Home-brew recipe from Brooklyn Brew Shop.
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Homebrew Review: Apple Crisp Ale
I had big plans for this homebrew. BIG PLANS. I was going to trot it out on Thanksgiving for everyone to sip on during dinner and through the weekend. My brother is really into hard cider, so I figured he might like this apple-steeped beer.
It’s another BBS recipe (of course, I don’t do ANYTHING ELSE), except I didn’t use the apples they suggested, I just used what we had in our bottom fridge drawer. I think it was one Honey Crisp and one Gala. Or maybe a Pink Lady or a Cripps Pink. Anyway, it was two of those. I probably should have used a green apple, or something less sweet, though, because…
The beer SUCKS. Well, on the first sip you initially think, “Oh, hey, I taste apples, this is going to be good,” but then one second later, “Uh, oh, ah…GET OUT OF MY MOUTH.”
I’m probably being too critical. It definitely isn’t good, though. It tasted medicinal. Just, not good. I tried two, one after two weeks in the bottle and one after three. BOTH BAD. They look good, though. It’s a dark beer with a reddish hue and a nice frothy head. I wish it tasted like it looked.
Anyway, I’m disappointed because I didn’t have this for Thanksgiving. FAILURE. But I’m just going to stick the other seven bottles down in the basement and let them sit until next fall and then try one and hope that some aging does something, anything. ANYTHING.
Next homebrew review up…Prohibition Ale.
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Homebrew Review: Chocolate Maple Porter
It was starting to get cold a few weeks ago, so I decided to do this BBS porter homebrew recipe. I’ve really been getting into darker beers lately with the sun going down around 4pm. They seem to warm me more than, say, an IPA or something like that.
This one turned out great. It took an extra week of bottle conditioning to get the right amount of carbonation (the first one I opened after 2 weeks was completely flat and the second after 3 weeks was only a little better), but now it tastes really great. Chocolatey with a nice dry finish. This is probably one of the more successful homebrews I’ve done. Kind of wish I had more than 5 left.
Only issue I had when I brewed this one was a blow off on the second day of fermentation. I use a blow-off tube for the first week before switching to an airlock, which usually keeps the stopper from popping off when there’s a really active fermentation. Not this one, though. The porter went nuts. No telling how long the stopper was off, but, as far as I can tell, the beer wasn’t damaged at all and NO ONE HAS BEEN POISONED YET.
Next review up…Apple Crisp Ale.
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Homebrew Review: Jalapeno Saison Spicy
This homebrew, from the end of September is the result of:
- Finding this recipe in Brooklyn Brew Shop‘s beer recipe book.
- Having a bunch of leftover grain from my previous homebrew’s that I did earlier in the year.
- Thinking, “Well, I’ll do a farmhouse ale and just use whatever grain I’ve got around, because that’s probably what people did in OLDEN TIMES out on the farm.”
- And also because I really wanted to make some pickled jalapenos.
So, I had a bunch of leftover grain because Brew and Grow (the shop I buy supplies from and which should really be named “Brew ‘n’ Grow”) used to only sell one- and five-pound bags of grain and I never needed that much of anything since I only make one-gallon batches that need like 0.01 pounds of Bavarian Special B Malt.
This is probably one of the main reasons I stopped brewing back in April. I had to spend like $20 or $30 in order to make 8 or 9 bottles of beer. NO ROOM FOR PROFIT. And then I had all this extra, specialty grain that I figured I would NEVER USE. (Note: Brew ‘n’ Grow now lets you scoop your own amounts. THANKS BREW AND GROW, you’re the best.)
Okay, so, I had leftover grain and I found the jalapeno saison recipe in Brooklyn Brew Shop’s recipe book (with the real intention that I wanted to make pickled jalapenos) and I thought, “What could possibly go wrong by using a bunch of random grains and not really following the directions and grain amounts in the recipe?”
Well, the beer is NOT GOOD. I mean, it’s okay. You take your first sip and you’re hit with HOT HOT HOT STEAMING BURNING MY TONGUE SPICY THIS TASTES LIKE A PEPPER I’M ON FIRE. But then that goes away pretty quickly because you’re also drinking beer. So that part was good and you just kind of keep drinking the beer until you get about halfway through and you think, “Oh, this isn’t very good. I don’t like this. It’s not very spicy tasting anymore. It feels like I’m chewing something. It tastes like when you bite aluminum foil. Yuck.”
Of course you finish the beer, though. And then feel terrible the rest of the night (because maybe you also had a second one just to see if the first was a fluke).
But, it was an attempt at something. I’m sure worse beer has been made. This is what it looks like. It’s cloudy like backed-up toilet water:
Note: The more of these that I drank (and I’ve gulped down all but one so far), the more I thought, “Oh, this isn’t THAT bad.” So, in conclusion, I like the taste of backed-up toilet water.
Next homebrew review…Chocolate Maple Porter.
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Homebrew Review: Kölsch
After I got the Spring Lager going, I figured I’d go ahead and try a Kolsch recipe from Brooklyn Brew Shop. Kolsch beers are some of my favorite, so I was looking forward to this, even if it was going to take a lot longer than the normal 6 weeks to get some drinkable beer.
It actaully took about 4 months (April to August) for this to finally get all finished.
The brewing went fine. Nothing out of the normal process. But then I had to lager this sucker for a few weeks in the cool 50-degree temperatures of our basement. And after that a few more weeks taking up way too much space in our fridge. And still after that about 7 or 8 weeks in the bottles (also in the fridge) to get the beer carbonated.
It turned out FANTASTIC, though. Like, easily the best homebrew I’ve made (maybe with the exception of the Bourbon Dubbel, but that took 6 months of aging to get to an enjoyable point). And I’ll definitely be doing this again. I’d really like to do 2 or 3 batches, but 2 or 3 one-gallon carboys in the fridge for 2-3 months and then 27 beers in the fridge for another 2 months probably won’t work out. (Here’s where I wish we hadn’t gotten ride of those two old fridges that came with the house.)
Anyway, the only drawback to the Kolsch was that I had no idea it was going to take some long to carbonate in the bottles. So, after 3 weeks I opened one and it had NO carbonation. I thought, “Hmm, that must be a FLUKE,” so I opened a second one with the same result at which point I figured I’d messed up the recipe somehow. I waited another week and tried one more. Same non-carbonation. And those three that I opened didn’t really taste great. Flat beer is NOT GOOD.
Now, remember, I do small, one-gallon batches, so I only had 9 bottles of Kolsch and now I’m down to 6. I think over the next 2 or 3 weeks I tried 3 more and they were all FLAT. So, dejected, and thinking I’d never get one that was ready, I just let them sit in the back of the fridge for like another month. By the time I tried another one it was August right in the middle of a HEATWAVE.
I pulled one out, expecting nothing, and then: CRACK, SISSSSSSSS. Yes! Success! And perfect timing for late summer. Too bad I only had THREE.
The beer was awesome, probably partly because I’d waited (mostly impatiently) for 4 months, but also probably because it was crystal clear and crisp and a little fruity and really great.
I didn’t share any of these. I’M SELFISH.
I did one more homebrew after this back in April and then I took a break over summer. Mostly because I was depressed about the Kolsch not turning out. So, when they finally worked out and worked out so well, I kind of wanted to start brewing again in late August. That’s why I started back with the Grapefruit Honey Ale and why I’ve done a new homebrew just about every week since then.
And now I can start writing about all those because they’re just starting to get finished up. After the Grapefruit Honey I did the Jalapeno Saison Spicy recipe from Brooklyn Brew Shop. Stay tuned for that write up.
Music Vomit 