Dry Yeast Saison

This came out very good, first time using the dry Belle Saison yeast. I didn’t get the ferment temp above 75 much, so I didn’t get all the perfect flavors…but it’s a great Belgian ale anyway. Rating this 92%

Amber Rye

I used mostly distilled water for the first time here, and I’m not sure if it made a difference, but the beer came out very nice with dark red fruit flavors coming from the 5th gen yeast. Rating this 89% because it was very good, but was missing something to make it great.

Vanilla Porter

Tasted just like Breckenridge’s Vanilla Porter, using my home made vanilla extract. I used a lot of spring water in this, and it paid off with the dark malts, rating this 97% because it was damn near perfect.

Freedom Ale Part Deux

I was trying to recapture the magic from the 1st Freedom Ale, as Uncle Ed called it one of the best beers he ever had. This beer fermented out a bit too much and lost all residual sweetness so it was more bitter than it should’ve been, but still good. Rating this 85%

Lemongrass Ale

This yeast mixture (400 and Notty) completely destroyed all the sugars and left no sweetness. Other than that, I had a great flavor come through from the spices: fresh lemongrass, fresh ginger, fresh mint leave and crushed black peppercorns. The dominating flavor was (I think) ginger and gave this beer a unique twist. Rating 83% because of the dryness.

 

American Pale Ale (Sierra Nevada Clone)

This wasn’t supposed to be a Sierra Nevada clone, but it turned out quite close to their popular pale ale.  Rating this an 87%

Pink Peppercorn Grapefruit Wit

I got this recipe from a fellow brewer who saw my Primavera Wit recipe on my blog. He also does Wit beers and we started talking about techniques and recipes, which led me to try this beer. The yeast I used was a second generation WLP400 yeast cake, and there was also a little nottingham yeast from the 1st brew, which I know isn’t a smart/good mix of yeast but it’s what I had at the moment. Everything went great and my brew day was a success, but 3 weeks later, I checked the gravity and it was down to 1.002!!! I was hoping for the FG to be closet to 1.010 but it went super low and got VERY dry. The beer is definitely packed with peppercorn + grapefruit flavor but the damn gravity went too low and dried it out beyond belief…it almost tastes like a Saison, rather than a Wit, which is fine by me. The final rating will be 80% on this because I just couldn’t get over the dryness, but that’s not a fault of the recipe, it was probably my yeast hybrid which dropped it too low.

Bells 2 Hearted

I got poor efficiency on this brew, but it still came out very good. I’m not sure what happened during the mash, but I didn’t get the normal efficiency I’m used to. Luckily, the final product was awesome, and tasted very similar to Bells 2 Hearted, even though it was only about 5% ABV which is way lower than Bells. I rate this 90% and was rather impressed at how close it came to the commercial beer.

Kolsch/Wit hybrid

It was supposed to be a Kolsch, but my 2nd Gen nottingham yeast wasn’t working 2 days after pitching, so I had to quickly run out and get a vial of WLP400 – the combination of yeasts isn’t particularly sought after but I thought I’d bite the bullet. The final product was a hit, even if it was too dry. It was also my first time using lactic acid to bring down the Mash PH, along with brewing salts. I will rate this 88% because I wanted more belgian flavors to come through.

Dark Kolsch

This was the first water chemistry beer I did where I had the actual water report from Distillata. So my salt additions were calibrated with much more accuracy, and it did turn out maltier than normal, but there was also honey malt involved. I never used honey malt before, and I didn’t realize how much extra sweet flavor 1# would add, but it was A LOT. Not too much, but if I’m going to drink a sweeter beer, it’s usually a brown ale, and not a Kolsch. This beer was solid and enjoyed by many a people, I’ll give it 87% only because it was a tad too sweet for me.