mumbling

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!

It’s been just under a year and a half now, since I first tossed some malt, hops, water, and yeast together and called it a beer. I haven’t been terribly good at keeping a running log of my brews on here, so I figure it’s about time to take a look back and see where I’ve been. All in all, I’ve brewed a total of 22 batches so far, learned a hell of a lot, made some pretty tasty beers (if I may be so modest), and had a fantastic time with it all. Here’s the rundown:

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.

For at least the better part of the past decade, I’ve been telling everybody in earshot about how much I’d love to start brewing my own beer. There always seemed to be some kind of well thought out “reason” not to start my home brewery – not enough space, not enough cash for equipment, not enough time, etc.

Well, this past week, I finally squelched those evil thoughts, and decided to jump on in. After picking up Papazian’s Complete Joy of Homebrewing a little while back, doing ridiculous amounts of research on the internet, and thanks to my wife’s exasperated nudges, I finally went ahead and ordered some starter brewing equipment through Northern Brewer and Austin Homebrew.

I feel like I still have a lot of prep work left to do, but I can’t wait to get started. I’ll be using this site to document my journey into homebrewing, and I will, of course, also be rambling on and on about random beer-related topics.  Stay tuned.

Cheers!