Kolsch

Last winter I went to a MABCAB (Milwaukee Area Brewers & Chicago Area Brewers) get together in Shorewood, WI. The guy who hosted it served a really good Kolsch. I've been wanting to brew one all year. Having not brewed any sort of lager or hybrid in awhile, the time finally arrived. I used his recipe, scaled up to 6 gallons so excuse the odd grain amounts, except that he used the same IBUs worth of Perle hops rather than Hallertauer. I've seen many recipes with Hallertauer though, and it's what I had on hand. (I need to start brewing some hoppier beers to get last year's hops used up!)

Kolsch

brewed on: 12/2/11
OG: 1.047
IBUs: 46.6 IBUs
SRM:  5
mash temp: 149F
 
6 gallon batch
90 minute boil
75% efficiency assumed

malt:
5.38 lbs red Kolsch malt
4 lbs Pilsner malt
0.67 lbs Wheat malt


hops:
18.5 gm Hallertauer @ 3.9% - first wort (90 minutes)
39.5 gm Hallertauer @ 3.9% - 60 minutes


yeast:
WY Kolsch strain - 2 liter starter

I overboiled by a bit and had to boil/top up with some water. Not a big deal. Back to 6 gallons. I'm hoping it didn't get too dark though.

primary: ~58F- raised to 62. Back down to 58-59.
 

Anglo-American Pale Ale

My friend Jim pointed out to me the other day that I hadn't brewed a hoppy beer in over 2 years. I hadn't felt like that long, but in checking back, he was right. And that one was an attempt at an all-brett IPA. It was time to break open the package of Amarillo hops I've bought a month or 2 ago! I call this an "Anglo-American" Pale Ale because I'm using English yeast (Fuller's strain) and Burtonized the water with a 10 gm gypsum addition to the mash.

Anglo-American Pale Ale

brewed on: 11/28/11
OG: 1.058
IBUs: 46.6
SRM:  7
mash temp: 152F


6 gallon batch
60 minute boil
assumed 75% efficiency

mash:
11 lbs US 2-row
1 lb Munich malt
0.7 lbs Carastan


10 gm Gypsum - mash


Hops (all loose pellets):
22 gm Yakima Magnum @ 14.4% - 60 minutes
14 gm Cascade @ 5.5% - 10 minutes
14 gm Amarillo @ 8.5% - 10 minutes
14 gm Chinook (homegrown whole-cone) - 10 minutes
14 gm Cascade @ 5.5% - flameout
14 gm Amarillo @ 8.5% - flameout
14 gm Chinook (homegrown, whole-cone) - flameout

16.5 gm Amarillo - dry hop, 5 days
16.5 gm Cascade - dry hop, 5 days

Yeast:
WY 1968 - London ESB (Fuller's strain) - repitched slurry from Golden Ale)

Yeast:
ECY Scottish Heavy - 2L starter

primary: started at 64F. Raised to 68F slowly over 3 days, then lowered back to 64F.

12/5/11 - Added dry hops - 16.5g each of Cascade & Amarillo loose pellets.

Brandy Barrel Golden Ale

We recently removed our Wheat Wine from the Apple Brandy Barrel it was aging in. It tastes amazing! I can't wait to bottle it. (This is definitely aging-worthy, and I'm hoping to bottle condition it toward that purpose.)

We brewed a Golden Ale recipe I came up with as an experiment for the second barrel beer. I don't mean a Belgian Golden Strong. This didn't really fit a style. I knew I wanted to try a mid-gravity, malt forward light colored ale in the barrel. We've done lots of sours, dark beers, and big beers so far. This is probably with good reason. I have a hunch that something like this lower gravity, lighter colored ale will not take to the oxidation in the barrel well. We'll see. I can imagine it going in a good direction though as well, picking up the apple-clove notes from the wood. We didn't rinse the barrel before immediately refilling, so there should be residual wheat wine notes to it as well. While I'm not expecting the wonderful beer that the Wheat Wine was, I'm hoping for the best!

We went with MO and some Vienna to get nice maltiness, and the Wyeast Fuller's strain to accentuate the malt as well. (I love the Fuller's strain, WY1968, for malty beers! It is a favorite of mine in general.)

Brandy Barrel Aged Golden Ale

brewed on: 11/11/11
OG: 1.059
IBUs: 28.5 IBUs
SRM:  7.5
mash temp: 152F

mash:
9 lbs Marris Otter
3 lbs Vienna
0.6 lbs Cara-Pils
0.6 Crystal 40L


Hops (all loose pellets):
22 gm Nugget @ 13% - 60 minutes
28.3 gm Challenger @ 7.5% - flameout

Yeast:
WY 1968 London ESB - 2 liter starter

11/25/11 - Barrel filled with Bob, Jim, Dan S., John, and myself.

Old Ale

Old Ale is one of my favorite types of beer. There are so many good Old Ales and English Barleywines out there and I've enjoyed exploring them over the last few years. I only wish we could get more here in Wisconsin. I found a clone recipe for Fuller's 1845, one of my favorites, and did some slight tweaking. My changes were the addition of 1% chocolate malt, and using East Coast Yeast's Scottish Heavy yeast instead of the obvious WY1968 Fuller's strain, as much as I love that yeast.

I got the idea to brew an Old Ale with the ECY strain a year ago when they first started selling it. Their description sounded perfect. Unfortunately, due to a mislabeled shipping address, it arrived after I had brewed and I never got to use the starter I made. So, when it recently arrived again this year, I put it right to work (after building up a 2L starter, of course!)

Old Ale

brewed on: 11/7/11
OG: 1.064
IBUs: 40.5 IBUs
SRM:  17
mash temp: 156F

mash:
11.75 lbs Marris Otter
1.5 lbs Amber Malt
1.5 lbs Crystal 65L (Fawcett)
3 oz Pale Chocolate malt
1 tsp gypsum


Hops (all loose pellets):
60 gm Fuggles @ 5.1% - 60 minutes
50 gm Fuggles @ 5.1% - 15 minutes

Yeast:
ECY Scottish Heavy - 2L starter




I'm debating adding some oak chips I received from Aeppeltreow owner Charles McGonegal that he soaked in his Pommeaux fortified pear dessert wine.

Choco-Coffee Imperial Stout

A few years back my friend Jim did a great Founders Breakfast Stout clone. I still remember it fondly and decided to brew one myself. I pretty much stuck to Jim's recipe. I brewed this last a week ago, but just got around to posting. It was racked to secondary this afternoon and is tasting great even before the additional coffee and chocolate additions were made!


Choco-Coffee Imperial Stout (Founder's Breakfast Stout clone)

brewed on: 10/30/11
OG: 1.080
IBUs: 34 IBUs
SRM:  47
mash temp: 155F

mash:
10 lbs US 2-row
7 lbs Marris Otter
1.5 lbs Flaked Oats (Quaker quick oats)
1 lb Chocolate Malt
12 oz Roasted Barley (300 SRM)
8 oz Special B
4 oz Black Patent
4 oz Carafa II

3 gm chalk


Hops (all loose pellets):
33 gm Nugget @ 13% AA - 60 minutes
14.17 gm Williamette @ 5.1% - 5 minutes
14.17 gm Williamette @ 5.1% - flameout





 
Adjuncts:
3 oz Bittersweet Chocolate - boil, 5 minutes
2 oz roughly ground coffee beans (medium roast) - flameout
2 oz Bitter baking chocolate - secondary (14 days)
1 oz roughly ground coffee beans (medium roast) - secondary (14 days)


Yeast:
2 packs US-05, rehydrated

Apple Brandy Barrel Aged Wheat Wine

I recently acquired an apple brandy barrel from Aeppeltreow cidery & distillery. This is some of the best brandy I've tried, with beautiful spice and fruit notes to it! The barrel echoes these, with an even more intense savory spiced aroma than the brandy itself. The barrel is around 26 gallons, which is more than I want to brew myself, so I recruited some friends from the B.O.M.B. (Barrel of Monkeys Brewers) group I started last year for group barrel projects. My friend Bob has a delicious Wheat Wine he brewed, based mostly off of one of the recipes in Stan Hieronymous's Brewing With Wheat. We decided it would be a great beer to age in the barrel. Along with Bob, Jim, Dan, and John, I brewed a batch of the wheat wine and we filled the barrel a week ago, along with a hefty amount of sampling of homebrew & commercial beers! A good time was had by all.

Barrel Aged Wheat Wine

brewed on: 9/16/11
OG: 1.110
IBUs: 75 IBUs
SRM:  11
mash temp: 156F

mash:
17.25 lbs Marris Otter
7.42 lbs White Wheat malt
1.36 lbs Aromatic malt
0.7 lbs Carapils
0.7 lbs Flaked Wheat


Hops (all loose pellets):
83.7 gm Centennial @ 8.7% - 90 minutes
25.6 gm Amarillo @ 7.5% - 30 minutes
43.66 gm Cascade @ 5.4% - 10 minutes
41.45 gm Cascade @ 5.4% - flameout

Yeast:
US-05 - 1 pack, rehydrated
Munich dry yeast - 1 pack, rehydrated


11/4/11 - Sample is showing nice clove and apple notes from the brandy barrel. Oak complexity is at a great level. We're shooting to empty asap, which is still 3 weeks off since we're brewing this week. Hopefully it doesn't get over-oaked. I'm really looking forward to this beer!

Second Runnings Beer - Thomas Hardy barleywine

For the second runnings beer from my Thomas Hardy inspired barleywine, I capped the mash with a bit more grain. Unfortunately, it ended up picking up an infection from the dry hops (I don't know why I bothered using a bag on this one when I usually don't for pellets.) I'm 100% sure it came from the nylon hop bag. It was a bland beer anyway, so no huge loss. I've got a Brett Blend #9 pitch from East Coast Yeast on its way, which I may pitch to see what happens, but I'm not expecting much. By the time the bugs are done I'll have a beer that had little malt character, old hops (by that time) and a bunch of brett. Doesn't soundvery good, or balanced, to me. Anyway, for the sake of recording recipes, I capped the mash with the following:


12 oz Crystal 60L
6 oz Crystal 120L
6 oz Pale Chocolate malt


hops:
0.9 oz Nugget @ 13% - 60 minutes
0.5 oz Challenger @ 5.3% - 15 minutes
0.5 oz Challenger @ 5.3% - flameout


yeast:
WY London ESB - half slurry from English Mild