Bitter and Ginger Blonde Ale

Two batches are now in process. The brewing of the bitter went well, a little bit higher gravity than I anticipated due to the concentration of the boil, but still shaping up to be a good session style beer. The Ginger Blonde had a very nice tasting wort; the caramel sweetness of medium crystal malt blended wonderfully with the spicy heat of about 10oz of peeled ginger root. This is a much stronger beer, at 1.064 OG. At one point I would have considered that a medium gravity beer, but I am becoming much more interested in the lighter, weaker styles of beer lately.

The hefeweizen and kirschweizen are next, I'm awaiting yeast.

Additionally, two more batches have been bottled: the espresso stout and the juniper anise gruit. The espresso stout was biting, almost too biting with coffee and stout bitterness, but it did strike me as an ideal candidate for a stout float with some vanilla ice cream. The gruit ale, with an OG around 1.055 or so, is very interesting and herbal in aroma. The mugwort used in it imparts a strong sage-like aroma, and I wish I had doubled up on the juniper and anise! I can see this working well as a dinner ale, if paired well (with strongly spiced, hearty dishes).

In the more distant future I am wanting to try a couple more ideas. Northern Brewer has a Patersbier recipe kit, which essentially is the simplest Belgian ale imaginable: 9lbs of Belgian pils malt, very light hopping, and a Belgian trappist yeast strain. I'm rather eager to see how that one works out! Also, I am planning on a malted cider experiment. First I would do a 1-gallon minimash with Carafoam, Crystal 20, and a bit of 2-row malt, with just enough water and malt to convert the carafoam and crystal, and then I would add this concentrated wort to a cider, using perhaps 3 gallons of standard apple juice and 1 gallon of apple juice concentrate to thicken up the apple flavor and strength. The idea behind the malt is twofold. First, the Crystal malt would add in all the things we miss in fermented cider...candy-like sweetness, a slight caramel flavor, and body. Second, the Carafoam would help contribute to head retention, producing a sparkling cider with a foamy beer-like head. Age it with some toasted oak, and I think it might turn out to be my best attempt at cider yet.

Lastly, the call of the draft system beckons. If you've got a chest freezer you want to get rid of, let me know.

Bi-Annual Update

Well, again, it has been under six months, so I'm a bit early on my update. Nonetheless, I've had a bit of a brewing resurgence, so I thought I'd document some of my planned undertakings:

First, I've three batches yet to bottle: the aforementioned Rauchian Imperial Stout, an espresso stout, and a brown juniper anise gruit ale.

Tonight I am brewing the first new batch in five months or so. First up will be a very simple Best Bitter. 8lbs of British Optic malt sweetened with a half pound of Crystal 60 malt, bittered with an ounce of Willamette at the start of the boil, and a half ounce of East Kent Goldings at the 30 and 10 minute marks, for flavor and aroma. Fermented with S-04, a good British ale yeast. Should make a great session brew.

In a week, I will brew a "tiered" batch, using the yeast cake from the Bitter. This will be a Honey Ginger Ale, using perhaps 6 lbs of malt with 4 lbs of honey, for a style similar to a braggot. It will probably utilise Argentinean Cascade hops for the bittering, and will have close to a pound of fresh ginger, creating a strong, dry, pale golden ginger beer. Perfect for a barbeque on a hot summer evening.

Continuing on the line of summer style beers, I have two wheat beers lined up as well. The first is an exercise in simplicity; 4 lbs of pale malt with 5 lbs of wheat malt. A single bittering hop addition of 1 oz Spalt hops will balance it out, and a new Danstar wheat beer yeast (that came highly recommended to me by Kristen England of Northern Brewer) should be the star of the show, as a traditional Bavarian weizen.

A week after that has brewed, I will essentially duplicate the process using the yeast cake, and brew another weizen with the same ingredients. This time, as the beer is racked to the secondary fermentor, a quart of Montmorency tart cherry juice concentrate will be added, which would reconstitute to 2 gallons of tart cherry juice. This should create a refreshing fruit beer...rather interesting.

After all this, I'll still have a packet of K-97 Alt yeast, and I might try a Roggenbier. But I need to be careful not to fill my fermentors faster than I can bottle.