Malinois Pale Ale

I threw together a brew day at the behest of the wife this past weekend as she was going to be busy with other stuff. Not a problem! I just moved up my plans to brew a Belgian pale ale by a few weeks (named after a popular Belgian sheep dog, the Malinois). This will be one of the two beers I’m going to choose from to compete in my homebrew club’s summer competition (the other being the California Common I brewed last month).

In my recipe research, I bought a bomber of Belgian Pale Ale produced by local brewery Flat Earth and sent them an email to see if they’d be open to sharing the recipe. No response! That’s ok, I get it. Just thought I’d try. I took another avenue and listened to a podcast by Jamil Zainasheff from 2006 where he walks through his own BPA recipe (listen here). Mine is largely based off of his. Given that the caramunich I could get was only 57*L instead of 75*L like Jamil suggested. To help compensate, I used 0.5 lbs of it instead of .75 lbs and then changed the normal 8*L munich he suggested for dark 15.5*L munich malt and then added 6 oz. of 1.8*L carafoam so I could make sure this brew has a nice sustainable head. Also, I threw in a tbsp of bitter orange in at the end of the boil to see if I could help bring out that flavor in this BPA.

Other than that, this brew day was pretty much by-the-book. 151*-149* 75 min. mash, 90 min. boil to eliminate DMS from the pilsner malt and I’m using the WLP-510 Bastogne yeast I collected and washed from the sour beer’s primary ferment. It’s rockin’ and rollin’ as I type this! Here’s the recipe:

Washing yeast

To complete primary fermentation on the sour beer I brewed near the end of March for my brew club‘s barrel-aging project, the organizer had us use one of two specific types of Belgian yeast: White Labs limited edition WLP-510 Bastogne ale yeast or Wyeast Ardennes ale yeast. Naturally I went for the White Labs product as I freaking hate those smack packs (I can never get them going correctly!).

I knew that I had plans to brew a Belgian pale ale in the weeks to come, so after transferring the batch to secondary, I took it upon myself to do a bit of quick research to figure out how to properly wash and preserve yeast. I watched an annoying but information video made by a guy who probably works as Santa Claus at the local mall over the holidays who was just as over-the-top jolly to match. I’ll spare you the agony of watching that video and outline the basic steps necessary for washing yeast here (let me know if I’m missing something, but I’ll say what I did here seems to be  working great after re-pitching yesterday):

Surly 5

I was able to procure two bottles of Surly 5 when it went on sale last September and have been hoarding them since.  Since I brewed my wort contribution to my homebrew club’s barrel-aged sour beer this past Sunday, I figured it was as good a time as any to crack the first bottle in anticipation of what our club brew could turn out to be like when it’s finished sometime next year.

I believe Surly 5 is only the third sour beer I’ve ever had so I’m far from a connoisseur, though I’ve really liked the sours I’ve tried. This is in part because I generally drink beer too fast and sour beers slow me down and force me to savor them a bit more. Surly 5 almost seemed like a carbonated red wine to me. Slight oak char from the wine barrels it was aged in, roasty red malt profile, tart acidity… zinfandel? I liked it. I think I’ll wait to open the second bottle until the club beer is done and I can taste them side by side. C’mon spring/summer 2013! It’s gonna be amazing.

Barrel-aging project sour beer

In a recent post, I discussed how members of the Nordeast Homebrewers Club are doing a sour beer project. Since my schedule will be a bit cramped in the coming weeks with the new baby, work and gigs with my band, I decided to get this brew done ASAP on 3/25 so I could ensure I’m ready to transfer this into the barrel along with everyone else’s beer near the end of April.

Using a batch sparge for only the second time (normally I’ve done fly spargin) and trying my hardest to speed along this pseudo-impromptu brew day, I was able to crank it out start to finish in just 6 hours (7am-1pm) with an extra half hour or more of cleanup later in the afternoon. Normally my brew days run 8 or 9 hours so I was pretty happy with my time here.

The pic to the right shows the high mash temps we’re all employing with this brew in order to leave lots of long-chain unfermentable sugars left over for the bugs to eventually eat in the barrel over the course of the coming year.

Here’s what the grist translated to at the individual recipe level:

Bottling the Maibark maibock

Got the maibock batch bottled back on 3/18 that I had brewed two months prior. I was able to have it sit out in the garage damn near freezing for five weeks in February and early March before a freak heat wave hit Minnesota. Look how clear this is!

Nordeast Brewers Alliance barrel-aging sour beer project

14 members of my homebrew club, the Nordeast Brewers Alliance (NBA) threw in some cash to be part of a sour beer barrel aging project, myself included. Originally we thought the money would go to purchasing the barrel, itself. We ended up finding one for free. It had been used by Town Hall Brewery for their Eye of the Storm honeywine this past winter and before that by (I believe) a vintner for a white wine, of what type I’m not sure.

The huge 60 gallon barrel is graciously living at Nick’s place in Northeast Minneapolis. Everyone is aiming to have their 5 gallons fermented around the time of our April club meeting (4/21), at which time we’ll syphon it all in along with the bacteria to do the souring over the course of the next year or so. Man, it felt weird to brew this beer this past weekend knowing I wouldn’t be drinking any of it for over a year. Normally I figure I drink or give away most of my output between two and nine months from brew day. This one will have to pay off in time. Here is what Nick bought to be split up between 14 guys:

Brews in-progress

I’ve got two batches in progress right now. Four days after pitch, fermentation on my Golden Gate Retriever California Common has started to visibly slow down. Also, it’s been incredibly warm in Minnesota this week (we hit a high of something like 74* today where the record was 64*!!) so after sitting in in the garage at 38* for the last five weeks, I had to pull the Maibark Maibock batch inside last night (where it had reached nearly 60* Tuesday) and drop it down into the cellar where it’ll get no warmer than 55* until I can find time to bottle it.

Golden Gate Retriever California Common (L) and Maibark Maibock (R)

Golden Gate Retriever

I’ve been wanting to brew some lighter beers for the summer, notably because of the low-gravity beers competition my brew club will be having at our summer grill-out event. Coupling that motivation with the ambient temps currently in my basement (55-60*) for fermentation and my options are limited to a select few styles. Since I’d never tried my hand at a California Common or “Steam beer” before, I decided now was the time.

This beer will definitely qualify for the aforementioned competition. With an OG of just 1.045, it’ll be one of the lightest beer I’ve ever made. Even if it ferments way down below 1.010, it’ll still struggle to come in at more than 5%. This batch was the first time I tried a true batch sparge. I don’t think it changed my efficiency much for the worse and I ended up saving at least an hour on my brew day by employing this method instead of fly sparging.

My buddy Dave was over helping on this brew day and the one to name this batch. This is the first time someone besides myself or my wife has named a batch of Barking Dog beer. Great idea Dave! Here’s the recipe:

2012 National Homebrew Competition entries

Just as I did a year ago, I’ve again entered some of my beers into the National Homebrew Competition. Minneapolis is fortunate this year to be the judging site for one of the nine regions in the U.S. Last year, I had to make sure my first round entries got to Madison, WI to be judged (and later shipped one that got first place at regionals to nationals to San Diego, CA). With the help from a member of the St. Paul Homebrewers Club, fortunately that wasn’t a problem. Easy peasy this year. Just need to drop them off at Northern Brewer.

This year, I’m entering my In the name of doG Belgian honey ale in category 16e (Belgian Specialty ale) and 18d (Belgian Strong ale) to see where it does best, also entering CUJO SPICE v2.1 pumpkin rye ale in category 21 (spice/herb/vegetabel beer) and Snot Snout Stout, my chocolate cherry stout in category 20 (fruit beer). This will be the first competition for Snot, the second for CUJO v2.1 and the third for doG. The feedback I’m getting in competition is very informative, so I’m trying to enter my favorite batches in multiple competitions to help me refine recipes before I re-brew.

From L to R: Snot Snout chocolate cherry stout, CUJO SPICE v2.1 pumpkin rye ale, In the name of doG Belgian honey ale (x2)

Upper Mississippi Mashout results – Pumpkin rye ale

Recently I published a post dissecting feedback I received on my Belgian honey ale at the Upper Mississippi Mashout homebrew competition. That was just one of the three beers I entered. In today’s post, I will go on to detail feedback I received on another entry, CUJO SPICE v. 2.1 pumpkin rye ale (brewed July ’11), BJCP category 21A, spice/herb/vegetable beer.

This pumpkin rye ale, the better batch of the two versions I brewed last summer, scored worse than I anticipated. I received a 27 from a BJCP “certified” judge and a 32 from a BJCP “national” judge. I can at least be glad I got the higher score from the judge with more experience. None the less, my score averages to just 29.5. Yes, I think some recipe tweaks are in order but I think this batch is quite tasty and that my execution was decent. It deserves to be in the 30′s. Since this was the first competition this beer has been in, I’ve entered it in the upcoming National Homebrew Competition (NHC) to get a few more opinions before I re-brew it this summer.

Here’s the feedback recap: