Don't try this at home!

Brown Ale.

I wanted to make something with brown malt...something historic-ish. Something like those porters were actually drinking way back when.

The guy from Thomas Fawcett cautioned me that a couple pounds of brown malt would be plenty.  You'd think a guy would listen to the maltster, wouldn't you?






Mash @ 152

• 1 T Gypsum
• 3 # Brown Malt
• 3 # Munich
• 3 # 6 row (to convert the brown)
• 1 # aromatic
• 1 # 40L crystal

Boil

• 0.5 oz Calypso - first wort
• 0.5 oz Calypso - 15 min

Cool and pitch 1 sachet hydrated SafAle S-04
OG 1.070
FG 1.015

Now THIS is a damned serious beer. It's like a rip-your-face-off porter / stout thing...

You know how a triple IPA slams you with hops? Well this is the same concept but slamming you with malt. Brown malt.

my first saison...

This was THREE MONTHS in the primary!!

But now I know where that apricot flavor in Magic Hat 9 comes from

• 5# Rye Malt
• 5# Red Wheat
• 5# Golden Promise
• 0.5 oz Simcoe, first wort
• Wyeast 3724

• OG 1.067 
• FG  1.010
• 7.6% ABV

Started in June, finished in November... I kept reading that this yeast would stall but to just be patient...

It never actually stalled...just slowed incredibly to where it was dropping 1 gravity point a week or so.

First month or so of fermentation was between 80 and 82 F

But it's really nice.  Has that full apricot nose and flavor that you get from Magic Hat...

When I do it again, I might change out the rye...that's the one oddity...rye...apricot...hmmm.

On the other hand, you can taste each of the flavors distinctly...apricot and rye...

Fun.

BrewDay - 2013 - get started!

23 Feb 2013 -> next BrewDay.

This years game -> Calypso Hops.
Make a recipe using

• Single base malt, your choice.
• Calypso hops (only)
• Yeast, your choice
• No more than 2 specialty grains

Bring it to BrewDay to share and sample.

See you there.

Head Demagnitizer - a session mead

A very nice session mead.  Dry hopped with cinnamon bark and orange zest.

I was originally going to call it "grandpa's love potion"....seemed like a nice name...so I went to start the label.

I thought I'd find myself a nice not-quite-naked grandpa centerfold picture and use it as the backdrop for the label.  Kind of like that old Burt Reynolds centerfold (for those of you old enough or pop culturally aware enough to remember that)...so a nice gray haired, pot bellied Grandpa....towel carefully draped over any offense parts...

Seemed like a gag kind of label for a nice summer session mead...something at the lake...hot summer day, cold sparkling mead, laughing and fishing...that kind of thing.

So I put "naked grandpa" into google's image search.

Don't do that.

If there's one takeaway here, it's that you never, ever, ever want to put 'naked grandpa' into a safe-search-off image search.

Before the images could even finish loading on the first screen, the only thing I could think of was that i could never un-see some of these things...I needed a head demagnitizer for what's between my ears.

So there you have it.  A nice mead, I would make the mead again any time...but I will never, ever, ever go searching for images of naked grandpas.

Burning Mead

A nice session mead. 

Really, really bare bones recipe, honey, water, energizer, yeast (D47)....but then dry hopped with two LARGE roasted jalapenos.

All the heat is in the back of your throat, the roasted jalapeno taste is very subdued.

But there's enough heat that you want to take another sip, right quick.  Not burning hot...just a nice smooth back-of-the-throat heat.

Just enough priming sugar to make it sparkling, no aging required.

I would do this again.

Its not beer

Its not even alcoholic.

But it IS fermented.  Hoosier vegetarian rootcrop kimchi.

Napa Cabbage, radishes, turnips, onions, ginger.  Naturally fermented for a week and then canned.  No fish paste...no, no. no. 

I DO usually cheat, just a bit, and add some vinegar near the end of fermentation....but just a tiny splash.

Yum.

Some things are just uncalled for...

They're so wrong, so misguided, that you don't even know where to start.

There I was, minding my own business, and I clicked a link to read a beer review of Upland's Double IPA.

 (image lifted from Upland's website and used without permission!)

And I got slammed with a virus.  Internet Security 2012.

Now I'm a trained professional....I did all those things you have to do and the virus is gone and the pc is intact, etc. etc.

But a virus?  On a beer review?  Of an Indiana beer?  A GOOD beer? That's just wrong.

What type of scurvy b*st*rd would load a virus on a beer review page?

Twisted.