Pilsner - Tasting Notes

I brewed this Pilsner (my first attempt) in September and then lagered for about 2 months near freezing before bottling in Mid December.  It has carbed up nicely in the last couple weeks and is tasting great - I'll capture some tasting notes here while it is nice and fresh.

This was brewed using a recipe I cobbled together based on some general observations of other beers.  It is all pilsner malt (which was double decoction mashed) and uses a number of noble hops for flavor (along with a healthy dose of Magnum for bittering).  I doesn't really conform to either the German or Czech sub styles exactly.  Even so it has made a really nice bitter beer - definitely a great showcase for the noble hop.

Was having withdraws from lack of hoppy beer.  Hopefully the 50+ bottles of this pilsner I ended up with will last longer than it took to make the beer - somehow I doubt that will be the case.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Herbal and grassy hop aroma dominates.  Some bready and sweet pilsner malt comes through pretty strongly as well.  Also get a clean lager yeast aroma.
• Appearance:
• Golden in color and pretty clear.  Pours with a 3 finger head initially that slowly settles down to 1 finger which then lingers through while the beer is consumed.  A lot of cascading bubbles.
• Flavor:
• Bready malt up front followed by hop flavor (grassy, spicy, and herbal).  The finish is quite bitter (similar to a pale ale).  There is quite a bit of malt that lingers in the finish but the balance is more towards the hop.
• Mouthfeel:
• Light-Medium bodied.  Very slightly sweet.  Easy drinking and pretty smooth.
• Overall:
• A really nice hoppy beer.  Very drinkable and refreshing with a pleasing balance between the malt and hops.  I think this holds up well to many of the local Craft Lager brewed by the local SE PA brewers (Victory and Sly Fox being the main ones that come to mind)

Braggot - Mead/Beer Hybrid

I bottled up my second attempt at a Mead a couple weekends ago and decided to immediately fill the fermentor with a new batch.  Mead is easy to prepare compared with beer but, since it typically has a high OG and a lot of easily fermentible sugar, it tends to get boozy and benefits from a long aging period to mellow.  Given this long timeline for production I'm thinking minimizing the downtime of my 1 mead fermentor is a good idea.

This time I'll be trying to make a mead that includes wort - this is known as a Braggot.  This is a beverage with a history going back to the ancient Sumerians.  These had historically been made with various spices.  For mine I'll be using hops.

I'm going to try to get about 70% of my sugar from the Honey.  For 2 gal, 5 lbs of honey would get me to 1.088 SG and then 3 lbs of malt should get me another 0.040 points.  I'll mash the grain inside on the stove top and than boil for about 1 hr with the bittering hops.  I'll chill in the sink and then add the worm wort to the honey

I'm going to use the Nottingham yeast already in the fermentor from the previous batch.  I'll also throw in a bit of bread years (which did an impressive job on my first Mead) just in case the Nottingham has given up the ghost.

I plan to give this Mead a good 9-12 months to ferment out.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 3 lb Pale Malt
• 5 lb honey
• 1 oz acid malt
• Hops:
• 0.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.7% AA) at 60 min
• Yeast:
• Nottingham Ale Yeast (2nd pitch)
• 1 tsp bread yeast 
• Water:
• 3 gal spring water
• 0.25 tsp yeast nutrient

Results:

• OG:
• 1.127
• FG:
• 1.024
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 79%
• ABV:
• 13.82%

Brewing Notes:

• 11/24/19 - Brewday:
• Mashed 3 lbs of malt in 2 gal of spring water on the stove top.  I split the grain into 3 muslin grain sacks.  Mashed in the high 140s to low 150s

• Mashed for 2 hrs
• Removed the grain sacks and squeezed out the wort
• Boiled for about 1 hr
• Added my hops at the start of the boil in a muslin sack
• Let the post chill in a cold water bath in the sink

• Poured the 5 lbs of honey into the fermenter on top of the remaining yeast from my previous mead
• Rehydrated dry bread yeast
• Poured in the wort once it had chilled down to the 80s
• Had to top up with about half a gal more of spring water
• Stirred well until the honey was dissolved
• Added yeast nutrient
• Added the bread yeast
• Measured the gravity with a refractometer
• Moved the fermenter to to a utility sink in the basement
• 11/26/19 - Fermentation is underway and there is a karausen formed

• 11/30/19 - Krausen has fallen but still a lot of bubbling.  I needed to use the sink so I've moved the fermenter to it's permanent location (a dark corner of the basement where it will not be disturbed).  The mead is very cloudy at the moment 
• 3/7/21 - Bottled today.  Netted just about 2 gal which got me 18 bottles.  Measured the gravity as 1.024.  The mead is very strong.  Has a sweet honey flavor and I think I can detect a bit of malt in there as well.  Will do a deeper dive during the official tasting