It's been awhile since I wrote a whinny, "my beer might suck" post, so I thought I was due. But first the good.A few months back I received a concoction from Northern Brewer, a "Hopshot" that was essentially hop syrup that constituted 50 IBU's. Part of deal for receiving the hopshot was to use it as a bittering agent, so I chose to use all 5 ml (=50 IBUs) in an IPA. In addition to the Hopshot, I used an ounce of Amarillo hops, an ounce of Cascade hops and another ounce of Cascade for dry hopping. I've been really happy with the turn out. The hopshot did a decent job bittering, maybe not as bitter as I was expecting, but very nice. The beer pours an orangish- golden color with a thick, two-finger foamy, off-white head. There's a nice citrusy aroma, especially grapefruit. A little bit of a soapy flavor at the finish, but a nice sweetness and some great citrusy flavors. Overall, I'm very pleased with this IPA and thought the Hopshot gave it a nice backbone.
The Bad: For my annual Nokomis Summer Ale, I chose to brew with rye for the first time. A fairly basic recipe, I used pilsner, rye, crystal 20 and a little bit of wheat malt, in addition to 3 lbs of light malt extract. I used some left over Pacific gem hops, splatter and hallertau hops and used the Kolsch 2 yeast. This was a 3 gallon recipe that I ended up bottling all of it in a 2.5 gallon keg. I have no idea what happened, but the beer tasted like shit! It wasn't a contamination problem, the off-flavors didn't indicate that. I'm not sure if it was the combination of grains, the yeast, if I tapped the keg too soon, or what. Whatever the cause, it went down the drain. It was bitter, grainy and just not good. The bad end of experimenting is ending up with a bad beer! Oh well, luckily I brewed enough good beer this summer to make up for it.
Potentially Ugly: A week from today is my fantasy football draft, and the beer I brewed for it has been in the bottle two weeks. I tried a bottle at 1 week and it wasn't ready. Tried another yesterday, and while better, it wasn't great. I know it's early. I know I always over-analyze and concern myself with the end product too early...I mention that because the only reason I'm nervous about this one is that there will be a lot of new drinkers of my beer and I want it to be really good.
Luckily I have the majority of the Hopshot keg left, so I can use that instead if the SOC Ale isn't as I want it. Plus my Inky's White Ale, will probably be ready as well.
I digress on the whining. As a last note, brewing is going to slow down a bit soon as school starts up again. I brewed another batch of Bangy Tangy and plan on brewing Irie Stout again in the next couple weeks. I found a jar of organic Mango preserve and plan on using a small amount in the Irie, as well as using a bit of roasted barley.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer
4 comments:
The Irie with Org. Mango and roasted barley sounds great! I'm interested in how those two flavors mingle.
You threw it down the drain? You should have saved it! My first pale ale of the year sucked pretty hardcore when I first tasted it too. I decided to drink it anyway, which took me about a month. The bad part was that when I got to the last few bottles, it started tasting really good. It was just green and needed to age.
Kevin,
I've done the same thing too! I've saved bottles and had them become much more drinkable as they aged. The problem with this particular situation was a lack of kegs, and the need for them for upcoming beer. It was bad timing. Once I figured it sucked, I lost patience and dumped it. Had I bottled it, I wouldn't have had quite the over-reaction. In the future I plan on bottling my more "experimental beers" like I did recently with my Burning Beard.
Marcus,
I'll keep you posted on the Irie with Mango. It could be really good. Not enough of the "tropical" fruit came out in the last one, but it was still really good. This will be the first with barley, so I think it could play well off eachother based on the last batch.
Thanks guys!
Glad the hopshot turned out well. I was interested in how the hop extract worked. Too bad on RyePA type thing. It sounded like it could have been tasty. I agree with you that the Kolsch yeast with said grain bill may have been your culprit. Rye gives you that "grainy" flavor, and the thought of it with a Kolsch-esque background kinda makes me gag.
Mango and roasted barley in the Irie should be tast-tastic. Be careful with the roasted barley, a little goes a long way. like .25 lbs. for a 5 gallon batch, expecially with the amount of chocolate malt in the Irie. Roasted = burnt flavor. That and mango sounds tasty.
Hope all's going well.
Cheers!
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