Fan Art

A couple photos my Uncle Matt took:

Experiments in General Chemistry

Yesterday Adam and I brewed an American amber ale. The previous time we brewed we had come up short on volume due to boil off (evaporation during the boil) and with too high of a gravity (basically too thick with sugars). We ended up topping off the fermentor with water to 5 gallons which corrected the gravity. The beer came out quite nice in the end. Too avoid this scenario we decided to collect a larger volume of sweet wort while lautering. We were shooting for seven and a half gallons of pre-boil wort as we normally collect seven gallons. We did not take in to account the fact that we would be distracted by the Rangers game on television. We ended up with eight gallons of sweet wort. It was all good though. We hit our target gravity just fine and we have a nice five gallon batch bubbling away in the brew closet.

This is, I'm sure, very exciting to my readership. Or probably not. But the story doesn't end there. We had some extra wort at the end of the boil. I decided to set some of it aside for a small experimental batch. I collected just under a half gallon in a JJ Bittings growler. I didn't have a specific plan for the brew, and actually nearly forgot about it as I was cleaning up after brew day. Plus there was this international friendly on between Argentina and the US which grabbed my attention after cleaning was complete. Eventually I remembered I had the growler chilling in the closet. I tried to come up with a quick plan for the beer. I remembered that we had some dried orange peel left over from a Belgian single we did some time ago. I dropped some of the orange peel into the growler. As I was searching for ingredients to add to the brew I found some Munton's dry yeast. It was over a year past it's best by date, but I said what the hell. I pitched a packet directly into the growler. I was just going to settle with this, but then I started to think about adding spices to ambers. The first brew that came to mind was Anchor's Christmas Ale. It is a seasonal favorite of mine. I headed over to the spice rack and grabbed some nutmeg and coriander. I scooped some of each into the beer and topped it off with an airlock. I probably should have done some research about the amount of spice to add to the beer, but I was kind of in a hurry. I probably over-spiced the hell out of it, but honestly I wasn't sure if the thing would even ferment given that the yeast was a year expired. Though,when I checked it this morning it was bubbling away. I'm excited to see how my little experiment comes out. I'm not sure how I'm going to bottle it, given it is such a small batch. Another experiment for another day.

Back with a Barleywine

Several in fact. First a note on the lack of activity on this blog. My PC was recently hacked by eastern European hackers. A lot of my personal info got out and I had to close all my bank and credit card accounts and open new ones. The hackers actually took quite a bit of money from my savings account, which investigators are still trying to get back. I ended up scrapping that PC and dropping more money then I wanted on an Imac. I'm still working on getting my finances back on track. But at least I still have some nice brews in the fridge. Like the ones pictured above.

Before Christmas I happened upon an '08 Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine at Shop Rite liquors in Westfield. I still had several '10 Bigfoots chilling in the beer cabinet so I decided to drink them back to back. I'm not the hugest fan of barleywine, but if it is done right they can be quite delish. Bigfoot is definitely my favorite of the style, but admittedly I have not had that many. Maybe 2011 can be my year of barleywines. The '10 Bigfoot had been aging for something like ten months. When I poured it, the beer still had a nice one finger off white head. The foam dissipated rather quickly but left behind some lacing. The aroma was sweet and piney, with some dark fruits and spice in there. Flavor is that of malt, spice, and fruit, with a big hop bite throughout and a dry finish. It is a medium bodied beer with light carbonation. The characteristics that define the beer are the sweet malt and the big hop bite that compliments and subdues the sweetness. The next night I drank the '08 Bigfoot. It was very similar to the '10. The first and most visual difference was that it lacked a foamy head. Beyond the difference in carbonation, the '08 was more subdued and perhaps more focused in both aroma and flavor. The hops were not as jarring in the '08. There was more malt and dark fruit flavors which is more typical of the style. Overall it was a bit smoother. I enjoyed both beers. They brought different nuances of the style to the table. The '10 had malt, but was big on hops. Hops are what distinguish the style from the olde ale style that came out of England. The '08 was smooth and malty, which are characteristics that define the style. Check out Bigfoot Barleywine if you want a big beer that has some really in your face flavors. Right now I am drinking an '11 and really enjoying it. Cheers.