Until next year ... Cheers!
So John decided to enter us in this year's home brew competition at the San Diego County Fair! We entered 3 beers, a Belgian Specialty (16E) The Farmer's Daughter, a Belgian Strong Ale (18) Another D'Evil, and a Light Hybrid/Wheat (6D) the Wildfire Wheat. Now we keg out beer, and the competition requires bottles so getting kegged beer into a bottle is a bit tricky. We borrowed our buddy Chuck's Blichmann gun and bottled a bunch of beer not knowing how well it was going to work. Grabbed some labels and caps from GrogTag and sent it in. Without trying to make excuses we pitched the fruit into the Wildfire literally days before, and filtered it immediately before bottling. There was no way this beer was ready, so we really entered 2 beers. Went down to the award ceremony today... The beer is judged on 5 categories... Aroma (12 pts), Appearance, (3 pts), Flavor (20 pts), Mouthfeel (5 pts), and Overall Impression (10 pts). A perfect score is 50. Although we didn't win, we scored a respectable 34 with The Farmer's Daughter and a 34 and 36 with Another D'Evil. The 4th place winner of the Belgian Strong Ale scored a 39. So we were about a point shy in each of the categories from placing.... which I guess isn't so bad. There were almost 50 entries in the category!
Until next year ... Cheers!
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Okay ... I've been off the radar a bit lately ... but haven't been completely dormant. Actually have 3 brews under out belts since my last post so I'll try to get things updated here and the beers will be of course listed on the TrouBrew page. The Farmer's Daughter - this is a farmhouse ale inspired by Boulevard Brewing's Tank 7. It is a light Belgian style ale citrusy grapefruit, with a slight peppery taste. I used White Labs Trappist Ale Yeast to approximate the style. We'll see how mine compares but if you ever see this stuff on tap somewhere ... you won't be disappointed. Another D'Evil - I've gotten away from the high hoped IPA's and IIPA's and have really been enjoying these Belgian style triples and quads. They have strong malt flavors, high alcohol content and are meant for sipping and savoring. I found this recipe on the BeerSmith recipe cloud that was a clone of Duvel (who ironically recently purchased Boulevard Brewing (see above). I made my own Candi Syrup for this one with sugar and citric acid. We brewed it late February and it is currently in a bright tank mellowing. Passion Mango Wildfire Wheat - I made passion fruit puree at the end of last summer and it has been sitting in my freezer for months. Last year we did our Passion Modelo which was a lager... but without a fermentation chamber I decided to switch it up and do an ale which of course meant doing a wheat. Found this recipe in May/June 2010 issue of Zymurgy archives to find this recipe and if the passion was good the passion mango should be excellent. Can't wait for this light fruity beer ... just in time for summer!
Okay y'all... need a little help. My brother created this cool little hop head for my logo and I decided he needs a name! I've come up with a few but I'm totally open to suggestions... so let me know what you think! VOTE BELOW!!
Inspired by the American Homebrewers Association cover story in Zymurgy about pumpkin ales we thought it would probably be a good idea to start planning for the next change of season. Of course when the recipe suggested a split batch of with pumpkin on one side and a saison on the other I was hooked. This one took a little extra time though... there was a 10 minute protein rest, a 90 minute mash and a 90 minute boil! But we stuck our mash temp at 154 degrees and the cold crash only took 30 minutes so I think we are (finally) getting a little skilled at this ... only took what 10 brews!! Ah well... we haven't had a major flop yet. Just finished my first solo brew! Everything went more or less as planned ... little trouble with my mash temp but I think I've reduced it to the proximity of my hot liquor tank to the the mash tank. Which may take a significant change to either how we brew or a reconfiguration of the Brutus... I'll update you on what we decide to do. As far as the beer choice... we were originally planning on a Boston Lager clone... but it being a lager requires cooler fermentation temps and we don't have a fermentation chamber. Then it was going to be a Belgian Triple ... I've been enjoying those lately. Then John mentioned Magic Hat #9 which I've had of course and enjoyed thoroughly but it wasn't till I looked up the recipe that I was sold... secret ingredient apricots! Which happens to be my wife's favorite fruit ... so no brainer right! Here is the recipe... Magic Hat #10. After a taste test with different combinations of tangerine extract, a tangerine puree I made, and tangerine zest the consensus was the straight extract produced a tangerine taste that did not overpower the wheat beer and was not sweet and fruity like some of our other attempts at a fruit beer. This was a little surprising to me because the Lost Coast Tangerine Wheat is (in my opinion) both sweet and citrusy which is what I thought we were going for.
Our calculations were also a little surprising... 0.5 tablespoons per gallon!! I suppose we can always add more. We yielded about 11 gallons from the brew so we are splitting the batch in 3. One will get the tangerine extract, one will remain a straight wheat and the 3rd is TBD... and I'm saving my puree for that one! This was one of those too cool things I came across ... little pricey but how many people can open a a beer bottle with one hand? Not many unless you have the GrabOpener!!
Thanks to my wonderful and thoughtful wife for the Trouble Brewing T-Shirt and my talented and thoughtful brother for the logo design! You can see more of his stuff here... www.davidabbottdesign.com. T-shirts, mugs, coasters and pens coming soon... maybe!
If you're keeping up with things you know I bought some little hop plants a while back.... Well they ain't so little any more! They started outgrowing the little stake I put in their SmartPots so I had to build a trellis for each plant. Well sort of... living in SoCal we are a little restricted as to how much space we have so I built temporary poles for them to climb... and up up up they go... There are actually 5 varieties growing... Tettnanger (3.5-4.5%), Sterling (4.5-5.0%), Willamette (4.0-6.0%), Centennial (9.5-11.5%), and Zeus (13-17%). They were chosen for their specific alpha acids in an attempt to cover the spectrum.
John's been enjoying Lost Coast Brewery's Tangerine Wheat and since we kicked our Raspberry and Honey Wheat long ago we decided to try and do something similar. John found a tangerine extract on-line and during the brew we did a little taste testing it a generic hefeweizen we had in the fridge ... ugg it was terrible. The extract was all bitter, and no sweet fruity goodness.
So after the brew ... which went spectacularly btw... went back to the store to get some real tangerine and make a puree. That is how we did our raspberry and people loved it... although I think I'll tone down the sugar a bit. That beer was way to sweet for me. When my neighbor Fumi got wind of our plans he's volunteered some peaches for the second side... Peach Wheat ... could be a winner. Some pics of the brew day below... taken by my buddy from high school Bryan who happened to be visiting that day. He's got a drum shop in Phoenix called The Drummer's Den if your interested ... but that is another story. |