2023 festbier

Festbier has become one of my favorite beer styles in recent years and I generally prefer it over the Marzen beers, which are more common, though I still hold special regard for Sam Adams Octoberfest. This was the second beer brewed with the Omega Oktoberfest yeast. Based on a recipe I came up with in 2020, it was good but was a little harsh. I am not sure what to attribute the harshness to, so I feel somewhat cautious about rebrewing it, but maybe it came down to something in my brewing process that day or maybe the hops had a higher AA than I was told. I had used very old Galena hops to add some bitterness, and there was a slight harshness even before pitching yeast. 

Recipe:

8.5 lbs Weyermann Pils

1 lb Munich light

.25 lb Melanoidin

1 oz Tettnanger (2.2 AA) 60 minutes

.2 oz Galena (16 AA) 60 minutes

1 oz Tettnanger (2.2 AA) 20 minutes

1.055 OG

27.85 IBU

Actual FG 1.012

2023 helles

I had gotten a free pack of Omega Oktoberfest in summer 2023, which I held until September. I made a starter the night before brewing, which took off by morning. Very straightforward. 8 lbs Weyermann pils. .5 pound Munich light. Hallertau hops. In past years I used acid malt as well, but did not this year, though not for any particular reason. The yeast performed well. Clean. It cleared pretty well without gelatin. 

This beer sort of raised some questions about my own brewing abilities and senses. I submitted it for an informal competition between different brew clubs. The comments mentioned diacetyl. I didn't taste butteriness though. So, can I not detect diacetyl? Or, were the judges associating the corny/bready taste that it definitely had (which I think is a normal characteristic of pilsner malt) and then thinking popcorn and then thinking buttered popcorn from there? Incidentally, those flavors were most intense when the beer was still young and freshly kegged, as the yeast and proteins settled to the bottom. Once the beer cleared those flavors dissipated, but I don't think that diacetyl just goes away.

Anyhow, aside from this informal competition, I don't enter my beers in competitions. I brew them for me to drink and to share. And I brew them to my taste. That's all that really matters, though I'm of course open to feedback and always willing to learn and improve.

2023 homegrown hop pale ale

The previous owner of my home had planted hop plants and put in some hooks in the eves to run line for the plants. The line broke and disintegrated a long time ago, and since then I've just let the hops grow the best they can without anything - other than some bamboo stakes - to climb. The roof is pretty high and I haven't had a good way to get twine that high.

The other issue I've had with growing hops is that they seem to be maturing way too early. As I recall, I had mature hop cones in May of last year. Other cones were still immature. So that made harvesting a bit complicated. In the end, I chose to wait until August to harvest the hops. By then, some had turned very brown and crisp. Frankly, they didn't look very appealing. But they smelled good.

So I decided to take a chance and use both fresh, green hops and the brown hops as well. I also decided to buck convention by using only homegrown hops for this pale ale. I added the hops (wet) in three 140-gram quantities, at 25 minutes, 3 minutes, and 1 minute. Of course, I don't have any idea what the alpha acids were, and there are three different hop varieties in this plot, all grown and mixed together. So it was a bit of a crapshoot.

Overall, the beer turned out pretty drinkable, with a few imperfections. I finished the keg, just last week actually, which probably indicates I wasn't really in a hurry to drink it. At times it was astringent and I seemed to pick up some spicy yeast off flavors. It was also off balance and drank like an IPA. But, I'm not too surprised given the amount of hops I used and the unknown alpha acids. It's possible the brown, crispy hops added some off flavors, but I'm not entirely convinced. Overall, it was fun to harvest the hops and brew and drink this beer. 

9 lbs 2-row

8 oz Crystal 60

US-05 yeast

Simcoe pale ale - summer 2023

For several years I've been mostly making easy to drink, fairly straightforward beers. Light to moderate ABV, moderate to low bitterness, moderate to low hop flavor. This beer was no exception. Just an APA, nothing fancy. Simcoe hops from the 2016 crop. They've remained vacuum sealed and seem to still have good flavor. I'd generally been making pale ales with a standard mix of 2-row and crystal 60 malt, but to change things a little I decided to use Crystal 80 this time. It resulted in a slightly darker, redder beer and maybe just a touch more sweetness, which worked well with the Simcoe hops. It was a really good beer, but if I make something like this again, I'd probably go back to Crystal 60. I've read that Crystal malts can cause oxidation. Perhaps the higher roasting level of Crystal 80 causes more oxidation than Crystal 60? Or maybe the beer just hung around in the keg longer than usual--I didn't notice loss or degradation of hop flavor until the beer was a month or two old. Nonetheless, a tasty beer and I definitely want to use Simcoe hops again. 

Recipe for 5 gallons:

8 lbs 2 row

8 oz Crystal 80

1 oz Simcoe at 15 minutes (13.3 AA)

1 oz Simcoe at 1 minute 

(about 30 IBU)

US-05 yeast

Civil Life Brown Ale clone

This is an attempted Civil Life American brown ale clone (summer 2023). I’ve always liked Civil Life beers, as can be seen by how many times I've mentioned that brewery on this blog. Their brown ale is one of my favorite beers. It along with more of their beers are available at local stores, but as a challenge to myself I decided to try to clone it. 

Civil Life used to list the ingredients on their web site but it seems they no longer do. Using the ingredients listed on an archived version of their site, I pieced together a recipe that I thought would get me close. Malt amounts were not listed. Nor were hop amounts or a specific yeast. 

When I developed my recipe, I had not had the real thing for a while. I had remembered it being a fairly dark beer. I’ve had the real thing a time or two after brewing this and am now aware of a few differences. The real thing is slightly lighter than mine and appeared very dark red or amber when held to light. Mine is also more roasty/astringent, which I attribute to the Carafa. Reducing that ingredient should solve the astringency and color problems. The real thing also has a strong brown malt flavor. If I brew this again I will increase the brown malt. 

Recipe for 5 gallons:

4.25 lb Maris Otter

3 lb 2 row

.75 Brown malt

.5 Crystal 120

6 oz Carafa III

1.25 oz Cascade hops at 60 minutes (6.3 AA, targeting about 33 IBU, although the link above indicates 40 IBU)

US-05 yeast

Golden ale

Brewed summer 2023. I had wanted to brew an English golden ale for quite a while. I even built up yeast from a few cans of Civil Life Angel and the Sword. The yeast took off but I didn’t get around to using it right away and it later seemed to take on a sour flavor so I discarded it. I used US-05 instead. Pretty simple beer but it tasted good. I’m not sure it’s one I would brew again, at least with US-05. Some English yeast character would help a lot. 

Kolsch

Leaving aside particular styles of beers I want to drink, there are a number of other considerations that go into homebrewing. Some of those things are experimentation and cost. If I can save a few dollars when brewing, I will try to do so. But I also like to try new things and experiment. So this is where yeast culturing comes in. 

I like Kolsch but honestly haven't had a lot of it over the years. And when I buy yeast, I typically try to brew with it multiple times, so it never seemed to make sense - at least to my cheapskate self - to purchase a Kolsch yeast and only use it once, since I wouldn't generally be making multiple Kolsch batches.

After purchasing a four-pack of Riggs Kolsch back in the spring and noticing the beer was quite hazy, I decided to see if I could culture the yeast from a can. It worked well. The yeast took off, and I contacted the brewery to ask about the strain. They replied that they use BSI-29. There is not much information about this particular yeast on the internet, but according to BSI, it is similar to WLP029. 

I continued feeding the yeast until I had enough to pitch as a starter, in May 2023. The night of the brew, I recall that the starter had an apple-y aroma. I was nervous about that but decided to take the risk. And what a big risk. I've been burned by bad yeast so many times in the past. Anyhow, everything was fine. The fermentation was fairly slow and did not form a big krausen. 

Despite the smell of the starter, the beer turned out great. It cleared nicely over time, even though I did not use gelatin. It had a very nice grainy flavor and no yeast off flavors. Not a lot of hop flavor as I recall. This was a well-balanced beer and a recipe that I would love to brew again.

Recipe for 5 gallons (inspired by beerandbrewing.com):

7.5 lbs German pilsner

1 lb Carapils

Targeting about 24 IBU

1 oz Tettnanger (3.9 AA) 60 minutes 

.5 oz Tettnanger 15 minutes

.5 oz Tettnanger 10 minutes

BSI 29 yeast

FG was around 1.008-09

English bitter

Second brew of 2023. Simple English bitter-style ale with Maris Otter and crystal 80. EKG and Fuggles hops. This was a crisp, drinkable beer but I think I just don’t really love the flavor of S04. I often thought the esters were very cherry-like which clashed with some of the ingredients, particularly the first beer I made, Caribou Slobber. One thing I appreciated about this beer is that the malt, bitterness, and ho​p flavor were very balanced. I’ve made beers, such as the Schlafly pale ale clone, in which the malt was completely covered by hop flavor, so it was nice to achieve a balance with this beer.

Recipe for 5 gallons:
7 lb maris otter
.5 lb crystal 80

1 oz ekg 60 minutes
1 oz fuggles 15 minutes

Caribou Slobber

First beer of 2023. Northern Brewer’s Caribou S kit, though I purchased the ingredients on my own and just got the recipe from their web site. This was an ok beer. Nothing wrong with it per se, but the S04 esters clash with the dark malts. This is the second time I’ve made this beer. The first time, in 2014, I used Windsor yeast. I recall the flavor being closer to Moose Drool. So maybe Windsor is a less estery yeast? Regardless, if I make this again, I’ll use a cleaner English or American ale yea​st. 

Sierra Nevada Tumbler clone attempt

Tumbler is a beer that used to appear regularly but now does so only occasionally. It's a great beer and so I wanted to brew a beer that's similar though maybe not an exact clone. Sierra Nevada posts a few details on their website, which I used to developed the recipe. 

This beer is long gone, as I brewed it in the fall of 2022. I recall thinking that the smoke seemed heavy at times, though I think that seemed to disappear the more I drank it. The beer also appeared darker than the real thing. It also had a pronounced char/astringent character from the chocolate malt, so I'd probably dial that back. All in all a tasty beer though.

Recipe for 5 gallons:

8.25 lb 2-row

.5 lb chocolate malt

2 oz smoked malt (Weyermann)

.5 lb Caramel/Crystal 80

1.051 OG

Estimated FG 1.010

SRM 20.65

US-05 yeast

.75 oz Chalenger 60 minutes (8.1 AA)

.5 oz Challenger 15 minutes (8.1 AA)

.25 Willamette 15 minutes (4.2 AA)

36.92 IBU

cascade pale ale

This was beer #3 in a series of late summer beers, brewed using the US-05 yeast cake from the Nelson and Golden Hop/Idaho 7 beers. This beer turned out great. Excellent balance between malt sweetness and citrusy flavor and bitterness. As with the previous beers, this beer also was made with some old ingredients, including two pounds of Avangard pale malt that I've had since 2015 when I bought a 55-pound bag (uncrushed). The leaf cascade hops are from the 2017 crop. I obtained them from the 2018 AB hop giveaway in St. Louis. They were vacuumed sealed this whole time and no worse for wear. Still great citrus/grapefruit flavor. And no stale flavors from the old malt. 

Recipe:

5 gallons

US-05

7 lbs 2-row

2 lbs Avangard pale ale

.5 lb Crystal 60 

.5 oz 8.9 AA Cascade 60 minutes

.5 oz 30 minutes

1 oz 5 minutes

1 oz 1 minute