in this glass...

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.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Adventures in June/July of 2011

Revolution Brewery

At MilRose

Drinking Beer somewhere

Lucky Monk Thursday Pitcher nights = the best

When boating drink what you can find

Tour de Fat 2011!

Finch's Cutthroat at Lunar Brewery

at Three Floyds Brew Pub

Botteling duty at Metropolitan Brewery!

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Portobello Mushroom Burgers with homemade Krankshaft Buns

A quick shot of the ingredients just before we mixed them all together.

My wife Lindsey preparing the ingredients for the bread maker which will be preparing the dough.

Fresh buns right out of the oven, made with Krankshaft Kolsh Beer, bread is better when made with beer.

Mushrooms have been marinated in a balsamic vinegar, oil, onion and garlic for 60 minutes

The final set up just after taking the mushrooms off of the grill.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Chicago Craft Beeer Week - kickoff

I was lucky enough to recently be able to volunteer at the Metropolitan Brewery and help pour at the kick-off party for Chicago Craft Beer week at the garfield Park conservatory. There was a lot of great brews and a lot of great people that I met at the event.