Here’s the recipe for this brew, it’s quite tasty!

• 8.00 lb Maris Otter
• 0.50 lb English Crystal 55L
• 0.75 lb Biscuit Malt
• 0.25 lb British Chocolate
• 1.00 lb Flaked Barley
• 1.5 oz Kent Goldings – Bittering, 60 minutes
• 0.5 oz Kent Goldings – Aroma/Flavor, 5 minutes
• Wyeast 1968 Extra Special Bitter Yeast

The beer pours a dark golden bordering on amber with a very clingy white head.  The aroma is moderately hoppy, citrus and spicy with a noticeable sweet malt in the background.  The flavor is moderately hoppy but there is also a noticeable and competing malty flavor, a bit sweet, slightly bready and something a bit different than any other beer I’ve made, perhaps the wheat malt shining through.  (I’ve only used flaked wheat previously.)  The bitterness is medium-low and provides a nice balance combined with a slightly dry finish.  The carbonation is moderate and body is quite smooth.  Overall I’m very happy and very impressed with this beer and the hops!  I don’t know I’d change much with this recipe, it is quite tasty.

More importantly is the aroma and flavor.  The aroma is moderately malty, quite bready and a bit sweet, the hops also shine as well, spicy and a bit floral.  I wish the hop aroma would have come through a bit more, but I’m not complaining, this beer is very inviting.  The flavor is malty upfront and remarkably smooth.  At the swallow the moderate hop bitterness and spicy German hop flavor cleanse the palate.  I very much enjoy how both the malty flavors and hops shine in this beer, it really captures what I was intending.  German malt flavors akin with Maibocks and a hoppiness typically seen with American Pale Ales (albeit a German hop flavor/aroma).

Would I do anything different next time?  Yes.  The hops just don’t come through quite as much as I wanted.  I’d prefer the hop flavor and aroma both to be a bit more noticeable, but not too much more.  The bitterness is about right.  The thing I like most about this beer is the exceptional smoothness and the fact the malt and hop flavors are both quite evident.

Brew this one up today!  Let me know how it turns out!

Justin

The recipe I came up with used a lot of German pilsner and German munich malt and a bit of caramel malt, hence the maibock part of the beer recipe, basically similar malts I would use in a maibock recipe.  We bittered with Perle and made a 15 minute, 5 minute and zero minute addition of Tettnanger hops.  For yeast we went with Wyeast 1007 German Ale yeast, as this should give a rather clean fermentation, allowing the hops and malt to shine.  If you want the recipe, give me a shout, otherwise here are a few pictures of the fermentation that is going strong in my basement.

Like I said in my previous reports, my racking cane got clogged so my volume was a bit light and my efficiency was a bit off being my first batch with my new water supply, so this is a high end APA or a low-end IPA, either way a damn tasty beer!

I was a bit concerned about the slow performance of the Nottingham yeast, but like I said I was fermenting this rather cool, in the 56/57F range.  Well the beer turned out great, this was the first time I used Amarillo hops and really enjoy them, I prefer this Amarillo/Cascade blend over soley Cascade.  I’ll stop rambling about the beer, here’s my review with a picture of the beer!  Try the recipe out, if you like hops, you’ll love this!

At a couple months age (and even at just over one month) this beer is fantastic. It pours fairly clear golden-orange color with a moderate white head. The aroma is quite hoppy, lemon-citrus qualities from Amarillo and Cascade hops. The flavor is moderately hoppy with a noticeable, yet not tongue splitting hop bitterness. The beer finishes with a nice linger of hop flavor and a bit of sweet, nutty malt. The carbonation is moderate and body medium.This beer turned out wonderful, a refreshing, very flavorful pale ale!

The beer on the left is the beer from the fridge and the beer on the right is the cellar temperature beer.  The cellar temperature beer held a frothier head than the cold beer, I can’t say why.  The pours were equally agressive and glasses were both clean.  Anyway, the aroma of the cellar temperature beer was much roastier than the cold beer, I think part of that was due to temperature differences as well as the fact the cellar beer had a much larger head.  A larger head delivers a more intense punch of aroma.  The color of the beers were the same, very dark brown, not quite black.

The taste of the these two beers were (not surprisingly) very similar.  Both have a moderately roasted flavor, medium/light body and low carbonation.  The finish is rather dry, but not too dry.  There may be a hint of hop flavor in there as well, tough to say.

So what do I think?  I think it’s a good beer, not a great a beer.  The next time I make this brew there are some changes I want to make.  Here is a key part of making great homebrew.  Take great notes.  Note what you like, what you don’t like, and how you would change things.  You won’t remember 6 or 9 months from now!

I purposely went for low carbonation since too high of carbonation on a dry stout can overly accentuate the dry/acrid nature of the beer to a point where it is overwhelming.  Next time I’d prefer just a bit more carbonation, ideally I’d have a nitrogren beer engine, but I’d settle for just a bit more carbonation.

The body is purposely lighter bodied since this is not supposed to be a big thick beer, but rather a beer you enjoy through the night of playing cards.  To me it still needs something a bit more.  Next time I will mash at a slightly higher temperature.  The slightly higher mash temperature will give the beer a higher finishing gravity, and hence a bit more sweetness and more body.

I wouldn’t mind a bit darker color and bit more roasted flavor.  So I think I will increase the roasted barley a bit and maybe try pulverizing the roasted barley.  I have read that pulverizing roasted barley can darken the color and slightly change the flavor profile.

So there you have it.  The Beamish Irish Stout turned out pretty good.  There is room for improvement, but until next time, I’ve got a little over a case of tasty dry stout left to drink.

Good luck with your brewing

Kiltlifter is Scottish Style Ale that has a slightly hazy orangeish-amber color and a nice fluffy off-white head.  The aroma is quite malty, sweet and bready.  The flavor is, as expected, rather malty, just a bit of hop in there and finishes dry with some lingering bready/nuttyness.  If you’re in the western US or can find Four Peaks in store by you, pick up a 6 pack, it’s a tasty brew!

Check back again soon!  I hope to get back on the brewing horse at my new house soon!  I’ll probably update my Beamish Irish Stout with a review and some pictures.

So after stopping in Chippewa Falls for the Leinenkugel’s Brewery Tour we reached our vacation spot of Duluth, Minnesota.  The Duluth-Superior area has some great hiking trails in state parks (Pattison State Park in northwestern Wisconsin has the 3rd highest waterfall in the US east of the Rockies), the shipping canal and harbor in Duluth is a great place to spend some time as well, especially if you’re interested by the Great Lakes shipping industry like I am.  There are some great restaurants in Duluth, Blackwoods and Pizza Luce are two favorites, but Fitger’s Brewhouse is by far my favorite Duluth watering hole and restaurant.

Fitger’s typically has at least 10 beers on tap, sometimes even more!  My favorites would be their Double Hopped El Nino IPA and their Big Boat Oatmeal Stout.  But seriously you can’t go wrong with anything you order.  I always get a sampler tray and follow that up with another pint or two of something that wasn’t on the sampler.  Hungry?  Well kill two birds with one stone.  Their food is awesome!  The hard part will be picking something off the large menu.  Also check out some live music during the evenings, with the University of Minnesota-Duluth campus nearby it has a fun, young vibe.  So your typical travels will probably not take you through Duluth, but if you’re ever around plan on stopping for at least a few pints, hell stay the night.

Since we were going on a Saturday we made a reservation since tours are limited to rather small groups.  The tour starts at check-in in the new Leinie’s Lodge.  After check-in you are given two coupons for a free 7oz sample, you can sample before or after your tour.  The lodge is pretty big, with a nice fireplace, lots of merchandise to purchase and a lot of nostalgic Leinie’s stuff.

The brewery begins outside around all the buildings, some of the buildings on the brewery grounds are the original from the mid 1800s!  The tour then proceeds through where the mash is performed, then you follow where the wort is chilled and finally to the huge fermentation room.  The fermentation room has a lot of tanks, I believe each holds 400 some barrels of beer!  In homebrew terms, that’s about 2500 5 gallon batches!  After the fermentation room, we got to see the bottling line and finally warehouse area, where there were thousands of cases of beer, truly a delightful experience.

Overall I enjoyed the tour.  It wasn’t overly informative, the tour guide knew their stuff as long as your followed the lines, anything out of the ordinary was given the typical ‘I can check for your response’.  Also production only runs Monday-Friday, so if I did it again I would try to stop by on a weekday to see some of the stuff in action.

http://www.leinie.com/tour.html

The beer pours a clear copper color with a white head that leaves a nice lacing.  The aroma has a moderate spicy, citrus hop character as well as a medium-low toasted malt aroma.  The flavor is moderately malty, some sweetness with a pronounced, moderate spicy hop flavor.  The bitterness is moderate.  The beer

finishes crisp with a lingering hop flavor and slight sweetness.  The body is medium-full and carbonation is moderate.  Overall a nice brew, an Oktoberfest meets an American Amber Ale.  I especially like the balance of very robust hop and malt flavors.