This is officially the biggest beer ever brewed at Bearded Brewing. This beer was originally inspired by Lion Stout, a Sri Lankan Stout I came across when I was on a big stout kick. I set out to make a foreign extra stout (what Lion is) but then ended trying another beer while I was at Northern Brewer buying the ingredients for Irie. Whenever I go in to the store, I usually talk about what I'm brewing with a guy who works there. I was discussing this and he invited me in the back to try a beer they had on tap that they were contemplating having as a kit. It was a Caribbean stout. It was very similar to what I had in mind, but I had wanted mine to have a bit more roastiness. So while I was at the store, I adjusted what I was thinking to kind of a mix between what I had in my head and the great beer I had just tried. The end result has been really good. I was shooting for around 8% abv, but the two packs of yeast really ate up the 1.5 pounds of sugar I had put in, and I ended up with a beer that was around 9.5%!Here are my thoughts:
The Irie pours a dark chocolate almost black with a thin light tan head, it quickly becomes a thin lacing. Right away there is an aroma of dark chocolate with a little bit of roastiness. A slight citrus aroma coming from the dried orange peels that were added, but it doesn't stand out too much. It is very smooth with no alcohol presence. Sweet with quite a bit of chocolate flavors, a little molasses and just a touch of roasty aftertaste.
This beer is very good, and one I would love to brew again. Next time I would like to up the amount of black malt to give it a bit more roasty flavor and maybe add some more fruit either in the form of more orange peels, maybe try my standby marmalade or even something like mango. I wouldn't want to deviate too much since I think it turned out nice, but I think it could be tweaked to be a bit roastier and play off the balance I was trying to accomplish.
Here is the recipe, it's extract:
Steeping grains- .75 org Crystal 120
.25 org Chocolate
.25 black patent malt
9.33 lbs of org. liquid malt extract
1.50 lbs of org. brown sugar
2.5 Tablespoons of dried orange peels @ 5 min
1 oz Org. Admiral hops @ 60
Two packets of dry Safale US-56 yeast
Overall, a great first attempt at a stout in my opinion; sweet, drinkable, and strong enough to make you feel Irie indeed! I am anxious to hear Dave at Muckney Brewing's thoughts and also Rick at [BW] Beer Blog's.
Salud!
The Bearded Brewer
2 comments:
Interesting stout! Was there fruit in the Northern Brewer version you tasted as well?
I think that there might have been orange peel brewed in it, but I'm not sure. I know that there was brown sugar and some spices, but not sure if they used paradise seeds, orange peels or what. I had been planning on using orange peels, and mentioned that, and that kind of spawned the discussion of their stout being a Caribbean one, so there might well have been.
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