brew day: Beamishish

Brewing an Irish stout: it’s been a while. So long, in fact, that any delay from a little detour into history and personal remembrance won’t significantly prolong the wait. Let’s get a beverage before the second paragraph. Continue reading

reader question: boosting mouthfeel

Reader Andrew posted this question earlier in the week:

I was wondering if you could give me some tips on increasing mouthfeel on my lower abv brews. Is there a way to get a nice low abv beer without it being sweet due to high mash temps/ increased specialty malt?

… and I thought it was a substantial enough topic to warrant its own post.

Substantial! Mouthfeel! #BeerJudgeJokes Continue reading

TMBR: sschemy’s Berliner Weisses

After posting about his process in the Berliner Weisse thread, reader Scott (sschemy) was kind enough to send me some samples to try – here they be, on camera.

And here are his comments excerpted from the above thread:

A buddy and I just “brewed” a Berliner-esque beer for a wort transformation challenge from a local brewery. The brewery provided 5 gallons of wort. The base wort was a wheat beer (don’t have the recipe in front of me) around an og of 1.050. We took that wort and split into two batches, we then mashed a 50/50 pilsner/wheat to dilute the original wort down to a gravity of 1.032. No boil, and pitched the Wyeast 3191 in one carboy, and a blend of NE wild yeast with sour dregs from various commercial brews (really have no idea, except there was some dregs from Trinity). We tasted and kegged these this weekend. The brew with the straight berliner yeast is a cleaner tartness, mildly sour now, but very refreshing. The NE wild/dregs beer is slightly funkier, a little less clean, but slightly more sour. This one had a really nice pellicle on it. Currently sitting under 30 psi, and will sample tomorrow. The contest calls for 6 bottles to be submitted. We have very high hopes with this one. Will let you know how it all turns out.

[clever play on words “Berliner” and/or “Weisse” goes here]

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Partly by reader request but mostly because it’s time: Berliner Weisse.

Tiny grain bill, no boil … this is easier than extract brewing! I should brew Berliner Weisse all the time. Continue reading