I’m looking forward to doing my second collaborative brew this coming weekend. My brew buddy BeerCruiser and I put together a big ol’ delicious Citra-hopped ‘Imperial’ Irish Red frankenbrew a few months back. It turned out great, and has been aging quite well.

For our next batch, we decided to do another big beer, this time with a nod to the seasonal festivities that are right around the corner.  We first kicked around some pumpkin ale ideas, but time kind of slipped away (and Baltimore Beer Week happened), so we ended up going with something that will hopefully be ready in time for Thanksgiving or Christmas, instead.

Smoked Cranberry Porter Ingredients

The brew that we finally settled on is going to be a Smoked Cranberry Porter. The general idea is to mix up a couple of great fall and winter holiday flavors and aromas – the smokiness of a good roast, fried turkey, or warm fireplace; the sweet, slightly tart and tangy, even citus-y flavors of homemade cranberry sauce; a hint of chocolate – with the full, warming qualities of a solid robust porter.

The grain bill will consist of roughly 48% Maris Otter, 28% Weyermann smoked malt, 5.5% each of Crystal 40, Crystal 90, and Munich malts, 4% Chocolate malt, and 3.5% Black Patent. We will be going with East Kent Golding hops at 60 minutes and flame-out, plus Willamette at 30 and 15 minutes. I’m thinking a handful of citrus rind may find its way into the mix as well.

The wort will be racked on top of a WLP013 London Ale yeast cake from the Nut Brown that I brewed a few weeks back. Following primary fermentation, the whole batch will be racked onto a pile of prepped cranberries.

Stay tuned for some brew day updates… Cheers!

While I would like to eventually try my hand at souring some beers, I figured incorporating some raspberries into a straight-forward, refreshing summertime ale would be much a better bet, for now – not to mention a hell of a lot quicker process from grain to glass than trying to go lambic. As fun as it does sound, messing around with wacky brett & pedio cultures can wait for a while as I continue to nail down the basics of solid brewing.

In any event, I figured the good old American Wheat style should lend itself pretty well to the addition of fruit. So, once again I found myself hitting up Brewing Classic Styles as my first stop in putting this recipe together. I went with a fairly simple grain bill of 45% Pale Wheat Malt, 45% American Pale, and 10% Flaked Rye. The rye addition was the only deviation from the BCS recipe. I added it in the hopes that the rye “bite” might play nicely off the tart flavor of the fruit. I went with 1oz of Ahtanum hops for bittering at 60 minutes, plus Bramling Cross hops at 10 minutes and flame-out, for a total of roughly 18 IBUs. Fermented with WLP001, California Ale yeast.

After fermenting for about a week, I prepped 24oz of frozen raspberries from Trader Joe’s by bringing them up to 165F for 15min on the stove. I then chilled them, added them to the fermenter, and racked half of the 5 gallon batch on top. I let this hang out in secondary for roughly a month before bottling. It turned out great, with just the right amount of raspberry flavor – not over the top. I’ll definitely do a full 5 gallon batch of this one next time, maybe even sour half of it.

Have you “fruited” your beers before? If so, chime on in.  I would love to hear about it – what style you used for the base recipe, how did you went about adding the fruit, etc.

1. Caribou Slobber clone - Northern Brewer clone kit
2. Honey Weizen – Williams Brewing kit + 1.5lbs clover honey
3. Palilalia IPA – “Complete Joy” recipe from Papazian
4. Mystic Lady Belgian Dubbel – first stab at building my own recipe
5. ESB #1 – one of my favorite styles, first of many more to come
6. Stars In My Witbierd – my first partial mash, with chamomile, coriander, citrus zest
7. Bell’s Two Hearted clone
8. Baby Strange Imperial Amber – based off of Jamil’s “Evil Twin”
9. Buick MacKane Busty Porter – perhaps more of a stout? ludicrously delicious
10. Big Ragin’ Belgian IIPA – Flying Dog Raging Bitch clone-ish
11. Graff – malty cider
12. Chocolate Moo’k Stout - milk stout, with cocoa and bourbon-soaked vanilla beans
13. Jackalope Belgian Pale – fermented with Unibroue yeast
14. Graff #2 – w/ cider from local MD orchard
15. Belgo-Cannucktian Imperial Stout – modified Busty Porter, with Unibroue yeast
16. Homegrown Haus Pale Ale – w/ first year Cascade & Nugget hops
17. Motueka IPA – lots of New Zealand grown hops
18. 3 Lions Clone – open-fermented w/ Oliver Ales’ Ringwood yeast strain
19. Bramling ESB – 2nd open fermentaion, 2nd ESB
20. Centennial IPA – going after a Founder’s Centennial profile
21. American Wheat – 1/2 dry-hopped w/ Bramling, 1/2 racked on raspberries
22. Saison #1 – w/ French Saison yeast, Citra, Sterling, tangerine and lemon zest

Next up… a Black IPA? Casdian Dark? American Black Ale? Reall freakin’ hoppy porter? hmmm… we shall see.

Yeah, I’m probably at least six months or so late on this whole “3D” animated gif bandwagon, but I thought this one was kind of fun anyway. And, besides, having that nausea-inducing image up there may just force me to update this thing again soon with more on my latest brews.

These are the Mount Hood hops in their second year. They barely reached halfway up the garage last season, and they ended up producing only a handful of cones. I had honestly almost written them off as a lost cause, much like the Willamette rhizome nearby that never even sent up shoots. They’re already going crazy early in the growing season this year, though. I can’t wait to see what kind of yield I get. The leaves on this bine are out of control. They already dwarf the Nuggets and Cascades growing up the pergola.

Second Year Nugget Hops Emerging

Well, it appears as though the little guys survived the winter just fine… and they’re already starting to poke their second-year shoots through the steadily warming soil. Woohoo! Time to get busy re-mulching the area this week.

I’ve also read that, once your hops are established, it’s beneficial to prune the first round of shoots each year. Supposedly this technique causes the second round of shoots to be even hardier and produce more cones.  I still have a hard time imagining cutting back my newly emerged hops, though. Does anyone have any experience with this? Recommendations?

In any event, I’m already looking forward to enjoying many a toasty summer evening relaxing under the shade of my hop-covered pergola, and a delicious homebrewed ale in hand. Cheers! And, if you see me out back, stop by and join me for a cold pint.

Jackalope Belgian Pale Ale, Graff Malty Cider, and Chocolate Moo'k Stout

I often find that there’s nothing quite like a deadline to jump-start the creative process. About a month back, we were having some neighbors over for a party, and I wanted to have some decent labels ready to slap on my homebrew bottles. Instead of stressing over coming up with the perfect concept for each label, I just decided to relax and have fun with them.

I ended up cranking out all three of these the night before our party, and I’m pretty happy with the way they turned out. The Chocolate Moo’k Stout (which is really a chocolate vanilla bourbon milk stout, technically) was probably the favorite of the night.

I mentioned earlier that our first-year hops plants ended up yielding several ounces each of Cascades and Nuggets. After harvesting these, I dried them on window screens, packaged them in air-tight bags and stored them in the freezer.

Given the pretty small yield amount, I figured that an American Pale Ale was the best way to go. I kept reading great things about EdWort’s Haus Pale Ale on the forums, and I figured my homegrown hops might be a good match for this impressively pre-approved grain bill. It also didn’t hurt that his recipe is extremely cheap (roughly $22, including yeast), so if my hops end up being unworthy, it won’t be a major loss.

It seems pretty common to lose a good amount of wort to absorption when using whole cone hops, so I decided to scale the recipe up to yield 6gallons before racking to primary. I also decided to use hop bags in the boil, to help cut down on wort-loss.

This ended up being one of my smoothest brew days so far. I had all of my equipment ready to go the night before, and I pre-measured my water volumes. This meant that I could roll out of bed, fire up a pot of coffee, and hit the burners first thing in the morning to get rolling. It turned out that my hops still smelled great, so I’m feeling pretty confident about how this one might turn out, even though I had to estimate their bittering power. I also managed to hit my target gravity almost on the nose. Overall, I felt like I was really in the zone – focused on the details of my process, but relaxed and open to the flow of the brew day.

Homegrown Haus Pale Ale
——————————————
Style: American Pale Ale
Brew Date: Tuesday, 2010.12.28
Bottled: _______
Batch Size: 6 gallons
Boil Time: 60 min
Expected IBU: ~45 (?)
Expected SRM: 5
Measured OG = 1.054
Brewhouse Efficiency = 78%
FG = ______
ABV = _____

Grain Bill
———–
8.81 lb US Pale (2 Row)
2.19 lb Vienna Malt
0.56 lb Crystal 10L

Hops Schedule
—————-
0.8 oz Nugget (Homegrown) @60 min
0.5 oz Cascade pellets [5.4 %] @30 min
0.5 oz Nugget (Homegrown) @10 min
0.9 oz Cascade (Homegrown) @5 min

Yeast
———
Danstar Nottingham dry yeast
- 1 packet, rehydrated

Mash Schedule
—————-
- dough-in with 3.75gal water at 167F
- mash temp stable at 152F for 60min
- infuse 1gal water at 178F, rest 10min, vorlauf & sparge
- collected 3.25gal wort
- infuse another 3,75gal water at 180F, rest 10min, vorlauf & sparge
- collected 7.25gal wort total, pre-boil SG=1.046

Despite these troubles, though we ended up with several ounces each of Cascades and Nuggets – much more than we honestly even expected to yield this first year. Planting the hop rhizomes from Northwest Hops also gave us the perfect excuse to build out a big pergola and lay down some pavers. It makes for a great spot to kick back with some friends and enjoy a homebrewed beer on a summer evening.

Click on any of the images below to check out a bunch more photos of the hops garden. Can’t wait to see how they come back next year.

This was the first time I attempted to ‘clone’ a specific commercial beer that I couldn’t find a ready-made clone recipe for. I started out by checking out the info provided by Flying Dog on their own site, and then hitting up the forums for some collaborative tweakage (it’s a word).

The recipe I ended up going with wasn’t entirely a Raging Bitch clone per-se, so much as a Raging-B-inspired Belgian IPA. In addition to the info provided by Flying Dog, I also drew from Brewing Classic Styles, tips from fellow homebrewers, and my own experience.  The resulting beer is actually pretty close to the Flying Dog brew in aroma and taste, but without the lingering bitterness. Color and clarity? Well, there’s some work to be done in those departments.

Adding Hops

Big Ragin’ Belgian IPA
——————————————
Style: Belgian-style Imperial IPA
Brew Date: Sunday, 2010.09.05
Bottled: 2010.10.04 (3.8oz cane sugar)
Batch Size: 6 gallons
Boil Time: 90 min
Expected IBU: 102
Expected SRM: 11
Measured OG = 1.082
Brewhouse Efficiency = 66%
FG = 1.018
ABV = 8.4%

2L Ardennes Yeast Starter

Grain Bill
———–
15.50 lb British Pale (Maris Otter)
2.00 lb Pilsner (2 Row) UK
1.50 lb Crystal 40L
1.00 lb Cara-Pils

Hops Schedule
—————-
1.00 oz Warrior [17.20 %] @60 min
0.50 oz Amarillo [7.20 %] @30 min
0.50 oz Columbus [14.40 %] @30 min
1.10 oz Columbus [14.40 %] @15 min
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [7.20 %] @15 min
0.60 oz Columbus [14.40 %] @1 min
0.60 oz Amarillo [7.20 %] @1 min
2.00 oz Amarillo [7.20 %] Dry Hop for 11 days

Yeast
———
Belgian Ardennes (Wyeast Labs #3522)
- 2L starter (2010.09.02)

Process / Notes
———————–
- Mash in with 25qt water at 170F
- Mash temp after adding grains was 150F
- 1 hour mash, then added 2gal near-boiling water to bring temp up to 165F
- 10 min rest, then recirculate & collect roughly 5.5gal wort
- Added 1.5gal near-boiling water, recirculate, collect
- Pre-boil SG = 1.065
- Fermented for 3days at 65-69F, then up to 72F for remainder

Anyway, by the time August finally rolled around, I was almost looking forward to the prospect of getting hit by multiple blizzards again. With the cold days of winter a long way off though, I figured the next best thing would be to brew up a batch of big, roasty porter to help beckon the colder seasons.

Bet you can’t guess what I named this batch after…

Buick MacKane Busty Porter
——————————————
Style: Robust Porter
Brew Date: Sunday, 2010.08.08
Bottled: 2010.09.09 (4oz corn sugar)
Batch Size: 6 gallons
Boil Time: 60 min
Expected IBU: 40.2
Expected SRM: 40
Measured OG = 1.066
FG = 1.022
ABV = 5.9%

Grain Bill
———–
10lb 12oz British Pale (Maris Otter)
1lb 5oz Muntons Light DME
12oz Chocolate Malt
8oz Crystal 60L
8oz Special B
8oz Crystal 120L
4oz Black Patent

Hops Schedule
—————-
.75oz Chinook @60min
1.0oz Willamette @15min
1.25oz Chinook @5min

Yeast
———
Wyeast Northwest Ale (1332)
- 1.5L starter

Notes
———-
- Mashed-in at 155F
- Temp dropped to 152 over 80 minute rest
- Preboil gravity reading was lower than expected, so I added 1.5lb DME at the end of the boil
- Bottling: primed with 4oz corn sugar (2.5vol @72F)