Cream Ale II

This is another favorite of pros and amateurs alike. It was one of the first beers we made and still one of the best.

Northern Brewer modified the recipe slightly, switching from Willamette to Cluster hops. We will see if it works! The first recipe is here.

Cream Ale II

Specialty Grains
.75 lbs Gambrius Honey Malt
.25 lbs Dingemans Biscuit

Fermentables
6 lbs Pilsen Malt Syrup

Boil Additions
1 oz Cluster (60 min)

Cheers!

Rasberry Wheat

Die-hard beer fans turn their noses up at wheat beers. A double nose up for the flavored wheats--generally considered amateur or pedestrian quasi-beer for folks who don't regularly like beer.

I say wheat beer is the people's beer! This recipe is too good to turn down. Here is a classic BSB recipe made famous by WK.

Rasberry Wheat

6.3 lbs Wheat Malt Syrup
1oz Hallertau (60 min)
Yeast: Wyeast #3333 German Wheat

Rasberry extract added to the bottling bucket at bottling.

Rock on, foam-face!

Kitchen Sink Ale

Gunslingers and Comrades: Bear witness to this tale of woe turned to joy as the ill-begotten love of a spring dream blends into the rays of summer light. I took everything that I had and brewed the following concoction saying only "go with the gods" as I pitched the wort into the carboy.

Kitchen Sink Ale

Fermentables: 6 lbs Gold Malt Extract, 1.5 lbs Light Lager Malt Extract, 2 lbs Wildflower Honey (at 30 min).

Specialty Grains:
Cara 10 (steeped for 15 minutes pre-boil)

Boil Additions:
1 oz Saaz (45 min)
1 oz Willamette (2 min)

Holiday Ale Review

Now that the holidays are over (what day is this?), the Holiday Ale is ready to drink if still a bit premature. This spiced beer has been a long time in the making. I recall making it with a friend one evening during a debate between Barak Obama and John McCain. Shit, that's like 3 dog years ago! I think that it will actually take another 3-4 months to be really ready and probably peak around christmas time.

Although it is quite good now, the flavors need time to mellow, blend, and overall smoothen out. The beer is almost black but retains a high degree of clarity. I would definately describe the flavor as sweet and heady. I taste smoked nuts, pumpkin, clover and a very low grade cinnamon banana (almost phenolic) flavor. The alchohol content is rather high for what I usually brew at around 9 or 10 percent. This is definately not a session beer and I'm glad that we bottled everything in pint-32oz bottles. While I would not keg this beer, I think it will make great gifts for friends and fellow drinkers. As an incredibly "spicy" beer, I think it would do better on its own, or with an appetizer or dessert, rather than with a main course.

The Innkeeper

This is the final of a series of beers to keep warm the soul through the Minnesota winter. The Innkeeper is a limited edition English Ale kit from the NB:

"Thirty six major awards. Four-time Brewers International Champion. Four-time CAMRA Beer of the Year. Simply put, the muse for this kit has won more awards than any other English beer, period. From very simple ingredients comes a wonderfully well- balanced dram. Spicy, herbal, and English biscuits. Flashes of clean citrus and chewy minerals blend into a complex finish that is refreshingly bitter and remarkably dry. The way a pint was meant to taste. Truly spot on!"

We shall see.

Here is the tale of the tape:

Specialty Grains	0.25 lbs. Simpson's Extra Dark Crystal 0.25 lbs. Belgian Biscuit Malt
Fermentables	3.15 lbs. Pilsen Malt Syrup 1 lbs. Pilsen Dry Malt Extract 1 lbs. Priming Sugar
Boil Additions	1 oz. Fuggle (60 min) 1 oz. Kent Goldings (45 min) 1 oz. Styrian Goldings (5 min)
If you choose dry yeast	Not recommended.
If you choose liquid yeast	Wyeast #1469 West Yorkshire Ale. Optimum temperature: 64-72° F.

Whoa! A whole pound of corn sugar at the boil. This'll be gettin us fucked up!

Juniper Ale III

The third installment of our Juniper Ale series may prove to be the best yet. The basic idea for this beer is to replace the bitterness of the hops with the flavor and bitterness of the juniper berry. We dry-hopped again to strictly add hop flavor and aroma. For this recipe I used about 4 oz of berries smuggled into MN from Alabama (thanks, Walter). Prior to the boil, I mashed the berries in a bowl of vodka and let them sit for about 2 hours. The vodka (hopefully) killed any bacteria on the berries. I then drank the vodka. Damn it was good. Here is the recipe:

Specialty Grains: 1 lbs Dingemens caramel pils
Fermentables: 6 lbs Gold Malt Syrup
Wyeast 1056 American Ale
Hops: 2 oz Willamette leaf hops dry hopped into the primary.
Berries: mashed in vodka, soaked for 2 hours, bagged and tossed into the primary with the hops.

Modified English Pale Ale

Bindle-stiffs, gunslingers, comrades one and all! It has been a long time since we've posted. I think Walter K has lost his mind and has disappeared somewhere in the northwoods jungle. But, I have returned. Gone to that place where no person should go. Where time slows down and vision spreads out across the universe. Every instant last a thousand years as I peered into infinity and saw all the threads of possibilities extending infinitely forward and backward. Witnessed my own birth and the thousands upon thousands of possible deaths in the blink of an eye. I have returned to finish my Jedi Beer Training and submit the following report to the Master.

Since our last post, we discovered that our neigbor Q grows hops...yes, grows motherfucking hops! Aware of the worldwide hop shortage, he graciously offered to allow us to harvest the hops and use them for our beer. We studied for hours on the internet, learning how to harvest, prepare, and preserve the hops for use. So, one rainy day, we went out in our poncho's and picked hops for about 4 hours. Picking them involved standing about 25 feet in the air on a shaky ladder during a rainstorm (we'll at least for Walter K, but it's okay, his Dad is a hop-picker so he has some experience). After we picked the hops we put them on my sun porch to dry out. Because it was raining outside we turned on a space heater to help de-humidify the room. After 3 days they were ready. So, we used a vacuum sealer and have preserved them in air-tight plastic wraps.

There is only one problem. Our neighbor is not sure if his strain of hops is Golding or Cascade. Our impression was that the majority of the vines growing up alongside the house were Golding but that one or two of the vines growing in the alley were actually Cascade. So, we have quite a strange blend of Golding and Cascade.

We have made the first batch of beer using these hops and have basically tried to create a Modified English Pale Ale. Here's what we did:

--6 lb. Gold liquid malt extract
--1 lb. Light DME
--8 oz. Carapils, 8 oz. Caramel 60°L specialty grains

--1 oz Goldings at 60 min
--2 oz Godlings at 1 min

We also used a very similar recipe with the following modifications:

--1/2 oz Columbus at 60 min
--1 oz Amarillo at 20 min
--1 oz Amarillo at 1 min

This second recipe was taken from the Midwest Supplies. They describe this recipe like this: "The Amarillo hop is perhaps one of the more uniquely flavored varieties to emerge in recent years, and the only variety that is owned by the farmer who bred it. This pale ale showcases ingredients found in the Pacific Northwest and is a great way to get to know the refreshing flavor of the Amarillo."

Finally, we are also kooking up a Holiday Ale also from Midwest Supplies. Here is the info on this brew:

"Happy Holiday Brew: Once a year folks eat, drink and are merry. We think this is a great time to impress your friends and relatives with homemade beer. This spiced ale will make egg nog a thing of the past. Our ingredients for this recipe include: 6 lbs. Dark liquid malt extract, 3.3 lbs. Amber liquid malt extract, 8 oz. Caramel 60°L, 8 oz. Special B specialty grains, 3 oz. of hops, 1 Cinnamon Stick, 1 tsp. nutmeg, 1 tsp. ginger, yeast, priming sugar and a grain bag."

Here are the directions:

--steep crushed grains 10-30 min
--add malt extract at boil
--1 oz vanguard at 60 min
--additional holiday spices at 10 min
--1 0z cascade at 2 min
(two stage fermentation recommended)

I think we will bottle this one in December and hope for the beer to be ready by the new year.

We will post the review of our Modified English Pale tonight or tomorrow when we tap the keg.