5/2/2024 0 Comments Beersmith 3 locking upAmerican Wild Barrel-Aged Brown - Solera.Microburst DIPA With Citra, El Dorado, and Azacca. ![]() Obviously, my memory is less than perfect, but I continue refining to achieve the same effect if not the same recipe. I've narrowed into a grain bill that seems right, and am now playing with the hop content. Don't get me wrong - all of those stouts in between have been fantastic - but the experiment continues. This is roughly attempt #20 at replicating that batch of beer. Even today - 15 years after that batch of beer - I still have a friend who asks me if I figured out how to replicate it. It was 5%-ish, lots of roast malts, and had a head that wouldn't quit. I know the hops were light - perhaps one ounce of fuggles went into the brew. To this date I do not know what was in that beer - Zoli literally gave me a few unmarked bags of specialty malts that I dumped in the MLT. All to fast the beer was gone, but it left me a brewer now obsessed with making good beer. My friends - who normally would only drink my homebrew after pre-drinking a few MCB's - agreed. The first sip of the beer forever changed my view on home brewing - it was delicious roasty, not very bitter, and went down like water. None-the-less I forged ahead, finished the brew day, fermented it out, and bottled the beer. I was shocked at the colour of the beer - this was in the days before craft brewing was big, so most beers in the store were still MCB's (Molson, Coors & Buds). No hops were bought - I had some fuggles left over from a previous brew - and a packet of nottingham finished off the ingredient list. Zoli talked me into a few flavour grains essentially those for a stout. Hooked, I went to get the ingredients for the next batch. I don't remember the exact recipe, but I achieved what I had been brewing previously - strong, bad-tasting, and a few dollars cheaper than my prior extract batches. I took the bait, built a zap-tap lauter tun (if you don't know what that is, consider yourself lucky - it takes about 6 hours with a drill to make one) and tried my first batch. Zoli, the proprietor who ran Prairie Brewers (a sadly now defunct brewshop in Calgary) caught onto what I was brewing, and in a somewhat deceitful manner, hinted that all-grain brewing would save me even more money. The story of how I got into all-grain, the background behind this recipe, and the recipe itself are found below the fold. ![]() Cheap & good for getting drunk was clearly the sole goal in those days. For the first year of my homebrew career I brewed dozens of batches of beer - all mostly corn-sugar, all horridly tasting, and all over 7%. ![]() ![]() As I've mentioned previously, I started brewing while in university, with the intent of making beer as cheaply as possible. This odd formulation is an attempt to replicate the first good beer I ever brewed - brewed more than 15 years ago and despite several attempts never replicated. Winter brewing is officially here!Īs for the recipe, it is a bit off of the BJCP style for a dry stout - the gravity & grain bill are pretty much normal, but the bitterness level is nearly half of normal - 18IBUs. As I write this I am shivering out in my garage - its a brisk -8C outside today. Excitingly, for the first time I'm using my birthday present - grain mill - plus a few kilos of the grain currently taking up most of my pantry. This makes for the 16th batch of beer this year less than I had hoped, but perhaps a reasonable amount when you factor in the rounds of cider and wine also brewed this year. But there is still time to squeeze in one last batch - this time a dry-style stout. Christmas is rapidly approaching - meaning that life is about to become busy beyond reason.
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