in this glass...: 2012

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Homebrew review

It came to my attention that I have provided any follow up on some of my recent brews. I will post images and results from some of these beers over the next couple days.

I brewed all of the below recipes with the Brooklyn Brew shop's Recipe book:

Smoked BBQ Beer- This beer turned out awesome! I will brew this again but maybe with darker malts and maybe some cocoa next time. I renamed the resulting beer SMACK of HAM. each sip was like a fresh slice of Honey baked ham.

Nutless Brown Ale (Chestnut Brown Ale)- This turned out pretty good considering that I couldn't not find a chestnut in February at any grocery store. It had a rich dark amber color flavor that reminded me of a whacky Fat Tire.

Blackberry Red Ale-This beer turned turned out pretty good. I should have transferred it to a secondary to help clean up some of the sediment, but in general the flavor was right on and I liked the result using whole blackberries and avoiding concentrate flavoring. I learned that if I keep the mash a little hotter then recommended the flavor would have been a bit sweeter.

Spring Lager- I brewed this Lager with hopes that it would remain fairly cold in Chicago. As it turns out we had three weeks of 70+ weather in March. I used a Saf-yeast S-23 lager yeast which allows for higher temp activity.

Spicy Jalapeno Saison- Brewed 3/14/2012.. images and post to follow. This is currently in its final stage of fermentation.

Simcoe IPA- Just picked up ingredients today from Brew and Grow in Roselle.