Cherry wood-smoked...erm...amber?

Well folks, I'm a couple days late with my update, but I brewed up my latest batch of beer this past Friday night.  I recently posted the recipe, and as I said, this was intended to be a smoky brown ale.  I finally got a new probe thermometer as my previous one had malfunctioned, and everything went great with the mash.  I hit the temperature dead on and only lost about two degree over the course of the hour, even with the cold weather.  The only weirdness came when I collected the runnings, and saw what appeared to be a rather light-colored wort.  I didn't think much of it, but after I ran the boil and tried to make it nice and vigorous to get some extra caramelization/color, the wort was still very light colored.  Beginning to get somewhat suspicious, I went into BrewPal on my phone and calculated what the recipe would be without the half pound of chocolate malt that I planned to have in there.  Welp, turns out that without it, I would end up with a beer of only about 11° Lovibond, almost exactly the light amber color that my beer appeared to be.  Methinks that Joe from Princeton Homebrew accidentally left out the chocolate malt, which incidentally was the last ingredient listed on my malt bill.  Oh well, it should still be really tasty, particularly given the rest of the malts in there, the lovely EKGs, and the WLP002 yeast, which has a great profile.

Dark picture, but nice big trub pyramid!

Mulling things over, I got a sort of crazy idea.  I thought to myself, "Gee, if I carbonate this beer naturally with malt extract, I'm just making a small amount of wort...why couldn't that wort be colored, flavorful wort?"  Well, I won't be kegging this one until after Thanksgiving, so I have time to think about it.  I do, however, really want this to be a brown ale, and I also have about 9-10 ounces of Carafa I in my stock right now.  I'm kinda leaning towards using that when I carb the beer.  If you are a homebrewer and have any knowledge from other folks/your own experience doing this, let me know your thoughts.  I really don't see how it would affect the beer negatively, seems like it would just be along the lines of carbing the beer with really dark DME.  Well, we'll see!  In the meantime, the beer is fermenting at a happy 66° [at 64° ambient], and it should come out great no matter what I decide to do with it...part of the joy of being a homebrewer is in the process and the unknown.

It's nice to have plenty of garage space for winter brewing!

Smokey the Brown

Well, after nearly a week's worth of runouts to Philly with the Westminster Symphonic Choir and a weekend full of wonderful performances of Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, I am back to the real world once again.  Why yesterday, I only had a mere solemn mass in Bordentown and a Compline service in Freehold on my singing agenda.  I even had a full thirty minutes in my schedule that allowed me a trip to Princeton Homebrew to finally pick up some ingredients for my next batch, and I'm really excited about this one.  As soon as is humanly possible, I'll be brewing up a cherrywood-smoked brown ale at 1.050 OG and 21°SRM, so somewhat toeing the line of an English brown porter.  Hey, it's homebrew and I can do whatever I want.  I think that this will be a perfect beer for late fall, and because of the style shouldn't take too long to be nice and drinkable.

Depending on how this comes out, I'm considering racking some/all of it onto some chipotle peppers for a nice smoky kick.  With the base recipe I'm using, there should be enough sweetness to counteract that nicely.  Here's what this guy is gonna look like:

6 lbs Maris Otter
2 lbs Briess Cherrywood smoked malt
1 lb English Crystal 60°L
.5 lbs Chocolate malt

1 oz. East Kent Goldings @60
1 oz. East Kent Goldings @15

WLP002 English Ale Yeast

Basically, it's a pretty standard brown ale with the smoked malt subbed in for some of the base malt, some finishing hops to add a little balance in the flavor, and a low-attenuating yeast to give it some sweetness.  I'm really excited to see how this turns out.  Stay tuned.

You wouldn't believe how good this grain smells

Pretty Things St. Botolph's Town - Review

Well, due to some kinks in the works of UHaul, I am currently stuck in Massachusetts...with no more homebrew (Egads!).  I decided that I had to make the most of it and enjoy a beer from one of my favorite up-and-coming NE breweries, Pretty Things of Cambridge, MA.  They really impressed Dad and me at ACBF last year with their Jack D'Or and Baby Tree, and I decided to check out St. Botolph's Town (which I wanted to try at ACBF but that Pretty Things had run out of by then!).  Here goes:

Appearance: Poured from a bomber into Dad's prohibition-era glass beer mug.  Gorgeous off-white head that has a very creamy quality, dissipates slowly, and leaves nice lacing on the side of the glass.  Dark brown color with subtle garnet hues.

Aroma: Very earthy, with beautiful caramel/toffee notes and light sweetness

Flavor: Wonderful sweetness with rich toffee, and coffee/chocolate mild roastiness in the background.  Brown sugar notes throughout the taste, with a surprising amount of pleasing bitterness on the finish. 

Mouthfeel:  Medium carbonation and lovely smooth, rich body

Overall: Probably the best brown ale I have ever had.  I want to brew something like this.  Pretty Things, any chance I could get some hints on the recipe/specs?  Such depth and complexity that could be enjoyed any time of the year, and could go really well with food.  Almost reminds me of a brown porter...and some of the better milds I've had, honestly.  At 5.9% I'd almost classify it as an imperial mild.  Absolutely delicious.

Category 11: English Brown Ale

Beer: Newcastle Brown Ale
Category: English Brown Ale
Subcategory: Northern English Brown

Ah, English brown ales. Tasty, low gravity, malty creatures that make for wonderful session beers and still never sacrifice flavor. They tend to be great for both cooking and pairing with food. When I found a mini keg of this in my local Publix in Naples, FL, I had to pick it up. Never did care for Newcastle in the clear bottles (skunkaroni!).

Appearance: Pretty, dark reddish-brown color. Nice cream colored head with decent lacing.

Aroma: Sweet caramel with some nuttiness and a dash of alcohol

Taste: A small amount of caramel sweetness develops into a nutty, slightly toasty, vaguely chocolatey flavor. Some bready maltiness and small kick of hop bitterness. Glad that the skunkiness is lost with the on-tap version, because the clear bottles pretty much ruin the whole beer otherwise. So much more pleasant this way. Great beer to drink with dinner!

Mouthfeel: Pretty smooth, fine bubbles, medium body and medium-high carbonation.

Drinkability: Well, out of the mini keg, this guy is pretty damn drinkable. It's tasty and goes down easy. Not bad at all. I kind of prefer some of the better nut browns like Samuel Smith, but on tap, Newcastle is alright by me. I definitely think that the two milds I brewed this summer were better, but English brown ale is a great style of beer, and very versatile.

Sidenote: I made some EPIC fish tacos using some Newcastle in my beer batter. I highly recommend it.

I may have to brew more often...

It has only been about a week since we cracked into the ESB, and one of the two cases of beer has already been drunk...we're still a couple of weeks away from the light lager and the Belgian Wit (which hasn't even been brewed yet), and this worries me a bit. It's not a huge deal, we'll just be "rationing" a bit for the next couple of weeks. Hopefully I will be able to rack the Youzaho into secondary really soon, that way I can brew the witbier and have that done sooner. This is all a learning experience for me, though. Clearly, when there is good home brew to be drunk, more people want to drink beer. Thusly, I should probably brew more frequently this summer, and perhaps try to get some styles out that take less time to mature properly, and the two that I am most intrigued by are the English mild and brown ales. Both styles are brown ales that have nice flavor and delicate body and are fully ready to drink within about two weeks of being brewed (even a hair sooner than bitters). Since they use less malt (and in the case of the milds, fewer hops), they will be less expensive to brew. Furthermore, they are some of the only darker beers worth drinking in the summer, since even though they have a nice rich flavor, they tend to finish clean all around. Basically, I will likely be brewing quite often this summer, so please come by to partake of my nectar and learn the process of brewing, and PLEASE PLEASE DONATE EMPTY NON-SCREWTOP BOTTLES WITH PAPER LABELS, because the beer has to have somewhere to go!

Man does this stuff make me happy.

Cheers,
Brewmaster Cuttsy