Cherry Stout Update

I split the batch of the Cherry Stout today, kegging 2.5 gallons of it, and transferring the rest into a 3 gallon carboy (I'm low on bottles). The yeast in the secondary worked, as it dropped the gravity to 1.026, which brings the abv to 3.5%. Not ideal, but not too bad. The cherry flavor right now is similar to the early stages of the Burning Beard...slightly winey flavored but mellow. Not as sweet as cherry juice probably would have been. I might need to either add juice next time, or more cherries, but we'll see how it matures. There was some nice coffee/roasty/chocolate flavors going on and I'm hoping with time the cherry will play nicely of those flavors, which will hopefully come out more as well. I'm debating adding some oak chips to the carboy, just to see what a difference it might add.

Later this week, I hope to get to some reviews of some organic beers I picked up. Eel River Brewing Company in Fortuna, California has come to the Cities. Apparently the first certified organic brewery in the country. So far I've found their IPA, Blonde Ale, and Amber around town. I picked up a sixer of the IPA and a bomber of the Amber, both very, very good and I'll post my reviews soon. Also, on a recent beer run across the border into Wisconsin, El Jefe and I picked up some brews not available in Minnesota. He went for New Glarus and I picked up some Bear Republic and Wolaver's Organic Oatmeal Stout. A beer I've always heard about, I had to pick this up and was glad I did. I'll post thoughts on that as well.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Cherry Stout- Phase 1

I recently splurged and picked up a six pack of Bell's Cherry Stout, which is not cheap, but well worth the $14 for the sixer. This beer is incredible. A nice cherry presence on top of a chocolatey-roasty stout. I decided to brew a version of my own. I decided to brew the stout using a method I read about in a recent BYO, where for darker beers you partially mash the lighter grains and steep the darker grains. Apparently this is intended to lessen possible astringent flavors coming from the darker malts. I steeped chocolate, roasted barley and black patent malt in a gallon of water at 152 degrees for 45 minutes. At the same time, I mashed 2-Row, crystal 60, munich, and carapils. I added 4 lbs of DME to the boil and for the first time, I added a pound of lactose at the end of the boil. When I pitched the yeast, we were in the middle of a cold spell and my basement was on the cold side. The London yeast took a little bit of time to take off, and I wrapped a blanket around the carboy bringing the temp up to about 65, where it then took off. It was a fairly vigorous fermentation period and by the end of a week all signs pointed to it being done. No activity in the airlock and the yeast had dropped down.
I racked the beer into a secondary fermenter on top of 42 oz of frozen sweet cherries. After the success of the Burning Beard, I decided to go this route as opposed to cherry juice. Here's where the problem came in though... I should have taken a reading prior to transferring the beer. The gravity was 1.030, not much of a drop from the original 1.052.
Not knowing exactly what to do, I threw in a packet of dry yeast I had lying around into the secondary. The next day I was obsessing as usual about the beer, and not able to access "alcohol/tobacco" sites from my school computer, I decided to email fellow brewers/blogger Ted and Dave who each gave me some feedback into the situation. Ted thought that the lactose could have caused the higher than average fg reading. Dave has thrown yeast into the secondary for his Impy Stouts in the past and was successful in dropping the final gravity down a couple points. They calmed my fears, and upon doing some research after I got home, I realize that it most likely will be fine. This morning I took a sample and while it hadn't dropped any points, it tasted very good. In the end I might end up with a tasty breakfast beer, since right now my abv is hovering a little under 3%, but there's a great cherry presence and some nice roasty-chocolate going on. I'll keep the progress posted.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Homebrew Review- Muckney Brewing

For the second time, Dave at Muckney Brewing and I exchanged some beers and I was excited to have such a plethora of their homebrews along with some commercial offerings. I had high expectations this time around, since their beers were so well crafted and delicious the first time around. The offerings were much more extensive this time, and aside from the key needed to decipher the squiggly markings on the caps of the bottles (complete with commercial labels still attached:), I was eager to crack open the stash.
But as Dave said... they care more about what goes inside the bottle. That is evident, I've drank about half the beers he sent, and they are all very well crafted. I love the fact that it seems they do two versions of certain beers, which is a fun way to tweak a recipe and see what would happen if you added something different. The four I'm going to review are; Rising Sun Oiwai Ginger Peach Red Ale, Saison Du Muqunee, Ides of March Imperial Stout, and Ides of March Quercas Borealis.


Rising Sun Oiwai Ginger Peach Red Ale: Last time around I reviewed the excellent and unique Ginger Sesame Red Ale. A very interesting and tasty beer. This time, Dave sent me it along with this version, which uses apricots to create a peach presence. It pours a dark brown with ruby red hues and a foamy white head. Musty and malty aromas at first with some nice fruity aromas as well. Apricoty and peachy with some nice ginger present. A great mouthfeel, creamy with some dryness and spiceness. There is some faint ginger in the finish, but hardly noticeable. This is a very complex beer with some great flavors going on. It has some wonderful aromas and is very hard to categorize, but above all it is very drinkable. Outside the box, as I've come to expect, but accessible and unique.

Saison Du Muqnee: This saison pours a beautiful light golden yellow with a thin white head. Nice musty, yeasty, spicy aromas with some citrus present. Sweet and malty at first, but finishes dry with some lingering sweetness and citrus flavors. Great mouthfeel, fizzy yet creamy in the finish. It has a crisp finish that makes it really refereshing. I could drink a lot of these on a hot day. The complex aromas are spot on for a saison and there are some nice funky-yeasty flavors mixed in with the spiciness and sweetness. A great version of a saison.

Ides of March RIS: I'm not the biggest fan of Imperial stouts. I've come to appreciate them, and there are a few I like, but for the most part they aren't a beer I drink often. Muckney's however, is one I could drink on a regular basis. This pours a jet black with a thin tan head. Wonderful aromas of molasses, black pepper, coffee and roasted malt. Creamy and smooth at first with some nice milk chocolate that is quickly replaced by some bitter hops and a peppery bite. It has the perfect mouthfeel of an RIS, and in the finish is an excellent lingering licorice flavor that really enhances the beer. Just an outstanding RIS.

Ides of March Quercas Borealis:
This version of the IoM was aged on wood chips soaked in Wild Turkey bourbon. This too pours a jet black with the same thin tan head. At first there are some nice coffee, chocolate, and pepper aromas, but finished with a slight bourbon aroma. The flavors at first are typical of an RIS, chocolate, molasses, bitterness, and coffee. But the flavors that follow are what make the Quercas stand out; some nice woody-smokey-oaky flavors and it finishes with some nice licorice in the finish. Smooth and more sweet than bitter, the QB has some great flavors going on. I love the woodiness in the beer as well as the wonderful licorice finish that lingers, but isn't overwhelming or overpowering by any means. Excellent!

I look forward to the rest of the beers sent to me by Muckney. Once again they come through with some great, well balanced and unique beers.
Dave can also feel good, after the collapse of his Nittany Lions, he gets to watch his Stillers in the Super Bowl!

I'll hopefully post some more reviews of some commercial beer this week. Also El Jefe helped me brew and bottle on Friday, brewing a Cherry Stout and bottling El Oso. More to come on that.

Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Frozen Beard Winter Ale

I figured that on a day in which we hit -1 for a high in Minneapolis, it was a good time to review Frozen Beard Winter Ale. As I had posted before, this beer is a remake of an experiment gone wrong. The short version is that I added too spruce extract which gave the beer a terrible medicinal quality. This time around, I avoided the extract and opted to use Perle hops and their "minty" quality to create a sprucey-spicy bite to it. Here's the review:
Frozen Beard pours a mahogany color with some redish hues and a foamy khaki head. Aromas of caramel, toffee, brown sugar and minty-piney spices. A very smooth, soft mouthfeel (possibly due to my inexperience with a co2 tank). It has a lot of caramel and candy sweetness right away with some rasin and minty, resiny, spiciness. Malty and smooth with very little hop presence or bitterness. There's some alcohol burn faintly in the finish. This could dissipate with age, it's fairly young. Overall, I'm really happy with the turn out of Frozen Beard. It has some nice sweetness and spiciness to it. If anything it might be a bit too sweet. But it's nice and warming and at 8% it makes for a good capper to a freezing cold walk.
Here's the recipe:
1.5 lbs Org 2-Row
.50 lbs org Crystal 60
.25 lbs Org Carafa III
.50 lbs org Vienna
.50 lbs org Caramunich
2 lbs Wheat DME
4 lbs Org Light DME
2 oz Org. Perle @ 60
.5 oz Org Hallertau @15
.5 org Perle @ 10
.5 org Perle @ 5
.5 org Hallertau @ 2
Yeast: Starter of Wyeast 1056

I'm excited to see how this ages.
Coming up, I've got quite a bit of reviews I need to get to. I plan to review some commercial beers, as well as some homebrews from Muckney Brewing.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Oso Brown Ale

Often times the opportunity to get to the homebrew shop coincides with time I'm taking care of my daughter. She's at the age where getting into the bins in the grain room and pulling out handfulls of grain is a concern. When I went to pick up the ingredients for the Bi-Partisan Porter, she was with me and trying to police her and get my materials resulted in me pouring a pound of Crystal 60 into the bag of grains instead of 120. So, I needed to think of a beer to make with the result and decided to make a brown ale.
I added some Vienna and caramunich to the chocolate and 2-Row. I used some Perle hops for bittering and used up some remaining hops I had, East Kent Goldings and a small bit of Admiral in the finish. I think it should turn out nicely.

I've been really happy with the Frozen Beard Winter Ale and Bi-Partisian porter, which are both ready. The coffee comes out very nicely in the Bi-Part porter and there's some nice spicy notes and caramel sweetness in the Frozen Beard. I will be giving a review of both shortly.

I've also been enjoying some great homebrews sent to me by Muckney Brewing. I'll be posting the reviews shortly as well. Thus far I've had an excellent Russian Imperial Stout, and equally good Saison and Peach Saison. Stay tuned.

Salud!
Bearded Brewer