2008
This was my most productive year yet: seventeen batches. One of the batches is not represented below because it went horribly wrong. Another can be found under 2009 since I didn’t actually keg it until after the new year began. The other fifteen are all described below.
This year was witness to my first all-grain batch of beer, Itsy Bitsy Bitter, which turned out deliciously. Itsy Bitsy Brown was my second all-grain batch, and it started the ball rolling. All subsequent batches, Most Worthy Ale to the end of the list, were all-grain batches.
Fiftieth Brew
★★★★
OG: 1.083
FG: 1.017
ABV: 8.7%My first batch of the year. I was planning to ring in the new year by brewing this on New Year’s Day. Unfortunately, however, my plans were thwarted, and this beer didn’t get cooked until the following weekend. This beer represents my 50th original recipe. It is an American Stock Ale – strong, dark, and hoppy. It turned out great, too! It features a nice mix of chocolate and toast malt flavors balanced by a decent kick of citrusy hop bitterness and alcohol. One of my personal favorites.
Vanilla Stout
★★★★
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.016
ABV: 5.1%When I asked my wife what kind of beer she wanted me to make, the first thing she thought of was a sweet stout (her actual request was for a Mackeson clone). I wanted to do something a little different, and I had this original recipe laying around. It turned out quite nice. It has a nice, stout, roasty core with a noticable flavor of vanilla. The vanilla, mercifully, isn’t overpowering, but it is enough to push this beer closer to the dessert beer than the table beer.
“Reeb” Rye Pale Ale
★★★★
OG: 1.051
FG: 1.013
ABV: 5.0%This beer was supposed to be an easy drinking but flavorful American Pale Ale. It turned out pretty good. It was better when super-fresh because the hop flavor and bitterness were very bright. It is still good and has a nice hop aroma, but the flavors have faded slightly. The backbone is bready and malty (though not particularly sweet) and the finish is dry and grassy. Overall, it is very drinkable. Two pounds of Rye were added to the mash to give it a subtle grainy, spicy note.
Dunkles Hefeweissbier
★★★★
OG: 1.052
FG: 1.013
ABV: 5.2%After asking my wife what kind of beer I should brew, her second answer (after asking for a Mackeson clone) was Hefeweizen. I wanted to make something a little richer, so I cooked up Hefeweizen’s darker, richer brother: a Dunkelweizen. It has turned out nicely with a delectable note of clove and spicy phenols balanced by wheat malt and banana esters. It is also quite rich in character, almost more like a small Weizenbock than like a traditional Dunkelweizen. It is a welcome addition to the roster.
Black Kriek
★★★★
OG: 1.059
FG: 1.016
ABV: 5.7%“Kriek” is often used to describe Belgian sour ales that are infused with cherry. This beer isn’t a Belgian sour ale, however. It is a rich, robust porter. But it has been infused with nearly eight pounds of tart cherries. The result is a rich, full-bodied, chocolatey porter with a distinct twang of cherries. They provide just enough tartness to make this full, dark brew more drinkable. Even in the dog days of summer, this bold, black brew is drinkable thanks to the subtle touch of cherries.
Itsy Bitsy Bitter
★★★★
OG: 1.039
FG: 1.010
ABV: 3.8%This batch was my first (and only, to-date) all-grain batch of homebrew. It turned out to be a very drinkable English bitter with an excellent bready/cracker malt character and a soft, but noticeable, earthy and citrus bitterness (not Cascade-like citrus – more subtle since all hops were English in origin).
Brain Bludgeoner
★★★★★
OG: 1.092
FG: 1.020
ABV: 9.5%This recipe was originally crafted as a Double IPA (aka Imperial IPA): lots of 2-row malt and some cane sugar to dry it out, nearly 8 ounces of high-alpha hops (Millenium, Warrior, Columbus, Chinook, Centennial, and Glacier), and an American ale yeast.
The result is much more balanced than expected (i.e. not as bitter). It is also wickedly complex – sweet and complex malt profile, subtle diacetyl, lots of fruitiness from both esters and hops, and a decent punch of ethanol. Despite the low mash temp and the addition of cane sugar, I still didn’t get the attenuation I wanted (which could also be why it doesn’t taste as bitter as expected). My next Double IPA will be a little different and will definitely be more bitter and drier. But this beer turned out to be a fantastic Strong American Ale.
Bosbessenbier
★★★★
OG: 1.062
FG: 1.009
ABV: 7.0%A Belgian Blond Ale infused with real blueberries. This beer’s color is tinted with pink, and even the head pours up with a touch of pink, thanks to the addition of puréed blueberries. The beer has a gentle and tasty golden malt flavor, a punch of berries, and a subtle note of red wine – a nice warm weather beer.
German Hefeweizen
★★★
OG: 1.047
FG: 1.009
ABV: 5.0%A classic Bavarian wheat beer. This beer is malty and wheaty with a soft malt sweetness, a spicy dry finish, and notes of banana esters from the Bavarian yeast.
Imperial ESB
★★★★
OG: 1.073
FG: 1.015
ABV: 7.6%This beer was originally formulated as an English IPA, but the malt profile turned out too rich and the late-hops too weak. The result is more like an ESB on steroids. It has a lot of caramel and toffee up-front, a firm punch of English hop bitterness in back, and a warming sensation as it goes down. The final product turned out nicely – somewhere between ESB and Barleywine.
Honey Nut Ale
★★★
OG: 1.053
FG: 1.013
ABV: 5.3%This beer was a dark, sweet American Brown Ale made with honey and infused with actual nuts. The flavor has a distinct nuttiness thanks to the addition of roasted almonds, pistachios, and pine nuts.
Itsy Bitsy Brown
★★★★
OG: 1.037
FG: 1.012
ABV: 3.3%This beer was designed to be a delicious and full-flavored session beer – light enough in alcohol that you can drink a few pints and still be coherent. The result, a rich and roasty Southern English Brown Ale, filled this role perfectly. It had a strong diacetyl character – like fake butter (think movie theatre popcorn) – at first, but it subsided after a few weeks into a subtle butterscotch note that provided an extra layer of tasty complexity to the malts in this beer.
Most Worthy Ale
★★★★★
OG: 1.074
FG: 1.009
ABV: 8.6%This brew was my first full-gravity all-grain batch. My two all-grain batches up to this point were both sub-4.0%-abv. This recipe was to be a big, bold American IPA. The result: absolute magnificence. The original gravity is on the high side for the style, and then it attenuated like crazy. The result is definitely in Double IPA territory.
This recipe was based loosely on a 2003 recipe: Hump’s Hellishly Hopped Ale. That older recipe was an extract recipe back when I was still doing partial boils – which severely limits the amount of bitterness that can be extracted from hops. This was not a problem for this new incarnation as hoppiness abounds. As a nod to the previous recipe, this bottle features a doggy angel – a counter-point to the doggy devil featured on the other recipe’s label.
Credit Crunch Ale
★★★★★
OG: 1.057
FG: 1.013
ABV: 5.8%A fantastic, hoppy American Amber Ale. I used a new technique in this beer known as late-hopping. In this technique, you add almost all of the hops in the last half of the boil – preferably the final twenty minutes to get lots and lots of hop flavor and aroma. Very little hops are added earlier in the boil. The result is that the great majority of the beer’s bitterness comes from late hop additions instead of early ones – the opposite of typical hopping technique.
The result is a very hoppy beer that has an unusually balanced tone and smooth bitterness. Being an amber ale, it is also quite malty. The hop flavor is peculiar but addictive and refreshing thanks to generous use of Palisade leaf hops – which have been called Super Goldings for their spicy flavor.
The name was inspired by the news of the day. The extra-observant may recognize the graph in the background as that of the DJIA. It sure did lose a lot, didn’t it?
Gingerbread Bock
★★★★
OG: 1.065
FG: 1.017
ABV: 6.3%I originally intended to brew a Pumpkin Pie Bock – full of deep, toasty, malty flavors and rich melanoidins and full of pumpkin and pie spice flavors, too. Unfortunately, my first attempt – using a bunch of toasted pumpkin pulp in the mash – was a catastrophe. I had to re-brew, this time without the pumpkin.
The result is a bready and malty lager with a strong winter spice character – ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and allspice.
