right now, ****, FW has been killing it for me for a while. They ****ing rock

Breakfast Stout on tap is so elite

Sad news about Bell's Cherry Stout I read the other day. I know this beer isnt super popular but its one of my favorites.



http://http://bellsbeer.com/blog/132-Early_spring_weather_affects_Bell___s_Cherry_Stout _production_for_2012

Haha, yeah well being on the East side, I haven't had the pleasure for quite as long. I'm seeing it a lot more lately in NY, which is great.

This too. Get me some eggs n bacon.

ahh that sucks.

Weather really ****ed everything up with the apple and cherry crop here.

the cherry shortage in door county also makes me wonder if new glarus is going to have to cut back on the belgian red (god I hope not)

I was hoping to do a cider this year, but the apple crop might put an end to that.

I brewed a Rye Porter last weekend. I'm aging an oak spiral in some Rye Whiskey. The fermentation seamed less vigarous then usual. My thermometer crapped out, so used a kitchen one. Hopefully temps were ok. Recipe had a lot of crystal malts in it as it was based off a smuttynose robust porter recipe. So hopefully it wasn't too hot.

Still trying to decide on my next brew.

Thinking either:
- A Dark Flanders Redish beer (there was a recipe from Breis in BYO recently)
or
- A best bitter based off the 80 pale 10% crystal 10% adjuct, but I have a ton of hops to use. So a pale ale/IPA maybe a better choice.

I have heard it is going on hiatus for awhile later this fall, but dont have a link to back that rumor up.

I wouldn't be surprised. The cherry crops in door county are down like 75-80% on what they normally are (or at least that was what I was told by friends who were up there in late july).

Union Jack is my go to 6 pack for casual drinking. That brewery does a lot of things well.

Is the bruery love child 2 worth the $$? Anyone got opinions?

Recipe is basically the Vinnie-posted one, with a small adjustment for what I had on hand.

Batch is for 11g at knockout, even though I didn't get there due to kettle limits. I'm pretty sure this is the brew that pushed me to say, "**** it," and get a 20g boil kettle.

All Grain
17lb Pale Ale malt
8.75lb Pils malt
1.25lb C40
1.25lb Cara Pils
1.33lb Pils DME
1.5lb sugar

60m mash, 90m boil
Pre-boil gravity 1.049, KO gravity 1.071
Water/grain was 1.25q/lb
Aimed for 150F mash in, hit 152
4g gypsum addition for mash and boil
As a matter of course I batch sparge with two water additions, so my first runnings were 7g, added 4g of sparge water for second runnings and 4g for third runnings.

I collected 15g total in my 15g kettle at 1.049, spot on for a 1.049 pre-boil gravity not including sugar or DME. Hop additions were:
7oz Columbus @ 90m
1.5oz Columbus @45m
2oz Simcoe @30m
5oz Simcoe@0m
2oz Centennial @0m

1oz each Colombus/Simcoe/Centennial for dryhop

I knocked out 10g of 1.071 wort at 65F into two carboys. One got 250mL of WY1026 from a batch I brewed a couple weeks before, one got 13g rehydrated US05. Both got 90s of pure O2. Both were kegged a little under 3 weeks later at a FG of 1.010 and dryhopped then. At 10 days out I took a sample which was at 1.014 and intensely bitter with citrus and pine.

I planned that brew around a trip I took to San Fran in early July. I brought back a couple bottles of Pliny, and brought those and some of the homebrew to the brewery for an IPA/IIPA tasting we had planned. Like I said, it was absolutely dead-on. I don't know if I can catch lightning in a bottle twice, but those are my hand-written notes, and I'm going to follow them almost to the letter tomorrow. The only changes I'm going to make are:

Enough base grain to leave out the DME. I've got pale malt and I've got pils malt, no need for dried extract.

Knock out enough to ferment a full 11g. I've got a boil kettle big enough for it this time around, no way I'm going to get less than 10g kegged. On my rig I generally need an extra 1/2g for every 5oz of leaf hops in the recipe, so tonight I'm going to sit down, take inventory, and figure out how much I need to run off to get kettle full, and then how much grain I need to run off that much and hit 1.071.

Again, this was basically the recipe Vinnie shared with the world, modified for my system and ingredients. It came out perfect, the best beer I'd ever brewed. As Stephen King would say, for anything I got right, credit Vinnie, and for any mistakes, blame me. His recipe can be found lots of places, but here's a pdf link anyways. Also, Jamil Zainasheff has written somewhere or other that once your calculated IBUs go into the stratosphere, it doesn't matter what they are, and how the hop varietals and their essential oil makeups interplay matter much more than what AA those varietals happen to be. That makes intuitive sense to me, so I didn't bother noting what AA% any of those hops were.

Also, can't wait for harvest this year, because I'm going to buy two pounds of Simcoe and just stick it in the freezer. That'll give me four brews of this beer, and then I won't have to worry about wanting it next summer but not having the hops.

Boulevard actually makes the Love Child #2 and I thought it was really good. If you love sours, I would give it a go. It wasnt overly sour though and I didnt get any bourbon notes, so if thats your thing you may be disappointed. It was ~$19 around here, but I enjoyed it enough that I went back and got a second bottle.

I saw it for the same price around me. Not sure what made me say bruery over boulevard. I buy boulevard over bruery stuff 90% of the time. I do enjoy sours, I love the feeling of enamel being taken off my teeth from a beer.

I thought wet hopped ales should be out by now but I haven't been ablel to find any. Anyone know ETAs?

Next few weeks Id say. Cant wait for the Founder's wet hopped Harvest Ale.

Awesome. Yeh founders wet hopped was my favorite that I've tried and I didn't come across any last year so I wanted to be on it this year so I didn't miss out again.

Mini review from the weekend. We got sidetracked/too hungover, so we only got to try two bottles, but they were delicious.

Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout was fantastic. This bottle was a little old, so the coffee didn't really pop, but it was sweet and had a really nice roastiness behind it. The bourbon was so perfectly melded into the background that I loved this beer.

New Glarus Wisconsin Belgian Red was interesting. This was my second fruited New Glarus beer and I'm not sure what to think about them. It really is liquid cherries, so I guess that's good. But honestly, the mouthfeel is just odd to me. Too syrupy and thick feeling and undercarbonated. I'm glad I tried it, but 1/3 of a 750mL was enough for me.

Anybody else excited for Sierra Nevada Celebration? I think this is by far my favorite seasonal. Just a fantastic beer.

Truth spoken here!

I'm very excited for Celebration, it is one of my go to beers when it's out. I love buying a case or two and just cracking them open with friends while playing games, catching up since it's winter break, etc...Weird how I have vivid memories from last year about it, night before my wedding me and a bunch of my friends sat around a fire outside just shooting the **** and drinking them. Awesome times.

I'm also excited to try Narwhal whenever I can find it.

If you live in New England: Buy it. Drink it.

It's like a mix of Nugget Nectar & a good saison. Terrific.

I am VERY excited for Narwhal as well as BA Bigfoot when that hits next cycle. SN just keeps on doing its thing, making solid, approachable, affordable beers, I really like them.

Yeh they are pretty great. Torpedo is far from my favorite IPA but I really enjoy it and it has been on sale for 14 bucks a 12 pack around here lately so I've been keeping the fridge stocked. Pretty ridiculous for a decent and somewhat hi grav beer.

Been busy building a deck/patio/bathroom, but have been brewing lately and am about to knock out 11g of mild using those EKGs for the first time. Smelled great in the bag, smelled better in the wort, I'll let you know how it comes out in a couple weeks. Thanks again!

Anybody have Saison experience? I want to brew up 5 gallons, but I currently don't have a chest to ferment it in, so I'd be fermenting at room temp (~74). I know some of the saison yeasts actually do well at higher temps, but is that only at the end when you let it free rise to drop the FG? Also, anybody have good recipes?