Burning Beard Belgian Ale

In brewing Belgian beers, I always have a rough idea of what I'm wanting, but often times am surprised and excited by the end result. That's part of what I love about Belgian beers, the freedom to be creative without worrying about strict guidelines. Unlike other beers I brew, there often times are no commercial examples to compare the final beer too. This happened with two of my better beers, El Jefe and Bangy Tangy. Both of those beers were concepts that turned out to be great, and unlike any other beer I've had. Such is the case with the Burning Beard.
This beer actually came from my label design of all things. I had wanted to name a beer this for awhile, and had brewed several beers (one that was terrible) and also designed several labels, but none of them felt right. One night driving home from El Jefe's house I came up with the label idea in my head. I liked the label so much I decided to brew a beer based on a couple ideas, including the use of cherries (I had been drinking Three Philosophers a lot at the time). I created the recipe and then on brew day dumped in some extra ingredients that I had around that I wanted to use up. When I transferred it to the secondary, I transferred it on top of 24 oz of frozen cherries and stuck in the fridge for a week. I had read in a couple books about a short period of lagering for Belgian Triples and Strong Ales, so I "lagered" it for a week at about 38 degrees. After bottling it and letting it age a couple weeks, I was impressed with the results and its only gotten better.
The name fits because the color is a dark amber, with reddish and copper hues. It has a foamy two finger white head. The aroma and flavor are a bit harder to pin down. It has some nice fruity esters and some yeastiness in the nose. There's a nice subtle, underlying cherry aroma that isn't overpowering at all. I upped the carbonation to give it more of a "Belgian" feel and it worked, with a nice fizziness that gives way to a soft mouthfeel. It's sweet and spicy with just a subtle cherry presence in the finish. I was worried about the 2 tablespoons of coriander I added, but there is very little if any lemony/coriander presence, but instead some nice complex spiciness. Definitley one of my more complex but well balanced beers, I am very happy with the turn out.
I'm crazy busy with the start of school so I will be posting (and brewing) less frequently coming up, but I will be posting some beer reviews of some beers I've had lately.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Inky's White Ale

At this point, I would consider this my "house" beer, I think this is the beer I've made the most and is probably my most popular beer. This beer was the second original recipe that I wrote. My wife is a big fan of Belgian wit beers, in particular one called Point White Bier from Point Brewing company. This beer was modeled after that, but after several batches and minor tweaks to the recipe, we both think this is better! In fact, towards the end of my wife's pregnancy last year she asked for this beer to be ready for her first beer in 9 months.
Anyway, not only is this beer popular amongst the two of us, it's also has been the most popular choice at the few Bearded brewfests we've had. I digress, it's good.
Over time I've tweaked a few things, most notably the amount of coriander and the switch from dried orange peels to orange marmalade. After reading about the trick in Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing, I tried it and have to agree that it gives much more orange presence and flavor than dried orange peels, and is still not overwhelming. The aroma really comes through, but not as overpowering in the flavor.
Inky's pours a bright golden yellow with a thin, foamy white head. Right away there is a citrus aroma of lemon and orange with some nice spiciness from the coriander. The carbonation is fizzy, not as fizzy as some examples, but the mouthfeel is quite creamy and soft. I think there's a great lingering sweetness along with the lemony, citrus hues in the body, along with some nice spicy bite.
Here's my extract recipe:
6 lbs Wheat Malt Extract (3 lbs @ 60, 3 lbs @ 20)
steeping grains:
.5 lbs org pilsner
.5 lbs org white wheat malt
.8 lbs flaked wheat
Hops: 1 oz Org Hallertau @ 60
1 oz Saaz @ 30
1. 5 T coriander 5 min
1 T orange marmalade 5 min
Wyeast Belgian Wit Yeast

This weekend I went to Arizona and was able to sample a few beers there, I'll post my thoughts this week as well as the Burning Beard Review.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Irie Two

The first time I made this beer, it ended up being bigger and better than I expected. This time around, I wanted to tweak it a bit and enter it into the National Organic Homebrew Challenge. The requirements of the contest are strict regarding organic ingredients, as they should be, but it required me to change up the recipe a slight bit.
Essentially everything but yeast and clarifiers such as Irish Moss have to be organic. In my original recipe I had used .25 lbs of black patent malt, which I couldn't find organic. This time around, I ordered Carafa II, which is listed as an organic substitute for black malt as well as organic roasted barley.
I liked how the fruitness came out in the last batch, but wanted to up the presence, so I bought organic orange marmalade and organic mango preserve. In the previous recipe I used dried orange peels, but the organic ones I had were quite old and lacked any aroma. Since I've had a great deal of success with marmalade in the past, I'm hoping that the addition of both of these will play nicely off the roastiness.
Here's the recipe:
Steeping grains:
.50 lbs crystal 120
.25 lbs chocolate
.25 lbs carafa II
1.6 oz roasted barley
9.15 lbs light liquid malt extract @60
1.5 lbs brown sugar @ 30
2 T orange marmalade @ 3
1 T mango preserve @ 1
Hops: Organic Admrial (14.7 % AAU) .75 oz @ 60, .25 oz @ 20
Yeast: Dry Safale US-O5 (2 packs)

In less than 4 hours, it was already active, so I have high hopes. The deadline for the contest is Oct. 10, but I'm mostly excited for the beer to consume myself. It was one of my better beers recently and my wife (not a dark beer fan) and some friends are eager to have it again.
Also, the Burning Beard is tasting fantastic, so I'll be reviewing that in the next post.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

All's Well that Ends Well

I tend to be overly critical and over-analyze in two areas of my life, my job and brewing. In my job, its actually a good thing. I think I'm a very good teacher, and by over-analyzing, I'm constantly looking at how my students are doing and what worked or didn't work in a particular lesson. As a homebrewer, I'm not meticulous or over-analytical in my actual brewing, just in the final product. Sometimes that's a good thing that allows you to go back to the recipe and tweak some things or find ways to improve it. Other times you miss the forest for the trees.
Such was the case with my first beer I brewed for my fantasy football draft. As I mentioned before, I've been in the same league for 9 years, and have yet to brew a beer for the draft. A good friend of mine in the league is a regular drinker of my beer, and a couple other guys have had my beer. But the large majority had not. I tried to brew a beer that would appeal to the masses, in this case a seemingly wide range of beer preferences. I settled on a California Common, thinking it would appeal to ale and lager fans and be a nice drinkable brew on a hot day. As the draft approached I started to open a bottle here and there to see how it was going. And I panicked thinking it wasn't as good as I had intended it to be. Here's where over-analytical is trumped by situation. The perfectionist brewer in me thinks that the late addition of dry malt extract (that was nowhere near fresh) gave it a lingering "extract twang" that detracted from the overall flavor and hops of the beer. While not totally off the mark, I don't think it was as "California Common" as I wanted it to be, or at least compared to previous efforts.
However, the beer went over huge. In fact the 2.5 gallon keg was emptied by about the third round (about hour and a half). I had brought along a number of bottles with the label my friend (and league commish) had designed. Those were drank up along with some Hopshot IPA I brought along.
My point is this. For the situation, the beer was great. It wouldn't have taken home any awards, and it was far from my best beer. But, the crowd who it was intended for enjoyed it a lot, it was easily drinkable on a hot August day, and it got people excited for next year's version of the SOC Ale. Plus I was happy with the team I drafted, it could be Team Lebowski's year!
On a side note, the portable kegerator worked great. This time I used the 16 gram CO2 cartridges. For anyone using a portable CO2 charger, this is the way to go. I went through 2 for a 2.5 gallon keg, I used the 12 gram at my daughter's birthday party, and went through a bunch. They are too small, so air escapes when screwing it into the charger and they don't last long. I'm pissed I have a box of these left.
I've been busy as summer is wrapping up before the school year starts. But two of my beers are ready to be reviewed, Burning Beard which is tasting great and one of my staples, Inky's White Ale. I'll review those this week.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Good, Bad and potentially Ugly

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

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