Flanders Red - 2018 Blend - Tasting Notes

This is my third attempt at making a Flanders Red Ale.  I blended this beer up back in December 2018 using 4 beers I'd aged for between 2 and 3 years.  I chose the beers with the goal of maximizing bold flavors and complexity with a medium level of sourness.

The blend bulk aged for 7 months.  I bottled it with 2 lbs of invert #2 and then pasteurized the bottles once it was carbonated - this left quite a bit of sugar in the beer to help with the balance as it was pretty much down to 1.000 at this point.

I've been having one every couple weeks here of the last 7 months.  Time to do a tasting:

Tasting Note:

• Aroma:
• Musty and leathery brett character along with a dark cherry fruit aroma
• Appearance:
• Reddish brown and fairly clear.  Pours with less than a finger of head which dissipates quickly
• Flavor:
• Medium level sourness.  Wonderful fruit flavor in this beer.  Also has a bit of earthy brett character in the background.  The finish is slightly sweet which balances the lingering sour flavor.  May get a bit of caramel from it.  No alcohol comes through.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium-light bodied with light sticky sweetness.  Drinks very smooth for a sour beer - only a slight acid prickling.
• Overall:
• Flanders Red is a wonderful style of beer and I would say this is a pretty good one.  This is a complex and boldly flavored beer that is also quite refreshing.  I think the level of sweetness remaining after the pasteurization is very nice - really helps the balance a lot.  I haven't had Rodenbach Grand Cru in a while but I believe this beer is quite close to matching it's quality.

English Barleywine (2019 Version) - Tasting Notes

This is my sixth English Barleywine - I've brewed variations of this style every Memorial Day starting in 2014.  I really enjoy the complexity of the style with it's bold malt and fruity yeast character.  I bulk age the beers for 6 months or so, drink half the batch the year it was brewed and then save the second half for yearly vertical tastings.  I really enjoy watching these beers evolve.

This year is based on Eldridge Pope's Thomas Hardy's Ale from the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins blog.  I brewed this same beer in 2018.  For the 2019 version I used WLP 099 Super High Gravity (which is reported to be the original Eldridge Pope yeast) - which fermented from 1.120 down to 1.010 - rather than the Nottingham I used last time (which only got me to 1.030).  It will be very interesting to taste 2018 and 2019 side by side.

I also used some red wine soaked oak in this batch.  I can't say for sure it came through all the other complex flavors but it was fun to play with another element with this bold flavored beer.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Fruity yeast ester comes through up front - raisin and maybe peach and apple.  Caramel and toasted malt come through next.  Also get a sense of the alcohol level of the beer.  Tough to pick out anything clearly as the hops or the wine soaked oak.
• Appearance:
• Reddish-brown and very clear.  Pours with a finger head if agressive.  Head doesn't last long.
• Flavor:
• Caramel and a toasty bready flavor up front.  A really full and pleasant flavor that lingers into the finish.  Get a nice bit of hop bitterness in the finish that balances things.  Get a bit of fruit ester and I think I pick up on some of the oak and wine.  A very rich set of flavors 
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium bodied and slightly sweet.  Has a very slight astringency.  Definitely getting a warming alcohol sensation.
• Overall:
• Very rich and complex beer.  It makes a very good sipper on a cold night.  It's boozy for sure but it doesn't taste like it would be 16% ABV.  I really like the toasty bread and caramel flavor and how it coats the mouth and lingers.  Also nice that it's sweet but not overly so.  I think this one is going to age very nicely for me.

Orange Mead - Tasting Notes

This was my first attempt at making a Mead which is a fermented honey beverage (also called a Honey Wine).  I made a version based on the famous "Joe's Ancient Orange Mead" which is a mead spiced with Oranges, Clove, and Cinnamon.  It is fermented with bread yeast, which has a lower alcohol tolerance than wine yeast, in order to leave a bit more sugar (wine yeast will typically be able to ferment mead all the way to 1.000).

I started out a bit higher than spec on OG (1.120) and ended up fermenting down to 1.036 which is 11% ABV but still pretty sweet.  I let it sit in the fermenter for about 10 months to mellow.  It has been in the bottle for about a year and a half at this point.  It was bottled still and has remained still which I'm pretty proud of.

This is a really good recipe to start with as it has some really bold flavors and makes for a tasty mead.  One could play around with the spicing level quite a bit.  The cloves are a very nice pairing with the mead (3 cloves per 2 gal makes for a very bold flavor) - coriander would also be very nice I think.

I'm excited to finally be doing a tasting.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Honey and Clove dominate.  Also get quite a bit of fruitiness which may be the honey or yeast maybe.  Some orange may come through faintly.  Very rich aroma - the other spices may be in there but mingled too much in the background
• Appearance:
• Light gold and very clear.
• Flavor:
• Sweet.  Has a very firm spice flavor in the middle - clove, honey, and a bit of orange.  There is a pretty strong alcohol bite in the finish which helps balance a the sweetness.  Really strong flavor
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium bodied and a bit sticky from the sugar.  Drinks pretty smoothly but best consumed in small quantities.
• Overall:
• Very boldly flavored with a pretty nice complexity.  Potent at 11% ABV but hides that very well - probably a combination of the long aging and the residual sweetness.  Not a beverage I find myself reaching for on a regular basis but it does make for a nice after dinner drink on a cold winter night.

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

Unfermented Sour Blonde Top Up Batch - 2019

This will be a double batch of Sour Blonde beer that I'll use to top up my Sour Blonde Fermenters after making several blends in the last couple months (Plain, Cherry, Raspberry, and Nectarine).  I had previously topped up the fermenters half way with an already fermented beer (see post here).  This batch will fill them up the rest of the way with unfermented wort which I hope will give the microbes enough to chew on over the next year.

Like my other recent sour blonde ales this will be made with a mix of pilsner malt and raw wheat which I will cereal mash.  I'm lightly hopping this to hopefully keep Lacto restrained as my beers seem to be getting more and more sour over the generations. 

Additionally, like last batch, I'll be adding a half a lb of flour to the beer in the boil kettle to increase the starch levels and give the slower microbes more to chew on.  I did this in my last top up batch and made the mistake of dumping the dry flour into the boil kettle which resulted in lots of lumps.  This time I'm going to add the liquid to the dry first and add to the kettle after the flour is well incorporated into the water.

Feeding my fermenters

Anyway, these sour blonds seem to be doing well year to year.  Hopefully the prep work I'm doing today will sow the seeds for another good one next year.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 15 lb Pilsner
• 2 lb Light Munich
• 4 oz Acid Malt
• Cereal Mash:
• 8 lb Raw Wheat
• 2 lb Pilsner
• 8 oz White Flour (added to the boil)
• Hops:
• 1 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.7% AA) at 15 min
• Yeast:
• NA - Directly into Sour Blonde Fermenter
• Water:
• 12 gal Spring Water
• 8 gal Tap Water
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 13 gal
• Mash:
• Cereal Mash:
• Rest at 110 F, 155 F and then boiled for 20 min
• Main Mash:
• 160 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 90 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Ambient Basement Temperature
• Primary Duration:
• NA
• Secondary Duration:
• 1-3 years

Results:

• OG:
• 1.053 (Target 1.050)
• Efficiency:
• 73% (Target 71%)
• FG:
• Target 1.000
• Apparent Attenuation:
• Target 100%
• ABV:
• Target TBD

Brewing Notes:

• 11/17/2019 - Brewday - 11:00 AM to 6:30 PM- Including Cereal Mash, a lunch break, setup, and cleanup
• Cereal Mash:
• Milled my cereal mash grain into 3 gal of hot tap water
• Let the mash rest for 10 min
• Heated to 150s and then let rest for 20 min
• Heated to a boil for 20 min
• Let this rest while I went out for lunch

• Heated 8 gal of strike water up to 190 F
• Milled the main mash grain
• Added 7 gal of strike water to the mash tun and cycled through the RIMS at 170 F until the temperature had settled
• Temporarily halted the rims.  Added the cereal mash.  Then started the RIMS again.  Ended up with about 10 gal of volume at this point which didn't leave enough room for the main mash (in the 11 gal mash tun).  Pulled off about 1.5 gal of starchy liquid into the boil kettle.
• Stopped the RIMS and added the grain.  This ended up being a very thick mash that I could barely stir.  Started the RIMS again and just about got a stuck sparge.  Ended up cycling the RIMS very slowly to account for this.

• Mashed for 60 min
• Slowly drained the mash tun into the boil kettle.  Started heating after collecting a few gal and had it at a boil after collecting about 8 gal.  Probably boiled for 45 min before I finished the sparge 
• Mixed water into the flour mix until it was a milkshake consistency. Added this to the boil

• Boiled for probably 20 min more after the mash was done as I was stilling at about 12 gal
• Added the hops and Irish moss at 15 min.  Put the hops in a double layer cheese cloth sack to avoid them escaping.
• Added the chiller to sanitize
• Chilled down to 70 F

• Collected 11.25 gal of wort that measured 1.062 SG.  This is right about on target for efficiency.  I'm going to dilute with 1.75 gal of spring water to get down to about 1.053
• Transferred the beer into my sour blonde fermenters.  It is a very cloudy wort.  Used it as follows:
• 1 gal each into fermentors 1-6, and 8 & 9
• 0.5 gal in fermentor 10
• 2.5 gal in fermentor 11
• 2 gal in fermentor 12

Lessons Learned:

1. Mixing water into flour worked well to avoid clumps (didn't find many at all at the bottom of the boil kettle) and it produced a very starchy wort.  It will be interesting to see if these beer clear for me and if they'll have a bit higher FG due to this
2. Added the cereal mash to the mash tun before the main mash grain was a terrible mistake as I couldn't mash normally due to the sticky and starchy cereal mash partially clogging the false bottom.  I was trying to avoid a significant temperature change when adding the cereal mash but this was worse.

Nectarine Sour Blonde (2019)

This year I'll be making a fourth blend of Sour Blonde beer with Nectarine I picked from a local SE PA Orchard (Highland Orchards).  Nectarine is a stone fruit very similar to peaches with the major difference being that the skin is smooth rather than fuzzy.  Some people say they are a bit sweeter as well.  I have about 17 lbs which I picked in mid summer and then froze.  They have a nice flavor and lovely perfume like aroma (although I find the texture off putting enough to not eat them).  I believe they will work nicely in this beer.  It's not a fruit that is traditionally put in Lambic beers but Lindemans has made a peach version and De Cam has a Nectarine Lambic as have many homebrewers.  I plan to use all 17 lbs in this batch.

I cut the fruit in quarters in preparation and save off some of the pits to go in the beer.

For the beer blend I'll be using my more mild beers to let the fruit take center stage - this is based on my latest Sour Blonde Status Report.  In my Raspberry and Cherry Blends this year I went with 5-6 gal and had to pull off beer in the process of adding fruit due to beer cresting the top of the fermenter.  I'm going to go with 4.5 gal of this beer to try to avoid that.

I've chosen the following beers to make up this blend:

• Fermenter #1:
• Overview:
• Aged with Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Sitting on Toasted and Chardonnay soaked oak for the last year
• Mix of beers brewed with Pilsner Malt and Wheat
• Very lightly hopped beers
• Aged in a very full glass carboy with a vented silicon bung

• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Earthy with a mineral character.  Slightly wine like aroma as well
• Appearance:  Light gold and slightly hazy
• Flavor:  Lightly sour with a lemon-like character.  Also get a bit of mineral flavor and bit of earthy funk
• Mouthfeel:  Light-medium bodied.  Fairly dry.  Pretty smooth - no real prickliness.
• Overall:  The flavors are pretty bold - particularly the lemon like sourness.  Not all that complex as the supporting flavors are fairly far in the background.
• Volume:
• 1 gal
• Fermenter #2:
• Overview:
• Aged with Bootleg Biology Funk Weapon #1 and a bit of Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Sitting on Toasted and Chardonnay soaked oak for the last year
• Grain bill of Pilsner and Raw Wheat
• No hops in this one
• Aged in a mostly full glass carboy with a vented silicon bung

• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Fruity (citrus or peach maybe) with a bit of earthy funk.  Very pleasant
• Appearance:  Light gold and pretty clear
• Flavor:  Lightly sour.  Earthy funk and a fruity flavor are most prominent
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied and dry.  Slight prickling in the back of the throat
• Overall:  Bold flavor and aroma on this one.  Has a nice amount of complexity which makes for an interesting beer.  I really like this one.
• Volume:
• 1 gal
• Fermenter #4:
• Overview:
• Aged with Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Mix of Pilsner and Flaked wheat malt
• Very lightly hopped
• Aged in glass carboy with 1 gal of head space

• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Funky with a bit of fruit and an almost solvent like smell
• Appearance:  Straw colored and little murky
• Flavor:  Very slight sourness with a bit of fruit flavor.  Slight funk along with a bit of mineral
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied.  Has a slight bit of sweetness.  Prickles the back of the throat
• Overall:  Mild in flavor without all that much complexity.  Rough drinking with the astringency.
• Volume:
• 0.5 gal
• Fermenter #5
• Overview:
• Aged with ECY01 Bug Farm
• Mix of Pilsner and Raw Wheat malt bill
• Lightly hopped
• Aged in glass carboy with 1 gal of headspace

• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Fruity and wine-like with a bit of funk.  Also get some malt coming through  Pretty bold aroma
• Appearance:  Light gold and very clear
• Flavor:  Quite sour.  Malty with a bit of fruit flavor and some earthy/leathery funk.  Some bandaid like brett character comes through in the finish
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied and dry.  Slight prickling in the back of the throat
• Overall:  Bold flavors with a fair amount of complexity.  A bit too sour on it's own but could be a very nice part of a blend with a milder beer
• Volume:
• 1 gal
• Fermenter #12:
• Overview:
• Brewed with Bootleg Biology Funk Weapon #3
• Grainbill was a mix of Pilsner and Raw Wheat.  To attempt to better simulate a cereal mash I drew off a quart of very starchy wort from the cereal mash and added this to the boil
• No hops in this batch
• Aged in a bucket with a solid bung

• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Musty and funky aroma along with a slight fruity character
• Appearance:  Golden and slightly cloudy
• Flavor:  Lightly sour with some fruity flavors and a bit of brett funk
• Mouthfeel:  Light-medium bodied and slightly sweet.  Smooth drinking
• Overall:  Fairly mild in flavor but it has some interesting and fairly unique elements compared with the other beers.
• Volume:
• 1 gal

Blending Notes:

• 11/10/2019 - Blending Day
• Pulled off 4.5 gal of beer into a bucket fermenter

• Added the 17 lbs of fruit

• I'm going to let this age for a couple months.  I'll probably back sweeten in the bottle and pasteurize.
• 6/14/20 - Bottled today with 1.5 lb of Invert #1 and a pack of rehydrated Champagne yeast (Red Star Premier Cuvee).  The fruit comes through pretty strongly both in aroma and flavor.  It isn't so strong that the base beer is obscured though.  Got 59 12 oz bottles from this batch.  I will monitor progress of carbonation and pasteurize to preserve a bit of sweetness

• 6/25/20 - Bottle pasteurized in a hot water bath.  30 min between 140 and 180 F.  I caught these a little later than is ideal as the bottles are highly carbonated enough to make pouring a bit difficult.  I had one bottle explode in the process of pasteurization.
• 6/4/22 - Tasting Notes - This is really nice fruit forward beer.  The Nectarine is boldly flavored but (at these usage levels) leaves a bit of room to let the base beer come through and add complexity.  The fruit and beer compliment each other nicely.  The level of sweetness retained in this beer is very nice as it counters what could have been an overwhelming level of acidity