Gringo 2010 and Stout Chocula update

Last year I was really happy with the second go around of my Imperialistic Mexican lagerish experiment, The Gringo. I had brewed a version in 2008 and while it had some decent elements to it, I tweaked it and was really pleased with the turnout last year. To give a bit of the background, I had the idea of brewing an "Imperial" Mexican lager. While the Gringo has never been high in the alcohol content, the "Imperialistic" tag comes from the overabundance of American hops, Centennial and Cascade. It's not exactly a lager because I use the California 2112, or "steam ale" yeast, which according to Wyeast imparts lager like characteristics in temps up to 65 degrees. I then lager it in a fridge for 10 weeks. Regardless of the finer points, the Gringo ends up being a very smooth, citrusy-hoppy cerveza that retains some slight maltiness and grainiess that one would expect in say, a Corona. Last year's twist was to add agave nectar, a honey like substance that really stayed true to the Mexican vibe, and also gave the Gringo a great sweet-honey aroma and nice finishing sweetness. Overall people really liked it and the reviews I got all seemed to hit what I was going for: a hopped up Corona. Aside from adding an additional ounce of Cascade hops the last minute, there were no real changes. I'm excited for this one to be ready around May. (Yes...my bastardized Mexcian lager will be ready right around the time of the Over-Americanized Holiday of Cinco de Mayo!)
This time around, fellow Twin Cities beer blogger Derek @ Beer This! came over to brew with me. It's always nice to brew with someone since I tend to brew alone. It was nice to pick Derek's brain on some things and fun to bounce ideas off of. And of course enjoy some good homebrew.
Derek brought over his wort chiller to try out an idea he had. We hooked up our immerison chillers, putting one in a bucket filled with ice. The end result was fantatic. Not only did we cut down the cooling time significantly (about 10 minutes cool down) we obviously saved a lot of water in the process. Instead of spending the money on a counter flow chiller, I plan to pick up a second immerison chiller to do this everytime. A great time saver and water saving resource; win-win for an extra $60.
On another brewing note, I bottled/kegged the Stout Chocula last night. I'm very excited as it smelled and tasted great. To back up a bit, last week I transferred it to secondary, and at that time added 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract, 4.5 oz of cocoa nibs (pictured to the side) and cold pressed decaf coffee. Not to sound like a coffee snob...but I am a beer snob, so why not, I added Fair Trade Organic Decaf from Minneapolis' Peace Coffee (an awesome company with great coffee, btw.) The aroma turned out great. For those not familiar with cold pressing at home, very simple, just add 1/2 lb of coffee grounds to a container, fill it up with 24 oz of water and let it sit overnight. Then strain it through a coffee filter (which yields about 10 ounces or so). Can't wait to drink this beer in a day or so when it's nicely carbonated.
I am running out of keg/bottle space, so there is going to be a slight hiatus from brewing for a bit, then I plan on revisiting my big IPA. I was very happy with the turnout of the Steelhead Slammer, but want to brew up another version of a big IPA, this time upping the bittering to try and get some more bite to the finish. Can't seem to nail that yet, so stay tuned.

Salud!
Bearded Brewer

The Norseman Review

I went through a phase the last year where I moved away from brewing more experimental and/or unique beers, and tried to focus more on brewing more traditional beers. One beer that I had never brewed was an oatmeal stout. I love a good oatmeal stout, they are creamy and smooth, but have a wonderful balance of caramel and roast. On Halloween I brewed the Norseman, my version of an oatmeal stout. In a lot of ways the Norseman turned out great, it has a perfect mouthfeel, and is very enjoyable and quite flavorful A lot of my friends loved the beer and I found myself going through the keg quickly. However, it missed the mark on two key areas of an oatmeal stout, it wasn't dark enough and lacked roastiness. So...it's more of a dark oatmeal brown ale?...oatmeal brown porter?...basically something other than a stout. It's the beauty of homebrewing in a way, and also the nice thing about the return to the basics for me. By having a fairly simple recipe, I can easily determine that the Norseman misses the mark on a couple things that are fairly fixable, mainly upping the roasted barley and either adding some black malt or debittered black malt. On the other hand, it was highly enjoyable as it was, so I know that I either have a really good beer as is, or make a few changes here or there and I have something closer to the stout I'm aiming for. A win/win basically. So onto the Norseman review:
The Norseman pours light chocolate brown with a lot of reddish hues, held up to the light the red really comes through, as well as a nice finger of lacy off white head. Aromas of chocolate and toffee with some faint roasty notes. Smooth at first, with a nice softness that finishes with a slight bitterness. Flavors at first of malt and biscuit, followed by some nice chocolate notes and just a little bit of roast. A lingering chocolate sweetness and a hint of the chalky-roastiness I was aiming for...but just a hint. The finish is soft with a coating of chocolate and malt and slight bitterness.

More to come...
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Stout Chocula and Beer Blog Summit.

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

Red Ale Revolution

I'm back in the saddle after a short hiatus for the holidays. I ended my winter break with a brewing session, and plan a couple more next week (more to come on that). I've been wanting to brew a version of a red ale for some time. One of the first beers I ever drank illegally was a Killian's Red I took from the store room of a restaurant I worked at when I was 18. Now the story isn't that I was so blown away by this beer, but simply that myself and red ales have come along ways since then. I love the newer wave of red ales, (at least they are new to me). This past year I had three great beers, all malty, caramely, and chock full of citrusy hops. Green Flash's Hop Head Red, Summit's Horizon Red Ale, and Lagunitas Imperial Red Ale. All three of these beers leave me wanting more, and wanting to brew my own version.
I formulated a recipe based off an India Red Ale recipe in Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing, but I made some changes and swapped out the bittering hops. This beer uses a lot of Munich malt, more than I've brewed with before, as well as a 4 oz of Cascade hops. It was nice to come across a deal this fall, where I secured some local organic whole Cascade hops for a great price, and have had the luxury of working through that pound. So I will also be adding 2 oz of whole hops to the secondary for dry hopping to really give it that hoppy nose. I'm quite excited about this beer, and the color came out perfect at this stage.
Here's the recipe:
Mini Mash- 2.5 lbs Organic Munich
.5 lbs Organic Crystal 120
.75 lbs Organic Crystal 60
.25 lbs Organic Chocolate
6 lbs Pale Organic LME
3.15 lbs Munich LME
Hops: 1 oz Organic Pacific Gem @ 60 (16% AAU)
2 oz Whole Leaf Organic Cascade @ 30
2 oz Whole Leaf Organic Cascade @ 5
Dry Hop: 2 oz Whole Leaf Organic Cascade
Yeast: 1056 American Ale

* The downside of brewing in Minnesota is it's damn cold in January, (since I'm not all grain, luckily the down side isn't freezing my ass off in a garage), but this past week it was hovering around 0 all week. I brewed this beer late at night and it was pretty cold in my basement. The water was too cold when I combined it with the wort, and it brought the temp down to 52, I pitched it pretty cold, but after moving it upstairs, putting blankets on it, and setting it next to the heater, it's up to 67 and bubbling away....everything I've read said it's not a problem to pitch colder and have the beer rise in temp, this is a bit extreme though. Anyone have any thoughts? I'm thinking it should be fine...
Next week I'm off to my annual trip to Pittsburgh, so will be enjoying some good Pennsylvania beer, especially East End, and hopefully some other goodies I can't get here in MN....
More to come.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer