Recipe: Session Summer IPA, SS Peach IPA, SS Habanero IPA

The last batch of IPA I brewed went way too fast.  In a matter of weeks I blew through 10 gallons.  Guess that's what happens when you host CityGroup for your church weekly.  5 drinking adults with a couple pints each, and my own imbibing throughout the week can add up quick.  For the next batch of IPA I wanted something totally crushable for the Summer.  I don't really want a 7% ABV 100 IBU monster.  I opted for a session strength NW X NE IPA.  The clarity and dryness of a great PNW IPA, with the juicy, rounded mouthfeel, peachy esters, and hop explosion of a NEIPA.  And of course I bumped it up to 15 gallons this time to ensure I keep it on longer.  But I didn't really want 15 gallons of the same IPA.  Each keg got a little different treatment.  One stayed as brewed, one got Habanero peppers, and one got peaches, lactose, and vanilla.

Recipe: Summer Saison - Light It Up & Dbl R Motha F****a

After killing my non-Brett version of the Spring Saison in a matter of weeks before even getting to review it, I needed to get a new Saison on tap. I also wanted to play with a few fun Brett strains I recently acquired as well as a few I had already (by bottling with a single strain per 6 pack). I also needed to have more than one keg of the Saison to drink so I had it on tap for at least a month if not longer. So I pushed my system to the max, a 17.25 gallon boil in a 17.5 gallon kettle, and 14+ gallons of beer in my 1/2 barrel keg fermenter (15.5 gallons). Other than being a little low on volume upon kegging (sampling and stealing a qt worth to force carb fast in a 1 liter soda bottle), it went really well. 

Recipe: NE IPA - Haze Craze

I have a knack for brewing IPAs that non IPA drinking folks really like to drink.  I’ve always brewed my IPAs with a restrained bitterness, dry finish, but softer mouthfeel, and leaning heavy on finishing hops.  I don’t brew these so that non IPA drinkers will drink them, I brew them because I much prefer them to the bulk of the IPAs I can get here in the PNW.  Don’t get me wrong, I love to get a well-made and bitter IPA, but I only tend to have one.  We recently got Founder’s here in Oregon, and I had an All Day IPA.  It literally took me all day to drink it.  It was out of balance, with an edgy bitterness that made the finish firm instead of refreshing.  When I drink an IPA, I want each sip to leave you wanting another.  I crave balance.  So once I put down the alien hop juice Brett IPA, I naturally was drawn to brewing a NE IPA.

Recipe: Spring Saison, the Return of Dupont

When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade.  Well, what if life doesn’t hand you lemons?  What if you don’t care for lemonade?  What then?  What if life has lead you down the road of trying to open a Brett only brewery and then to the end of the road whence you realize it isn’t going to happen?  What do you make with that?  You make a Saison with your favorite strain that happens to not be Brett.  That’s right, I decided I needed to apologize to me great friend Dupont for abandoning him for so long.  And the reward is wonderful.  I hadn’t been this excited to brew in over a year.  The beer has been on tap less than a week and my wife is already telling me to brew it again.

Brewery Trial Recipe - Session Saison: Tragic Magic 4.0

It's been awhile since the last time I posted about this beer recipe, but yet this is only the next iteration.  Something about a 4.5% ABV Session Saison that didn't scream rebrew me during the cold months of Winter.  Over the past versions of this recipe there was just something less authentic about this beer, especially in the hopping.  I recently did a Super Saison with all Noble hops as a test batch and really like the results, although the amount of Vienna in the base on that one made it a little too malty.  For this trial recipe I wanted to try to pull in a little more rusticness and some spiciness so I swapped out the Flaked Oats for Flaked Rye and kicked up the percentage to double what I had used with the oats.  I also subbed in some German Dark Wheat for some added foam and color as well as a little more rustic bite.  I also went with Noble type hops on this run using Saaz for its spicy floral tones, and Hallertau and Tettnang for there floral, spice, and herbal notes.  So far the gravity samples are much more in line with where I want this beer to be.  Much more rustic, some herbal spiciness, dry, crisp, medium level maltiness, bitter finish, and lots of complex fruitiness.

Brewery Trial Recipe: Release The Panic IPA 8.0 & Panic At The Disco Habanero IPA 1.0

After recent batches of Release The Panic saw changes in hopping like Simcoe and Amarillo I decided to go back to the original hop schedule but beefed up a bit like recent versions.  There is something about the Columbus, Nugget, Chinook, and Meridian oils once biotransformed by my house yeast that creates something wonderful.  Super fruity and a balanced dankness and pine.  For this batch I didn't want to have a full 10 gallons of the same beer on tap allowing for the hops to fade out on keg 2 while drinking keg 1.  On this one I decided to toss some Habanero into the secondary to get some heat and the fruitiness of a Habanero flesh.  I also swapped out the base malt from Pale Ale malt to Vienna to get a richer malt balance and to drop the sugar addition and add some Cara-Pils to add a touch more body.  The super dry finish on previous batches was nice, but the lack of body wasn't.  I really wanted a good body and malt complexity to back up all the hops and the yeast.  Don't get me wrong, I like a good hop monster with no malt backbone showcasing all the hops and a yeast that gets out of the way as well, but they aren't balanced and certainly not drinkable enough to knock back a couple and still fell your tongue.

Brewery Trial Recipe: Super Saison: Imaginary 1.0

Although there is something wonderful about the depth of complexity and drinkability in a low alcohol Saison like Duponts Avril, or even the sheer perfection of their classic Saison, their is something of majesty and whimsy about the Dupont Avec Les Bons Voeux.  At 9.5% ABV it is still way too drinkable, spicy, crackery, zesty, malty, and fruity, and super refreshing until the ABV hits you.  A style I tend to shy away from except on special ocassions, I really want to have a beer that draws its inspiration from Avec Les Bons Vouex in the brewery.  For the first iteration of this recipe I went with a base of Vienna cut with Pilsner, German Dark Wheat, and Flaked Oats, with a hefty dose of sugar to get it nice and dry and still have what the Belgians call digestibility (never heavy, easy drinking no matter how high the alcohol).  I hopped it with Saaz, Tettnang, and Hallertau for a more authentic Saison character.  The beer is not designed to be a clone which would have had only Pilsner malt and Saaz with Styrian Goldings.

Brewery Trial Recipe - Tragic Magic: Session Saison 3.0

Yes it is Fall.  Yes I just brewed a beer that fits perfectly in Summer.  Yes, I did this on purpose.  The recipe is starting to dial in for my Session Saison, but it isn't there quite yet.  I really enjoy this beer, but it needs a little more work, so I brewed it again even though we are headed into times of darker nights and darker beers.  I want to have a fresh memory of where the last batch was while comparing this batch.  And, I am also bringing the team (thus far) for the brewery over for a tasting and cheese pairing and needed all of my Flagships ready for sampling.  I also need to ensure that this a beer I will want to drink in the dead of Winter, because if I won't drink it, not many others will, and if no one wants to drink it year round, it shouldn't really be a Flagship.  I am still trying to dial in the spicing, for this version I added some peppercorns to get some peppery bite and left out one of the original spices which really needs to remain from initial tastings of this batch (it is missing something great compared to previous batches).   I am also playing with the hops as one of them throws this herbal tea bag astringency thing that I am not too fond of (I think it is the Crystal since it doesn't show up in the IPA).  I also took a shot at adding Lacto a day before the yeast strains on half this go round to see how it works out with a touch of tartness and lower pH.  We'll see how these adjustments do and then go from there on the next iteration, but for now, it still drinks nice when doing yard work.  As an added bonus, I have a culture of a Brett strain growing up at the moment that I plan on adding to a case of bottles to see what a little aging will do to this one.

Brewery Trial Recipes - Breaking the Habit: Coffee Porter 3.0; Break My Fall: Brett Cacao Bourbon Porter 2.0

Fall is officially here, even though breweries have been putting out Pumpkin beers for nearly a month now.  With the dropping temps, cool nights, gentle breeze, dark evenings, and changing artists palates in the trees comes an innate hankering for something darker and rounder than the crisp and light beers for Summer.  The Good Lord gave us Porters and Stouts for a reason, and He also gave us an internal timer that almost instantaneously switches to them from Saisons as the season changes.  Like a junkie looking his next fix we yearn for that dark and roasty beverage to sooth our troubled souls.  This is part of the reason I just rebrewed my Coffee Porter recipe (the other is because I need to have my flagship beers to give to potential investors).  I swapped out the Crystal hops for Chinook on this round to avoid the herbal tea notes that Crystal can throw, and to get a little resin and pine in the mix.  The last iteration had issues with the coffee additions as the coffee from the original recipe was no longer available.  For this one I actually went with a blend of 2 different coffees from a local artisan and the complexity really makes the beer pop.  This recipe was done on my first double brewday in nearly a year.  Gotta say it was actually fairly smooth except trying to get all the beer into the fermentors in the fermentation fridge.  This was also my first time doing an entire 11+ gallons together in one vessel, which works really well and ensures that I don't have any differences from 2 different pitches into 2 different Better Bottles.  After primary fermentation was done this batch was split into 2 different beers.  The fresh keg got the Coffee blend, and the 5 gallon carboy received 2 Hungarian oak cubes soaked for 2 months in Woodford Reserve Bourbon.  It also received a pitch of Brett, and will get cacao nibs in a couple months.  The first version of this beer is drinking quite nicely right now.

Brewery Trial Recipe - Release The Panic: IPA 3.0

As I continue to move forward with test batches for the brewery it is becoming more and more evident how difficult it can be to fully dial in a homebrew system.  Humidity, temperature, wind, all play a role in the temperature of the grains, the mash, the runnings, and impact boil off rates.  My efficiency is fairly dialed in, but sometimes it drops a few percent which impacts the beer.  The last time I brewed this recipe I got 7.5% ABV instead of the intended 7.0% For this batch my numbers were much closer to where I wanted them.  11.5 gallons of wort, 2 full corny kegs, 80 IBUs, and 7.2 ABV (even though I was still shooting for 7.0%).  For this iteration of the flagship IPA, Release the Panic, I upped each of the hops, especially the Columbus to get a little more resin in there to play with the tropical notes.  I also upped the IBUs a little more to try to get some bitterness past the yeast as it down plays the IBUs a lot.  I am also keeping this keg at a little higher temp than the previous as it helps to make the aromas pop to serve it a little warmer, and it helps keep the haze in the beer a bit instead of dropping it crystal clear taking precious hop oils to the bottom with the yeast and protein particles.

Brewery Trial Recipe - IPA 2.0

The beauty and difficulty of working with yeast is that some of the strains out there have the ability to transform the aromatics of the hops into something different than what you were expecting.  This can create amazing new flavors and aromas from the hops than what you were expecting, but it also makes it difficult to put together a hop bill when looking for a specific flavor or aroma.  I tried shifting up my Columbus to try to get some resin in the profile compared to the last batch, and the Chinook and Columbus are just putting out more fruit.  It makes for a wonderful beer, very aromatic and juicy, but it is lacking a little bit of that PNW oomph I want in there.  I don't want much, just a little pine and dankness to take me out of the fruit juice arena a little more.  It is also difficult to get any bitterness to shine through.  The yeast is really impacting the bitterness and making it hard to get a snap on the finish.  Again, it tastes great, but it just needs a touch more bitterness to clarify, yes, this is indeed an IPA.  I really don't want this beer to be a traditional PNW IPA with lots of cattiness and citrus with a walloping bitterness.  I want it to be bold and aromatic with a restrained bitterness, lots of juicy fruits, with a subtle resin and pine.  A marriage of the new juicy East Coast IPAs and the traditional PNW IPA.  Still need to adjust up the Columbus and Chinook with a higher IBU and see how it goes.  Also need to get the ABV back down to 7.0%.  Other than that, this IPA is pretty much spot on.

Brewery Trial Recipe: Saison 2.0

For the first iteration of the Session Saison for the brewery, I got pretty close to what I wanted.  It needed to dry out a little more to hit that 4.5% ABV I wanted.  I upped the Vienna and Sugar and backed off a touch on the Flaked Oats and Base Malt.  The dry hopped version and spiced version were both good beers, but a blend of the two really took it up a notch, so on this rendition I spiced the whole thing in the kettle, and then dry hopped the entire batch.  I got a little too much herbal from the first rendition, so I leaned a little more on the Meridian in this batch than the last one.  I also upped the IBUs a bit as well since the yeast seams to down play the bitterness quite a bit.  For fermentation on this batch I did a side by side with the yeast strain that is quickly standing out as the forerunner as the house yeast, and that same strain blended with another less attenuative and earthy strain.  This is the same blend that the first batch got, but instead of staggered pitches they were co-pitched.  I also cranked up the temp a few degrees to really push the esters.  So far the first pours from the kegs are very promising.

Brewery Trial Recipe: Saison 1.0

Saisons were designed to be light, crisp, dry, refreshing beers that you could crush during yard work.  They were truly the original lawn-mower beer.  When doing my research for what beers to have in rotation for the brewery, I saw that a lot of brewers have a beer that is designed for this purpose.  Most are Blonde Ales or Wheat Ales, others are a Pils or Helles of some sort, still a few more run with a Kolsch or Cream Ale.  The thing that all of these beers have in common is not only color and sessionability, but the lower flavor punch factor.  But of course I am not aiming for low flavor punch, their is a reason why the name is End of Silence and the Tag-Line is Let The Yeast Speak!  I want it loud.  So I went for loud with this little beer.  I wanted a depth to the malt so the Vienna is a little higher than other beers in the rotation, and the hopping is high enough to get a nice burst under the complexity of the yeast esters and phenols.  A light hand of spicing adds a nice layer in there too, just enough to help the yeast sing, but not overpower it.  Next iteration will get a little more sugar to drive the FG down a few more points, dry it out some more, and boost the ABV up to the desired 4.5% ABV.

Brewery Trial Recipe: IPA 1.0: Release the Panic

Lots of Hop Debris Left Over

I'm really getting excited to see how my recipes evolve and the yeasts do on these test batches for the brewery.  On the last IPA recipes I did, the Cal Ale version had a huge cantaloupe flavor which made it hard to drink.  The Trois version was much better, with big burst of tropical esters.  Then we all found out that Trois is not actually a  Brett strain.  I wanted to test out a new strain on the market that is said to be a big pineapple bomb, and wasn't sure it would attenuate fast enough for what I need.  79.5% apparent attenuation in 1 week seems fairly fast.

RECIPE #82 & 83: Breaking the Habit (Coffee Porter)

When I first brewed my Coffee Porter it was because my wife told me to stop adding Brett to everything.  I was going to make 10 gallons of Porter, and then add Brett to half of it for secondary.  She told me to add coffee instead.  So I did... to the plain version.  The beer that ensued was a wonderful marriage of roast and cocoa.  It was difficult to tell where the coffee started and the beer stopped.  When Becca told me to do it, I did, assuming it would be a fun beer to make once, she would be happy, and I would still get to make the Brett finished version I really wanted.  Little did I know that this would be one awesome beer and is now being refined to house a spot in my Flagship beers for the brewery.

RECIPE: #80 Dubblespeak (Belgian Dubbel)

We are homebrewers.  This means we don't simply go buy something in the store that we can make at home.   We don't buy beer, we make it.  We don't buy fully fabricated kettles and mash tuns (well, I don't at least), we make em.  We don't pay for yeast, we culture em.  We don't buy overpriced Candi sugars, we make it ourselves.  Okay, those last few are me, many brewers do pay for those things, I would just rather put my money elsewhere.  In preperation for a Quad I would like to make (Westy 12/St Bernardus abt 12 rift) I had to test the homemade Belgian Candi Syrup I made.  That is where this recipe comes into play.  I had a fair amount of syrup left over after the 2.5# needed for the Quad, so I worked up a simple Dubbel recipe to test it out.  I didn't bring in any Special B since I only wanted what the syrup brings.  This batch was split with a Blonde by adding the 2 different sugars to the fermentor at the time I racked from the kettle.  The Vienna malt should add some toasty depth.  I had originally planned to use the St Bernardus yeast but I had 3 failed attempts to culture it from bottles (old beers and higher gravities).  I finally got a good pitch built up, but it smelled off so I plated the yeast and isolated a single colony.  I didn't have time to grow it up for this beer so I woke up the Fantome strain which won't flocc for anything.  I am still waiting for the beer to clear up some so I can judge color and get a cleaner flavor profile.  Once I get that I will review it and post the Candi Syrup recipe and process too.

RECIPE: #79 Blonde Jokes (Belgian Blonde)

Every so often you get that wild hare and go for it.  This is one of those beers.  I had made Belgian Dark Candi syrup to use in a quad but needed to try it out first.  Thus I decided to make a Dubbel, but I didn't have enough to make 10 gallons, so I needed to add something else to the mix.  I went with a single mash, single boil, split ferments with 2 different sugars.  For this beer I went with straight Demera sugar for a Belgian Blonde ale.  The color difference is quite noticeable right after adding the sugars.  I wanted something in the higher alcohol range, but still light, refreshing, and crisp.  I also wanted to see what my house wild yeast would do in a fresh beer, so it became the primary yeast strain.  It simply refuses to drop clear, so this one might be awhile before it is reviewed.

RECIPES: #76 Feed The Machine (IPA) & #77 Release the Panic (100% Brett IPA)

7 oz Whirlpool Hops for 10 gallons

Thus it begins.  The process I swore I would never do.  Rebrewing a recipe with tweeks.  I have day dreamed of owning my own brewery someday, and have declared that I would never have house beers, the same recipe brewed over and over again.  But then the day dreams are seeming to become more serious.  I recently felt led to step out of ministry, that youth ministry is not where the Lord is calling me.  In the midst of this, I have been wondering where my calling may actually be.  My pastors have stated that they are excited to see where the Lord uses me in the future, and they all hope it is in brewing.  Then my wife buys me Starting Your Own Brewery, 2nd Edition for Christmas (a super expensive book), seems like she is behind the idea.  In light of all this - the possibility of actually owning a brewery - the thought of having solidified recipes, house beers, repeatable, excellent, it all comes rushing in.  Regardless of whether I actually have year round house beers or not, I need a solid recipe to give potential investors, something repeatable and unique, something I can brew on a big boy system and know if I did it right or not.  Thus it begins.  Rebrewing a recipe with tweeks.  

RECIPE #75: The Justin (American Barleywine)

I have been brewing for 4 years now.  During that 4 years I have written at least 6 recipes for a Barleywine, but never pulled the trigger.  It's not that I am afraid of the style.  It's that I am not too sure that I wanted a full 5 gallons of it.  Sometimes I really love Barleywines, sometimes not so much.  The beer that defines the American Style tastes like garbage fresh... yes, Bigfoot, I'm looking at you!  Overly bitter, grassy, astringent, like chewing on hop cones, overlaying tangy caramel malt and a little roasted dryness.  I really enjoy the lower IBUs and bolder malt character of English Barleywines, but thus far in my brewing career, I have failed to make an outstanding British beer of a lower gravity, making a bigger one isn't really what I wanted to do (too much money and time invested).  So, for this one, when I finally pull the trigger, I went for a blend.  Malt complexity, toffee, toasty, and lots of bold American hops.  All of this layered over enough bitterness to balance and clear the pallate, but not so much that it is the only thing you can taste.  I chose a yeast with character and a medium attenuation to keep it from drying out too much, and to add an extra layer of complexity.  I am hoping that this beer will age gracefully for quite a few years.

RECIPES: #72 BANGARANG: No Nap (Coffee Porter) & #73 Dark Dismay (Brett Porter)

I don't typically brew Porters.  Actually, I've never brewed a Porter in my 4 years of brewing.  You know, Porter, that obscure style, is it a less roasty Stout, or a more roasty Brown Ale?  But there is something wonderful about a good Porter on a cool night.  My inspiration to make this beer was from the Mad Fermentationist and his new book American Sour Beers.  In it he references a Vatted Porter made by a commercial brewery where they age a Porter with Brett and Lacto in oak tuns for some time.  I decided I was going to do the same, brew 10 gallons, and age half for funk.  My wife told me I always sour and play with Brett, do something different for once. O_o?  She suggested coffee.  So I went with it.  Half coffee, and half aged on Brett for funk.  I had gotten to enraptured in the idea that I wasn't going to miss out on it.