Monday, April 18, 2011

Centennial IPA, Belgian Witbier, and our 1st Brewing Fail


Brewing with Friends Roll Call 4.16.11:
Brewmaster Blake, Whit, Carson, Jack, Brandon, David, Andrew, Bojangles, Tina, Kristin, Katie, Alexa and Bruno

Beer Talk:
Belgian Witbier
As summer is just about to begin we have really been gearing up our brewing on delicious, citrusy, and easy drinking brews. What better choice than the Belgian Witbier (think Bluemoon style)! Not only did it have a very oaty/wheaty grain bill - but in this particular recipe we added a couple of special ingredients that are trademark for the Witbier style. Kristin zested the rhine off of three oranges and Jackson took the duty of crushing up coriander. Both of these ingredients were added with about 5-10 minutes left in the boil...and boy did it smell amazing! The Witbier is healthily fermenting as we speak and we are expecting this one to turn out really well.
The coriander being prepared for the boil


Centennial IPA
Keeping in the theme of great summer beers Brewmaster Blake wanted to try his hand at a Centennial IPA. This is going to be a big beer - both alcohol content and also hop flavor/aroma. The reason we call this a Centennial IPA is because it is a single hop variety IPA. Generally there are 2-3 separate hop varieties that are added throughout the boil to offer the beer some complexity in its hoppy flavor and aroma however the single hop variety IPA's are all the rage right now...you heard it here first. A popular beer that is also a single hop variety is Bell's Two-Hearted. I highly suggest saving up $8 bucks to buy a six pack of this beer, its very well done and if you're into pale ales or IPA's you wont regret this purchase.
All the boys around the dueling kettles



Doubly Explosive IPA
Generally there isn't too much to talk about after the brewing process is done, but I wanted to make sure I dropped an update on the doubly explosive IPA. As you remember we had quite a difficult time keeping the primary fermentation vessel sealed due to the explosive nature of this monster beer. But yesterday we decided to transfer and we dry hopped it! This will go into secondary for a week or two, can't wait to carbonate this bad boy and pour a cold one.
Dry Hopping the Doubly Explosive IPA



Party Talk and Ramblings:
The three new guys getting down on some brewing action
So overall it was a great night of brewing, we had a strong turnout of 13-14 people including 3 people for their first brewing experience, and another one for only his second brewing experience. Brandon, Andrew, and Biff helped out throughout the brewing process including Andrew/Fisher mashing in, David doing some hop additions, and Fisher doing some hop additions during the boil. It's always great to have some people come by for their first brewing experience, hopefully they learned something about brewing.

Stay tuned to Brewing with Friends, next week we will have a post that you will not believe; an NFL celebrity drinking beer that was Brewed with Friends... photo's will be included!

-Assistant Brewmaster

And without further ado, I give you our first brewing fail...enjoy!

Brewing Fail:

That Muskrat is a dirty dirty man....if you have a queasy stomach do not go further....you've been warned......


Dude...don't
Fail.

You may be trying to convince yourself at this point that this is pea-flavored baby food. Well I can assure you it's not. You may try to convince yourself that this is some delicious pistachio flavored ice cream....once again I can assure you it's not. The Muskrat has elected to take a heaping spoon full of inoculated yeast. Now in the interest of the casual reader I wanted to make sure everyone is aware of the definition of inoculate further solidifying belief that some men should not have the privilege of making decisions on their own. I leave you with what the Muskrat willingly, knowingly, and quite hilariously ingested.






in·oc·u·late

[ih-nok-yuh-leyt] Show IPAverb, -lat·ed, -lat·ing.
–verb (used with object)
1.
to implant (a disease agent or antigen) in a person, animal,or plant to produce a disease for study or to stimulatedisease resistance.
2.
to affect or treat (a person, animal, or plant) in this manner.
3.
to introduce (microorganisms) into surroundings suited totheir growth, as a culture medium.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Sunday Funday

Whit and I will be having some fun brewing adventures today. This includes kegging the yet-to-be-named pale ale and transferring of the brown ales. Our amber is carbonating as we speak and should be effervescent later this week!

We also got our name for the 90 minute clone: Doubly Explosive IPA. Named because the lid to the fermentor blew off twice! Whit was even afraid to sleep in the same room. Brewing beer can be a dangerous thing, friends. Please brew responsibly.

Please let us know what beers you'd like to be drinking. Since the weather is warming up, we're thinking a Kölsch, a witbier, and some IPAs in the near future.

Cheers
-BB

Saturday, April 9, 2011

90 Minute IPA & Blonde Ale V2.0

Brewing With Friends Role Call 4/8/11:
Whit, Bo, Carson, Andrew, Katie, Emily, Bruno, and Katie's dog...can't remember the name

Beer Talk:
90 Minute IPA
Carson joined me at the Listermann's homebrew shop yesterday afternoon to help decide what to brew (Initially Andrew wanted to brew something similar to the Souther Tier IPA, but they didn't have the right ingredients). We thought about doing all kinds of different beers but decided to do a 90 minute ipa..and boy what a journey it was. 18 pounds of grain, 5 oz of hops, and 90 minutes of boiling later and we have quite the beer. As I sit here writing this, the lid of the fermentation bucket has exploded off the bucket twice now forcing me to come up with an alternative method to let the CO2 escape. I think I came up with the solution, but homage must be paid to Andrew and Carson on this brew, it is a HAPPY beer...fermenting like crazy. Got a good pic, and a good video, check 'em out below:


Andrew doing some extreme brewing...


         

The explosive 90 Minute IPA


Blonde Ale
Nothing too crazy happened with the Blonde Ale - a little less volume than we wanted due to the wort not wanting to hit it's hot break...annoying. It's upstairs fermenting like a normal beer should, and not like that insane IPA that has no forced me to clean the walls several times due to spontaneous yeast combustion. We didn't make any changes to the recipe from the first time we brewed it, hopefully it comes out similar! 

Random thoughts:
Special thanks to Emily Colston Clark for coming over, if I were a woman, and pregnant, I think hanging out with a bunch of guys drinking and brewing beer would be the last thing I would want to do..but it was awesome, and she was awesome. Other than that - a pretty tame night...we needed it after the brown ale bonanza last week. I think Bo, Carson, and Andrew all made great strides on their brewing knowledge...they basically did everything themselves. The Southern Tier IPA that Drew brought over was a great IPA...I would highly suggest to anyone who is looking for a balanced IPA that doesn't rot your tongue off!

Till next week, 
- Assistant Brewmaster




Bo's Brown Ale V2.0 & Golden Knight English Brown Ale

Brewing With Friends Role Call 4.1.11:
Blake, Whit, Bo, Andy, Jack, Carson, David, Chad, Kristin, Tina, Alexa, Brian, Jenn, Grantalones, and about 4-5 random neighbors, and a couple stray dogs as well...sorry if I forgot anyone, got a little loose by the end of the night.

Both kettles boiling great, pretty sure Allman bro's are jammin


The girls gettin in on some brewing with friends

Beer Talk:
Bo's Brown Ale V2.0
I spoke with the BB (brewmaster blake) earlier in the day - and we decided on doing the second iteration of our Bo's Brown Ale. The first time we brewed the Bo's Brown it turned out pretty well - we were happy with it tasted and appeared visually but wanted to make it a bit more earthy as opposed to the strong grapefruit flavors/smell we got from the cascade hops we used in version 1.0. This time we substituted the Willamette to try and hit the mark on this beer. Great fermentation so far, will be taking it to secondary this weekend for a couple of weeks...will update on how this one turned out in a couple of weeks
Hitting that mash-in temperature on the money

    

Golden Knight English Brown Ale
The second beer we brewed was an English Brown Ale (think Newcastle Brown). We were shooting for a beer that was medium in body, malty flavored, non-aromatic, and brown in color. This is the first time we have brewed this recipe, but we hit pretty close to our marks and I have the feeling it's going to turn out great. This one also will be going into secondary this weekend, and should be ready in a couple of weeks. Thanks for the idea on brewing this one Carson.

jack weathering the storm to make sure they get the perfect boil

Party Time:
Everyone was fired up for this brewing with friends night ...especially Assistant Assistant Brewmaster Bojangles. Apparently he has a soft-spot for Jack's Squirrelin' IPA, because we tapped the keg that night and we have reason to believe that Bojangles drank more than his fair share before the night was done. We had a great turn-out and more than a couple people ended up sleeping on the couch as a result of indulging


We got off to a pretty late start, but that was mostly due to getting our second brewing system fired up. Jack and Carson fabricated a mash-tun, and we were off and running for our first double brew night...it was a lot of fun and exciting to have that many people involved. 

Till next week,
- Assistant Brewmaster




Introduction

Hey guys - Blake and I have been talking about getting a blog up and running for a while now to document and archive all of our brewing happenings! Over the past couple of months we have been brewing every Friday night in the garage of good ole' 801 Miami.

Blake and I are going to do our best to keep our blog up to date with how all of our beers are doing, any pictures we take during our brew nights, and most importantly any insight or random thoughts we feel like sharing.

-Assistant Brewmaster