Brew Day: Maesters Mahogony - An Ale from the Seven Kingdoms

The Vorpbrew Rooster dressed as a maester.
Potential label artwork.

I hate brown ales.  Just have never learned to like them.  So here I am this weekend brewing a brown ale.  Why? 

I get bored of brewing the same type of beer over and over.  If it was up to me, I would just brew stouts, IPA's and sours.  All day everyday. But I want to learn more about brewing.  Sometimes that means you gotta step outside of what is comfortable and brew something new. 

I asked a friend at work what kind of beer he liked. 

"Newscastle Brown". 

Well, OK then. "I'll brew one for you" 

Since I have said that we have learned that we both liked Game of Thrones.  He is a huge GoT nerd.  I am just learning.  He is the Maester and I am the Samwell in this story.

So I went to the Citadel to learn how to brew a proper brown in the Newcastle tradition.  I learned that it is mixed from old ale and new amber ale to create the Brown Ale we all know.

I planned to do this in the proper tradition but I thought that I had to make it my own.  I had to make it a bit more American while retaining some of those traditional English flavors.

I brewed up a brown ale that I am calling the Maester's Mahogony - An Ale from the Seven Kingdoms.  My recipe was a mix between Newcastle and Moosedrool, the American Brown Ale that gets the most attention, and a light stout.

All of my malts where from England, I used English yeast and added a few more ounces of black patent (for that stout twist - along with some brown sugar) and hopped the beer with American hops with English ancestry.

It's currently bubbling away in the primary fermentor and I can only wonder if any of the Game of Thrones characters would like to have a pint of this ale once its done.

Old Beers are Soon to be New Beers

I made two beers a while back.  Probably 6 months. Maybe longer.

One was an old time Brown Ale.  It never got down to final gravity.  I think my diastic power equation failed me.  I used a large portion of brown malt and a very small amount 6-row.  It didn't work.  I planned on putting some Brett in the final beer to give it that old barrel flavor that should of been present in the 1700's in England.  Also added a bit of oak.  So instead of wasting the final beer I added the Brett and oak and decided to see what would happen.  The beer was at 1.034.  After six months its only down to 1.028.  I am going to bottle this in some sturdy bottles and see how it tastes. It currently tastes awesome. A bit sweet but it has a great depth of flavor.  I will be interested to see how it finishes out.

The other one was an Orval clone that  I am calling Opal Abbey.  Named after my high school band of course.  This one has a huge Brett nose. Fruity, funky yet clean.  I dont know how that makes any sense but thats also what it taste like.  It was actually pretty clean.  It smelled more funky and fruity than the flavor. I am going to dry hop this for a few days and then bottle this one up.

Hopefully we will have some tastings in the very near future with these beers.

Vorpbrew - Back in Business

It feels like I have not brewed a beer for fun in a long time.  Don't get me wrong. I loved brewing beer for the wedding but it's time to brew beer and not have to worry about 150 people liking it.  A brew day is coming and it will yield a Heady Topper clone.  I have been wanting to try one of the New England IPAs for a long time now.  Hope my version comes out good.

More importantly I finally went to my parents and got my tap gear that has been at their place since the wedding.  So that means Vorpbrew is back open.  I had a Mexican Mocha Stout last night and it still tastes great.  It really has not aged at all in the keg. Tasted the same as it did almost three months ago.

I also drank a Roosters Red when the Pens won the cup on Sunday.  After a year in the bottle it seems to be losing some of its punch.  One thing I need to keep in mind is this beer is now almost three years old.  Its losing some of its crisp sourness that it had last year when I first drank one.  Its becoming a more deep and rounder flavor.  I like it crisper. Just my preference though.

Can not wait to brew this IPA and get it on tap so I can have a nice beer to sip on the deck.  I also want to get my sour program back on target with my normal timing.

Up next: an actual brew day post!

Wedding Beer - The Failed Recipes

Way back in the end of January,  my only post of this calendar year, I laid out the groundwork for what I wanted to accomplish this brewing year.  I am currently failing miserably.  For most of my brewing career I have been making one-off recipes or beers that are not supposed to be the same year over year (my sours for instance).  This year with the wedding coming up I decided to brew my own beer for the wedding since I had the capabilities and our venue is BYOB.  Perfect, right?

Here is where things went wrong.  My first witbier was an amazing beer.  I think mostly due to the dregs of Jolly Pumpkin adding the delicious tartness and added depth in the flavor. It was a great beer.  It really way.  Fast forward 2.5 years and I want to make something similar.  First attempt was no good.  It was medicinal. Probably from my use of tap water straight from the tap on such a light beer.  So for the next batch I decided to finally purchase a water filter.  The beer turned out OK.  It just was not up to my standards for my "Wedding Wit".  With time running out at this point I turned my attention to a beer that was maybe a bit more sturdy and not as delicate and did not rely on the yeast to bring that added complexion.

I turned my attention to an English Summer Ale.  The recipe from Radical Brewing seemed to be just what I was looking for.  I brewed the "old school" version that used traditional English hops.  I always found English hops to be a bit too earthy – almost dirty - in flavor.  This recipe was great on all fronts except the hop flavor profile.  I just found that the beer was a bit too spicy or earthy for my liking.  The bitterness levels where good and the malt flavor was a nice bread-like crustiness with some mellowness from the wheat.  I think the hop flavor could of been tamed a bit if I used another yeast.  I love dry beers.  When I read the description for this beer in the Radical Brewing book I just thought it would be great to have that bone dry crisp finish.  I think this let the hop flavor push all the way through without a bit of sweetness to balance.

So, now what?

I was brewing my Mango Brett IPA.  This recipe got turned down to more of a Xtra Pale Ale. Too big for a pale ale technically and just a tad too small for an IPA.  So what are we going to do about the other 10 gallons we needed for the wedding.

My cousin-in-law volunteered to brew up these ten gallons.  He brews these types of British beers more than I do so what better way to do this than pass on my recipe and tasting notes to him?

He took my recipe and brewed five gallons.  He used a more malt-flavor-retaining yeast and cleaned up the hop flavor by using Cluster.  The American version of the British hops I am not a fan off.

He then brewed up a 5 gallon recipe of Kentish Ale.  This should just be a really nice light ABV English Pale ale.  Complex but sessionable.

I will recap the festivities and the beers that we all have.  Hopefully come June I will be back on a more regular schedule.

When I get back into my routine of brewing it will be a run of IPA's and the three base sour beers. 

Keep it easy for the first summer of marriage!

2016 - Brewing Schedule

At the beginning of each year I like to plan out what I want to accomplish each year.  I can only fit in so many brew days and there are just too many great ideas for beer.  So putting it here on this blog helps me look back and see how I have done.  I already have a great lineup of beers to brew this year.  Some are tweaks.  Some are new based on great commercial examples and, well, some are just continuing my sour program.

First up are the beers for my wedding.  We have a venue that allows me to bring in my homebrew.  Great news for me.  I get to say I'm working on the wedding while I am brewing test batches or the full batches that I will get to brew in April.

For the wedding here is what I am planning on:

10 Gallons of my Brett IPA.  I plan to take down the ABV just a tad so it's a bit more sessionable.  I may or may not add the mango juice.  Depends on costs of everything else.

10 Gallons of a witbier.  I just brewed up a new recipe that I will post about shortly.  This is my basic witbier recipe but I added 5% acid malt.  I want to push the beer to have more tang like my first witbier that was dosed with some Jolly Pumpkin dregs.  I dont want to go that sour since this will be for mass consumption, but I do want to have a refreshing tart bite.  Hopefully the lactic acid malt and the WLP 400 yeast can do the job.  This test batch should be ready for me to taste very shortly.  I also want to brew this one quick and serve it super fresh like it would of back in the day.

I may even test the waters on a Lite American Ale.  Part of me wants to do it just because while the other part says not to waste the effort.  We will see if I have time for a test batch.

Next up is my sour program.  Here is what I plan to do this year.
I will get a barrel of each beer.  I will take the beer from those barrels and break them out pretty close to the same way as I did this year.

Red Barrel - My sour red will be broken down into the following batches:

1. Straight sour red
2. Sour red with sour cherries (this batch from 2015 was probably the best of the crop)
3. Another attempt at my Currant and Raisin blend.  I added way too much currant this year.  It pushed the acidity into an almost un drinkable stage. I may even brew a clean red this year to mix on tap with this batch.

Black Barrel  - The sour stout will most likely stay the same.  I do have a few ideas for some smaller break downs.

1. Straight - Most will be straight.
2. Plum - I want to put some on some Vinter Harvest Plum fruit.
3. Figs - Once Trader Joes has these back in stock I want to do a Fig and Honey or Fig and Oatmeal combo.

Golden Barrel - Since I break my golden down for making Gueze I dont have as much to play with.  Here are the plans for that:

1. 2 gallons for Gueze.  First batch will be in 2017.
2. 1 gallon straight
3. 1 gallon on raspberries that my friend picks from his backyard (this batch looks amazing. the batch from 2015 should be ready to drink in March or June of this year. 
4. 1 gallon on Peach.  I really wanted to do a peach this year but didn't get enough sour beer after the mix.  Heres hoping I do this year.

Finally I want to brew a few other beers so far in the works are the following:

1. Oak aged Brown Brett Porter (already brewed this one.  Need to do a recap)
2. Belgian Speicialty Ale (Duvel like beer - already brewed this one too. Need to do a recap)
3. Mexican Hot Chocolate Stout (brewing this weekend.  A beer based on Xoxoveca by Stone.  A simply amazing beer)
4. Barley Wine - Slowly getting into these.  A small 2 gallon batch will be brewed in Spring so we can enjoy it next fall and winter.

I know that these 10 or so beers I have listed will most likely cover the majority of my year.  To close here are some numbers on my sour beer program.

Around town, it costs roughly 20-30 dollars to get a quality sour beer in a 750mL bottle.  Pretty expensive.  I've paid that much for a few 12oz beers here as well.  It's an expensive beer to be a fan of.  Part of the reason I started brewing sours was my goal to make a beer good enough to stand up with some of those commercials.  Four years later I think I finally did that.  My sours are pretty damn good.  I still buy those 30 dollar bottles, but not nearly as much.  I pulled 72 bottles out of my barrels this year (750mL)  This would of costs me over $2,000 to buy this amount of sour beers.  The costs of the barrles, wine kits that I brewed to add to the barrel for flavoring before the beer went in, ingredients for the beer, bottles etc was probably just north of 1,000 dollars.  So I save roughly 1,000 dollars.  My costs this year to maintain my sour program is going to be MAYBE 200 dollars. Depending on the fruit combos I do it could be even cheaper.  I just need to brew 3 five-gallon batches.  Cost savings are really going to kick in this year.  

Think about that.  What I would of spent 2,000 dollars on - is going to cost me 200.  Making great beer and saving a ton of money.  Great stuff right there.

Until next time...

Tasting Day: Phunky Pumpkin

This one is a bit late.  But I finally have the tasting notes ready for the sour chocolate pumpkin ale I made.  This beer started out as a chocolate pumpkin stout.  I noticed a pellicle after two weeks in the secondary and then noticed that I put the beer in one of my sour fermentors.  Whoops. Nothing really to do other than let it go at this point.  One year later, I put it on tap.

Appearance: Pretty much black.  Bit of a burnt amber on the edge of the glass.  Little bit of head is left after the beer settles.  Bit of lace on the glass as you sip away.

Aroma: It has a vinegar sourness in the nose. A bit of chocolate maybe.  Spices are noticeable but you can't pick one out.

Taste:  This is a weird one.  A good weird.  Some sips you get chocolate.  Some you get that vinegar sourness. Others have a mixed sour and cinnamon flavor.  As the beer warms you get way more chocolate.  It's sweet while not being over powering.  Very unique and overall a great beer.  Very surprised by how this "mistake" turned out.

Overall:  I probably won't brew this one again just because I have too many sours going but if I ever had a spare carboy that I can use up for a year I just may.  I saved a few bottles worth that I can sip on next year.  So we are looking at two years at a minimum.

Sour Tastings

I have tried most of my sours that are in bottles.  I have not done proper tasting notes on these.  My goal is to do them over the holiday break.

1. sour red
2. sour stout
3. kriek
4. sour red with currant and raisin
5. sour stout with blackberry pinot noir
6. phunky pumpkin sour pumpkin stout.


These will be fun.

Look for these postings coming at the end of the month.