How often do you try to brew a BJCP classic style?

I don't brew - 2 (1%)

Never - 30 (23%)

Occasionally - 45 (35%)

Usually - 44 (34%)

Always - 6 (4%)

No surprises on this one, not many people who visit the blog are brewing style-guideline-conforming beer all that often. I’d put myself in the “Occasionally” category, I certainly do it, but on considerably less than half of my brews. I seem to go through phases, sometimes brewing a few in a row "to style", and sometime going off the beaten path for six or seven brews.

I think style guidelines serve a purpose, particularly in guiding new brewers towards making drinkable beer and in helping seasoned brewers sharpen their skills. That said, I think people generally do too much brewing to style, and not enough brewing to flavor. Many more commercial breweries are brewing to what they think their customers want to drink, than are brewing for styles/competitions, so why do so many homebrewers seem to be fixated on styles?

After judging at the Spirit of Free Beer competition last week (my first time), I was amazed just how poor most of the entries were. Not only did most have severe off-flavors (medicinal and fusel being the two most popular) but also plain old not to style (a pale/golden Dubbel for example). I took the combined Belgian and French Ale and Sour Beer category with my Berliner Weisse, and scored a 37 with my Alderwood Smoked Porter. The only stinker of the three I entered was my IPA, which I don’t think I am being delusional calling much better than a 26.

Aging Sour Beers in Better Bottles

About a week ago a bottled my first sour beer that had been aged in a Better Bottle. It was the Temptation clone that Seth and I brewed back in November. First I'll say the aroma of the uncarbonated beer was outstanding, deliciously funky in that magical Russian River way.

The interesting thing is that the wild yeast and/or bacteria formed tiny little colonies all over the plastic, it was difficult to see when there was beer in there, but once it was emptied it was clear. My assumption is that the microbes are acting just like when they live in the oak of a barrel, scavenging the oxygen as it diffuses in.

I think it is very good sign for the viability of this method, and if the aroma of the beer is any indication this may be one of the best batches I have done so far.

Don't expect a full tasting of this one for a few months, but it is going to be hard to wait too long before I crack one of these open.

Alternate Hopping Strategies with Basic Brewing Radio

James at Basic Brewing Radio was kind enough to invite me on his podcast once again. This time to discuss interesting ways and places to add hops to a beer other than the standard “hops at the start of the boil for bitterness, hops in the middle for flavor, and hops at the end for aroma”

Click here to hear the interview.

The discussion focused on three of my batches:

“No hops in the boil” IPA, which had hops in just about every conceivable spot except the boil, including the mash, sparge, wort heating, flameout, and secondary.

Hop-Bursted Barleywine, which had a healthy dose of a hop blend added every 5 minutes for the last 35 minutes of the boil.

Decoction Hopped Berliner Weisse, which had hops in the mash during the decoction, but was not boiled. This beer recently earned me my first ribbon with a category win at the 2008 Spirit of Free Beer last Saturday (It was the first time I had entered a big competition since September 2005).

We also briefly touched on hop teas, and bottle hopping.

The episode has a different feel from the ones I have done in the past because it was just James and I, not the whole gang. I probably won't be on again until this fall when we are planning a big episode on blending beers.

Group "Leftovers" Barleywine

Back in October 2007 a few friends and I got together to brew a “leftovers“ parti-gyle beer. We all brought along whatever partial bags of specialty grains and hops we had leftover from previous batches. We laid everything out on a table and went to work designing a recipe.

After a bit of haggling we came up with a grain bill that everyone was happy with, using a range of different base malts with a few different crystal malts for color and complexity plus some flaked wheat just because. We used just the first runnings from the mash. After the wort for this beer was out of the mash tun, we added sparge water along with some dark malts. After sitting for 15 minutes we ran out enough wort to make 5 gallons of a 1.055 Porter-esque brew which we hopped with English hops.

For the Barleywine we took all the American hops and mixed them together in a big bowl. Starting at 30 minutes we added a handful (~1.5 oz) of this hop blend every 5 minutes, a technique known as hop bursting. The idea is that with such a huge quantity of hops near the end of the boil the wort will be saturated with iso-alpha acids making a bittering addition unnecessary. We forgot the Whirlfloc tablet until flame-out, so we added it and boiled 5 extra minutes. That is the reason the hop schedule starts at 35 minutes and there is no 5 minute addition.

Below is the result, somewhere between a Doppelbock, an American Barleywine, and an English Barleywine. Fresh it almost tasted like a double IPA, but now with 6 months of age it tastes like an over hopped English Barleywine. Hopefully with some age it will mellow out into a regular English Barleywine.

Big Brew Day Barleywine
Recipe Specifics
----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 18.74
Anticipated OG: 1.092
Anticipated SRM: 19.4
Anticipated IBU: 149.2
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68 %
Wort Boil Time: 80 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar
---------------------
4.70 lbs. American Pale Malt
4.25 lbs. Belgian Pilsener
3.00 lbs. Golden Promise
2.60 lbs. Vienna Malt
2.00 lbs. Munich Malt (dark)
0.65 lbs. Flaked Soft White Wheat
0.52 lbs. Crystal 120L
0.48 lbs. Special B Malt
0.28 lbs. Special Roast Malt
0.26 lbs. Crystal 60L

Hops
-------
1.50 oz. Mix @ 35 min.
1.50 oz. Mix @ min.
1.50 oz. Mix @ 25 min.
1.50 oz. Mix @ 20 min.
1.50 oz. Mix @ 15 min.
1.50 oz. Mix @ 10 min.
1.00 oz. Mix @ 0 min.

Extras
---------
1.00 Whirlfloc Tablet @ 5 Min.(boil)

Yeast
-----
WYeast 1028 London Ale

Mash Schedule
-------------
60 min @ 151

Notes
-----
Brewed 10/11/07 With Scott, Josh and James @ Scott's

Recipe made on spot from all our leftover grain and hops.

This was the first runnings, hop bursted with a mix of:
2.50 oz Chinook [13.00 %]
0.25 oz Simcoe [13.00 %]
2.00 oz Summitt [17.00 %]
0.80 oz Warrior [15.00 %]
0.37 oz Cascade [5.50 %]
0.37 oz Nugget [13.00 %]
1.00 oz Amarillo [8.50 %]
2.80 oz Centennial [10.00 %]

12/01/07 Bottled aiming for 2.5 volumes of CO2. It has a huge hop flavor and a solid malt backbone. FG around 1.028, just under 70% AA.

Very hoppy for the first few months, almost like a very malty DIPA, then around February it took on a much maltier/smoother flavor.

5/12/08 Tasted as part of the Alternative Hopping Basic Brewing Radio Episode.