Mid August means two things, the last few glorious weeks of summer and the build up to football season. This year is the 10th anniversary of the fantasy league I'm in. Despite homebrewing for 6 of those 10 seasons, last year was the first year that I made a beer for draft day. I'm glad that I did, as the beer was a big hit and the only unfortunate part was that the 2.5 gallon keg I took was consumed in about 3 rounds. For last year, I sent around an email asking for ideas on what to brew, I settled on a California Common, since there were plenty of lager and ale fans. The beer was good, but this year I wanted to go for something more appropriate for the occasion. Last year it was very hot, and the beer went fast. I thought the perfect beer for a mass audience, with diverse beer tastes, on a 90+ degree day where everyone is just concerned with drinking a lot, would be a low abv hefeweizen. I went with a pretty straightforward recipe, and partly because of a mistake on my part. I miscalculated the time I had until draft day and so I threw together a recipe that I knew would deliver and be ready in 3 weeks (1 primary, 1 secondary, 1 kegged). I went with this:6 lbs Wheat LME
1 oz Hallertau @ 60
Wyeast Bavarian Hefe yeast.
About as simple as you can get. But after a secondary conditioning, it tasted great, some nice spicey-clovey-bubble gum flavors coming out from the yeast, and nice crispness to the beer. I think it should be perfect for the draft. I'm also bringing a 5 gallon keg this time!
One note on the label, it was designed by a member of the league who is a graphic artist by trade. Last year I approached him with the idea of designing the draft day ale label, and this year he did it again. I think it's pretty cool and glad he threw in the Bearded Brewing logo as well.
I'll post the reaction after next weekends draft.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer
2 comments:
ummm... yes!
I don't want to get in the way of your brew . . . can you suggest a good compliment?
Salud brother. Looking forward to reading about the reactions in your next post. On a side note, dontcha just wish Bret would retire already? What the heck is he thinking?
Post a Comment