all you ever wanted to know from Ambiguously Disgruntled Brewery... and More

 
ok so back to the beer... I have undertaken another beer. I deiced to make a pilsner. Now, why a pilsner in the winter? Well, I have had numerous requests for a lighter beer from my family. So I figured to give it a try. But, the weather messed with me a bit. I had to have the burner on full blast to overcome the wind. I wanted about 5.5 gal and it came down to about 4 because the boil was more vigorous then normal. That extra reduction combined with the large amount of grain gave me a final product with a potential al (by volume) of 11 percent. This will NOT be a pilsner.
The reason for the name of redemption? Well the last few beers I have created had a unique flavor characteristic that I didn't like. There wasn't much about the batches that were similar. There are really only two possibilities; either it is how I am dealing with the sugars for bottle conditioning, or it is a overheated mash. My personal guess is the mash temp. I made a big effort when mashing to start low, I started the mash 40 degrees lower then I have before. It became a step mash.... So in a bit I will see how it goes…

posted by g s at 19:19

 
well it has been a while. we are currently in the middle of really pushing out a lot of beer. Two batches fo the winter warmer, a batch of the skulltwister, and the punkin beer. I am somewhat disapointed with the old twister, the smoked malt came out too strong and it isn't malty enough. (in flavor or in %) It will mellow to a nice amber though. The fusterclucked beer is really starting to taste better. It still has a strange funk that the JPA also shared but the ageing has helped. quite a bit.
posted by g s at 15:31

 
Okay, so here it is, the Last day of April, and we are Really ramping up for our warm-weather beer production.

For starters, I, with Rich's approval, have decided to name Greg's "something different" beer mentioned below "Clusterfuck Ale," or, in a a more PG-version, "Clusterfcuk Ale." Greg may or may not approve of this name.

Tomorrow is the Official debut of Honey Blonde, or at least the 2003 all-grain version. I can hardly wait to try it.. literally, as I might crack open one of the "fart juice" bottles for a taste tonight.

Last weekend, I brewed up some as yet unnamed Belgian Style "Witbier" with sort of an abbey-beer style cross. I was inspired by Elysian's Golden Gorgon Ale. Most Belgian Witbiers are about 1.048 SG, with some sort of spice (coriander is common) and orange peels common, and I certainly did this, although the orange peels won't be added until the racking in about a week. However, my gravity was a bit stronger, at a 1.056, which doesn't crank it up into the Belgian Trappist style category (you may or may not be familiar with Dubbels and Trippels, which are beers traditionally brewed by Belgian Monks), but I also did something which is common amongst these so-called Abbey ales, I added belgian candi sugar.

Confused? Well, I'm still trying to figure out what the different Belgian styles are all about as well. For instance, I know that Grand Cru is a general decription that could refer to most anything, as long as it is strong and sweet. Most Belgian styles are Strong and sweet, with Trippels ranging up to 10% ABV. Don't expect this out of my Witbier, but expect some that more "mainstream" beer drinkings may be resistant to at first. I'm beginning to think Belgian styles are a bit of an "acquired taste," although I seem to be really enjoying them as I try more.

So, other than that, we had some of Greg's B-day Bock over the weekend, and other than the fact that it was somewhat flat (not Completely flat mind you) -- something I hope is rectified with longer bottle conditioning -- it was pretty, well, "bock-y." That is to say dark amber colored, malty, somewhat sweet, and smooth. Good stuff for a spring beer.
posted by Jake Reeder at 18:17

 
Ok, so last night I had a new experience. DEAD yeast. It was a very sad thing actually. I could give the long details, and some would say that a blog is the appropriate place for long boring details, but, I will not. Suffice to say, I put the yeast into my ‘something different’ on Monday and it hadn’t started going by Tuesday night. This can be potentially dangerous; the yeast keeps the other bad bacteria away. In any case, I decided to steal a bit of yeast from another batch of beer that was very active. It worked quite well. ‘something different’ is now happily burbling away. The brewmaster over at the Elysian was speaking of how he will use yeast up to 40 batches. It surprised me that they will let the yeast run so many batches. The brewmaster mentioned that after 30 batches the yeast really starts getting going well. I guess that if you make a lot of the same type of beer then after that many generations the yeast has acclimated to that specific type of beer. It is really a great example of evolution. So much can be learned from beer.
posted by g s at 15:03

 
I should probably write something here, seeing as how it has:
a) been a month, and
b) we've been making a lot of beer

First, I'll bring you up to date, since in the last message I had just brewed Piss Free, bottled the Dunkelweizen, and hadn't yet tried the Official Spring Beer, Hop On Jake, which happened to be our first all-grain project...

For starters, the Dunkelweizen, with its "new" method of bottle conditioning, was just a Bit foamy, which made for some adventurous drinking experience for "three-oh minus two." Next time, maybe a tad less wort to prime it... but it was pretty good beer, I just wish I had more then 1 bottle left! (we really worked through that stuff up there!)

Hop On Jake is a bit rough around the edges, as I think our mashing temps were a bit too high, and we didn't sparge ennough water through, but that isn't to say it isn't Quite tasty and that it hasn't been Wildly popular. Definitely one of our Signature beers.

We had a bit of a lull in any sort of production around here until last Wednesday, when I bottled my Brutal Bock, Greg's birthday beer. It isn't as dark as I was hoping, but my taste at bottling led me to believe that it should be good enough, if not as strong as I wanted.

The next day, Greg made up some "JPA" for his school's end-of-year party. Essentially, its a dry-hopped Pale Ale.

Saturday I brewed Honey Raspberry Wheat, with a couple of slight alterations from last year's recipe (aside from the obvious switch to all-grain from our old partial-mash extract methods). For starters, no fruit directly in the carboy, so in that regards it should be more like the batch I made for the Jonneke wedding, a different yeast, a Mt Hood hops. I used blackberry honey, so it promises to be a very "fruity" beer.

In the process of doing that, I bottled the Blonde Ale, which should be around for the first of May. It is very light -- blonde colored, as a matter of fact, but has quite the body -- as any decent blonde should -- ringing at 6.4% ABV!

Today, Greg made up a batch of, ummm... I'm not sure what it is. Superficially it resembled his "JPA," with some different hops, except for the fact he threw in two pounds of wheat malt, to bring the grist up to a whopping 15.5 pounds! He's still working on it as I type this, but it should be almost barley-wine strength. I think in some alternate multiverse Greg and Rich were thinking of some sort of weizen beer...? All this because Greg found himself with an extra tube of yeast.

What's coming up:
Beyond bottling all the stuff currently brewing... I have no idea. Keep i mind, that starting in Mid-May last year, the Brewery was completely comsumed in producing the beer for the Jonneke wedding, so I don;t have many precedent's from last summer to follow.

I'm sure I'll make Barley Wine again -- this time far different -- which will age until October. I'm sure Ryu will want to give the Pineapple Island Ale another go, set to be out in time for his early August birthday. Other than that... I'm thinking of trying my hand at some some of Belgian style -- I just think that would be good for Summer drinking.

Here's what will be drinkable soon:
Greg's Brutal Bock: Apr 26
Honey Blonde: May 1st
Piss Free Pilsner: Memorial Day Weekend
Pineapple Lambic (you didn't foget about that, did you?!): sometime in May or June.

posted by Jake Reeder at 21:51

 
The "all-grain" brewing of more of last year's favorites continues... Saturday I brewed the 2003 edition of Piss Free Pilsner.

Also, last night the Dunkelweizen, the official beer of 30-2, was bottled. This represented our first attempt at the art of krausening, which keeps with the tradition German beer purity law Reinheitsgebot -- appropriate considering this is a Bavarian-inspired brew. Anyway, this just mean that some of the unfermented wort, in this case 2 quarts, were saved and refrigerated, then added back to the beer before bottling. This is in lieu of the usual 3/4 cup of bottling sugar, and both methods are designed to "reactivate" some of the yeast left in the beer, so that it becomes carbonated. We'll have to wait and see how this turns out!

Beyond that, we are but two days away from the Official release of our Official Spring beer, Hop On Jake.

posted by Jake Reeder at 16:59

 
Here's a quick rundown on what I've been doing lately:

Last Weekend I decided to make some beer for Greg's birthday (Apr 28) and after much hemming and hawing over trying to come up with something unique, I just decided to make a Bock. Despite many intentions, we've never made a bock before, particularly after our grandiose visions of making the world's strongest doppelbock were crushed by Reality (very long, very cold fermentations are needed for doppelbock -- you essentially need a refrigerated fermentor). Bock, if you don't know, is a German style of lager. When most people thing of "lager" they think of "pilsner," which in most of its massed-produced manifestations is essentially piss-water. As far as bock, think of a dark, rich amber or nut-brown, with relatively high gravity (mine has a 1.061 O.G.). The tentative working title is Greg's Brutal Birthday Bock.

This Weekend, aka Yesterday, we brewed our all-grain, 2003 version of Honey Blonde. Although the same in theory and inspiration as last year's, this version should be notably different. In the midst of that task, we bottled Hop On Jake, which was our first all-grain effort back in January. It was one of most popular varities in the last year, and this year's will be just as strong (6.5% ABV) and Hop-or-ific!
posted by Jake Reeder at 17:37