In which we take a break during today’s Doppelbock mash to answer a reader question about some next-level reading material.
What are your favorite, most indispensable, desert island beer/brewing books?
doppelbooks
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Category Archives: homebrew
TMBR: Burntwood Porter recipe
I’ve got ski socks under my sandals, I’ve got my black stocking cap, and I’ve got my Brainoil pint glass full of porter – welcome to the first (of hopefully several) two-minute beer review. JV camera, y’all.
SPOILER: It goes over two minutes, and there is one swear, so cover your children’s ears when the timer goes off.
save the date
Dig this: Doppelbock brew day on December 21, the end of this age of the earth by the Mayan’s long count calendar, the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, the day when perhaps the northern soul most needs a bock. Brewed too late, or right on time? Continue reading
prep day
A Dunkel to be: new crop year Mittelfruh, floor-malted Bohemian dark, yeast propagation, Wookiee co-pilot.
Will report with notes and results in a few weeks.
zeit für brauen: 21st century American amber lager
Beer style guidelines: some homebrewers I’ve encountered in the past two decades don’t want to brew anything that can’t fit into an established category (or even deviate from a fixed recipe), while others hate them with an ad-hoc and improvised passion (and can’t or won’t stick to a recipe no matter what). Continue reading
basecamp sour 2012: the Brettcurrant edition
Truth in advertising – deep down, I really only truly love a fruit beer if it’s also sour or wild or Brett-influenced, something more than just a fruit beer. That’s just the way Crom made me.
Which isn’t to say I can’t appreciate a well-made straight-ahead fruit beer, but, sour or not, I do feel that the fruit should reflect the beer’s provenance – the fruit adds another layer of reality to beer as an agrarian product and an extension of its time, people, and place.
Every great meadmaker I’ve ever met, from Ken Schramm to Curt Stock, has espoused the use of high quality, local fruit when making melomel, and that philosophy translates very well when brewing sour and wild ales.
With all that out of the way, this, then, is the story of what happened to the B portion of Basecamp Sour 2012. Continue reading
brainhurter RIS: a recipe
sours in the night
Giving it both barrels: five gallons of 2011 sour (really, really sour … plus dark and oaky) red comes off the wood and onto 5 pounds of rhubarb, five gallons of Basecamp Sour (alcoholic fermentation complete, sir) begins its oak nap.
Like ships in the night, these two separate but similar beers pass each other so closely but never quite manage to hook up. They would be so good together, but it’s like they just can’t see it because they’re at such different stages in their lives. Will they ever meet again and, you know … consummate? I hope so – I like brewing stories to have a happy ending.
guess that fruit
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lessons in patience, part 2
I’ll save you the trouble of reading a long post: don’t be in a rush to drink Imperial stout. Now you can get on with your day – cheers!
But, if like me, you’re just noodling around waiting for sparge water to finish heating or some such, here are more words: Continue reading
the beer engine 