Today I will make a Belgian Blond Ale. This is a significant style for me because it was really the first non-German beer style I drank and without that experience I probably would not brew so many Belgian styles today. It is often overshadowed by Tripel and Duvel but a perfect "gateway beer": Close enough to pale lagers to be approachable, yet "Belgian" enough to be interesting. The most common example would be Leffe Blond.
It's brewday! Actually the last brewday of the year for me. Today I will attempt to make a delicious banana-heavy Hefeweizen, learn the arcane lore of decoction mashing and try to break tHe CuRsE.
I'm also going though my old notebooks and doing a bit of a beer-making ingredients inventory. Some of it has been sitting for a while and I should use it up! So a mini batch of beer this weekend.
Got some nice Cascade and Citra hops on hand! Probably use those for finishing and use my garden's fresh hops for boiling.
Anyone have a good idea how fresh to dried scales? I always just wing it, but should be more measured about it.
In the cauldron today, another German-style Altbier with some minor tweaks and an attempt at open fermentation.
Ingredient list for an 11.5 liter batch:
1.8 kg Amber liquid malt extract
220 g Crystal medium malt
100 g De-bittered black malt
50 g Crystal hops (pellets)
Half a 11.5 g packet SafAle K-97 Yeast
12.5 liters water
I'm using 5 liters of the water to boil the malt and hops in. The remaining 6.5 liters will be cold tap water waiting in the brew bucket.
I have been banished from the kitchen, the girlfriend makes homemade burger buns, vegetarian burger patties and barbecue sauce in there for the beer tasting night. Smells very promising already 🙂
First pull of At the Märzen of Madness. Nice flavor and aroma with just the right amount of bittering. Head retention is a bit weak, but other than that it's damned fine. There's a 1/2 barrel of it so it'll be on tap for a while.
Fermented 3 weeks, lagered for 3.5 months, keg conditioned for 2 additional months. This is time well spent. #Beer#CraftBeer#craftbrewing#homebrewing#homebrewingexperience
Tapped this home-brewed #beer yesterday afternoon. It's a Wiess, basically an unfiltered Kölsch-style beer, brewed from Maris Otter pale malt, 10% pale wheat malt, and 2% CaraPils malt. Hopped with Tradition (bittering) and Tettnanger (aroma, including whirlpool addition), fermented at 20°C with Lallemand Köln yeast, then cold-conditioned and packaged. Medium bitterness, lemony-herby aromas in the nose, incredibly drinkable, a perfect party beer. #homebrewing
When did people stop being drunk all the time? https://www.lefineder.com/p/when-did-people-stop-being-drunk
Die Industrialisierung und der Kapitalismus sind schuld. Eindeutig! Freibier und Sozialismus FTW ;) !
(Der historische Bierkonsum ist wegen #homebrewing mglw. sogar noch unterschätzt …)
Bei Soldaten und Seeleuten („drunken as a sailor“) waren die täglichen Rationen so groß, dass die etwa die Hälfte der Kalorien über Alkohol zu sich genommen haben … (Bevölkerungsdurchschnitt „nur“ ein Viertel)
The Bière de Garde has reached a final gravity of 1.7°P. That gives it an ABV percentage of big and honking 8.86. It's really amazing how the Saison yeast makes it still feel incredibly light. The sample tastes like a slightly oomphed-up Dunkelweizen, some breadyness, clove and banana at balance. But after the second sip you just feel that this is going to kick your butt. Anyway, this little punk gets bottled tomorrow. #homebrewing
Lallemand seem to be really pushing on the front of low/non-alcoholic beer. Their latest newsletter talks about their new LoNa yeast strain, flavour compounds in NA beer, sensory analysis and even homebrewing (they won't sell LoNa to homebrewers 😐).
And the wild hops that I use as the work horse hops in most of my beers got their own rig this year. This was very successful, if those tiny red spots aren't sunburn I should almost get enough for two years of brewing. Or I make more of that "Altbier" where they gave the beer a nice orangy-marmalady hoppyness.
Shout out to my father in law by the way, the wizard of plants in whose fine vegetable garden these plants have found their home.
I have an announcement to make: on March 9, 2024, I'll be talking (in German) about Vienna Lager and its history at the Heimbrau Convention at Schloss Romrod.
To the homebrewing bubble: Anyone present who brewed with Lallemand NovaLager? Did you brew with it between 15 and 20°C? What results did you get?
I am considering to re-work my failed attempt at Altbier brewing into a proper Kellerbier using NovaLager but when I look at Lallemand's Lager Yeast Selection brochure it looks like in that temperature range I might as well just make a pseudo-Lager with Nottingham yeast.
My birthday gift is on its way to home! Finally I spent a little more and bought a Single Vessel. Let's see how my next beer batch will be 🙂 #homebrewing#singlevessel
Hey all! Like so many others right now I am fleeing the large social media platforms and discovering the Fediverse for the first time! I’m either an an engineer or a software developer - depending on whose asking - in the Energy sector. I’m from Michigan originally but temporarily based in #taiwan for my wife’s job. I love road #cycling , #homebrewing , #cooking , various aspects of tech, and of course Sci-Fi.
I suppose that’ll be my first pass at an #introduction !