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I brewed this as a Christmas beer for 2016 using a Vanilla Bourbon Stout recipe from the Greg Hughes book as inspiration. It was pretty experimental with my first use of oak chips and an addition of rum at bottling but I am pleased to say it came out great and I have been enjoying it as it has gradually matured. It definitely a strong one and the rum addition puts it into 7% territory so one for the small bottles!
It was a Thursday afternoon and I was watching the clock gradually run down on the day at work. I was having an afternoon cup of tea and chatting to the MWB lads on messenger. We decided on the spur of the moment to try a 30/30, quick stove top brew on a school night, just to see how quickly and fuss-free a brew day (ok, night) could be.
I’ve been fancying doing a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale style brew, so quickly Googled a recipe to see what the basic make-up of it was. It uses Cascade and Perle hops. I knew I had plenty of Cascade, but I didn’t have any Perle, so Googled substitutions. The first result I saw said Northern Brewer, as I knew I had plenty of that, I went with that. The grist on the recipe I saw was 2R pale ale and Crystal 40. Based on that, I fired up BeerSmith and set about building a recipe.
I have loads of Maris Otter, so went for that as a base malt. I swapped the Crystal 40 for Crystal Rye (150EBC) and some CaraPils, just because I fancied trying the Rye and I always use a bit of CaraPils. I’m not trying to create an exact clone after all. The recipe was pretty much ‘middle-for-diddle’ on the BeerSmith “sliders” for an APA style, so that was good enough for me. For the hopping, I went for Magnum to bitter to almost all the IBUs I was looking for, allowing late additions to make up the rest. The Northern Brewer that was in place of the Perle, going in late, followed by some Cascade a minute before I switch off the gas and a bit more Cascade once its cooled a bit.
I set out hoping to make a dubbel with a lot of bubblegum aromas and stone fruit flavours, but without the faff of step mashing. I was very happy with the result and it is a beer I will brew again and again.
So, I’m a scientist, as I constantly seem to be saying these days and I like to think I understand biochemical and chemical processes quite well. As such I have always wondered why the hell we as brewers do things for certain periods of time. Why do we mash for 60 minutes or even 90? Why do we boil for the same amount of time?
This is an experimental recipe I’ve done to see whether these hops work with this style. Its gonna end up being a kind of steam hybrid, as its a little bit hoppier than normal, but I’m hoping the relatively simple clean base will allow the hops to shine quite brightly.
First attempt at a Kölsch of my own recipe which I gave a couple of weeks to lager, hoping to get a lager-like result without the complex fermentation schedule.
Inspired by a clone recipe for Samuel Adams Boston Lager but with added hops and a Munich Lager yeast. This produced a delicious amber lager with a wonderfully floral and spicy hop character, some drinkers even claimed it was superior to the original…
Hey, just thought I would share this with you guys, the story of the worst brew day I’ve ever had…
Its a Monday, first day of the Easter holidays and I’m feeling great, I stick on a podcast (Time to get jacked for the UFC Event this weekend, and to hear the build up for the bout between Michael “The Count” Bisping and Georges “Rush” Saint Pierre) and start my day the same way as always…
Used this recipe to try out Olicana hops for the first time, they were ok but not quite as exciting as the description makes out in my opinion…
So Brewdog have updated their DIY dog recipes for 2017 including beers not yet released, whatever you think of them as a company this is pretty cool (although watch out for the recipes which seem to be riddled with errors!). One of their beers I had last year and enjoyed was ‘Casino Rye Ale’ so I was happy to see this in the new book, I won’t be brewing it as its written because a) its wrong (stated grist does not give the correct OG) & b) the amount of hops is exorbitant IMO and the original did not taste like it had that much in it anyway. So here is my interpretation of what will give a similar beer with out having to spend the best part of £20 on hops alone!