At work I have some Brown Ale that sat on some lambic blend for 3-5 months, as well as a few gallons of a MAPLE SYRUP ESB experiment with CRJ, and here at home I have some 7 gallons of unpalletable spontaneous ferment garbage that is 1.5 years old and needs to be dumped.  There is no salvaging that.

On the good side, 3 gallons of what originally was Aksarben’s first and only sour beer, “funky brown” – fermented with my own cultures of Brett, and AK house Lacto/pedio from the taps and beer drip bucket.  It is two years old+ and is very nice, possibly a bit one sided, and could benefit from some oak.  Also, a pellicle is forming over the Roselare Porter made last fall.  I will bottle it at the next oppertunity.  Also, Modern Monk’s Tripel project is due to Bottle.

Still, another summer without brewing beers that NEEDED to be brewed.

Sad.

On the work front, I sat in on a “double” which is about a 12hr work day, yeilding some 900-950 gallons of wort.

Bottling is still picking up and Co-worker Jeremiah bottled a record number 530+ cases in one day last thursday.

I picked up a 10,000 brew aniversary beer by rogue for 5.99 thanks to the Cashier. I am looking forward to trying that beer.

Goose Island IPA on tap at Bill’s 50th b-day party was fab.  I spent quite a bit of time smelling the wonderful floral earthy hoppy notes coming from the last swallow of IPA in my cup.  The breeze was perfect and the oxidizing hop aromas were KILLER!

I “homebrewed” a pils test batch using wyeast’s munich lager, two row , a bit of corn and  some Challenger hops.  It fermented warm, and had some banana notes to it, but they faded over time.   Very “drinkable” beer.

That’s all for now.

It’s very difficult to now though, even my brewing at home is far less frequent.

But, a friend and I did brew and ESB, but we split the wort before the  boil so we could try different hops and yeast/ ferment temps etc.

His beer is wonderful. Great Fuggles  nose from dry hop and late kettle additions and a nice soft, not an aggressive burton on trent type mouthfeel.  Medium to medium light body.

I either dry hopped too long, or with too much because at this point, my beer is rough.

Jury’s still out.

On the beer tip I have been enjoying

Boulevard Saison/brett – nice, minerally flavors, lighter less “offensive” brett character,

ESB  and Gold from work,

Weyerbacher’s Simcoe Double IPA

Sierra Nevada – All.

Goose Island IPA

I will going though links, some are down, some aren’t continuing, and some are are more interesting to me than others.

Beer notes. -

Sam Adam’s Blackberry Witbier, – Not bad at all.  But come on… Their Spring beer is already out, as is  SN’s ESB, and NB’s Mighty Arrow.

IPA’s – Boulevard is expanding into an untapped market in the mid-west, by releasing a 12oz IPA that while not my favorite,  it is unique, rather than remaking someone else’s IPA.  Kudos there.  – but for me it’s all about SN’s Torpedo IPA and Great Divide’s Titan, and Odell’s IPA.  – GREAT beers with huge hoppy flavor and drinkablity.

First mention goes to the new 6pk offering from Sierra Nevada. – Torpedo IPA.

Wicked.    Great bitterness, and just enough to nuke your tongue so follow up sips seem “not THAT bitter”   The mouthfeel has the perfect balance of malt to prop up the hops, and dryness that makes you go back for another glup.   The Aromas LEAP out of the glass and smell of fresh hops not oxidized nasty metalic grossness.

Also when you can get a relatively fresh bottle of Titan IPA from Great Divide, that’d be tops.  Same with Odells.   Other comerical standbys are The GooseIsland IPA and Redhook.

It’s time to be thinking of beers to brew this spring and I’ve got some columbus and  Bravo hops I have to use up.

Not a lot of notes, etc.  just enjoying some beers as always.  Titan IPA has been solid lately – especially the fresher bottles with new packaging.  Same with Long Hammer IPA.

Hopped with Challenger and Tetnang to around 30-40 ibus.
Small dry hop with tettnang and Columbus. Has sat in primary for several weeks.

Other than that, some sour blonde need to be packaged in some way, and a portion of the Porter/wheat is being soured with the Roselare strain. I would like to add some more bugs in there when I get a chance.

Since july I have ran the bottling machine for 1200 cases or so with no major problems.

At home I have a few bottles of old sour beers.  I have 7 gallons of a spontaneous ferment that is truely nasty.  Some golden strong ale with bugs and some Witbier wort added along with more bugs. (brett, lacto, who knows… it’s a culture I have maintained for a few years now.)     In kegs I have some Maple syrup ESB and the Golden Strong Ale that is very very clear light a touch of malt sweetness but balanced by some hops, alcohol and carbonation.

Up next:
stout, and an Imperial stout,  A barleywine, and some wort for sour beers.

It’s pretty amazing. It relates to homebrewing, signal flow through a tape machine into a mixer and outboard gear.  There are many valves and switches, and pumps and even more mathematical formulas goinse, I have learned that it is best to figure out the total mash volume so you can measure the mash, the depth of both the water and grain in inches.

Also interesting is V1 x C1 = V2 x C2

10 gallons of wort at 10Ëš plato will be …

37.85Liters x.035 (evaporation rate will change due to weather, set up etc) = 1.32 L evaporates, leaving 36.5 liters / 3.785  = 9.90 gallons.

So… if 10 gal is at 10ËšPlato, and you can figure your volume after boiling an hour – you can solve for your concentration ie final Ëšplato

37.85 L x 10˚P/36.5 =  10.36˚P

Also – hop additions.

Volume (L) x desired IBU / (Utilization % x AA% x 1000ml/L) = grams of hops.

So…  38.75 L and I want my IPA rockin’ with 60 IBUs of Columbus at 13.5 aa.

The only thing I am unsure of is how my utilization is at home.  We’ll go with 30% which is traditional.

38.75 x 60 = 2325

.30 x .135 x 1000 = 40.5        2325/40.5= 57.407 grams x .0353 (converts grams to ounces) = 2.02 oz of 13.5% aa Columbus hops to get 60 ibus in 10 gallons of water.

Why didn’t I pay more attention in algebra?

Here’s a month’s worth in a minute or two.  So I no longer deliver to the lincoln restaurants (omaha might be in my future, and with it comes the line cleaning) but more often I have been running the bottling machine, and a  few friday’s ago I shadowed Rich on a brew session of ESB, and I am scheduled for a few more brewtrains in the coming weeks.  Getting inside the tanks is also a part of the new responsibilities. Every week they get scrubbed and that’s one hell of an experience.

I’ve brewed at home, not nearly as much as the beautiful weather has allowed for but I have brewed some.  I just kegged a Maple Syrup ESB that had an extended primary and secondary out of laziness. I just brewed a wit with pils and red wheat, corriandor, dried orange peel, tettnang hops, and celis yeast.  It’s chugging along now, but smells phenolic, as it should, but it’s a little too close to pedio land than I care for.

we’ll see over the coming months.

I used to love it, but this just tasted poor, stale and bad.