A Great Week for Beer!

I have 20 minutes left for my boil of my latest homebrew, so I thought I'd do a quick write-up on what's been happening on the beer front this week.

Last weekend I headed west to Ohio for our niece's 5th birthday party. While I was there staying with my parents, my thoughts turned to beer of course! Unfortunately the nearest brewery was closed on Sundays, but the next best thing was close by.

We made the short drive from Caledonia to Delaware, Ohio and and to Barley Hopsters. A pretty nice little bottle shop/homebrew store. I needed to get some yeast and then I took a look at all the beers they had, with a big focus on Ohio beers.

Part of my haul from Barley Hopsters

The next day it was time to make my long drive back to Rochester, but my parents gave me a pretty sweet parting gift. A new sign for my garage/homebrewery! They had picked it up and were planning to give it to me for my birthday, but they decided to give it to me early. (I think so they didn't have to keep track of it for the next 5 months!)

New Smuttynose Sign!

Wednesday came and it was time to start thinking about my next brew, so I grabbed my yeast and got a yeast starter going. This next beer was going to be a big one and it was going to take lots of healthy yeast to get through it. A Belgian Golden Strong Ale was to be brewed.

And brewed it has been. It was nice to not be shivering in the garage while this brew was going on, I guess Spring has finally gotten to Rochester. Speaking of which, my boil is coming to an end so I'd better get ready to finish up. 

2.5 Pounds of Cane Sugar for this Brew!

Hopefully you've all had a great beer week and have lots of great beer related things planned for the summer. Let us know what you're looking forward too as the weather warms and trips are planned.

Cheers!

A Few Beer Updates

This week has been a cold and snowy one. Luckily there have been some good beers to keep me warm!

This past Wednesday I headed into the home brew shop to get a couple more vials of yeast for some upcoming brews. I picked up one each of the White Labs 400 and the 500 (Wit and Trappist yeast)

Later that evening I got a call from our UPS driver asking me to come down the driveway and sign for my package. My next shipment of beer-of-the-month had come in!

I got beers from Smuttynose (FinestKind IPA and Robust Porter) and Mustang Brewing (American Lager and Winter Lager) So far I've gotten a chance to try the Robust Porter and the Winter Lager. I was really impressed with the winter lager. Dark and chocolatey, but had that smooth easy drinking lager characteristic. The robust porter was really good too. A nice rich style that I enjoy quite a bit, and Smuttynose never disappoints!

Friday it was time to brew again. It was crazy cold outside, but I stayed warm inside the garage, mostly.        I milled my grains, mashed-in, sparged, boiled, cooled, and pitched my yeast. At the end I had 5 gallons of Witbier ready to ferment.

My recipe was:
45% Pilsner Malt
41% Flaked Wheat
9% Flaked Oats
2% Munich Malt
3% Rice Hulls

31 grams Hallertauer Hops for 60 Minutes
I threw in some Coriander, Orange Peel, and Chamomile at the end of the boil too. It smelled pretty awesome!



(I didn't take any pics of my brew day, it was too cold! But heres my dueling carboys)

The yeast is working it's magic on both of my beers, so hopefully I'll have them ready to drink soon!

Hope your all staying warm and having a great beer filled week out there!

Cheers!