weisse in the slideshow, and a 14.5% October beer shared at the banquet) and a lively local beer scene. It was a privilege to meet some of you blog readers in meatspace and share a beer.

brew day: Wies’n-Märzen

Posted on by
22

Wiesen/Wies’n

Among several words that are confusingly similar to the non-German speaker, this one means “meadow”. It implies a beer brewed for a carnival or festival (an Oktoberfest beer may be described as a Wies’n Marzen) or a rustic speciality.

– Michael Jackson, beerhunter.com

 

“There is a popular myth that there is one distinctive style of beer brewed for Oktoberfest – but historical evidence shows there have been many changes in the beers served at the festival … in the first 60 or so years the then popular Bavarian dunkel seems to have dominated … up until World War I, Bock-strength beers dominated the Wiesn. For decades reddish-brown Marzenbier ruled the tents, but … since 1990 all Oktoberfest beers brewed in Munich have been of a golden color … with medium body and low to moderate bitterness.”

– Conrad Seidl, The Oxford Companion to Beer

Well then. Continue reading →