Monday, April 02, 2007
Hooray for Yeast!
Okay, one more for the day, just to brag, and this is it.
I make really freakin' good beer. I assume it's not that I'm such a super-genius (or are I?), but just that good beer is easy to make in small batches? If you don't like beer, feel free to skip down to the next post, but if you do...
Imperial Aspirations Stout: Pretty much followed the Mr. Beer directions -- this one was made with a couple of cans of syrup (the stout mix & brown malt), a bunch of dextrose, and finished it with a mix of hops (the recipe called for Willamette, but I didn't have a full ounce, so I put in some Fuggle & Saaz to boot to give it a little extra spice), and a heaping handful of espresso beans, coarsely ground. I felt a little guilty about getting the coffee flavor from beans instead of from malts, but I'm over it. Plus, it's probably lightly caffinated, so it's a good rally stout. Anyway, after six weeks of cold-conditioning, it's really rich and tasty -- nearly black, orange-brown head (crazy), tastes of hazlenut mocha (my favorite taste for stout), the bitter espresso nicely balances the sweet malts, and it's medium body and good carbonation that doesn't stop. I left my glass for almost an hour and it didn't go flat. The recipe said to cold-condition for at least three months, so I can't wait to see what happens next!
6 Gage IPA: Named after our buddy who used to work in a homebrew shop and gave us the recipe, this was the first time I made a beer using actual grains. There were a lot of different grains, including toasted barley malt and Crystal Wheat. Also some light dry malt extract. We used a ton of Cascade hops for boiling, and some Kent Golding hops for finishing. After the first fermentation, we added some more Cascade to dry hop. Last night we bottled this ale, and poured ourselves a couple of glasses, cask style. Damn it was good, even warm and (nearly) flat! Orange-red color, very aromatic of fruity hops (that's that Cascade -- it's very hard for me to determine exactly what fruit it smells like -- orange-peach?) An excellently balanced ale with sweet fruit complemented with bitter and spice. I'm so proud. I can't wait to see what it's like in another couple of weeks (one week at room temp, one week cold-conditioning).
I can't believe I've become such a big beer-geek, but I think I'm prouder of this than for having organized and supervised frog and rat dissections by my 6th grade students last week (which is what I was going to post about until I tried these beers last night -- I'll post some gory pics of viscera later in the week...). Fermentation is amazing -- I'd love to try to make some sour beer, where you ferment your ingredients before you make your wort! Crazy.
I make really freakin' good beer. I assume it's not that I'm such a super-genius (or are I?), but just that good beer is easy to make in small batches? If you don't like beer, feel free to skip down to the next post, but if you do...
Imperial Aspirations Stout: Pretty much followed the Mr. Beer directions -- this one was made with a couple of cans of syrup (the stout mix & brown malt), a bunch of dextrose, and finished it with a mix of hops (the recipe called for Willamette, but I didn't have a full ounce, so I put in some Fuggle & Saaz to boot to give it a little extra spice), and a heaping handful of espresso beans, coarsely ground. I felt a little guilty about getting the coffee flavor from beans instead of from malts, but I'm over it. Plus, it's probably lightly caffinated, so it's a good rally stout. Anyway, after six weeks of cold-conditioning, it's really rich and tasty -- nearly black, orange-brown head (crazy), tastes of hazlenut mocha (my favorite taste for stout), the bitter espresso nicely balances the sweet malts, and it's medium body and good carbonation that doesn't stop. I left my glass for almost an hour and it didn't go flat. The recipe said to cold-condition for at least three months, so I can't wait to see what happens next!
6 Gage IPA: Named after our buddy who used to work in a homebrew shop and gave us the recipe, this was the first time I made a beer using actual grains. There were a lot of different grains, including toasted barley malt and Crystal Wheat. Also some light dry malt extract. We used a ton of Cascade hops for boiling, and some Kent Golding hops for finishing. After the first fermentation, we added some more Cascade to dry hop. Last night we bottled this ale, and poured ourselves a couple of glasses, cask style. Damn it was good, even warm and (nearly) flat! Orange-red color, very aromatic of fruity hops (that's that Cascade -- it's very hard for me to determine exactly what fruit it smells like -- orange-peach?) An excellently balanced ale with sweet fruit complemented with bitter and spice. I'm so proud. I can't wait to see what it's like in another couple of weeks (one week at room temp, one week cold-conditioning).
I can't believe I've become such a big beer-geek, but I think I'm prouder of this than for having organized and supervised frog and rat dissections by my 6th grade students last week (which is what I was going to post about until I tried these beers last night -- I'll post some gory pics of viscera later in the week...). Fermentation is amazing -- I'd love to try to make some sour beer, where you ferment your ingredients before you make your wort! Crazy.
