This weekend I brewed a new organic recipe for my maibock. Last year I brewed a similar beer, and it spent close to 3 months in my garage lagering. I was fairly happy with the turnout, but not totally satisfied. It lacked some maltiness and something that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I think part of the problem was that I lagered it for too long. When I tasted the maibock after a month I think it tasted closer to what I was going for than after the 3 months that I lagered it. I don't know if that makes any sense, but this time around I'm going to only lager it for 4 weeks.As I've mentioned before, maibock is one of my favorite styles of beer, so its a beer I really want to perfect. I redid the label and tweaked the recipe a bit, making it organic and changing some of the grain bill and the hops. I also poured it on top of a slurry of California 2112 Lager Yeast. The name comes from the my 3 year old golden retriever Maya, featured on the label.
I also transferred The Gringo (hence the slurry) and I have to say that I'm intrigued to see how this turns out. In the sample I tasted there was a huge grapefruit presence, which I would attribute to the Centenial hops I used. I'm excited to see where this ends up after lagering for a month.
Also this weekend I scored an old fridge, so I'm excited to have room to store more grains and hops in the freezer (just in time since I ordered 14 pounds of organic grains from Seven Bridges Co-Op last week.) I cleaned it out and am excited about using it for lagering year round. While I'm not a huge lager fan, I'm excited about the ability to make bocks and several other styles.
Friday I came home to a package of beer sent to me from Rick from Bob Woodshed Beer Blog as part of our exchange. He sent me three 22 oz bombers of organic beers I can't find here in Minnesota. Needless to say I was excited ! He sent me Bison Brewing Company's Belgian Ale, Green Lakes Organic Ale from Deschutes Brewery and Island Red from Roots Brewing Company. I'll post some reviews soon.
He also posted a review of my Northwoods Ale, and I was happy that he liked it. I completely agreed with his suggestion of adding more wild rice. I had read that it could be strong, but in both beers I've made with it, I found myself wanting more of a presence. Here's the link if you're interested: Northwoods Review
In addition to the reviews of the organic beers, I'm planning on posting about my recent visit of Summit Brewery. I had contacted them for an interview and I ended up getting a tour with their PR person. It was really cool, and I got to see some things not normally included in the tour like the lab, which was really interesting. It was a neat experience and again I was impressed by how nice and cool everyone was. That'll be coming this week.
Salud!
The Bearded Brewer
