Saturday, January 7, 2012

The brews so far

If this is going to be a "brew journal" I guess I have some catching up to do. Since October I have brewed eight beers. You would think that, at roughly two cases per batch, I would have a lot of beer sitting around. Oddly enough that is not true. The first and second brews, St. Paul Porter and American Rye Ale, have somehow disappeared.

By the way, I should mention that I get all of my beer kits, and other brewing supplies, from Northern Brewer. You'll have to Google it, since I can't find a way to hyperlink with Blogger for iPad. They are based in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I visit their original store on Grand Avenue whenever I'm in the Twin Cities (which is not too often these days). But they have a great online store and fast UPS shipping that costs less than the gas to drive to St. Paul. They also have outstanding customer service. If you like a certain microbrew, they can usually give you a recipe that will give you something very similar. But their malt extract kits are crafted so well I would be happy just brewing them and not making recipes on my own. By the way, I am not getting paid anything to say this.

The first kit I brewed since my brewing renaissance was St. Paul Porter. I love a good porter, especially in the fall. The second was American Rye Ale. I had never tried rye ale before, but I found this to be very refreshing. The grain is not 100% rye, which I guess would not be very fermentable on its own, but there is enough to give it a distinctive flavor. I would consider adding a little caraway and orange peel, to make it taste like a good rye bread.

Next, keeping with the rye theme, I brewed a rye stout. Now, I've got this love/hate thing going with stout. I enjoy one once in a while, but so many people think stout should be a sweet, dessert type beer. I prefer the dry Irish stout, with no syrupy aftertaste. I had a coffee stout once, and decided nevermore. But the rye stout is just what I enjoy. The Northern Brewer catalog describes it as "...oatmeal stout, but with an oilier mouthfeel and pumpernickel bread overtones thanks to the spicy, earthy character of rye." I am drinking the next to last bottle right now.

Belgian ales have largely been a mystery to me. There are so few of them available, especially here in the hinterlands, that I have not tried many. So when my chief procurer, aka The Hermit decided to order the Patersbier kit, I said "okay, whatever". But have I ever been disappointed with a home brew? Not yet! The NB catalog describes it as "made only from pilsner malt, hops, and yeast, the complexity that results from these simple ingredients is staggering: perfumey floral hops, ripe pear fruit, sour apple, spicy cloves, candied citrus and a slight biscuit character on the drying finish..." Yeah, my palate is not quite sophisticated enough to detect all that, but it is a beer to be savored. Two 23 ounce bottles left.

The next beer was also the last one I made before I stopped brewing for a while. I even blogged about it on Sand Creek Almanac. Back then it was known as "Three Hearted Ale", after a certain brewery's popular ale named after an Ernest Hemingway short story. I guess Northern Brewer received a letter from the attorneys representing the brewery, so they had to rename it "Dead Ringer IPA". IPA stands for India Pale Ale, a style known for it's big malt body and generous hop additions. I am a hophead, so I like IPA. Since the last time I brewed this they have added another step: dry hopping, or adding hops to the fermenter after primary fermentation. Did I mention I like hops? One case left, going to enjoy one later today.

Continuing on the hop theme, my chief procurer ordered a Lakefront IBA, one of Northern Brewer's "pro series" kits. I don't know what IBA stands for, but this another dark, smooth, full bodied but outrageously hopped ale. This one is just getting ready in the bottles, so I have been resisting the urge to open up a "taster". I have had one, and it will be worth waiting for.

Next up, and I admit to doing a bit of tasting since I bottled this a week ago, is "T-can and Bearcat's Wheaten Beatdown". How's that for a name? From the catalog: "Is it an over-bittered American wheat beer, or is it an American pale ale with too much wheat in the grist?" I don't know, but it is tasty.

Today I will be bottling my second batch of American rye ale, which leaves very few extra bottles and only one beer in the fermenter: another Belgian, Lefse Blonde. The name is a humorous tribute to the Scandinavian culture here in Minnesota. It is the only brew I have made which includes rock candy sugar as an ingredient. It sounds like it might be a good ice fishing beer, if there is still good ice in mid February. The way this winter is going, you never know. Cheers!

Monday, January 2, 2012

Welcome to my brew journal

As if I needed another blog...

Actually, this is probably the best platform I know of for keeping track of my brewing. And I have been doing quite a bit of it lately, starting in October.

Let me back track a bit. I have been home brewing, on and off, since the early '90s when it was beginning to be popular. It had been more off than on lately, especially when our shallow well quit working and we had to dig a new well and the water had a ridiculously high iron content. We now have a filter and our water is some of the best stuff around. With the good water supply, I started thinking about brewing again. It only makes sense because I love beer, I want to reduce my beer-related expenses (home brew costs about $3 less per six pack of premium stuff, like Summit or Sierra Nevada), and I don't like the idea of all those single use brown glass bottles. So this will primarily be my personal record of brewing, although if any home brewers stumble upon this site and want to start a conversation in the comments, I would welcome that!

And of course, the name. Sixteen Pound Siamese Brewery is a fun name I came up with to describe my occupation on Facebook. It is based on Frisky, my Siamese cat, who weighs...sixteen pounds. More or less. As Garrison Keillor would say, he's a good heater cat.