Brewing like a monk and the Burning Beard

On Wednesday I was able to get some bottling done, which was nice. I bottled my white beer, Inky's White and also bottled the Burning Beard. I had planned on brewing/pitching the Bangy Tangy on top of the Inky's yeast cake, but time restraints didn't allow it. Instead I collected the yeast in a bottle and hope to reuse it later. I've never done this before, but heard good results and in some email exchanges with CNY brewer Travis, was assured that he's had success with it.

Brewing philosophy: I've been reading Brew Like a Monk recently, which is an inspiring book, especially because it really emphasizes my philosophy in brewing, which is creativity and looking at beer from an artisnal standpoint. One quote in there is from Radny Thiel from Ommegang Brewery, who says that " ...if your approach is more product-oriented than process-oriented, then you are on your way to artisnal." This speaks to me primarly because I'm not a detail oriented person. I have definite weaknesses in my brewing, and a lot of them have to do with the finer points of the brewing process. While I want to produce the best beers I can, I don't aim to make clone brews or always style specific. In fact, that's when I get the most dissapointed sometimes. My Mayabock, is a good example. I love Maibocks, and for some reason that beer didn't hit the mark as a Maibock. Dave @ Muckney gave the beer a good review, and thought it was enjoyable, but missed the style mark. I was frustrated that it was not the "maibock" I was aiming for and was very disappointed. But two of my better beers- Bangy Tangy and Irie Stout were beers that came out of ideas I had for what I wanted the beer to taste like from a conceptual idea. It's not that I think brewing to nail a specific style is bad, or being an anal/detail oriented brewer is a bad thing. I just think different approaches work for different people and reading Brew Like a Monk confirms for me some of the approaches to brewing that work best for me and often yield the best results.

Burning Beard Update: With the above statement out of the way, the Burning Beard was very interesting when I transferred it. I fermented the beer at first in the low 80's, but then in reading in Jamil Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Styles book ( a great resource btw), he mentions that often times Belgian yeast strains fermented too hot can cause too much alcohol/solvent flavors. I then freaked out and moved the fermentation bucket back to the basement, dropping the temp down to the mid 60s. After a week it was done fermenting, and I transferred it to secondary, adding a little over 24 oz of frozen sweet cherries. In both Jamil's book and Brew Like a Monk, a number of the recipes for triples and strong Belgian ales have a secondary fermentation for a week to a month at 33-45 degrees. With this in mind I threw the secondary in my fridge at about 38-40 degrees and held it there for a week. At about 5 days, the beer tasted great, a very mild cherry presence, so I decided to wait a day or two to bottle. At bottling, it was a very dark pinkish color, think pink lemonade with a little ice-tea in it. Very interesting. There was quite a bit of alcohol presence, that I hope will mellow out a bit, but it had a nice cherry subtlety to it without being over powering. I'm excited to see how it conditions. I don't really know if the beer will turn out the way I was thinking in my head, but the color was a suprise and I'm hoping the cherry will be a nice soft flavor balanced against some fruity esters.

This post is long enough as it is. I'll reflect on my Hopshot IPA soon.
Salud!
Beared Brewer