Label Contest

As much as I enjoy making and drinking beer, I also love coming up with a name and making a label. Every year I'm always impressed and inspired by the labels that win the annual BYO label contest. Last year was the first year I entered the contest and I didn't win anything. I entered four labels; Whitefish Cranberry Wheat, None More Black, El Muerto, and Bearded Fury. I wasn't too disappointed because I think that art is in the eye of the beholder and I really liked the labels I entered. Its hard to know exactly what they are looking for. Sometimes there are labels that might look very professional and similar to something you'd find in a store, other times they might be off the wall creative labels. Take a look at the past winners here: contest winners.

So this year I'm planning on entering again, but the deadline is fast approaching. Since I have the ability to ask the public this year, I'm asking you to help me choose some labels. I've decided to enter 2 this year, and I'm deciding amongst 4 labels. Here are my choices, please click on the poll to the right with your ideas if you are so inclined. Thanks!

A. Bangy Tangy B. Morris Park C. La Libertad D. The Gringo

Thanks for your input.

Salud!
The Bearded Brewer

Whitefish Cranberry Wheat

My Whitefish Cranberry Wheat was a recipe I designed for my parents for a Christmas present. I gave them a case, the recipe (my dad's a homebrewer too) and the label. My parents have a lake home on Whitefish Lake in Northwestern Wisconsin, a big cranberry growing region. In fact Stone Lake (the nearest town) is home of the hugely attended Cranberry Fest in October. This beer is made using close to two pounds of frozen cranberries. Last year I was pleased with the turn out, and this year I've been happy with the results after 2 weeks in the bottle.
The beer pours a nice light redish hue with a thick white head. The cranberry presence is very faint. There is a tangy-ness to the beer, but the cranberries aren't overwhelming at all. Its a very nice drinking wheat beer with a hint of tartness. This is my Christmas beer, and I'm excited to have a lot more of it this year to drink. It's different enough, but my whole goal was for the cranberries to be evident but faintly. The color is beautiful and its a beer thats accessible to a lot of people.

Here's the extract recipe:
6lbs Wheat Malt extract
1.25 lbs Wheat Malt
.25 lbs belgian pils
.50 lbs honey malt
1 lb Tettengar hops (60)
.50 lb Tettengar (15)
Then .75 lbs of frozen cranberries (chopped in a food proc.) at 30 minutes
Then 1 lb of frozen chopped cranberries in the secondary for a week.
The yeast is Wyeast 3068 Weistehpen Weizen

Happy holidays
-The Bearded Brewer

Bangy Tangy

Today I brewed the Bangy Tangy Belgian Ale. This beer was orgianlly named by my friend Josh Broten (who Brother Brotino is also named after). He's a big belgian beer fan and wanted me to brew a beer he would enjoy. He came up with the name and the first time I brewed this beer it was a big hit. My friend Jeff says that the name describes the beer perfectly. Because of the name, I tried to make a tangy white beer, I did this by adding cranberries and orange marmalade to the recipe. The end product was a very smooth, tangy wit that poured an orangish color. I recently redid the label and am brewing it in time for Josh's visit in February.

The recipe is:
2 lbs Pilsen malt
1 lb white wheat
1/2lb caramel 10
The above are partially mashed at 150 degrees for 30 minutes.
6 lbs Wheat Liquid Extract (added at 30 min)
.5 oz Magnum Hops (60)
.5 oz Magnum (30)
1 oz Sladek (due to the shortage of Saaz, this is a replacement) @ 5 min
8 oz chopped frozen cranberries at 30 minutes
2 T of orange marmalade (5 min)
1/2 t of paradise seeds (2 min)
Belgian Wit yeast.

We'll see how it turns out. It's cold in my basement, so I put the carboy upstairs in a cooler and wrapped it in blankets to get it up to 70 for the primary fermentation. Next time I'll write my impressions of my cranberry wheat beer (not quite 2 weeks in the bottle) and also share my thoughts on a new system I've added to reuse water from my wort chiller.
-Bearded Brewer

Morris Park Porter

After two weeks in the bottle, I'm happy with how the Morris Park Porter has turned out. This was my first attempt at a porter, and I've been happy with the results. My wife Kristen, not normally a dark beer fan, also really like it, so that's a good sign.
It pours a dark brown, almost black with a thin tan head (at this point). It has a very smooth, sweet flavor at first, which is followed by a nice coffee-roasty flavor. I think it'll mature nicely.
For the homebrewers, it's an extract recipe, it's 100% organic:
1 lb Chocolate Malt
.75 lb Crystal 120
3 lbs light malt extract
1 lb light malt extract (added at 15 min)
1 oz organic admiral hops 60 min
1 oz organic admiral hops 1 min
1056 Wyeast American Ale

Next post I'll have some thoughts on my cranberry wheat and my Bangy Tangy.
* Update, after a full three weeks in the bottle, this is one of the best beers I've made. It's super silky smooth with a sweet chocolately flavor that finishes with a nice roasty-coffee-bitterness. I already want to brew this beer again.

New Labels

I recently redid the label for Burning Beard, the new version features Neil from Clutch (the inspiration for the name). Also the label for my upcoming La Libertad, a west coast pale ale.

Northwoods Ale

My Northwoods Ale has been in the bottle for two weeks and thus far has really been tasting nice. I think that if I can hold off for a bit longer before drinking more of them, the flavors will really come togther even more.

This beer turned out to be much lighter than what I had intended....I used a recipe for a British bitter, but had to cut the grains in half when it came time to mash. The beer pours a very light golden color, with a very thin white head. The first aroma that hits you is the maple syrup. I put the maple syrup in during the secondary and I think that gives it the presence in the aroma more. Not much of a taste from the syrup, but a little sweetness. The wild rice gives it a little dry finish and a very distinct taste. The wild rice isn't overwhelming in my mind, but it's definitely there. Overall I'm pleased. The last time I made this beer it was more of a brown ale, and I would say this beer is closer to a lager, with very little hop presence and a smoothness to it. I'm thinking it will age well. Wild rice is fun to brew with, but time consuming because you have to boil it before hand.

Patience

It's been awhile since I wrote on this blog. Partly because there hasn't been any recent developments in the Bearded Brewing world and also because I attacked the blog with such gusto at first that my friends and family made fun of me for the lengthy blogs. So...I decided to take a break from my beer ramblings... but I'm back.

I titled this patience because this is an important virtue in brewing and something that I still don't have after all the batches I've made over the last three years. My recent example came from two Belgian beers I made this summer. I brewed two 3 gallon batches of beers I had never made before and was a little nervous about how they would turn out. The first one was a Belgian Abbey Ale made in honor of my friend Josh Broten, called Brother Brotino, and the other was a Saison, called Iron Lion Saison. Even though I knew the longer I left them the better they would be, I still drank them too soon. Now, with about 3 bottles left of each, I think they are tasting really good. Of course! The Brother Brotino turned out to be a sweet, darker abbey ale, in the tradition of Chimay. In comparison to other commercial abbey ales, I think it lacks the complexity, but maybe that will come with time. But its good, and I took a bottle to Chicago, so that the namesake could try it. As a drinker of exclusively Belgian beers, he was very pleased with the outcome.

The Saison was a bit of stretch for me because I'd never had one. I had read descriptions of saisons and thought they sounded interesting. I wrote the recipe based on some I had found, but didn't really know what to expect. It turned out to be a light yellow with a huge white foamy head. I dry-hopped it, so there is definately a hop presence, but also a sour yet crisp aftertaste. It's mellowed out real nicely and the flavors are really balanced.

Now, if I can only have patience to wait on the Burning Beard belgian ale, and the Northwoods Ale I currently have in the carboy (more on that in the next blog entry.)

Here are the labels for the Brother Brotino and Iron Lion Saison:

Bearded Fury

Bearded Fury Pale Ale: This is my "house" beer, or the beer that I make and am confident will be good. This beer was the first original recipe I ever made. I had been brewing kits for about 2 years and decided to try my hand at making my own recipe. Pale ales aren't necessarily my favorite kind of beer, but because there are a wide range of pale ales I thought it'd be a good, safe place to start. I first made it last summer (summer 06) and have made it several times since then. It was also one of the first labels I made. The first recipe I made was extract and then I have since converted it to be organic and a partial mash recipe. This beer is not your traditional American Pale Ale because I use fuggle hops for the aroma hops (more commonly used in English beers). A lot of people who don't like hoppy beers like this beer and I think its because the fuggle hops are smooth and very floral.

Well I bottled this beer last week, and I am usually impatient when it comes to waiting for my beers to mature. But one week in the bottle and the Bearded Fury is carbonated and ready to go! It pours a medium honey color with a white head. The first thing that hits you is the floral notes of the fuggle hops. Its smooth and sweet with a hint of caramel flavor, mild fruitiness and that "pale ale" sweetness. Its not as bitter as say, Summit Pale Ale or Sierra Nevada PA. My friend Nate has said it is the best beer he's ever had, Bearded Brewing or commercial, which is a really great compliment. This is a beer that I'm super proud of and love to drink. It came at the right time because this summer I decided to get experimental and went out on a limb brewing some beers. They turned out decent, but nothing outstanding. I was starting to over-analyze and become too critical of my beers, but this one brought my confidence back because it's damn good!

Here's the recipe:
2 lbs organic 2-row
1 lb organic crystal 60
* mash for 1 hour at 150 degrees
add .70 oz of Organic Admiral hops
1 oz of organic cascade hops at 15 min
6.0 lbs of organic liquid light extract at 15 minutes
1 oz of Fuggle hops at 2 minutes
1 oz of Fuggle hops dry hopped in the secondary.
I use American Ale 1056 yeast.


More later.
The Bearded Brewer

Upcoming beers

Tonight I'm brewing my Burning Beard Belgian Ale. The name comes from one of my favorite songs by the band Clutch. I've changed the recipe some, so I'm intrigued to find out how it turns out. This beer is a Belgian White beer, but I'm going to use some different ingredients this time around.
The last time I brewed it, I used mostly extract and it turned out well, but I wanted to try to do it using more flaked wheat. I also add orange marmalade, a trick I learned in Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing book. This book is like my bible for brewing, I find it much more helpful and interesting than any other brewing book.
The last time I made this beer, it was called "Bangy Tangy" named for a friend of mine. A couple of my friends continue to refer to the beer as such. After my friend Josh came up with the name, I tried to brew the beer with a some tangyness. I decided to add cranberries to it because I had some left over from another beer I had made. I brewed half a pound and then added half a pound to the secondary the last time I brewed it. This time I'm going to just add the cranberries in the secondary to give it more of a presence. I'm also hoping that the cranberries give it a bit more of a redish color.


The recipe is:
.75 lbs of Belgian Pils
.75 lbs of Belgian Pale Malt
1.5 lbs of Flaked Wheat
.36 lbs of Flaked oats
3 lbs of Dry Bavarian Wheat Extract (I'll add this the last 15 min)
.5 lbs of Light DME (I'll add this at the start of the boil).

1 ounce of Hallertau hops
2 tablespoons of Orange Marmalade
1 lb of frozen cranberries
Belgian Witbier yeast.

It should be interesting. I found a recipe for a Hoegarden Clone that used 3 lbs of Flaked Wheat and 1 lb of Belgian Pale, then Wheat Extract. I was intrigued by this. I use Beer Tools and came up with this recipe to use that much flaked wheat. I've only used it in small amounts in my Inky's White. I'll be interested in the end result. I'm hoping for a slightly redish tint because of the cranberries, and a light, crisp body. I'm not adding Paradise seeds (something I did the last time) simply because they are expensive and I think they'll be lost in the flavor profile because of the marmalade and cranberries.


Tonight, I'm also going to be bottling another beer of mine, my "house beer" Bearded Fury Pale Ale. This will be the fourth time I've made this beer and I haven't made it in awhile. It tasted good when I transfered it to the secondary and I've sinced added another ounce of Fuggle hops. It'll have been in the secondary fermenter for about 2 weeks.

As for other upcoming beers, this is what I have planned for the months of October and November:
Northwoods Ale: Last year I brewed a beer using wild rice. Per usual I didn't give it enough time to mature before I drank most of it. The last half of the batch was really good as the wild rice had mellowed into the flavors. I've changed the recipe some, and the beer is basically a standard British Bitter, pretty basic. But I'm going to first boil wild rice, then put that into the mash tun. Then to mellow out the flavors, I'm going to add maple syrup at the end of the boil. It should be a good nutty balanced ale for the winter. I'm going to give it plenty of time to mature this time.

Yinzer Ale- My in-laws are from Pittsburgh, home of Yuengling Lager. This is a beer that I love everytime I get a chance to drink it. If we drive out to P-town we bring some back with us. Well I can't lager because I don't have the access to a fridge that I could control the temps and use for brewing. Plus I don't enjoy enough lagers to make buying one a priority. I would love to be able to make bocks, but I'll make due for now. Anyway, my brother-in-law has been asking for a Yuengling clone for some time. I made a light cream ale this summer using rice solid extract that was a pretty close representative to a standard american lager like Bud or Miller Light (It was a gift, not my choice!). Using the success of that, I'm going to try to make a Pittsburgh Style Ale, using rice, and some carmel malt and the California Common yeast to get a beer that is crisp and dry. It'll hopefully be somewhere between a Iron City and Yuengling. I'm making a 3 gallon batch first so that if it sucks...well then it was experimental.

California Pale Ale- After visiting California recently (see my next post) I was inspired to brew a super hoppy beer. I'm not a hop head really, and my friends enjoy Belgians or brown ales more than hoppy beers. But this summer I brewed a California Common that was heavily hopped with Cascade hops and it turned out great. It was darker than a pale ale, and I'm bascially trying to achieve the same thing. I was in the Bay Area and out east of Oakland in a hop growing region. All the beer I was drinking was heavily hopped, so I'm going to brew a pale ale and use several ounces of Cascade and Chinhook hops.

El Muerto (version 3.0)- I've made El Muerto several times and I'm changing the recipe yet again. I've been annoyed by what seems to be too sweet of a character in some of my beers and I think it might be a result of using Amber Malt Extract. So I'm going to brew El Muerto again, but this time not use any Amber LME, and instead increase the crystal malt for coloring. I'm hoping that will give it more of the malty, carmely flavor I'm looking for. I'm also going to increase the hops. I've been bored by what is one of my more popular beers, so I want to make it a bit more ...just more malty, more hoppy. I'm also going with a different yeast. I've brewed it with 1056 American Ale, Rogue Yeast, and now I'm going to use the California Common yeast to hopefully bring out more of the malty and hoppy flavors. We'll see how it turns out. I know I shouldn't mess with a good thing, but I want it to be one of my "flagship beers" and since it started off as a clone of Dead Guy, I just want to keep tweaking it until its a unique beer.

Whitefish Cranberry Wheat- This is going to be my Christmas beer. My parents have a home in Stone Lake Wisconsin, home of a Cranberry fest, cranberry bogs, and basically everything cranberry. After harvest time (late September) cranberries are extremely cheap to buy. Last year I made this beer and it turned out great. A nice subtle cranberry taste in a refreshing wheat beer. Its brewed with 2lbs of cranberries. I'm looking forward to brewing this beer again.

Thats all for now.
The Bearded Brewer