Oktoberfest

Well the beer (Oktoberfest) is a big hit, and I'm brewing more for our actual Oktoberfest party. This latest batch (10 gal) will be split, and half will have pumpkin and pumpkin pie spices added for a nice pumkin beer. This batch I also upped the Vienna and Munich malts a bit.
The plan for Oktoberfest:
- Oktoberfest (new and current batch)
- Pumpkin Beer
- Hefe (on tap)
- Some English Ale on Cask (maybe an English IPA)
- Bottles of anything else from the cellar

Brewed my Blueberry Sour, but have not added the blueberries yet. Primary is almost done and when it is complete I will rack the beer onto the fruit and then brew/put the Mango Tripel on the yeats cake (3787).

BTW, is anyone reading this? Please post a comment, just curious.

Fruit Beer?

Some brewers/drinkers feel that fruit beers are not beers, or are girly, or all suck. In a lot of cases I would agree (Sam Adams Cherry Wheat....ewwww). But there are some really good ones, especially the sour fruit beers were only real fruit is usually used and in a high amount during secondary fermentation. This makes the fruit flavor really taste fresh and like the real fruit. In Brussels I had my first real strawberry lambic, smelling the beer was exactly like smelling strawberry jam, it was amazing (the flavor was not as intense, but it was still and excellent beer).
Anyway, I have a couple fruit beers in progress and a couple planned, just wanted to document:

Fermenting:

- Quad/Old Ale w/cherries in barrel souring
- Quad/Old Ale w/cherries in carboy (unsour) - added three more pounds of cherries last night, tasted before this and was excellent but needed more cherry flavor to be a real 'fruit beer'

Planned:

-Mango Tripel - Sunday I spent about an hour and a half peeling mangoes from Tyler, Matt M, and my neighbor. The mangoes were almost all small, but yielded three pounds of flesh. I have one pound of frozen from the grocer and will buy one more pound for a total of 5 pounds for 5 gallons of beer (1lb/gallon). I really like using locals fruit and want the name of the beer to reflect that, something like Neighborhood Terroir Tripel, or something).

- Blueberry Sour - Inspired by the current #8 beer on beeradvocate, which I have not tried despite visiting the brewery in Brussels, Cantillon's Blabaer (Blueberry), I will be brewing three gallons (I have three pounds of blueberries) of a Sour Blueberry Ale (60%pils,40%wheat) with Cantillon yeast.

The State of My Cellar

Hard to see the second barrel, but it's under the visible one and behind the dark cherry beer. The two gallon jugs are mead, one will get raspberry and be carbonated, the other plain and still. The rack in the back is about 2/3rds commercial beer I am aging, the rest is homebrew.

Update

Bottled four batches the other night:

- Oktoberfest (once carbed will continue lagering, ended up a little dry for the style, brewing
again will mash higher)
- Wee Heavy (tasted AWESOME!)
- Flanders Red from barrel
- Dark Sour Saison (brewed with Adam, Adam you bottled yet?)

Into the barrels went my pLambic and the Dark Cherry Quad/OldAle blend. Brewing more pLambic as soon as possible, have the ingredients on hand.

Lastly, my English brown ale is going over so well with everyone that it will become my first "house" recipe and maybe even brewed when I start my brewery. The only thing I am changing on this batch is to mash a little lower so it finishes a little drier and hopefully more 'drinkable'.

Brewing 5-29-10

Brewed a Wee Heavy and a pLambic/Gueze type of beer usings the dreggs from a bottle of my Gueze and my spontaneously fermented pLambic. Hopefully this new beer will have the characteristics of both.
I also combined the beers from both of my barrels (Quad and Barleywine) onto dark cherries, half with Brett and half without. I racked the Scottish 80 Schilling into one of the barrels and placed some more bourbon into the other one. Once the Wee Heavy is done it will go into the empty barrel.
Also had a little English Ale leftover and bottled that into a couple of Growlers, this is the first time I have tried this, it should be interesting to see the results.

Lager beer! Oktoberfest to be exact (on the left). Going strong, took a couple days to get going though.
Brewed 'on the road' today. A fellow homebrewer, former classmate of Elli's (college horticulture), and friend who lives down here invited us over while he was brewing. I wasn't planning on brewing today, but couldn't resist. So I asked if I could bring my gear, and a few hours later I have ~4 gallons of Scottish 80 Schilling brewing away. :) Jamil Z's recipe, minus the honey malt and adding biscuit, and I added 1/2 pounds of smoked malt (not to style but I wanted to try it out)
The yeast cake from this batch will be used to brew this beer:
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2009/05/adambier-hotd-adam-clone.html
Anyway, good day of brewing and had some good beers while brewing, both homebrew and commercial.

Current closet

I haven't brewed since the end of March, when I brewed an English IPA for my graduation party. It is the same grain bill as Evil Genius II, which we brewed almost 2 years ago and was awesome. I toned down the bittering hops from 1.5 oz. of Challenger to an ounce, put in an ounce of fuggles for 15 minutes, an oz. of Saaz for 3 minutes at the end of the boil, and dry hopped with an oz. of Amarillo. I used the White Labs London yeast. The Amarillo gives a little American aroma to it but the yeast, fuggles, and lower bitterness definitely make it taste pretty English. Its 7.0% ABV (which was a little too high to serve at a graduation party it turns out). But the beer is delicious. I have 4 left that I didn't give away and they're burning a hole in my closet floor. I think it is a great beer to introduce people to some bitterness. Its right at 45 IBUs, which when balanced against the big bill of Marris Otter and some dextrin malt is not too bitter for an amateur, which is what I was going for.
I also have a liter of mead fermenting in my closet. Only a liter because I just wanted to try making a mead and didn't want to move a 5 gallon carboy to North Carolina in 2 weeks. I have a few Gary Cold-one's (Stout) and Slumbeer Millionales (IPA) left to drink, but I'm waiting on those for something special.
People gave me a lot of good beer for graduation and I can't wait to start trying it.
After we move and get settled in I'd like to try brewing a Saison or a Flemish Red. These have quickly become two of my favorite style beers.

Brew Day 5/15/10

Brewed ~6 gallons today, half will be fermented with a lager yeast (Wyeast Oktoberfest) and the other half with the Wyeast 1968 (London ESB). The grainbill is basically a Oktoberfest/Maerzen type of beer. This will be my first lager in a while, the starter was not going very strong when I pitched it, but hopefully the beer will get going soon. The idea with the 1968 portion will be to have a nice yeast cake to pitch a big English Barleywine in a couple weeks....and to have some nice English 'session' beer.

Dark Sour Saison

Basically for 5 gallons I had this:

11 lbs Pilsner Malt
1.5 lbs Wheat Malt
.6lbs Aromatic Malt
.5lbs Special B
1lbs Dark Candi Syrup D2

Any hop @ 60 minute addition for ~25 IBU's
Mash at 148-150, 60-70 minute boil, OG: 1.071(high for the style, but got much better efficiency than I was expecting)

I scaled it up to ~7.5 gallons so Adam and I could have about 3.5 gallons each.

This was put onto the yeast cake from a previous Saison using the Wyeast Saison 3724 (DuPont strain) and the dreggs of Fantome Hiver Saison (this has a Lactobacillus strain and at least one Brettanomyces strain). That Saison came out very dry and sour, a little more sour than I was hoping actually, it was done in about 5-6 weeks and bottled (it was so dry when I tasted the sample I didn't even bother checking the final gravity, had to be below 1.005 though). The Fantome Lacto strain is reportedly a very strong strain, and the Brett when used for primary fermentation does not take very long, so in this sense it is not the 'typical' sour beer that takes months and months to finish. I am most interested in trying Adam's version versus mine, his was fermented much warmer and in a bucket versus mine cooler and in a carboy. As of today 5/14/10 the beer still has a bubble or two on the surface and has not cleared, once it does I will take a sample and report back.

Update from Seth Hammond

Inaugural post, kick ass. Thanks for setting this up Ethan.

Currently fermenting:

Dark Sour Saison (brewed with Adam H): Wyeast Saison yeast and dreggs from Fantome bottle, basically a standard Saison with the addition of dark candi syrup and special B malt

Belgian Quad: this is in one of my bourbon barrels

English Barleywine: also in a bourbon barrel, came out kind of light for the style, thinking of blending with something (or possibly adding cherries)

Bottle Conditioning: English Brown Ale, sort of a mix between and English Brown, Porter and a Red Ale, brewed with Wyeast 1968, really like this yeast, saved the yeast cake for another English Barleywine which I will brew soon.