Process question. I just got comments back from a beer competition (Malt Madness) and my main flaw appeared to be lack of malt flavor/aroma. The beer was a Belgian Specialty Ale - "Cranberry Tart Saison." A strong saison aged made with America Farmhouse aged with Brett and Lacto on Cranberries/Cherries for the last three months. I received similar comments on my Black IPA, which I think a couple of you had tried in the past.

In the case of this beer (caution backdoor compliment) it didn't matter as I managed to get first out of 14 or 17 in the Belgian Specialty category. But in the case of the Black IPA it appears that the judges felt it was a big flaw. Could it be process related either Brew in a Bag or temp control? It also could have been a naming problem, I meant tart as in slightly sour, but it could have caused the judges to think of a dessert.

Unrelated, I kegged up two or three weeks ago, my Brett Trois batch and the yeast is awesome. Fruity esters without any phenols but it drys out a beer incredibly. I want to use it for a 100% Brett Porter -> something like smuttynose but with Amarillo and Brett. So chocolate and a bit of fruit. So if I have a process issue I would like to address it first.

My final extract batch, an amber ale, was bottled a couple of weeks ago and is coming along nicely. It's interesting...it turned out to not be what I wanted at all. I think I fermented hotter than I wanted which gave it some decently fruity notes. (safale us-05) It was hard for me to regulate the temperature during its fermentation, but not anymore in the future! I have a fridge with temp control now. I also pitched warmer than I wanted to which didn't help. I accidentally stirred up a bunch of yeast while bottling which is taking a while to settle out, but there is a definite yeasty note still lingering in the background. It's growing weaker with time. Finally I experimented with Centennial hops which I hadn't used before. They don't have quite as "clean" of a flavor as say Cascade does imo.

All of this contributes to this having a lot of characteristics of a strong belgian ale; it's like a light, sessionable dubbel. It's actually very good stuff. It does need at least another week in the bottles though; still pretty green.


My brother and I did our first all-grain batch on Saturday - a blonde ale. My probe thermometer broke sometime during the mash (temp held at 153 for 20 mins until that happened!) so we had to scramble to find another one. Overall I think the mash and sparge went fine. We ended up right at our target OG of 1.45. The boil went fantastic and my immersion chiller worked great. It's fermenting in the basement (68 degrees or so) until I can get the temp controller on Wednesday - then I'll probably put it in the fridge at 66. It was a very simple recipe - 8 lbs 2-row, 1 lb 10L crystal. Perle for bittering, Cascade 5min aroma. Nothing complicated for the first attempt; though, if we did anything wrong, something this light will probably not hide it. We'll see...

TLDR: I made more beer, it was fun.

I sent you a PM regarding a trade.

Have you done many 100% Brett beers? I'm 4 weeks into my 3rd batch, its a Table Saison with Brett Trois as the primary strain, in the past I used Brett C.

The beer tastes good but its not exactly what I was looking for, stone fruit aromas, fairly dry with thin-moderate body but absolutely no Brett character. With Brett C I would also get a nice Brett character that would develop over time. Not sure how Trois will develop but as of now its pretty clean.

I've done a WLP Brett C before and I got a bit more funk.

My body wasn't bad, but I had flaked oats and flaked barley in the recipe along with Rye.

I think its an interesting yeast but not a funky yeast. If I wanted funk I don't think I would use it. But I was thinking a APA, Porter, or even a bigger old ale/wee heavy might work with the yeast.

I mostly lurk, but I've had a few (Knee Deep Simtra Double IPA has an incredible aroma).

I'm kind of surprised you received a comment of not enough malt flavor/aroma in a saison. Malt isn't something I associate with that style. I can see not having enough malt to support the bitterness of an IPA though.

My most recent brews were both saisons. The first batch (I do 10 gallon batches) was the White Labs saison yeats. I split the last one using the saison blend & saison 2 yeasts. The recipe for the first batch was a bit different but I like the blend the best so far. There's a very nice fresh ground pepper aroma and flavor to it.

I'm going to be brewing in a few weeks so if anybody is in the Phoenix area & would like to check it out shoot me an PM and I'll give you the details.

I would love to trade for one or more of those DLs as well, if you're interested. I've got quite a bit of stuff, including some great barrel-aged Hair of the Dog stuff from Portland.

Just got done with a 25-day, 6,000-mile road trip with my wife. Flew to New Orleans, rented a car, drove up to D.C. and then back to Seattle. Drank a ton of great beer and brought 70+ bottles/cans home, too! (One of the reasons I wanted to fly out and drive back, rather than the other way around.)

A few beer notes:
1. Asheville, NC, is an awesome beer town. This wasn't even on our itinerary until a friend of ours in Georgia told us we should go there.
2. We missed Zombie Dust by a day at Local Option, a great beer bar in Chicago. I was pissed at that, but enjoyed the Founders All Day IPA.
3. The Goose Island pub in Wrigleyville is not to be missed. No Bourbon County around, but plenty of amazing stuff regardless.
4. We have access to great beer in Seattle, but man, seeing Founders and Bells on the shelves in the various bottle shops we went to was like being in a dream. Almost bought a mini-keg of Bells Two Hearted just because I could, but in the end, decided it would take up too much space in the trunk. That was a mistake.
5. Brit's in Minneapolis is great -- lawn bowling! And Surly Furious on tap!
6. If you're ever in Minnesota, and you're taking beer home, buy more Surly than you think you want. I bought four four-packs, and I'm disappointed I don't have more.

Goose wrigleyville is just okay IMO. It's a massive step up from what else is available in wrigleyville, but the clybourn location is the much better one. You also didn't go to either haymarket or revolution, I would've rec'd those over goose tbh

I'd gladly trade for some Adam and Adam from wood

We didn't have much time in Chicago, so Wrigleyville Goose Island was probably as good as we could do before the game. We did make it to Local Option the night we arrived, however, and I was quite impressed with that.

I've got some AFTW and can get Adam easily. What are you thinking?

I hate you so much plaster. But it's the jealous envious type of hate. Sounds like an awesome trip and an awesome wife, congrats.

Looking for advice for my buddy 's wedding in a couple weeks.

He wants a keg of something that will please the macro enthusiast without getting a keg of bud light. Maybe an easy drinking pale ale or summer beer if possible.

And he wants to get a keg for the craft beer drinkers of the wedding. I live in Boston and the wedding is in new Hampshire, so anything in that distribution area is fair game.

Any ideas?

I think the harpoon UFO hefeweizen could work well for something like that. If you can get a keg of sixpoint apollo (may be hard now as I think it's a summer brew) that would be a killer one to go with.

Yeah, I kind of lucked out. She even wants to start our own sour brewery (because, of course, her tastes run toward super-expensive sours and bourbon-barrel imperial stouts). That might be ill-advised, given that we've never brewed anything before besides coffee, but still, I can't imagine too many guys have a wife who wants to start a brewery.

In all seriousness, I can't recommend a beer road trip highly enough. We probably won't do another one this extensive, but I can certainly see us driving from Seattle to Denver or Santa Rosa for some revelry.

I agree with this 100%. Usually a beer with a prominent malt flavor/aroma is going to be balanced a bit toward the sweeter side. A saison is just about the driest beer you are ever going to find. Since a traditional saison isn't too hoppy, you might get a tiny hint of malt - but certainly not a pronounced maltiness imo. It's really the yeast profile that's going to dominate.

With a modern saision bringing hop flavor and aroma along with the yeast, it would be even less likely to have a pronounced maltiness.

I would chalk it up as a moran judge.


Someone that runs a beer store in NH recently (last week) posted that they are still selling a bunch of kegs of Sam's Summer Ale. That's usually a pretty good hit with the macro crowds while still being a nice drinking beer for those who prefer craft brews.

Sam Adams is the easy answer for the macro crowd.

Headed to Boulder IPA Fest (ran by Avery) now. Will report back later!

Just picked my second year hops and got 10 ounces of Zeus and 21 ounces of Cascade. (Wet weights.)

Was going to brew my Centennial/Citra IPA and a Mocktoberfest tomorrow, but now I'm considering a fresh hop IPA or APA instead of the C/C IPA.

My poor Centennial did not have a good year. Burned up early, didn't get enough sun later, only got moved to a good place late summer. I think I'll only get a handful of flowers out of a second year plant. Sad.

I'm going to Asheville this upcoming weekend, though, so I'm excited about that.

This was great. I've never been to a beer festival where I could pick a beer at random and the likelihood of enjoying it would be > 95%.

Avery, Boulevard, Ommegang, Cigar City, Dogfish Head, Firestone Walker, Great Divide, Left Hand, New Belgium, Odell, Oskar Blues, Port, Ska, Stone, Two Brothers, Upslope and Victory were some of the more notable breweries there. Over twice as many smaller and/or lesser known breweries as well.

Everything was some form of an IPA, a vast majority of the 120 beers were 6%+ strength and the twenty or so that I sampled (many only a few sips off gf's to try it) all ranged from good to great.

My two favorites, probably Odell IPA (hadn't had that one yet) and Avery's duganA (very sticky hoppy Chinook IPA clocking in at 8.5%).

Will definitely go again next year. Weather held pretty nice at 80 degrees and it was crowded for awhile inside, so the outdoor time ended up being great (it was 90 a few days ago and that would've sucked sitting on the pavement in the sun drinking).

Have stone six pack prices gone up a couple bucks for anyone else. Years ago I would buy the ipa for ~$12. Now as I've been going to different stores I see prices closer to $15. At that price it makes me want to cut myself. Not supporting that kind of robbery.

I

Its not too expensive, you're too cheap?

But no, really, those types of prices make me glad I can brew up 10g worth whenever I get sick of paying.

opinions on these starter homebrewing kits?

http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/the...c4a8ed6bb2d1bf

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Beer-Starter-...ht_2790wt_1139

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/BrewBuddy-Lag...#ht_500wt_1156

Those are very basic kits. Of course you can make beer but to make it a lot easier from what I can see, you'll need another fermenter or bottling bucket, sanitizer, and a big pot plus some other gadgets which make things easier.

I would also recommend not starting with a lager kit. You're going to need very cold temperature control to get something that resembles a lager. I'd personally start with a pale ale, brown ale, amber ale, they're a little easier to fool around with.

Thanks for answering. I'm going to link some more kits if you don't mind having a look a them:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Home-Brew-Ba...7396684&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Home-Brew-Ba...7396684&sr=8-6

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Home-Brew-Ba...396684&sr=8-10

Also, what is the difference between a lager and an ale kit? Is it just the ingredients?

ty

Lagers need fermentation temps in the low-mid 50F range to ferment properly. Unless you've got a spare fridge and adjustable thermostat, or care to keep a water bath at the right temperature, you'll get off flavors. Its generally easier to pick up brewing mistakes in lagers, as well. Ales can ferment from the low 60's all the way up into the 70's and 80's, depending on the yeast.

Those kits are interesting, they give you a little plastic keg to carbonate and serve instead of bottling? Are you supposed to clear out a shelf in the fridge to cool it down to serving temps, or what?