2009
In 2009, I brewed up fourteen batches of beer (technically, I just brewed thirteen as the first one was brewed in 2008 – but not packaged until 2009).
All of these brews were all-grain batches. Starting with batch #4, “La Brabançonne” Grand Cru, these were brewed on a new three-tier brewing stand. The first three brews below were brewed using much more modest equipment (and more back-breaking labor).
Bitter
★★★★
OG: 1.045
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.3%I actually brewed this beer in December 2008, but I didn’t keg until January 4th 2009, so I’ve included it in the 2009 set of brews.
This beer is a traditional English ale – a Premium Bitter. It has a nice, bready, toasty malt profile with subtle sweetness and a firm, earthy, English hop bitterness.
Smoked Maple Stout
★★★★
OG: 1.057
FG: 1.017
ABV: 5.3%This brew is a sweet stout made with Grade B Maple Syrup and some applewood-smoked English pale ale malt. The result is a smooth stout with chocolate milk sweetness and a touch of smoke. This beer turned out pleasantly enough, but, next time I make a smoked stout, it will not be sweet.
Munich to Brussels Dunkles
★★★★
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.016
ABV: 5.0%A delicious Belgian-style brown ale. This recipe started off as a Munich Dunkles Lager, but then I decided to goose it with a little bit more late hop additions than Germans would actually use and then ferment with a Belgian-style ale yeast. In fact, I used the Unibroue strain (Wyeast 3864 Canadian/Belgian Ale Yeast).
The flavor of this beer is like an ultra-rich Dunkelweizen but without the wheat – or perhaps like a Weizenbock with less alcohol. It could also be described as a Belgian Dubbel but with less alcohol and the rich, toasty, malt profile of a Bock.
“La Brabançonne” Grand Cru
★★★★
OG: 1.078
FG: 1.010
ABV: 9.0%The name “la Brabançonne” means “Song of Brabant” which is the national anthem of Belgium. This beer was modeled as a Belgian Dark Strong Ale – like St. Bernardus Abt 12 or Gouden Carolus Cuvée Van De Keizer. A friend of mine and I brewed a beer in this style on New Year’s Day of 2003, so I dusted off that recipe, converted it to all-grain, and then tweaked it to produce a drier beer (since it finished a little high and was a little heavy for the style). My attempts to dry it out may have gone too far. It is still a very fine beer, but not much like the two commercial examples I just listed.
The aroma is very fine with a soft perfume character, some phenols, and some citrus. The flavor is surprisingly malty and sweet – a surprise because the aroma does not give any indications of sweetness and because of the dryness of the beer (it attenuated thoroughly). The finish is dry, is warming with alcohol, and has a subtle orange candy note.
Punjabi Pale Ale
★★★★
OG: 1.066
FG: 1.016
ABV: 6.5%This brew is a hoppy English-style India Pale Ale. It has a very herbal and pungent aroma with an earthy and spicy hop flavor. It is quite over-hopped for an English version of IPA, but its distinct English hop character is atypical of American IPAs. So it’s a “fusion” IPA. I think I like the ring of that. Perhaps I’ve created a new style!
The name is not accurate since the Punjab region spans part of Pakistan. In fact, more Punjabi people live in Pakistan than in India. But an image of Punjabi army men somehow looked to me like suitable imagery for an IPA.
Red Bedlam
★★★★★
OG: 1.068
FG: 1.012
ABV: 7.4%This batch is a delicious, rich, red American IPA. I like to call it an India Amber Ale because of its deep red color and rich malt backbone. Okay, it isn’t that rich – it’s still quite dry and hoppy, like an American IPA should be. But it is a very nicely balanced brew with loads of aroma and flavor from judicious late hopping. Every hop addition in this batch employed a 50/50 blend of Columbus and Simcoe.
“Welcome to the World!” Wit
★★★★
OG: 1.057
FG: 1.010
ABV: 6.2%This batch was brewed to honor the birth of my second son, Ewan. A friend and fellow homebrewer recommended the name, so I designed a recipe around it. Admittedly, this is far from a straight-forward Witbier. This Witbier is the deranged (but tasty) offspring from a ménage à trois involving a Belgian Witbier, a Belgian Saison, and a Piña Colada. This funky, delicious treat enjoys enhanced aromas and flavors thanks to the use of pineapple and coconut in the secondary fermentor. A perfect summer brew for this wicked, hot Atlanta summer.
Toucan Stout
★★★★★
OG: 1.078
FG: 1.017
ABV: 8.0%This decadent brew is a Foreign Extra Stout. It was designed to be on the fruitier and sweeter side of the style – a “tropical” extra stout. That’s where the name comes from (“tropical” makes me think of Toucans). It doesn’t hurt that one such brewer of the style has used Toucans in their marketing material (Guinness makes a Foreign Export Stout that is unfortunately not available in the US – not to be confused with their Draught or Extra Stout which are).
Farmhouse Table Beer
★★★★
OG: 1.039
FG: 1.010
ABV: 3.8%This is a low gravity brew – an example of an obscure (at least here in the US) style of beer known as Belgian Tafelbier. This example is actually on the strong side. Typical tafelbiers are between 2 and 3 percent. Some examples have even less than 2 percent.
This unique brew has a nice bready malt character with just a balancing level of bitterness. It is made even more refreshing via a generous addition of oranges and lemons (juice, pulp, peel, zest… everything), which give it a distinct citrus character and a light acidity that complements the other flavors in the beer.
Regal Bitter
★★★★
OG: 1.045
FG: 1.010
ABV: 4.6%This brew is like an English Bitter, but made with a large quantity of American hops – Centennial and Amarillo in particular. It has a strong hop aroma and flavor, a pleasant balancing grapefruit/citrus bitterness, and a smooth, bready, lightly sweet malt backbone.
Estate-Hopped Rye
★★★
OG: 1.051
FG: 1.011
ABV: 5.2%This brew is a Rye Blond Ale made with home-grown hops: mostly Chinook hops, but small amounts of Horizon and Willamette are in there, too. Had the harvest yielded more, this would have been a dry, hop-bomb American Pale Ale. But it is hopped with restraint due to the small amount of hop flowers that our plants produced this year. Next year’s estate-hopped beer(s) will be hoppier! Perhaps we’ll even do a fresh hop ale.
This brew is light in color, malty with noticeable wheat and rye character in the flavor, and kissed with grassy hops. It has a grassy, balancing hop bitterness in the finish, which is dry and somewhat grainy. It makes a great session beer.
Devilish Nectar
★★★★
OG: 1.085
FG: 1.011
ABV: 9.7%A classic Belgian Strong Golden Ale. This style is a very close cousin of Belgian Tripel – both are golden in color, strong in alcohol, and flavorful. This brew follows suit – gold, strong, and rich in malt and ester flavors with a creamy full-bodied texture. Very intoxicating!
Old Humperdink Barley Wine
★★★★★
OG: 1.103
FG: 1.022
ABV: 10.8%This brew, made on All Saints Day (the day after Halloween, also my sister’s birthday), is a helluva hoppy American Barleywine. This brew is a single-hop brew – meaning it was made with a single variety of hops: Zeus. Zeus is – depending on what sources you read – a very close relative or exactly the same cultivar as Columbus/Tomahawk. Columbus is definitely a favorite hop of mine, and the brew store had whole leaf Zeus hops on sale for half off. The hops were from the previous year’s harvest and were starting to get old, so they were unloading them. They had been stored frozen, so they definitely weren’t spoiled. They were just getting old — weaker in flavor and lower in the volatile hop compounds that make them so wonderful. I compensated by purchasing a shitload of them and putting all of them in this one recipe. It worked.
This beer has a wonderful CTZ hop aroma on top of thick, rich malts. The flavor is rich and vinous – like a Barleywine should be – but also beautifully complemented by the strong hop flavor. The hop bitterness is quite firm, balancing the thick sweet malt backbone. Despite a relatively high finishing gravity and a very high level of alcohol, this brew is dangerously drinkable.
Holiday Ale
★★★★
OG: 1.075
FG: 1.018
ABV: 7.5%An English Stock Ale, generously spiced with holiday flavors (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice). This recipe started off with the same spice regimen as 2008’s Gingerbread Bock, but I decided I wanted less spiciness. A decided this after I had already acquired the spices, so instead of changing quantities, I decided to change usages. I crushed them much more coarsely and then kept them out of the fermentor (last year, I crushed them finely and made sure they found their way into the fermentor for prolonged contact and flavor extraction). I also did not add any ginger this year. Instead, I added half of a fresh vanilla bean during aging.
All in all, it tastes quite similar to last year’s Bock due to the level of spicing. I will definitely use less spice in future spiced beers. This brew is very tasty, but it would be even better if the spices were more subtle. It is a little different than the Bock: its English ale (vs. German lager) character is noticeable. It has a stronger and earthier bitterness (perhaps a little too strong – provides a soft clash with the spices that would be better were it softer still), a stronger level of dark malt character (from the use of chocolate and pale chocolate malts), and a distinctly English fermentation character (which would be even more evident had I hardened my brewing water).
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