This past week my wife and infant daughter were in Pittsburgh visiting family. With the extra time, I made sure to get a lot of brewing and beer related things taken care of. I transfered my Yinzer Lager, and set it up in the garage to lager for a month or two. It's sitting at about 40 degrees. We'll see how it turns out. I'm a bit nervous about this one, but it's only 3 gallons.
I also brewed both Friday night and Saturday. On Friday night I brewed a 3 gallon batch of Frozen Beard Winter Ale. I'm planning on having this beer be a rotating recipe. For my first Frozen Beard I used up some Fat Tire yeast I had bought. I also experimented with spruce extract adding 2 tsps during the boil at various intervals. I'll post the recipe once its finished and I can let you know what I did at secondary etc. Should be interesting though.
On Saturday, I finally brewed a beer that I had designed the recipe for in October. I've had the ingredients, but just kept brewing other beers instead. I brewed La Libertad, my take on a West Coast Pale Ale. It's inspired by Liberty Ale, nothing fancy, but I did use 3 ounces of hops in the boil, Northern Brewer, Vanguard and Cascade and I'm going to dry hop with another ounce of Cascade as well. Again, I'll post the recipe once its ready. I think this one will be pretty good.
Imperials- My friends Jeff and Brian came over on Saturday night to hang out and drink some good beer. We drank a lot of Bearded Brew, and also Jeff brought some more of that great Millstream beer from Iowa, both the IPA and John's White, great stuff! But anyway, after my soapbox post about hoppy beers, I decided to buy two Imperials to give them a shot. I bought Avery's Czar, an Imperial Russian Stout. I also bought Sam Adam's Imperial Pilsner.
We cracked both open and the feeling amongst the group was that both beers were not our style of beer. The Pilsner was definitely more drinkable, but still too over the top for my taste. I was expecting hoppy, but what surprised me was the chewiness of the body. It definitely seemed like 8.8% alcohol or whatever it is. We all tried the Czar as well, and it was a hard one to finish. I guess Imperials are out of my league. There aren't many beer styles that I don't like, but based off these two beers, I'm adding Imperial Stouts to my list. Hopefully my mind will be changed. Nothing against people who enjoy those beers, just not my (or Brian and Jeff's) beer style of choice. I think we all felt the Czar was just too much of everything. The hop presence was huge (70 IBUs!) and the body was really thick. I'm not a stout fan, so I shouldn't be surprised, but I needed to see what the hype was about.
I'm probably going to be taking a short break from brewing. I have a lot of beer right now and aside from a recipe I'm working on, there's nothing I'm planning on brewing for a bit. Also I'm tentatively planning the Second Annual Bearded Brewfest and thinking about what I'm going to brew for that. But be checking out Bob's Woodshed. I'm going to be sending him 3 of my beers to review. Could be cool, but I'm a bit nervous. I've never entered a contest before, and the reviews at Bob's are outstanding. We shall see how it turns out, hopefully I have honest friends and I'm sending him good beer :)
-Also, thanks for all the great replies on the organic and hoppy beers discussions, glad to see its a forum for that.
-The Bearded Brewer
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Brewing weekend and Imperials
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2 comments:
Nice to hear somebody standing up for what they like and don't like. In contrast, I'm one of those guys that looks for the upside of every beer. It is rare that there isn't at least one good thing about a beer.
On the other hand it makes it hard for me to really commit to a favorite style or styles I just don't like. A good example would be brown ales. I've had tons of them, but, they still elude me. I find it hard to praise them and find them kinda middle of the road in general.
This doesn't surprise me though. I'm pretty much the same way with music :-) I can enjoy many different types of music too.
American style fruit beers are not my cup of tea though. I can say that for sure. Belgian lambics with fruit are another story.
Cheers!
Thanks for the post. I'd have to agree that normally I can find one thing I like about a beer. Brown ales are actually beers that I can find something good in, and a variety of flavors.
I agree with you about the fruit beers, I think they can either be really good or terrible. I'd also say that American wheat beers have to do something special to impress me. They can be great on a hot summer day, but in terms of me saying "wow! what a great wheat beer" it's going to have to be something special. But with that said, for me I just love good beer and I go through phases of styles I'm, really into. Stouts for some reason, and now Imperial Stouts are not something I can get into.
Thanks for the post!
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