Whoops, wrote this yesterday but got busy, so I’m posting it now. The present tense… that’s yesterday afternoon’s present tense. The souring didn’t happen, and the thermos didn’t seem to hold in the heat enough, so I’m going to try warm up the mash again to 50, and then sit it on a hot pad. That means today I’ll brew the Abbey Dubbel, and tomorrow the all-Brett. UPDATE: Uh, what? I assumed it hadn’t soured, because it didn’t smell sour, but in fact, it was very nicely tart when I just tasted it. So, all-Brett is on for today, while …
Category: BEER & HOMEBREWING
More Books on Belgian Beer (and More)
I mentioned reading Jeff Sparrow’s Wild Brews a while back, and noted that I wanted to read about the other Belgian styles of beer, covered in other books in the same series. Well, I wish I’d gotten to them sooner, but I have finally gotten to Stan Hieronymous’ famous Brew Like a Monk: Trappist, Abbey, and Strong Belgian Ales and How to Brew Them, and Phil Markowski’s Farmhouse Ales: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition. Both books are really good, though the latter is slimmer than the former. I don’t have a great deal to say about them, in part …
Homebrew Beer Bottle Labels
I’ve done up some labels for a few of the beers I have fermenting/conditioning now. I was lazy for the first few batches I brewed, but I want to make ’em pretty, especially the ones I’m bringing to the Brew-Off Festival in November, or giving away to friends. Writing a letter in marker on the swing-top-lid just isn’t cutting it anymore for me. They’re test trials, really, the labels I’ve done up thus far: I haven’t printed them up and have no idea how they will actually look on the bottles. But it’s a start. I figure once I find …
Brewday: Abbey Wheat
Today is another brewday. I don’t tend to brew during the week, but I wanted to get this going before leaving on a short trip this weekend. I am basing my recipe on the Abbey Weiss by Jon Sharp, posted here (and it really does look delicious there, and beautiful… I can only aspire to something as gorgeous as the beer in his picture). The two changes I went with were to include about 250 grams of Quaker Instant Oats, and first wort hopping. (I also considered using a Chrysanthemum tea instead of Chamomile, since I’d like to see how …
Biere D’Enfer
A long time ago, I was in a hurry to use up one of my beer kits, eager to go to all-grain. So I made a pilsner, pitched the yeast, and nothing happened. The record of my panic is here, but I’ll save this post for talking about what happened next. Which was, I was kind of disappointed by the beer when I tasted it a few times–it felt more than creamy, and I wondered if there was something diacetylic about the odd mouthfeel–so I left it over the summer. Didn’t think about it, didn’t look at it. I had …
Brewday: Wonmisan Tan Belgian Pale
Another day, another brew. This is an attempt at a slightly-beyond-style Belgian Pale: the alcohol is a bit higher than the style specifies, in order to take advantage of the characteristics of the yeast cake I’ve got ready for it. I could call it a Wonmisan Tan’n’Heavy Belgian Pale, but I don’t want the name to be too long. Another thing I’m doing differently here is the hops. Since the Belgian Abbey II yeast won’t be doing much in the sense of estery flavors, I’m doing a slightly crazy late-hopping experiment (or what some call “hopbursting”). The thing is, when …
Saisons: Belgian Beer and Global Warming
Homebrewing has bloomed again to the level of an obsession. I have a couple of books coming my way which elucidate the secrets of the Belgians–Stan Hieronymous’s book on Trappist Monk brewing, and another on Farmhouse Ales. But something dawned on me quite a while ago, which I recently worked into the plot synopsis for a novel I am hoping to write soon. One (small) part of the book has to do with Belgian brewing and how global warming will affect it. You see, Belgian brewing is, more than many other sorts of brewing, quite closely linked to the landscape. …
Belgian Brewday: On a Jag Abbey Dubbel Quad (Version 1)
Update (27/9/2010, 29/9/2010): Notes on fermentation appended after the end of this post. Original Post (26/9/2010): Yeah, you knew this was coming. I have a few reviews to post, of Delerium Tremens and a bottle of Old Peculier that my friend Mark brought over for us, as well as a bottle of framboise by Mort Subite that Nick brought over back in February and which I saved, somehow, until a week ago, but today, my beer-related post is a recipe log for a brewday! (Whew, it’s nice to be back at it. I get a weird itch in my mind …
The Taste of Melbourne: Beers Part 2 (BBCE)
The remainder of these beers, I tried at the Belgian Beer Cafe Eureka, which I highly recommend to anyone in the Melbourne area. The first three are from the first visit, the rest from the second. All of these were bottle beers except the Kriek. Visit 1: Silly Saison: This was the beer I started with on the first trip to Eureka. I wanted to get a better handle on this style, since I will be trying to make one sometime soon, but I still feel like I don’t quite know exactly what a saison is supposed to be like, beyond …
The Taste of Melbourne: Beers Part 1 (Around Town)
Well, actually, I could rant about the horror of the meatpie I had at the Aussie Rules football game we went to, but instead I’m going to talk about beer. I had a lot of different beers in Melbourne this week, and many of them are worth talking about: Carlton Draft: This was plain old terrible stadium lager. Pass it, or pass out. I had one cup and shuddered at the idea of drinking more, but it was the stuff that everyone at the football game was having. Apple Cider — Bulmer’s? Mangan?: I’m not sure which brands I tried, …