My Reward

This is what you get when you work all weekend outside around my house.  One of my homebrew vanilla oatmeal stouts + a great honking scoop of ice cream.

Best, dessert ever.

Sam Adams Cinder Bock

This is a good beer.  I must be predisposed to the Bock style, because this one really floats my boat. Nice amber brown color and some really good caramel and toffee notes.  Malty without being overly hoppy I believe it to be well balanced.  Feels like it has a decent viscosity in the mouth.

Its supposed to be a rauchbock, but honestly it's fairly mild. I can't pick out the smoked flavors. Of course I'm having it with lunch which includes a sandwich which features home smoked pastrami so it may just be overpowered.  The label lists it at 9.4% ABV.  Certainly it has some kick, but doesn't seem to have any alcohol bite or taste.

The label on the back of the bottle lists it as batch #1.  This is one I would buy again and would try to emulate. However, I don't have a lagering setup, so I guess I'll just have to buy it. 

Hobgoblin Dark English Ale

500ml bottle poured nicely with a short head that retained nicely. Beautiful brown color. Low carbonation and pretty malty. Unusual twang and aftertaste. On the viscous side and slightly chewy in the mouth.
I think I'd really enjoy this if it wasn't for the twang.  Its really distracting and I find myself reaching for some peanuts to get the taste out of my mouth. I may try this again to see if it is just an off bottle. If it is inherent to the beer though I'd say no thanks. 

Scottish Ale - revisited

Well after being bottled for almost 5 months, my Scottish ale isn't doing so well.  Its lost almost all it's flavor.  It's generically malty and not hoppy at all.  Carbonation is very nice and  1/8" head remains even after 2/3rds of the glass is gone.   It's not bad in any way, it's just not really great anymore.  It is simply beer.

I have about 6 or so bottles left, so I'll finish those off and move on to something else.  The honey wheat seemed to be well received last night.  I'd like to give that one another try with some slight variations.

Newcastle Mini Keg

I like Newcastle beer.  It's nice and malty and really fits the flavor profile I enjoy.  The problem, they ship it in clear bottles and it skunks really quickly.  Therefore, I only order it on draft.  Most of the time that works out pretty well.

About a month ago I found a 5L mini keg with integrated CO2 at the grocery store.  Price was a little high, but because it's in steel, it shouldn't be light oxidized.  It was great.  So convienient to just pour a glass whenever and it tasted fresh and wonderful.  A resounding success.

Last week, I made a beer run, stopped in the local liqour store where they have a good selection and what do I see on the bottom shelf?  That's right, a cold Newcastle 5L mini keg and it's $5 cheaper than it was warm at the grocery store.  Boom, in my cart.

Tapped it last night.  I am so dissapointed.  It must have been improperly stored at some time.  It's off.  It doesn't taste fresh and has some wet cardboard smell / flavor going.  Once again I'm going to have to get  away from purchasing Newcastle unless its on tap.  I'm so very sad.

I guess this means that I'm going to have to brew my own.  The English mild I brewed is actually pretty similar in flavor.  I'm sure a couple tweaks and some research and I could find a decent clone recipe.  Seems a shame though. It's good beer when it leaves the brewery. Too bad that some retailers can't store beer in a way to help it continue to taste good.

6/3/2012

Gravity was down to 1.009 so I bottled it up.  8 oz DME in 2 cups of boiling water for carbonation sugar, into bottle.  26 of the 12 oz bottles, 16 of the 16 oz flip tops and one bomber.  It tasted just ok out of the fermenter, but I should mellow a little after bottle conditioning.

Brew Day - Honey Wheat 5/24/2012

Another kit from the LHBS.  How lucky I am to have Great Fermentations close by.  10 am I decided it was a good day to brew, 11:00 am picked up a kit, 3:30 I was cleaned up and pitching yeast.  It really doesn't get much easier than that.

I also replaced the regulator on my jet burner that I use in the driveway.  Holy smokes, it throws some heat now.  Granted it was a 90 degree day, but I was up to a full boil with 5 gallons in less than 1/2 hour.  I was also able for the first time to maintain a vigorous boil and had to back of the heat a bit a couple times.

This is also the first time I've done a full 5 gallon boil.  Its a lot easier to get a boil over in a 7 gallon pot with 5 gallons of wort than it was with 3.

Honey wheat kit - pretty simple kit really.  I backed off the boil times to reduce the hoppiness and added orange peel to make it a little closer to blue moon.  I'm looking for something to keep really cold while it's so hot outside and my english mild isn't meant to be served that cold.

I hit my OG pretty well and the yeast took off quickly.  Activity in the airlock within 5 hours and a full krausen within 15 hours.  Very vigorous fermentation.  Wheat beers are supposed to finish quickly so we'll see how long this one takes.  I may carbonate upstairs to get a little quicker finish than the 6 weeks it's been taking in the basement.

Boulevard Smokestack Series - Dark Truth

Pours nice and dark with a deep tan head.  I used a gentle pour and got a small amount of foam which dissipated fairly quickly. That's good in my book. Nicely roasted dark grains with no burnt taste.  Very little hop flavor.  I find that to be a good thing as well.  The malts are roasted enough that there is just a hint of sweetness.

This is a pretty big beer.  Very low alcohol taste, but a whopping 9.7% ABV. I'm not sure if that puts it into imperial range or not.  It doesn't have the smooth mouth feel of Guinness on nitro, but if I had to choose, I'd pick the Dark Truth. Guinness is so bitter that I can really only enjoy about 1 per year.  I could drink this one once a month.  I'm really not a stout guy.

I should have waited until dinner to drink this one.  I just came in from doing yard work and I only had this, an IPA and my pumpkin ale cold. I probably should have chosen the IPA, as in my mind stouts need a little something to go with them.

I'd pick this one over most of the other stouts I've tried.  I think it's a little better than Samuel Smiths oatmeal stout as it's a little more rich.  I think it's a lot better than Guinness as it doesn't have the same crushing bitterness. Solid 8 on a ten point scale.

Another thanks to Bob Mack as he's the one who gave me this sampler that I have been enjoying so much.

Boulevard Sixth Glass

Sixth glass - Another gift from Bob Mack @ World Class Beverage
Immediate thought - Belgian , sweet, not too hoppy. Good balance. Some fusal hotness and a little spice flavor from the yeast. Medium body. Good carbonation. Good copper color. Little cloudiness. Refreshing when with rich food but a little strong to just drink alone. Good dinner beer.

Boulevard Tank 7 farmhouse ale.

This is a pale ale.  Lots of hops. Its got bitterness, aroma, and flavor. Bottle conditioned with a fair amount of suspended yeast even after a gentle pour. Well executed with little to no grassy flavors. Slight citrus aroma. Not a style I tend to enjoy, but well executed for the style. 

After 10 mins there was 1/8 the inch of yeast in the bottom of my glass.

Breakfast Stout

I've bottled and carbonated my oatmeal vanilla breakfast stout.  2 full vanilla beans gives quite a dose of vanilla aroma, but it doesn't actually affect the flavor very much.  Nice thing about this beer is it doesn't have to be served really cold.  Just cool will do.

I'm really enjoying this beer. It has a pretty thick and filling consistency.  Its not great with a meal, but it is awesome as a snack.  With all the grain that is in it, it's probably north of 300 calories for a pint, so I do have to think of it as a snack.  Next time I make it, I'll step up to a full 5 gallon batch and I'll probably add a touch more hops or darker malt.  It could use a little more balance to counteract all the grain and malt.

Because of the odd batch size I used the coopers drops again to carbonate.  I've used them in 3 different beers now and they definitely don't provide as much carbonation as the old standby of 5 oz of corn sugar for a 5 gallon batch.

Will I continue to use the coopers carbonation drops? The answer is yes, as long as it's a style that benefits from slightly lower carbonation and it's an odd batch size.  For a standard batch or higher carbonation it's just as easy to go with the corn sugar.

English Mild Picture

English Mild shortly after opening.  Should have refrigerated more than one.

After only a week in the bottle, the english mild tastes just fine and has ok carbonation.  It's a touch thin and a touch hoppy but it sure drinks fine.  Lets see what another week does for it.

English Mild - Bottling

4/8/2012 - I got into a rush because we had to leave at noon to make the big shindig at Grandma's house for Easter dinner.  10 am rolled around and I thought I had enough time to bottle up my English mild.  I mixed up my sanitizer and took a gravity reading - 1.006 - perfect, it's done.  Time to bottle.  Sanitized my clean bottles and got to it. 
It went well, I am getting much better at starting siphons and not spilling beer everywhere.  For both the stouts I bottled, I used coopers carb tabs instead of mixing in sugar when I bottled.  Since they were both small batches, it seemed like it would be easier than figuring the amount of sugar to boil and add before I bottled.  I thought for sure I had enough left to bottle the English mild.  Boy was I wrong - almost 20 bottles short.  Oh well, can't leave them uncovered.  I capped them anyway.

4/9/2012 After returning from Easter I ran to the LHBS and grabbed some more coopers drops.  There is at least one advantage of the swing top bottles I like to use. They are easy to open and close.  Opened them all up, dropped in the sugar pills and closed them again. Put a little note on the bucket so I'd remember the date and what it was and carried on

It smells like beer and I'm excited about it.  I'm going to take 3 or 4 and move them up close to my desk so they can carbonate more quickly.  The others I'll leave in the basement and the cooler temps will help them work more slowly.

March 31, Apr 1

Pretty busy couple of beer days.  Bottled up my Vanilla Oatmeal Breakfast Stout.  I hope it had some yeast left in it to carbonate.  There wasn't much left behind in my secondary at all.  This had been pitched on top of the yeast that I used for Dad's milk stout.  It feremented super quick, but I left it for a week just in case.

I brewed my english dark mild and it is fermenting.  I did a yeast starter this time and wow that makes things ferment quickly as well.  Its been 5 days and it looks like it's ready to bottle.  I'll do a sample of it this weekend and test it's gravity to verify.