Orange Beard Mango IPA

Last November I went to Town Hall Brewery to celebrate my birthday and had a beer that has stuck with me ever since. I've drank a lot of beer since last November, but Town Hall's Mango Masala Mama was such a great beer that I've wanted to make one of my own. The thing that was outstanding about the Mango Mama was how unique it was and how different it was than I had expected.
When you think mangoes, you think of an extremely sweet fruit that would be best suited in a wheat beer, similar to an apricot or rasberry wheat. However, for some reason put together with the hoppiness of an IPA, the sweetness mixes great with the citrusy hops.
I brewed up a version of Green Beard IPA and decided to split the batch into a 2 gallon and 3 gallon fermenters, opting to use the 2 gallon fermenter for the mango experiment. I bought three mangoes and blended them up, then putting the result into an ice cube tray. The disappointing thing was how little this made, about 12 cubes. The end product turned out better than I expected. It has been a big hit with my wife and dad, neither one IPA fans, as well my friend Jesse, a big IPA fan. It turned out fairly similar to what I remember of the Mango Mama. The only problem going forward is how to replicate it in a five gallon batch. Simply because mangoes are not cheap in Minnesota, around $2 each, so a five gallon batch could require a lot. The only other problem is I only yielded about 12 bottles.
Onto the review:
Orange Beard pours a cloudy dark orange with a thin, foamy white head. There's bits of mango floating around in the beer. Right away there's a fruity/mangoey aroma, followed by some citrus. At first, it's quite sweet with a fruitiness that's slightly mango, but not overpowering. It follows with a dry bite that gives a nice balance to the sweetness. The bitterness isn't noticeable, but I think it comes out in this dry finish. There's a lingering sweetness that comes back in the finish, citrusy with some nice mango going on as well. I think it has a nice balance of sweetness and hoppiness, the mango doesn't dominate, but cuts some of the citrus and blends in great with the sweetness of the hops.

Overall, I'm happy with the turn out of the Orange Beard, and once I figure out how to get the amount of mango I want in an inexpensive way, I plan on brewing a 5 gallon batch.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Luther Public House Review

Earlier this year I started having some email contact with another Minneapolis area homebrewer. Derek blogs at
Beer This! blog, and also has a website displaying his beers at Luther Public House. As someone who likes to have a theme to his beers, I enjoy how the names of his beers follow along with his Martin Luther theme.
Derek contacted me in the spring about trying some of my Gringo. Unfortunately things were crazy in the spring with the end of school and the birth of my son. Derek was very patient and I set aside a Gringo for him. We finally met up a couple weeks ago over some beers at Busters in South Minneapolis. I had a great time talking beer and walked away with three beers from the Luther Public House. His PhilliPorter, a mild, and a triple. I've yet to get to the triple, but throughly enjoyed the other two.

PhilliPorter: Derek told me that he didn't have any bottles left of his Indulgence Chocolate Porter, he hooked me up with an older bottle of his PhilliPorter, which is a similar recipe. He warned me that it would be oxidized, but the oxidation wasn't that noticeable and definitely didn't detract from the outstanding porter. As you can see from the picture, it pours a jet black with a two finger khaki head that dissipates to about a finger of foamy head. Nice porter aromas, chocolate and roasted malt. A very slight wet cardboard or "dusty" taste at first, but it goes away very quickly and doesn't take away from the wonderful porter underneath. Wonderful chocolate flavors, along with some nice caramel and roasty notes. The mouthfeel is perfect for a porter, creamy and silky with body but not too much. There's a great lingering sweetness in the finish. Despite being old and slightly oxidized, this beer was great. I can only imagine that fresh it's an outstanding porter.

Mild: I have to admit that I've never really had a mild. I read an article on the style in Brew Your Own magazine and have been interested in brewing one. After having Derek's, I need to brew one up. This beer pours a dark chocolate brown with ruby red highlights and a thin white head. Wonderful toasty, bready, and biscuity aromas. Very enticing! Toasty, malty and slightly sweet, it has a nice balance of flavors going on. The beer starts off biscuity and follows with some nice brown sugar flavors as well. There's no hop presence, a very nice amount of caramel and is well balanced and all about the malty sweetness. A very great session beer and one that I might need the recipe for.

I'm really looking forward to the triple, as it's one of my favorite styles of beer. These two samples of Derek's work were great and I can only imagine the triple will be more of the same.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Draft Day Success

Yesterday was my fantasy football draft. For the second year in a row I brewed a beer for the occasion, and another member of the league designed the label. I was happy the beer went over as well as it did. I brought 5 gallons to this year's draft, which was a perfect amount as it (combined with a pony keg of Summit Pale Ale) lasted through the pre-draft, draft, and post-draft festivities. It was a perfect day here in Minneapolis, about 85 and sunny, so my hefeweizen was the right choice. People really liked it, and at around 4.5% abv, it was light and refreshing, so a lot could be consumed. The feedback I got was there was a lot of banana, some orange, and clovey flavors going on. I used the Wyeast 3056 Bavarian Wheat blend. I had used the Weihenstephen before in my hefes and been really pleased, but they were out when I went to pick up the ingredients. I think this blend worked nicely, and gave it some nice complexity without being overpowering.
And as always, the portable kegerator delivered. If interested in making one, check out the link to my previous post. This thing works great for 2.5 gallon kegs with the lid down, or 5 gallons with the lid up. I use a charger with 16 gram co2 cartridges to dispense the beer. It works great for putting my beer on tap in my backyard, or for situations like the draft. Overall, I was quite happy with beer, the reception to it, and the draft... I'll spare my draft results as I like to keep this blog dedicated to one geeky obsession only.
Coming up, I'm going to be reviewing some beers I got in an exchange from fellow Twin Cities beer blogger, Derek @ Beer This blog. I'm really looking forward to his beers. Stay tuned.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Fantasy Draft Day Ale

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

Steelhead Slammer Double IPA

My friend Jesse has been a long time fan of my beers. It's always nice to have friends who are both supportive and also very honest critics of your creations. Earlier this summer Jesse asked me to brew a beer for him, specifically a double IPA. Jesse is a fan of all things hoppy, and in particular enjoys double or imperial IPAs. Similar to my obsession with brewing, Jesse's main hobby is fishing. He's a big fly fisherman, and wanted the IIPA to take on a fishing trip to the shores of Lake Superior fishing for Steelhead salmon. He gave me plenty of time, calling me in June and wanting the beer by the end of September/early October. In preparation, I brewed several hoppy beers this summer and consulted a number of sources to figure out a way to brew a hoppy monster. After several conversations we settled on the name,he approved the label, and I finally settled on a recipe.
This summer I've been brewing extract beers to compensate for the lack of time I have with a 2 month old and a 2 year old. I've actually been having a lot of fun brewing extract beers, and have a routine down that allows me to fit in brewing at night. I've brewed much more often then I had thought I would. I plan on slowing the brewing down once school starts, and limiting my brewing to once a month. As a result, I think I will be going back to brewing partial mash recipes, which I do enjoy more. Steelhead Slammer is an extract recipe, using 9 lbs malt extract and some cane sugar.
This is the hoppiest beer brewed in the Bearded Brewery. It should be around 70 Ibu's. I used 1 ounce of Chinhook hops and .35 ounces of American Summit (13% AA) for bittering, and then I used 2 ounces of Centennial, an ounce of Cascade and .65 ounces of American Summit in the final 15 minutes. It smelled fantastic and it was already active this morning, so I'm hoping it will finish quickly and cleanly. I am going to use 2 ounces of cascade whole hops for dry hopping. Pretty excited to see how it turns out, and talking to Jesse he's pumped to drink the end result as well.

On another note, my Orange Beard Mango IPA is tasting great after a week in the bottle, so I have high hopes for this, and it will most likely turn into a 5 gallon batch in the near future.
I will also post soon about my annual fantasy draft beer, this year's version is a hefeweizen.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer