Birthday & Imperial Stout

Well, here in Alberta its slowly fighting its way toward summer with periods of crappy rainy-snowy coldness followed quickly by days like today. This photo is what I see in front of me right now, at my parents place. Nice eh?

So my calendar told me that tomorrow is my 28th birthday. Last year I did absolutely nothing for my 27th, so this year I decided to put a mild effort and have a small BBQ tonight. I'm serving up some rather nice homebrewed wit beer on tap, as well as some leftover Amber Brown Ale that our brewery makes. People like free beer, so hopefully that attracts a few people.

Speaking of homebrew, I've decided to brew what I hope is an interesting "imperial stout". I put the quotation marks around the style as I'm not realy too concerned with style in this case. Here is the planned recipe, with some discussion afterwards:
28th Birthday Imperial Stout

Size: 25 L
Efficiency: 86.0%
Attenuation: 73%

Original Gravity: 1.085
Terminal Gravity: 1.023
Color: 40.5
Alcohol: 8.19%
Bitterness: 47.2 (BU:GU = 0.56)

Ingredients:
3.4 kg Standard 2-Row (40%)
3 kg Maris Otter Pale (35%)
510 g Oats Flaked (6%)
650 g Roast Barley (7.7%)
595 g Black Malt (7%)
340 g Crystal Malt 120°L (4%)
37 g Centennial (9.5%) - added first wort, boiled 90 min
30 g East Kent Goldings (6.2%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min

Mash at 67 C for 1 hr, mashout 78 C.
--------------
Now some style purists might exclaim "but Brian, an Imperial Stout is supposed to have at least 50 IBU in it, preferably much much more!" but I care not. In fact, I was thinking of having even less hop bitterness. You see, 14.7% of the malt bill is very dark malts. My hope is that the bitterness from the 'burnt' roast barley and black malt actually balance the other malt sweetness in this beer. It will be nice to see if its over the top. I plan on aging it over a year while I'm gone in scotland too.
I might actually take out the EKG hop addition and make it all FWH centennial hopping, not sure yet.

Anyway... let me know your thoughts on the recipe/etc.
Cheers

New Books

So I ordered some brewing books from amazon.ca a month or so ago, and the just arrived today. It was only because I ordered 4 books, and one of them (a book on cask ales) wasn't available yet, so they eventually just shipped what they could (at no extra cost I'll get the 4th later... not a bad deal).
Anyway, I ordered:














"Principles of Brewing Science, 2nd Ed" by George Fix
"Extreme Brewing" by Sam Calagione
and "Brewed in Canada" by Allen Winn Sneath

Principles of Brewing Science will be a great way for me to pre-study for my MSc program coming up in September. It really gets me back to my biochemistry knowledge and has the science behind brewing I really like (and need) to know.
Extreme Brewing is a little bit of a disappointment so far, but it does seem to have some good info about using weird spices/sugars/etc that is hard to find elsewhere. But it also as a lot of introductory info about the basics of homebrewing... I'd figure that anybody who is going to buy a book on extreme brewing should have started with brewing basics, but whatever.
Brewed in Canada is a history of the 350 year old Canadian brewing industry. I've only barely started to read it, but it shall be interesting for sure.

Cheers!

HOLY F'N CRAP

Ok, so I haven't been the best blogger. In fact, I've been one of the worst in the last few months. If you want to blame something, I'd blame my super-awesome girlfriend. Those female creatures have a way of diverting you from important things like writing seldom-read articles about small-time brewing that a normally lonely and bored guy like me would write daily.

In any case, I'm sitting on my 10th floor balcony tonight drinking the 2007 barley wine that I had the extreme pleasure of brewing & filtering for Alley Kat (my most prized accomplishment, as far as I'm concerned), and damn that beer is good. I'm not one to toot my own horn... but BEEP BEEP. It wasn't my recipe, but I figure if the brewer sucked (who is me) it would have certainly not been as good. In any case, I'm quite proud of it and you should go get some.


In other beer news, the Edmonton Homebrewers' Guild participated in the 2007 Big Brew! It was a fun day that was hosted by our brewery. We (the other brewer, Sean, and I) produced what seems to be a lovely wheat beer (60% wheat malt, 35% barley maly, 5% munich). We produced 23 hL, which I think will be a contender for the top amount produced in North America by any club. Last year we were 3rd with 15 hL. Personally, made 5 batches using different yeasts:
(OG 1.050)
-Belgian Wit (has fermented down to 1.012, tastes ... tasty)
-Belgian Saison (has only fermented to 1.036!! I will give it more time)
-LALEGER (a mix of Alley Kat Ale & Lager yeasts fermented at 19C for 1 week then dropped to 3C and aged... has fermented to 1.012 and has a assy sulfur taste to it :(
-Rosselare Lambic strain... (so far fermented to 1.026, but seems to still be going and has a mild sour character to it... I'll let this one age for a couple of months)

I've also been having good luck with my other homebrew/test batches these days. I get excellent feedback from the homebrewer's guild (full of BJCP judges and people who will give an honest opinion). Recently, my blueberry-rhubarb wheat beer was presented to them and it was actually pretty nice. I couldn't drink a pint of it because of the sourness, but its really good for about 5 oz.

The EHG is having its yearly brewing competition soon, I advise anybody out there who homebrews to enter some beers to it, and even come by for the events. We're very welcoming and there are some awesome parties (with lots of beer... naturally :)

Cheers!

A new post...

Ok, well I'm far too tired to create a real new post now, but I have lots of beer news. First, I brewed another English bitter... but then I lost my brewday logsheet and I did a lot of things different than my planned recipe. That sucks.

Next, our brewery is releasing a raspberry mead which is quite awesome if I don't say so myself, it should be out in a few weeks, even though we have it in bottles now, we just need labels. If you ask nicely I might let you have some early... ;)
In addition, I just filtered out kristalweizen today, and its rather tasty. It won't be available for a few weeks. Oh, and don't buy any Kiltlifter (our last seasonal) as I want to take it all home...

I'm currently listening to Amon Tobin's Live aux Docks de Lausanne set, and its pretty awesome. But then again, what of his isn't awesome? He is by a wide margin my favorite artist ever. If you haven't heard his stuff, get it and listen... because seriously he is brilliant.

Cheers

200th Post Extravaganza

Ok, well since this post is my 200th post I have been avoiding actually writing it as I feel I should write something big and important...

But alas, faithful readers (all 6 of you), I have nothing exciting to report. My beers that I entered to Regina didn't win any medals, perhaps because I definitely over-sanitized the bottles with a too-strong sanitizer solution. The bottles I tried that were left here tasted sharp and 'bitey'. Either that or all my beers sucked. But at least the stuff I served on tap to my friends and to the Homebrewers' Guild were very well received, so thats all I really care about. In fact, in the last two weekends people have drank about 30 L of my homebrew... I need to make more homebrew now!

Speaking of making more homebrew... well, it seems like my time is lacking these days. I'd love to make an English IPA though.

Ok, so thats it for my lame 200th post... cheers.

General Post 199

This is in fact my 199th post, so I guess I'll have to think of something awesome for my 200th post. I must apologize to my very few "regular" readers... it seems that I've met a female human who has managed to divert a large portion of my time :)
... So hopefully I brew some beer soon... otherwise I'll just dance around happy all day and want to pick flowers rather than work.... sigh..............

cheers!

Smiles All Round

Hm, things seem to be going my way these days. I like that.

So just an update on some of the beers I brewed back on St. Patty's Day. Kegged off the IPA into two 18.9 L kegs. In one keg I put 18 g of centennial and in the other 18 g of cascade for dry hopping. The centenntial is much more forward than the cascade. I've actually renamed it "some kind of hoppy beer" now as its not quite to style for and IPA. In fact, I've had no less that 5 BJCP judges try it and suggest that its an ESB (although with American hops, but who cares). The brown ale I just kegged off and is on tap at my house now.

I served two of my creations on tap at the most recent Edmonton Homebrewers' Guild meeting, my Special Bitter and my "some kind of hoppy beer". As I said before, I had lots of great comments on my hoppy beer, which apparently is an ESB, and people really loved it. Luckily I have a keg and a half left! I also received some rave reviews for my special bitter (4.4% alc). It was really good to get this feedback from the members there, many of whom are certified BJCP judges and have many many MANY years of experience in brewing and tasting beer. Its great to know I'm on the right track!

Regina ALES Festival
I've shipped off 8 entries to the ALES homebrew competition. I entered my "hoppy beer" as three different styles: ESB, American Pale Ale, and IPA. From what I hear I probably won't do well for IPA, APA is a possibility, but depending on what else shows up for ESB I might do really well there. That is, unless my bottles are infected or the sanitizer I used was too strong (which it may have been... bah). I also entered my special bitter, my brown ale, and my two crappy belgians just for the hell of it... I'll let you know how it goes!

Cheers!

Double Brew for St. Pattys Day

Rather than be a part of the demand side of beer this St. Pattys day, I contributed to the supply side by brewing two beers on Saturday.

The first, by style, was somewhere between and American IPA and and Imperial IPA. It should be 7% alc/vol and 64 IBUs. Here is the recipe:

Condescension IPA
Size: 46.36 L
Efficiency: 86.98%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 315.37 per 1 pt

Original Gravity: 1.071 (1.056 - 1.075)
Terminal Gravity: 1.018 (1.010 - 1.018)
Color: 15.0 (6.0 - 15.0)
Alcohol: 6.99% (5.5% - 7.5%)
Bitterness: 66.6 (40.0 - 60.0)

Ingredients:
5.9 kg Standard 2-Row
5.5 kg Maris Otter Pale
0.7 kg Toasted Pale Malt
0.5 kg Crystal 75
0.1 kg Chocolate Malt
73.1 g Centennial (9.5%) - added during boil, boiled 90 min
37.2 g Cascade (5.8%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
36.5 g Centennial (9.5%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
37.2 g Cascade (5.8%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
20.7 g Centennial (9.5%) - steeped after boil
26.3 g Cascade (5.8%) - steeped after boil
26.3 g Fuggle (4.8%) - steeped after boil
500.0 mL Alley Kat ale yeast

Schedule:
Mash in at 60 C, raise temp to 68 C and hold for 1 hour.
Mash out at 78 C

Notes:
Toasted malt: soak malt in water for ~ 1 hr, then put in oven at 350 F for 1 hr

The second beer I made was a smaller batch of a brown ale I've been working on several times before, I just can't seem to get the flavour I want... I'm looking for a complex malty beer with a sweet and chocolatey start with a dry finish. I'm using the WYeast 1928 London ESB yeast for this which does have a distinct dry finish I noted on the last beer I made with it. I had some problems with the extract calculations on this one, so this recipe doesn't make sense on paper...

Brownrock Brown Ale I
Size: 32 L
Efficiency: 103.9% (obviously this is wrong)
Attenuation: 74.0%
Calories: 190.19 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.057
Terminal Gravity: 1.015
Color: 22.4
Alcohol: 5.54%
Bitterness: 29.26

Ingredients:
5.0 kg Mild Ale (Dextrin Malt)
0.5 kg Victory® Malt
0.4 kg German Dark Munich
0.3 kg Crystal Malt 120°L
0.2 kg German CaraAroma
0.2 kg Chocolate Malt
0.07 kg Roasted Barley
30.4 g East Kent Goldings (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 65 min
30.4 g East Kent Goldings (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
10 g Fuggle (4.8%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
10 g Cascade (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
500 mL WYeast 1968 London ESB Ale from starter


Schedule:
Mash for 60 min at 67 C, mashout at 78.



Yep, thats it!
Cheers

2007 Old Deuteronomy

Yes, thats right, we've released the 2007 Old Deuteronomy Barley Wine. Its quite a good vintage this year, and I had the pleasure of taking care of pretty much the whole thing from brewing to filtering, the only thing I didn't do was bottle it. So I'm quite proud of this, since we only do this once per year!
This years is 9.9% alc/vol and about 100 IBU in bitterness. I really like the flavour myself, the hoppiness lasts for almost half an hour in your mouth!

The bottle I'm holding in the picture isn't the size we sell it in, we just happened to have that cool bottle and filled it for ourselves :)

Come by the brewery and pick some up.

Cheers!

Heriot-Watt Campus

I was thinking I'd show some of you where I'll be going to school in October for my MSc in brewing in Scotland.
The university is called Heriot-Watt, and its located at the google maps link below:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=l&hl=en&q=heriot-watt+university&layer=&ie=UTF8&near=edinburgh&z=12&ll=55.927471,-3.277702&spn=0.088286,0.279808&om=1&iwloc=A

So the school isn't really in Edinburgh, its actually just outside. Which isn't quite as fun as being in the city. But its not too far of a bike ride or bus to pubs in the city. I was thinking about living in the city, but staying on campus has the advantage of being able to walk to classes without having to bike or bus in. And I'm pretty lazy in the morning. Plus I'll be living with other post-grads, who are in the same situation as me most likely, which makes people easy to meet.

The main website is http://www.hw.ac.uk/home/ and the site for my program (with all the courses, etc) is http://www.postgraduate.hw.ac.uk/course/118/.

Cheers!

Ordinary Bitter Review

So as of tonight (Monday) my Ordinary Bitter has been in existence for exactly two weeks. This is a great style to brew quickly, as I cracked the keg open at the monthly meeting for the Edmonton Homebrewer's Guild and it tasted great! Its definately a lighter beer (only 3.3% alcohol) but has a decent but not overpowering bitterness with some hop flavour on the finish. I received many positive comments on the beer, even from experienced beer judge gurus, which makes me quite happy.


I think I'm going to try to brew one of these per month, as its a great quaff beer... I can get home from work, have a couple of pints, and its only really like having a pint of beer. Plus I get the health benefits from moderate alcohol consumption, the vitamin B + a bazillion other nutrients & minerals in the yeast and beer mixture.


Yep, stop by and try some!
Cheers

English Premium Bitter Brew Night

Well, since I was off Thursday and Friday this week I decided to do a homebrew batch in the evening. I got a little busy... so I didn't actually end up starting the brew until midnight... which means I didn't get out of there until 6 am! But I'm kind of a night owl.

I've always really liked Fuller's London Pride, so I wanted to make something similar (but not the same). I found a clone on BYO, but I didn't really like the recipe. The recipe I used is below. Unfortunately, when I used the BeerTools recipe generator I left the mash efficiency at 75%, when I usually get 85% or so... thus, I had a hell of a lot more extract than I expected. I had to stop the runnings at 7.6 P and top up with a lot of water. I could have made a barley wine out of this! But thats not what I wanted. So I just got a very full boil kettle :)

I've decided to call this "London Self-Esteem"... ;)


Recipe:

Brian's "London Self-Esteem"
8-B Special/Best/Premium Bitter

Size: 48 L
Efficiency: 85%
Attenuation: 73.2%
Calories: 223.44 per 500 mL

Original Gravity: 1.048 (1.040 - 1.048)
|=======================#========|
Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (1.008 - 1.012)
|===========================#====|
Color: 13.6 (5.0 - 16.0)
|====================#===========|
Alcohol: 4.56% (3.8% - 4.6%)
|=======================#========|
Bitterness: 31.27 (25.0 - 40.0)
|==============#=================|

Ingredients:

7.6 kg Maris Otter Pale
0.8 kg Carastan 25
0.4 kg Crystal Malt 120°L
0.2 kg Carawheat®
0.2 kg Honey Malt

70.5 g East Kent Goldings (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
64.5 g East Kent Goldings (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
22.5 g East Kent Goldings (5.5%) - steeped after boil
45.5 g Fuggle (4.8%) - steeped after boil

600 mL WYeast 1968 London ESB Ale
--------------

So as you may be able to see its just barely within the style guidelines, but I don't really care. I've also decided to not use the standard Alley Kat Ale yeast and try the London ESB yeast that is apparently used by Fuller's. Its very highly flocculant, so apparently it needs rousing now and then.

Anyway, the brew went pretty good otherwise. Just a couple of pictures below. Cheers!





Running into the kettle... nice and clear!