This past week I had the rare opportunity of having a week by myself with my wife and kids out of town. I was able to fill the week with plenty of beer related activities.Last Thursday I got together with about 20 local beer bloggers. It was a really cool night, filled with good beer talk and of course drinking. It started out as a couple bloggers I've met before wanting to get together, Derek @ Beer This, Stu @ Friday Night Beer, and Aaron @ the Captain's Beer Blog. Quickly it grew into a large event, and I jumped at the opportunity to suggest one of the nights I was free of kid obligations. It was a really cool event that will hopefully happen again. And a big shout out to Stu for putting it all together.
Friday, I was able brew up a breakfast stout I'd been planning on for some time. After having Founders outstanding version of a coffee, chocolate, oatmeal stout, I wanted to brew my own. Stout Chocula won't be nearly as high of gravity, but I'm aiming for the same chocolatey-coffee goodness that is their version. I have contemplated brewing with chocolate for some time. A huge help in formulating my recipe was an article I found here from the Maltose Falcons brewing club. A great source for breaking down what forms of chocolate do what to a beer. In the end I decided to go with two things to achieve the chocolateyness (I just made up that word, but it works). I upped the chocolate malt and also am going to be adding cocoa nibs to the secondary. This seems to be the best way according to several sources. Brian at Untamed Brewing also suggested adding some vanilla to really bring out the chocolate as well as the nibs. They weren't cheap, but the best deal I found was at Nutsonline.com (make sure you type that in correctly:D) While $13 a lb isn't cheap, I can get several chocoalte beers out of the pound.
One more thing, I love coffee beers, but don't like staying up all night. So I decided to try brewing this with decaf coffee. I'll be cold pressing and adding it to the secondary as well.
More to come on the progress of that. Also I brewed up the 2010 version of the Gringo with Derek from Beer This blog on Saturday. It was fun to brew with Derek and I'll post about the Gringo 10 soon.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer
4 comments:
Hey Eric,I had a great time brewing on Saturday. Like I said earlier, I spend a lot of time brewing alone at home and it was really nice to be able to brew with someone else who shares the passion. Your Power to the Porter was awesome as was the Revolution Red. Can't wait to see what some age does to it. Beautiful color. We'll have to do it again. Anxiously awaiting the Count! Cheers, DA
Thanks Derek, glad you liked the beers, it's always very helpful to get your input. As someone who also brews alone often, it was really nice to brew with someone and talk shop. I also am looking into picking up a second wort chiller after our experiment. I'll have to write a post about that at some point.
Sounds Tasty! I recently did a chocolate beer as well, but using powder instead of nibs. I'm interested in hearing how the chocolate flavor shined through. Keep us posted!
Sounds like a great beer! Love the name.
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