This month photo for this regular discussion thread is from my summer trip, I visited few craft brewerys and tasted local beers.
As usual share whatever brewing related - questions, recipes, successes, bad batches…
I will be away for some time (~6 months) but should be reachable. I will travel through Europe (Spain, France, Portugal, Germany,…) when I post about this in relevant community I will link it here. Keep it chill here so I don’t have to worry on road.
My last few brews turned out amazing and I am glad that I will be away and they will have time to age. Otherwise I would have drink them in few months, someone told me that ciders are best after 1-2 years of aging so finally it may get the chance to survive that long.
Edit: If you want to ask me something about my plans I posted about it on [email protected]
My last brew was a pale ale-weißbeer - hybrid and it turned out fantastic. I used Magnum and Hallertau Mittelfrüh hops and weißbeer yeast, the resulting flavour has a tinge of aniseed/licorice root in it. The IBU is somewhere near 30.
I made a 23 litre batch for Christmas and New Year’s celebrations, I should have made 2 batches. Guests shared my opinion of the quality and yearned for more ;)
I brewed a bock and some wild yeast saison last month (combined mash, separate boils). I mashed way too hot and underpitched the lager yeast so the bock is kinda stuck with way too high a FG. The saison has been slowly plugging away as the yeast is (likely) diastaticus so it should at least eventually finish…
I know some of these words
Are there any you’d like some help with in particular?
Diastaticus is a good one I want to use in meetings.
For your bock though, you’ve got a stuck fermentation, that’s not hard to at least attempt to fix. Warm it up a bit or pitch a starter and see if that works.
Just made a strong winter ale and a Grand Cru. The winter ales are freaking awesome after about a year. The Grand Cru will be good this summer.
I brewed NB’s Bud Light Lime clone over the holidays. Can’t wait to crack that one once the weather turns.
I’m looking at west coast pilsner recipes for my next brew, gotta jump on the bandwagon. I’m on the US East Coast so I can at least be on the leading edge of the bandwagon locally.
I’m going to do a second attempt at a lemon infused beer next. Last one had a single lemon in 22 L of beer and the taste didn’t come through at all. How many limes per how much beverage did you go with?
Hard cider, using Christensen’s recipe from “Brew Better Beer”. Started second ferm last night, it’s going great! Only 14 years to go. Smells like mead.
14? That’s a long time. My ciders usually last max 1 year - I brew consumables so I don’t archive them (at least for now it was my moto)
I was being facetious, we will probably drink it before this spring. :)
Violet infused mead
I did a lavender infused mead last year, it isnt bad but it needs to age a while longer I think. Was my first mead.
Mead is great you just gotta forget that you have it hidden somewhere
This is truth
I’m curious about your process. Share more please?
I picked a bunch of violets and stuck em in a bunch of honey for almost a year and now that’s brewing in my basement. If it doesn’t taste enough like violets when it’s done I’m going to back sweeten it with violet syrup in the spring.
The off gassing of the primary ferment will blow off the aromatic top notes of the violets. I suspect you’ll want to back sweeten and/or ‘dry hop’ with violets in the secondary. I might have to try something like that. TY!
This is what I did - primary then mashed in blackberries and lavender in the secondary and let it sit a long while. Added potassium sorbate,added more honey and bottled. My first mead batch, it was pretty harsh but has mellowed some, I’m just gonna leave it for a few years.
Curious about “harsh”? Time has a way of making a decent product into a great product. Time + Dark + Cool (50-60F), that is.
Very dry and a little acidic. It isnt particularly cool here but is dark.
I see. You may not have ‘back sweetened’ enough to soften that harshness. Not bad for a first batch o’ mead. Brew On!
I did a lazy ginger beer over Christmas, but I wanted it vegan and it didn’t clear in time through an extended cold crash. I put it in a plastic keg with CO2 shortly after Christmas, but I was worried about the haziness so I didn’t share it for New Years either.
I used quite a lot of sugar and it fermented dry, but I didn’t bother checking the OG, so I have no idea how strong it is (though I’d guess it’s 6% or so).
End result: while most people I know are attempting Dry January, I’m drinking a lot of ginger beer.
It is the taste that counts!
There is one simple solution for hazy brews - don’t use glass mugs. But to be fair I completely get it. I usually don’t aim at clear brews because I know that it is finicky, enzymes, cold crash, long aging… it needs some technique and I usually don’t worry about that.
Yeah, I can’t get hung up on haze, got too much life to live.
Sounds cool, but isn’t all beer vegan?
I’d argue that with all that exploitation of single cell life forms, no beer could ever be vegan.
veganism opposes exploitation of animals.
Guinness isn’t (or didn’t use to be - not sure now tbf). They used isinglass - fish bladder - to clarify the brew.
Ah! Today, I learned! Thanks!
I’ve got a dark cherry melomel bulk aging. And a cider hardening up. The cider is a small batch, a friend handed me in the container. I’ve been feeding his interest in brewing, and so I couldn’t say no when he offered me 1.5 gallon. I improvised an airlock on the container he gave it to me in. He’d been opening containers to release pressure manually. LoL. It’s a wild yeast, which he was trying to control by controlling temperature. I’m a little concerned that there may be some mold/bacterial contamination from it’s slow start. I tasted a small amount and it was a bit ‘plasticky’ tasting. I prolly should have put it in a glass or stainless fermenter when I first got it, and pitched a stronger yeast. We’ll see how it goes. It’s all an experiment. And I didn’t get around to pressing any cider this year. In '23 it seemed like I was the cider king, and everyone was asking me to help with a batch. In '24 the apples around town didn’t do as well. Brew on!
Brew on.
