You be Beethoven and other bad jokes

Last brew for a while since I'm not sure I'll be able to do much in Japan. This is the "Brewing Classic Styles" Marzen Madness recipe with some additions to clean out my malt supply. Stay tuned for my beer-related adventures from Japan.

Batch #70
I'llbe Bock
--5lbs Pils
--4lbs Munich
--3lbs Vienna
--4oz Aromatic
--2.5oz Carafa II
--2oz Hallertauer 4.6%AA (60m)
--1/2 tsp calcium chloride (mash)
--whirlfloc (5m)
--1.5L starter made from saved yeast blend from pilsner
OG: 1.062 (okay, so it's more of a marzen/vienna/oktoberfest than a bock)
FG:
ABV:
IBU: ~25

Mash in to 154F, hold for 1 hour. I batch sparged to collect just shy of 7.5 gallons wort pre-boil. Boiled for 90 minutes, chilled, pitched yeast. Fermenting in garage, so probably hovering around 50F.

Stay thirsty AND awake, my friends

Update 12/26 - Kegged yesterday, coffee added today.
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Oatmeal stout base, easy on the roast. Cold steeped coffee in secondary. Maybe the lactose is there because I enjoyed the hell out of some Surly Four last night.

Batch #69
JR Stout
--10 lbs Maris Otter
--1 lb Flaked Oats (very lightly toasted)
--0.75 lb British Black Roast Malt
--10 oz British 70/80°L
--4 oz Lactose (10m)
--2 oz Fuggles, 5.1%AA (60m)
--1/2 tsp calcium chloride (mash)
--1 tab whirlfloc (10m)
--4oz Peet's JR Reserve coffee (cold-steeped, secondary)
Safale US-05, 11.5g dry
OG: 1.065
FG: 1.016
ABV: 6.4%
IBU: ~30

Mash in around 152F. Hold for one hour. I actually probably should have mashed a little higher, but oh well. Boil 60m. Chill, pitch yeast, and ferment at 68F. Add cold-steeped coffee to secondary.

Basically, it's a 5 gallon yeast starter

Update 12/7 - Kegged. Sulfury, not picking up any esters or diacetyl.
Update 11/26 - This is a real pain. I can keep it around 58-60F in the fermentation cabinet, 50-55F outside during the day...but ambient is about 30-35F at outside at night. So, this one got a good day or so at 50 and is now hanging out at about 58. Next lager will probably just go in the garage.
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Lager season is here. Time fir the inaugural pilsner. This one courtesy of the cool dudes at MoreBeer. Their recipe kit on the house for a competition flub.

Next lager in the queue: smoked märzen.

Batch #68
German(?) Pilsner
--9lb German Pils
--8oz CaraPils
--8oz Crystal 15L
--8AAU Northern Brewer 8% (60m)
--4AAU Saaz 4%(5m)
--4AAU Saaz 4%(1m)
--whirlfloc (5m)
--soft water, 1 tsp 5.2 stabilizer in mash
--Yeast (1 vial WLP830 in 1.25 L starter, pitched to additional 2L starter with 2 vials WLP800)
OG: 1.046
FG: 1.008
ABV: 5%
IBU: ~30

Mashed 90m at 148F. Collected 7.25 gallons wort. Boiled 90m. Fermenting ~55F.

Reruns

Update 12/2 - kegged. darker than the original, more bitter. awesome.
Update 11/26 - dry hops added.
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Liked this beer so much we drained the keg and put the recipe back in the brew queue. So here we are. Minor changes: bumped up the 30m Magnum to a full ounce, gave the Carafa II 15m instead of 5 in the mash to work its color magic, and tossed in some malted oats for a little more character. I don't think we can call this an IPA anymore... I suspect it will just have too much malt character, with the color landing squarely on 'amber'.

Batch #67
Lost Harvest, version 2
10.5 lbs Maris Otter
1 lb British 50-60L
1 lb White wheat malt
8 oz Golden naked oats
6 oz Victory
2 oz Carafa II (last 15m of mash only)
1 oz Magnum, 13.1%AA (60m)
1 oz Magnum, 13.1%AA (30m)
1 oz Centennial, 9.2%AA (20m)
0.5 oz Amarillo, 8.2%AA (10m)
0.5 oz Simcoe, 12.2%AA (10m)
0.5 oz Amarillo, 8.2%AA (5m)
0.5 oz Simcoe, 12.2%AA (5m)
1oz each Cen/Ama/Sim (dry)
1/4 tsp each epsom and gypsum in mash
Safale US-05, 11.5g dry
OG: 1.061
FG: 1.013
ABV: 6.3%
IBU: ~95

Single infusion, batch sparge. Infusion temp: 152F, settled to 150F. Mash 60m. Collect 7 gallons wort. Ferment at 68F.

Beers, cars, beers

Last Saturday a couple of us ended up in Hayward, CA for the 5th Annual West Coast Barrel Aged Beer Festival at the Bistro. Long name. We got in about 11am, right on time, no lines! Forty bucks gets you 10 tastes and a (rather nice tulip) glass, $2 a sample after that. For those not familiar with barrel aged beers, one generally takes a good strong ale and puts it in a used or new barrel to concentrate the beer, oxidize it, and pick up flavors from the wood, which may or may not include whatever booze was the previous tenant of said barrel. In alphabetical order, the two of us managed to knock back a few ounces of the following monstrosities...

Ale Industries - Fysus (barleywine on Bourbon... a little brothy, if you ask me)
Avery - Rumpkin (my vote for People's Choice; 13.2% pumpkin ale on Goslings rum)
Drakes - Wyld Stallyns ("super-soured" imperial stout and ESB blend on port/merlot/Am. oak)
Drakes - Brett Butler (tripel aged in Pinot with some wild yeast)
Drakes - Kadath Decoded (80% imperial stout on French oak pinot and merlot, 20% barleywine in French oak grenache)
Fifty-Fifty - Imperial Eclipse 2010 (Four Roses Single Bbl 10yr)
Fifty-Fifty - Imperial Eclipse 2010 (Rittenhouse Rye)
Firestone Walker - 14 (Ted's vote, blend of Parabola, Xantus, and Velvet Merkin)
Firestone Walker (Nectar Ales) - Black Xantus (Heaven Hill Bourbon)
Glacier - Beam Stout (oatmeal stout on Jim Beam)
Glacier - Big Woody Barleywine (straight Virgin Czech Oak...winner 2009 and 2010 Toronado Barleywine Festival!)
Iron Springs - Oaked Winterscotch (straight medium toast american oak)
Lagunitas - Blend Saison (blend of saison 75% chard., 25% pinot, Brettanomyces and wild yeast souring)
Lagunitas - Imp. Stout w/ Raspberries (Heaven Hill Bourbon, Brettanomyces, raspberries)
Mad River - 2009 John Barleycorn (Brandy)
Port Brewing - Older Viscosity 2009 (Bourbon)
Stone - Old Guardian 2008 (aged on Cabernet/Merlot French and American oak)
Stone - 07.07.07 (2007 Vertical Epic release aged on Cab/Merlot in Fr. and Am. oak)
Valley Brewing - The End of Evil As We Know It (Collaborative Evil on Heaven Hill Bourbon)
Verhaeghe - Echt Kriekenbier (Vichtenaar Flanders red ale with cherries...delish!)

...grab some lunch at Buffalo Bill's down the street, complete with a (thankfully) small glass of their Imperial Pumpkin Ale (which was okay, but no Rumpkin, and I vastly prefer their standard strength version), and drive off around 2pm.

On the way home, our driver felt a pressing need to ogle some sparkling Italian-bred sports cars at the local Lotus lot. He did not buy one. Yet. Probably because they didn't have a baby blue Exige on hand.

Later... like, 6pm the same day, our hero finds himself back on the same damn horse. This time, at Ted's place for a 2006-present Stone Vertical Epic tasting. The 06.06.06 held up fairly well for not being properly cellared. The 07.07.07 was, disappointingly, not that different from the 07.07.07 at the festical. 08.08.08 was delightful. 09.09.09 is my favorite of those I've tasted and is still a delicious chocolate orange. 10.10.10 is the new kid, and really has some nice wine qualities.
Link for more info on Stone VE: http://www.stonebrew.com/epic/

...and then I was tired. Very tired. I did make it to work on Sunday, but not until about 5pm.

One to lay down for a while

Update 11/15 - SG 1.025. Will let it sit in primary another week or two.
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Just 3 more months in the U.S., and 36 lbs of Maris Otter. First up: big bad brown british barleywine. This is a scaled up malt bill from the MoreBeer "Malty Brown Ale" kit. That was a solid recipe, and I just want something a wee bit bigger. I'm thinking toss it in a keg and hide it for a year.

Batch #66
Multiple Brown Ale
16 lbs Maris Otter
1.5 lb Munich
.75 lb CaraVienne
.75 lb CaraPils
.75 lb Aromatic
.75 lb 60L
.375 lb Pale Chocolate
2 oz Northern Brewer, 8%AA (60m)
.875 oz Vanguard, 5%AA (60m)
2 oz Fuggles, 5.1%AA (30m)
1/2 tsp gypsum in mash
WLP007, Dry English Ale Yeast, 1L starter -> 1.5L starter
OG: 1.098
FG:
ABV:
IBU: ~55

Mash in at 152F. Collect 7 gallons of wort. The Vanguard is in there just to bump up the bittering a little. It was what I had lying around my freezer.

Autumn is Ausumn

Spooky Christmas is again almost here,
so it's time once more for our favorite beer.
Brewed with four pumpkins thrown into the mash,
we'll later add spices but, please, just a dash.
A fistful of caramel and another of chocolate,
a pound of roast malt to make a sweet stout of it.
Just enough fuggles for bittering hops,
we swear that you'll scream, 'this is the tops!'

Batch #65
Pumpkin Stout
8 lbs Maris Otter
1 lb British Roasted Barley
1 lb White Wheat Malt
6 oz British 70/80°L
4 oz British Pale Chocolate
6 lbs Pumpkin flesh (cooked, smushed)
8 oz Rice hulls
1.5 lbs Molasses (10m)
4 oz Lactose, 10m
1 oz Fuggles, 5.1%AA (60m)
1 oz Fuggles, 9.2%AA (20m)
1 tsp calcium chloride (mash)
1 tab whirlfloc (10m)
Safale US-05, 11.5g dry
OG: 1.064
FG: 1.016
ABV: 6.3%
IBU: ~25

Get up earlier than usual. Split, scrape out the seeds, and bake your pumpkins at 300F for an hour to 90m (want the skin to be a little saggy and the flesh to caramelize a bit). Pie pumpkins are best (sweet taste as opposed to just big). I had four pumpkins, weighing almost 17lbs total, to get the 6lbs of flesh (cooked weight). Once cooked, scrape out the flesh and save in a bowl for the mash.

Mashed in with 4 gal water (162F) to reach an initial infusion of 146F (difficult to calculate thanks to the pumpkin and rice hulls (pumpkin = starch, rice hulls = no stuck mash, please). Added tea kettles full of near-boiling water after 15m and 30m mash time to reach 150 and 153F, respectively. This was not my plan. I initially wanted a single infusion at 154F, but the pumpkin threw me off.

Boil 60m, adding hops and adjuncts as indicated. Cool to fermentation temp (I like 68F) and pitch yeast.