Notes on a Brewday: John Ireland Blvd. Bitter

I was brewing on a Wednesday. It was the third batch outside on the Banjo Burner, a wind screen fashioned with Aluminum foil. It seems like a bitter northwest wind swept around St. Paul on that otherwise fair summer day. I woke up to that wind spreading word of the newest tent in the ongoing Minnesota state government shutdown circus: media outlets were warning Joe Six-pack that MillerCoors' MN state seller's license couldn't be renewed & their M-C brands were to be pulled from liquor store shelves.

In any other year, the expiration of a state license would set into motion the process of a renewal. This year, the civil servants that process state license renewals at the commerce department were laid off along with thousands of other state employees when elected officials couldn't come together & draft a state budget.

Notes on a brewday: Warminster Standard

Technically, it was a brewnight.
Waxing moon over boiler.

My wife likes English bitters, her birthday is coming up, and she wants to throw a party with lots of beer. She also owns a rhinestone-encrusted switchblade with which she makes sure I understand the things she says. Fortunately I happened to have the last 10 pounds from a sack of Maris Otter laying around and a raging propagation of Wyeast's Thames Valley II with no place else to be. I also had the urge ... the urge to sparge. To the backyard!

Short on Supply, High on Concepts

I've had a couple years' run wherein my brewing has been a gently purring animal.

Tastes have become recipes. Those recipes have met practices on brewdays, and then found their way through the cell membranes of various yeasts, until the whole was poured into pint glasses. Those glasses were emptied into dozens of parched mouths; occasionally, a few of those mouths gave coherent, positive feedback. My three & some odd years of homebrewing have led me to a fine place where the only limits have been my imagination, palate & budget.

Brewer's Log: My Comeback

First thing: clean all these!

Now two months after my wedding, my wallet has restored its modest dripping of funds, enough to get brew back into both fermenters & kegs.

I came into the wedding plans with the fervor to supply all my reception's beer intake. But, thanks to MN liquor statutes, I am left with a complete glass carboy & plastic bucket army. As I get back onto my feet, here's a rundown of my exploits in stocking our home with the gift of grain:

Notes on a brew day: Old Golden and DSB (Dawson's Special Bitter)

What's better than ten gallons of homebrew? Not much.

Ah, but what if there were some way to  achieve two different kinds of beer from one batch? Pitch two different yeasts, you say? True. But I was thinking of parti-gyle.

Session Beers

Some factors have been merging recently, bringing me to write this blog post on session beers, and I'll talk about each of them in turn: brewing a run of 4-5 batches in a row of above-6% ABV beer, drinking some truly amazing low-gravity beers, checking out The Session Beer Project blog, and listening to Mark Stutrud's keynote address at the NHC this year.

Pretty fly for a Weiss guy

... or "Everything I needed to know about open fermentation I learned from NB Milwaukee."

Double drop fermentation

So I've been reading some books about British pub beers and, in particular, the vaunted British Bitter. Needless to say, I was inspired to recreate the technique of the Brakspear brewery, which produces some of the finest brews in the UK. They use an interesting technique known as the double-drop fermentation and claim it produces unique flavors, especially in their Bitter.

Brewer's log: Floor Malt Experiment #3: Parti-gyle 140 Shilling and a “Halvsy”

I too had the opportunity to experiment with the Warminster floor-malted Maris Otter. My goal was two worts from one mash: a Scottish 140/- ale, and a second "small beer" (we'll call it the Halvsy). In total the grist was about 24 lbs for a 5 gallon batch of each of the two beers.

30th Level Beer Nerd

Brewing beer is a lot like playing pen and paper RPGs. There are numbers and things to keep track of, it is a great social activity, and you get to use your imagination a lot.

Notes on a Brew Day: AK-747 Pale Mild

Brew day! English ale = bored dog. She only likes lagers.

Subsistence brewing

Friends, a toast:

To subsistence brewing!

Five things made better by homebrew

First of all, I must confess that these five things on their own grant merit and praise. I am in no way implying that these five things cannot stand upon their own feet, or require the association of libations to make them a worthwhile topic of consideration. With that in mind, I find that some homebrew can make these five already boss things even bosser.