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Northern English Brown

By Justin on Friday, February 12th, 2010 | No Comments

Here is a beer I brewed up back in the fall that I hadn’t shared up this point. Northern English Browns are malty beers with just enough hop bitterness to keep the beer from being overly sweet. Commonly malt flavors include nutty and biscuit. Northern English Browns typically are a bit drier on the finish and a little more hop oriented than their Southern English brethren, which tend to be a bit sweet on the finish. The picture is a bit darker than what the beer really looks, the color is more medium brown with some amber hues when held to a light.

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

Carty Cascade Vintage 2009 Review

By Justin on Monday, February 1st, 2010 | 1 Comment

I couldn’t be more happy with the way the Carty Cascade 2009 turned out! Recall I was shooting for a straightforward APA recipe that would showcase the hops we harvested in September. Here’s my writeup of a recent tasting and a picture. I really enjoy the hops and look forward to future harvests!

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.

Maibock Pale Ale Review

By Justin on Monday, January 18th, 2010 | No Comments

If you’re wondering how the marriage of Maibock grains and and a healthy helping of German hops turned out, keep reading. I’m quite pleased with the appearance of this brew, a nice golden color with a frothy white head. Here take a look:

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

Carty’s Cascade Pale Ale – Vintage 2009

By Justin on Saturday, December 5th, 2009 | 2 Comments

What better to do on a cold December morning? Brew! Today I brewed an American Pale Ale, using the Cascade hops grown in my buddy’s backyard this summer. The recipe I crafted was quite simple, I wanted to showcase the hops. I’m curious to how these Cascade hops will compare to Cascade hops grown in the Pacific Northwest. They smelled quite similar, maybe a bit more spicy and little less citrusy, but overall quite similar.

So the brew day started at a chilly 23F. But no worries, I had my winter jacket and hat on. The brew day went well despite the cold temperature, although running the hose to the wort chiller was kind of a pain, the hose was quite stiff. Some of the water froze in the hose while I was cleaning, but no big deal, I’ll let it melt in the garage. Also using so many whole hops I knew siphoning the wort might be a challenge, so I tried something new, using a copper scrubber attached to the racking cane to act as a filter, I got the idea from another brewer on the web. It worked very well, no clogged racking cane. Although I’ll say this, no more brewing outside in subfreezing weather…back to the kitchen until spring or maybe a mild spell.

The recipe today was quite simple:

9.0 lbs Maris Otter

1.0 lbs Wheat Malt

1.0 lbs Crystal 40L

Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast

1.25 oz Cascades 60 mins

1.20 oz Cascades 15 mins

1.20 oz Cascades 0 mins

I will ferment this batch cool, in the low 60s. With the simple grain bill, clean yeast and cool fermentation temperatures this beer will showcase the entire 2009 harvest of our Cascade hops. I’ve attached some pictures of brew day if you’re interested. If I have time I’ll also post a few things about two of my other latest brews, a Northern English Brown, which tastes fantastic and an update on the Maibock Pale Ale which I’m enjoying as I write this.

The pictures: 1) a cold start! 2) the grains, toward the ‘top’ of the bag you can see the crushed wheat malt atop the other grains 3) the mash after doughing-in 4) the bittering addition 5) wort before the boil got going 6) wort with the bittering hops added

2009 Cascade Hop Harvest!

By Justin on Saturday, September 12th, 2009 | 1 Comment

So a few weeks back I ventured into the hop garden at my friend’s house. We harvested the hop cones from the 2 year-old Cascade plants we have growing along a fence in their backyard. Last year we got very little hops, not even enough to really use, but good bine growth. This year the bines were longer on June 1 than they got the entire first year. As the summer continued the hop bines became littered with flowers and eventually plump hop cones.

Sunday, August 30 we harvested the Cascade hop cones. We harvested 15 5/8 oz wet (444g) of luscious hops! Below are some images of our hop harvest. After I got the hops home I set them out on some non-fiberglass furnace filters and bungee corded them to a box fan for drying. I can’t accept credit for this drying method, I got the idea from Alton Brown’s Beef Jerky Good Eats episode on the Food Network. Below are some pictures of my drying rig. I blasted them with the box fan for 4 days, I’m sure they were plenty dry after about 2 days, but wanted to be sure. After drying, the hop’s weight had decreased by nearly a factor of 5! The 15 5/8oz (444g) of wet hops now tipped the scale at 3 5/8 oz (106g). Finally I put all the dried hops into a vacuum seal bag and sealed them up for storage in the freezer until brew day. You can seem them sealed up in a bag not much longer than an average size banana.

Now the brainstorming begins for a recipe using these hops. Although it shouldn’t take too much brainstorming. We want to showcase our hops in an American Pale Ale, so the recipe will be rather simple with a clean yeast and we will use only these hops. Look for the recipe sometime soon! Until then, enjoy the hops pictures!

Cascade Hops Growing Nicely!

By Justin on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 | No Comments

So last April (2008) my buddy and I planted three Cascade hop rhizomes along a fence in his yard. Last year our harvest, as expected was quite minimal, but we got some good vine growth. By early April this year our hops were poking through the ground. By the end of May the hop vines had already matched last year’s entire growth. Over the weekend we went over to their place for a cookout and to enjoy the great weather. WOW! Look at those hops! The vine growth is tremendous and there lots of little hop buds all over the place. We’re hoping to have enough to completely hop a batch with our own hops, which by the looks of it should be very doable. I hope to take some pictures and share sometime soon. Do you grow your own hops? How is the growing season treating them where you live?

So how’s that IPA?

By Justin on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 | No Comments

So a couple months ago I posted about my 1120 IPA recipe I crafted. I know the world is eagerly awaiting the report, so how was it? Ok, no one is dying to know, but if you were curious here’s the report. Enjoy!

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!

What’s next? An IPA!

By Justin on Friday, March 6th, 2009 | 1 Comment

So I’ve finally got the time to brew up my next batch. My next batch is going to be a celebratory brew, a rather strong, very hoppy IPA but with enough malt to keep it from being one dimensional. I’ll be brewing next Sunday. Here’s the recipe I’ve worked out so far.

Beer Name: 1120 IPA

OG: 1.061

FG: 1.012

ABV: 6.5%

IBU: 53

Grains:

10# Maris Otter

1 # Flaked Barley

0.5# Victory

0.5# Crystal 40L

Hops:

0.50 oz Amarillo – 60 min

1.25 oz Cascade – 60 min

0.5 0z Amarillo – 15 min

0.5 oz Cascade – 15 min

0.5 oz Amarillo – 2 min

0.5 oz Amarillo – 2 min

0.5 oz Amarillo – dry hop

0.5 oz Cascade – dry hop

So I wanted to have a subtle, yet noticeable nutty/toasted malt flavor hiding beneath the all those citrusy hops, so the addition Victory malt seems reasonable. To give the beer a silky mouthfeel I thought a pound of flaked barley would fit nicely, this is what they do in a beer like Guinness to give the creamy mouthfeel.

Now the yeast and here enters my problem. Our new basement is quite a bit colder than our old one, I have moved my thermometers around and the basement ranges from 50F to 58F. I wanted to use a British ale yeast, but most varieties recommend mid 60sF to low 70sF for fermentation temperatures, my basement is much too cold for that. I could use Nottingham dry ale yeast or a clean American ale yeast, but I’m hoping for something different. I’m thinking of going with an altbier yeast, it will be a bit different, still relatively clean and dry enough. Although a Scottish ale yeast sounds good too. I have a feeling this yeast selection will be a game time decision. So do you have any comments about the yeast or anything else on the recipe? If you brew it up, drop me a line.

Justin

Four Peaks Kiltlifter

By Justin on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 | No Comments

Well it sure has been a while since I’ve last posted. Buying a house and painting sure has taken up a lot of my time! After moving work took me to Phoenix, Arizona. Let me say, it was great to get away from the bitter cold -20F temperatures we were having in Wisconsin in exchange for sunshine and 70s! While in Phoenix I spent some evenings with co-workers at local watering holes, enjoying local brews on the patio. My favorite of the trip was by Four Peaks Brewing Company, the beer they call Kiltlifter.

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.

Leinenkugel’s Brewery Tour

By Justin on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 | No Comments

So I was on vacation on the way to Duluth, Minnesota and that took me through Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Chippewa Falls is small town, a few thousand people, but home of the Leinenkugel’s Brewery. My favorite Leinenkugel’s beers are their Oktoberfest, Creamy Dark, Red and Honey Weiss. I really don’t like some of their latest ‘beers’. I don’t care for Sunset Wheat, Summer Shandy or the new Fireside Nut Brown. But enough of my preferences on to the brewery tour!

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

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