Batches from the Past
Having not brewed in a couple of weeks, it seems like a good time to go revisit some of the batches we had brewed in the past...
Wheat Pale Ale (Bottled 19 October 2015)
When reading homebrewing forums and blogs, the piece of advice that appears most often dispensed is "patience". This batch certainly had several lessons to teach in that respect.
This batch, our second, was an extract session IPA with a hop bill that was loosely inspired by Stone Brewing's lovely Go-to IPA (for the curious, our first batch was an all-grain Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone that ended up tasting like cider). From the get go, a bit more patience might have made a world of difference. I panicked when fermentation did not start until 24 hours in, I racked to secondary after a few days despite the slow start to fermentation, and bottled a scant 11 days after brewing.
The beer tasted a mess a week after bottling (also far too early to start tasting!) Too hoppy for even the most die hard hop head, with no malt backbone to balance it out and a prominent buttery funk that we were sure was diacetyl or an infection. We were pretty sure it was a kitchen sink beer (as in, you should pour it down the sink).
A funny thing happened after a couple months in the bottle came and went. The malt and hops came into balance (though still hop heavy), the body improved and the big buttery funk somehow mostly disappeared. Surprisingly, the beer has really come into its own and became a very solid session IPA. All it took was a little bit of patience! A lesson duly learned - sometimes you just need to get out of the way and let the beer do its thing.
Appearance: Pale gold, slight haze, prominent white head.
Nose: Citrus and some stone fruit, some breadiness setting in.
Taste: Big resiny hops dominate, some citrus around the edges.
Mouthfeel: Light and quenching, with some oiliness.
Novembeer: The Phumpkin Menace (Bottled 3 December 2015)
As mentioned in a previous post, pretty much everything went wrong on brew day. In retrospect far too ambitious a brew for our level of experience, our idea was to do a pumpkin Belgian-style strong ale with ginger, honey, cloves and cinnamon.
Going with the brew-in-a-bag method, we had added roast pumpkin directly to the grain bag. What we got was such a thick wort that we could barely sustain a rolling boil even on our gas burner and ended up well below our target OG. This rendered our choice of yeast (WLP500 Monastery Ale Yeast) unsuitable, but we didn't really have a backup to use. Finally, our spice infusions were either too conservative or perhaps the yeast was stripping the delicate aromas out, and we needed to make three separate additions to get even a subtle spice note.
Despite all that, the beer is actually turning out quite nicely. Although the body is a lot thinner than originally hoped, the subtle spice is really coming out, and if nothing else the beer is actually quite pleasant. Still clearly under carbonated, without much malt sweetness. We reckon we'll try it again in a couple more weeks to see where it is.
D
