I blame El D's beer thread for the state of this one.

I hadn't homebrewed since my son was born but got the kit out last weekend for a IIPA. My next batch will likely be my entry into this year's Sam Adams Longshot competition, and I'm thinking about a coffee stout. That's one of the very few beers that SA doesn't actually brew. The thing is, I've never brewed one either.

Any tips on the cofee addition? I'm thinking cold brew and add 3-4 days into fermentation. I actually don't drink coffee either so I'm going to have to figure out what kind to buy and whether to go to a local place that roasts their own or just get some beans from the store. I don't think flavor will be super-important on the coffee part since there'll be plenty of stuff going on from the beer side.

I also have a vial of Brett brux on the stir plate right now. I brewed a Belgian dark strong a long time ago that never carbed up in the bottle. Reyeasting with dry yeast, didn't work, with an active starter didn't work, so now I'm going to try throwing some brett in and seeing if that goes. I don't know if the brett will take off since the beer is ~10% ABV, but might as well give it a shot.

Yea, El D thread is nice and active, but not so big on the homebrewing side. Way more people drink good beer than brew it though, gotta take what we can get!

Cold pressing coffee definitely seems best. Don't pick out too sweet of a blend, and especially avoid flavored coffees in my experience (vanilla yadda yadda for example).

Oakshire has an awesome espresso stout. A friend built a clone, and at 45 degrees the clone tasted better, but as the Oakshire warmed up, it just shone through and through, such an excellent beer. I think that one used Hawaiin Kona coffee, but you can probably dig around for some good coffee flavors. Coffee can vary quite a bit, so it might matter a bit more than you think.

I love your strategy for the longshot, update us with how the coffee stout comes out please.

The thing that sucks is that I'm not eligible to go to Oktoberfest in Munich. I can enter and win some minor stuff, but brewing and quality employees aren't eligible for the big prize. Since I never enter homebrew comps it's mainly just a way for me to get some outside feedback and help unload some of the stuff I brew.

Wouldn't a good local comp be comprised of better judges on average then? Rather, a lower entry comp with good BJCP certified judges, compared to something that probably gets ten thousand entries a year (longshot)? For pure feedback's sake (though maybe talking to local brewers/local high level judges would be best).

By the way, I forgot to mention one important part of that espresso stout clone. The main difference was that my friend steeped the dark grains, whereas the commercial recipe did not do that. The commercial wasn't as smooth or pleasant at a lower temp, but as it warmed up it had a lot more flavor and complexity.

Well my half of the longshot doesn't get thousands of entries, probably just a few dozen. And really I'm just too lazy to bottle off of kegs, I really have to make myself do it. Generally I'll just hand a couple bottles out to people whose palates I know if I seriously want an opinion on something.

I have been doing more bottling stuff lately though. Just the other day I dosed that Brett into a BSDA, and I'm cleaning bottles slowly but surely to get enough to bottle up the 10g of Flander's Red I've got that seems ready to go. I may do that this weekend as opposed to brew.

We could do the beer swap again though, that was fun.

I'll have stuff ready in 4-6 weeks, I'd be down for a swap.

A quad, a heady topper clone (from that giant HBT thread) and a scottish beer with belgian yeast (from a recent BA magazine recipe).

I'm going to bottle a Flanders Red today. I made 10g over a year ago, 5g with WL665 from the start, 5g with WL090 for 2-3 days then 665. The carboy with the sour blend right away I should have bottled a month or two ago. Very sour and now has a faint butyric/vomit odor. I had planned on bottling all of it, but now I don't think I want to bottle that half. I'm undecided what to do. I think I might brew another 5g of base beer and maybe pitch just a sacc yeast and blend it away 50/50.

The 5g that got WL090 to start is pretty much perfect. So on the downside I don't know what to do with the other 5g, on the upside I don't have to bottle 10g today. I hate bottling.

What category does wheat beer come into? Is it basically a lager? Lots of German Weisbier flooding the market over here in New Delhi lately. They taste purdy good.

Wheat as a malted grain is just another source of fermentable sugars, so a beer having wheat doesn't influence whether that beer is a lager or ale. That said, most beers that have a lot of wheat are ales. If there is a lot of yeast character to the beer - if it smells yeasty, clove-y, banana-y, bubblegum - it is most likely an ale. German weizens are ales.

Few things as good as a really fresh and flavorful hefe.

It's one of the styles (like amber) that I probably wouldn't reorder 9 out of 10 that I try, but that 1 out of 10 is really fine.

I recently got shipped a box of Yazoo that had a couple hef's and I was nearly stunned by how good it was. Had completely taken it for granted. I prefer banana-balanced to clove/phenol-balanced, so it's right up my alley.

Bump!

I mentioned this in the EDF thread, but I made it to the SA long shot finalists, and this was the beer! Specifically, the half that got the clean yeast for a bit first. The other half I've still got in a carboy. It had a faint whiff of vomit when I checked it so I let it ride. Big shout out to all the homebrewers in this thread for always sharing knowledge and experience.

"Faint whiff of vomit"

I think we have a name for the beer!

Congrats, glad to hear about your success. Coming out to GABF by chance?

I'll only be at GABF if my beer gets the win in the public vote.

Hop picking time!

Picking hops next weekend, doing a modified Heady Topper clone (subbing out some final hops with wet hops).

English Barleywine in gin barrel is almost ready too, another month I think. Tasting great, all sorts of fun flavors coming out.

does anyone(not particularly ppl in this thread but "people") eat hops?

Dude thats awesome. I remember this post. congrats!

guess craft beer died. still wondering if anyone eats hops? I'd think they have to be healthy

Just finished brewing up a rauchbier. Very excited for this one, smelled great. I messed up my mash calculations and left out about a third of my mash water. When I realized my error I added some in, but as it was only about 120dF, it dropped my mash temp down to the high 130s. Didn't see much way to fix it (batch sparging cooler mash tun) other than pull a decoction, so this was my first decoction brew as well. Got the mash up to 152dF with decoction and everything went well from there. Pitched yeast at 48dF and ferm is set for 50dF.

Assuming this one comes out, it's going to be my Long Shot entry this year, along with a saison that should be done fermenting and that I'm going to add brett brux to in the next couple days. Not like I can expect to win back-to-back, but it would be funny to do it with the rauchbier and explain that it was decocted, given the grief I got over the Flanders.

Bottling the brett saison today!

Nice. How did the rauch work after your improvisation?

It's carbing up in the keg, finished at 1.014 so at least no problems with attenuation. Keg sample was tasty although my wife liked it which makes me worried it's not smokey enough :/ I'm a camp fire kind of guy when it comes to smoked beer, though, so I don't 100% trust my palate on those.

"Learn to Homebrew" day is November 3, just a couple weeks out. I encourage everyone to give it a shot, it's easy!

Also, looking back at the last few posts, I've got a rauchbier coming off the pilot system at my brewery that I'm kegging next week and it's gonna be gooooooooood.