Palisade Oat Pale Ale Recipe and Tasting

My Palisade Oat Pale Ale is another low gravity batch not to any particular style, that is to say a second International Session Ale. The malt bill is close to that of a special bitter (but it has oatmeal) the yeast is German, and the hops are American. It was inspired by a can of Surly's Bitter Brewer, but really can't be called a clone (it has different malts, hops, and yeast).

I had never used special roast malt (similar to biscuit or victory), palisade hops (a new-ish higher AA% Willamette replacement), or a clean German ale yeast (White Labs 011 in this case), so this is a bit of an experiment as well. All I was just looking for was something crisp and refreshing for the summer without any residual crystal malt sweetness. I was hoping that the oats and the lower attenuating yeast would fill out the mouthfeel without making it too thick or chewy.

This was the starter batch for a smoked doppelsticke that is still cold conditioning. It was originally going to be barrel aged, but those plans were scrapped after our Bourbon Barrel Wee Heavy grew a pellicle and started tasting funky.

Tasting 7/12/09

Appearance – Pours a ruddy straw yellow. The beer is clear when warm, but at about 40 degrees the chill haze is very apparent. Nice tight white head with moderately good head retention. A protein rest or some longer cold conditioning would help take care of the haze, but I don't really mind it.

Smell – The aroma is nicely hoppy with some herbal notes back up by a bit of spice. The character certainly leans European, but there is a hint of that dank Columbus flavor that reminds you that it is grown in the Pacific Northwest. Behind the hops there is a hint of bready malt, but it is hidden beneath the pungent hoppiness.

Taste – Nice assertive clean bitterness at first, flowing similar hop aromatics from the nose. The malt is more noticeable in the flavor, giving flavors of bread, saltine, and biscuit. The finish is dry which enhances the hoppiness, I think I made the right choice leaving the crystal out of this one. The yeast is very clean, but it provides a hint of fruitiness that you wouldn't get from Chico.

Mouthfeel – Medium-light body, but that is to be expected from a 4.5% ABV beer. The carbonation is subdued which prevents the beer from coming across as too thin.

Drinkability & Notes – Holds up to its session beer roots, easy to drink on a hot DC night. Not much I would change on this one, if you can't get your hands on Palisades then Willamette, Glacier, First Gold, or East Kent Goldings would be good replacements (pretty much anything would work for bittering).

Palisade Parkway Pale (International Session Ale #2)

Recipe Specifics

----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 3.80

Total Grain (Lbs): 7.28
Anticipated OG: 1.044

Anticipated SRM: 8.0
Anticipated IBU: 34.6

Brewhouse Efficiency: 63 %
Wort Boil Time: 89 Minutes

Grain

------
6.25 lbs. Maris Otter

0.75 lbs. Oatmeal
0.28 lbs. Special Roast

Hops
-----

0.75 oz. Amarillo @ 60 min.
0.50 oz. Palisade @ 4 min.

0.50 oz. Palisade @ Dry Hop

Extras

-------

0.50 Unit(s)Whirlfloc Fining 15 Min. 0.25
Tsp Yeast Nutrient Other 15 Min.

Yeast

------

White Labs WLP011 European Ale

Water Profile
-------------
Profile: Washington DC

Mash Schedule

---------------

Sacch Rest 60 min @ 152

Notes
-----

Brewed 5/23/09 by myself

Boiled Quaker Old Fashion Oats with plenty of water for 10 minutes to ensure complete gelatinization. Collected 5.75 gallons of 1.030 wort.

Added 2 g of gypsum to the boil to help accentuate the hops.

Amarillos are 18 months old (adjusted down from 9.7%), Palisades are 6 months old (adjusted down from 6.7%).

Cooled to ~70 degrees, 45 second shot of O2, pitched a fresh tube of yeast, put into the freezer set to 60 degrees. After 20 hours there was no action, so I upped the temp to 65. After ~6 more hours there was fermentation starting.

5/31/09 Fermentation seems to be about finished, just a small bit of krausen hanging on.

6/06/09 Racked to a 3 gallon secondary, added the dry hops in a muslin bag. Gravity down to 1.008. Does not have as much bitterness as I was aiming for. Bottled one bomber with 3/4 tsp of cane sugar (this bottle was nice after 2 weeks, but I was glad I dry hopped the rest since it was missing that nice fresh hop aroma).

6/16/09 Bottled with 1.75 oz of cane sugar, aiming for the low 2's carbonation. Gravity was down to 1.008, lower than I expected, but it did not taste thin.

(Cabernet) Berliner Weiss

After how well my first batch of Berliner Weiss came out, it was only a matter of time before I brewed another one. This time I upped the volume to a full 5 gallon batch because I polished off the first batch far too soon, but other than that I kept the wort production (decoction, mash hopping, minimal-boil) the same.

The only major change I made to the base beer was the yeast/bacteria. The first time I used the great Wyeast Berliner Weiss Blend, but it has not been re-released since. So this time I used some slurry from my buddy Dan (who does the City Brewer blog), he used Wyeast Lacto and some US-05. I also added some Brett L (also from Dan), and the dregs from a bottle of Cantillon for some complexity (the beer got to 1.002 pretty quickly so I doubt the added funk will do much).

After making my own blueberry syrup last year (I liked the fruit flavor, but not the sweetness) I wanted to add some fruit to the beer during fermentation. I was inspired by a glass of cabernet sauvignon lambic that my friend Brian made (which incidentally took gold in the NHC East Regionals this year). So I took half the batch and added 34.5 oz of Cabernet grape juice after primary fermentation. Actual grapes would have been even better (that is how the lambic was made), but they aren't in season at the moment. The juice was from concentrate (picked up at the supermarket), but the flavor seems to be pretty good from the samples I have pulled (and the color in the glass is not nearly as shocking as the photo).

I am hoping to bottle soon since this will be the perfect beer for a DC summer that is just starting to burn.

Battle of France (Cabernet Berliner Weiss)

Recipe Specifics
----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 7.50
Anticipated OG: 1.033
Anticipated SRM: 2.6
Anticipated IBU: 0.5
Brewhouse Efficiency: 58 %
Wort Boil Time: 3 Minutes

Grain
------
4.50 lbs. German Pilsener
3.00 lbs. German Wheat Malt

Hops
-----
1.00 oz. Hallertau Hersbrucker @ Mash Hop

Yeast
-----
Safale US 05 Chico and Wyeast 5335 Lacto slurry

Water Profile
-------------
Profile: Washington DC

Mash Schedule
---------------
Pulled the decoction after 5 minutes at the Protein rest. Added hops to the decoction. ~10 min to get up to 155. Left there for 15 min. Boiled 10 minutes. Added back to the mash got up to 140. After 10 min added 1qrt of hot water to get up to 145, should have pulled a bigger decoction.

Notes
-----
Brewed 5/24/09 by myself

DC tap water, carbon filtered.

Slow, cloudy runoff. Batch sparged. Collected 5.5 gallons of 1.033 wort.

Brought to a boil for ~3 minutes, skimming. Chilled to 80, pitched a thin 10 oz of slurry of lacto and yeast from Dan (US-05 and commercial Lacto). I also added some Brett L dregs from Dan. Put into my chest freezer @ 65 degrees.

Some fermentation evident around 18 hours.

5/26/09 Added the dregs of a bottle of Cantillon Vigneronne.

5/31/09 Super cloudy still, looks like particulate. Fermentation seems to be wrapping up, mild sourness, pretty clean.

6/07/09 Took out of the fridge to encourage fermentation/funk to get moving.

6/16/09 Racked to secondary gravity down ~1.002. Half racked onto three 11.5 oz bottles of First Blush Cabernet Juice. Nice tartness. It took a couple days to see the see renewed fermentation from the juice. Left at summer DC room temp.

When brewing, what is your average batch size?

< 2.5 gal 6 (2%)
2.5 - 5.9 gal 151 (71%)
6 - 10.9 gal 45 (21%)
11 - 20 gal 8 (3%)
> 20 gal 2 (0%)

Looks like most people do "standard" 5 gallon batches, although a good number go slightly bigger. I really should have broken out the slightly smaller batches since I suspect that would have gotten a more accurate look at the people who brew smaller than 5 gallon batches. As you've probably noticed from my recipes I tend to brew batches around 3.5 gallons, but I'll occasionally brew a 5 gallon batch if I am going to split it (half with fruit and half plain is common for my sours).

I'm impressed by the two people who answered over 20 gallons, those are some impressive homebrew systems (assuming you aren't pros).

Vacation and BrewLocal

I'm taking next week off from work to go up to Massachusetts for a friend's wedding. As a result I probably won't be posting much until after the 4th of July.

In the meantime if you are bored you should head over to the soft opening of BrewLocal and check out the first in our series of brewery/brewer profiles. The first interview was with Tim Pohlhaus of Old Dominion Brewing Company, and along with it we have a photo essay of our brew day with him, a video tour of their recently closed Ashburn brewery, couple recipes, and some info on the Brett spiked oak barrel Millennium barleywine. We are aiming to make these posts more technical and in depth than your average brewer interview or brewery profile. We appreciate any comments/suggestions/questions that you may have for this project.

While I am up in Massachusetts, Nathan and I will be brewing with Matthew Steinberg at Mayflower and David Wollner at Willimantic (they seem like two great guys and I know both are terrific brewers), so look for those to be posted in the next few weeks. Posts at BrewLocal are going to be pretty sporadic based on when Nathan and I can get our schedules to line up with brewers, but it should be a lot of fun.

Lemon Pepper Single

As I've alluded to in a couple previous posts, I've been seeing a wonderful girl (Audrey) for the last few months. One of our joint interest is a passion for both food and drink. She may not be as much of a nerd as I am when it comes to beer, but she certainly enjoys it (especially Belgians). As I have gotten her to geek out a bit more in return she has been getting me into running... once every couple weeks.

A couple months back she invited me to go down to the Outer Banks for a long weekend with her family. I thought it would be a good idea to bring some homebrew (and homemade goat cheese) to help win them over. We decided to brew something that would go well with the seafood we were sure to eat down there. We struck upon the idea of doing a pale Belgian ale with plenty of wheat and spiced with lemon zest and black pepper.

The malt bill was pretty simple, pils, wheat malt, and Munich plus a touch of cara-10 to keep it from being too dry. For hops we went for moderate bitterness with Glacier (which has some lemony aspects to its flavor). We added the spices at flameout to preserve their aroma (we went easy on the amounts knowing we could add more later). After reading the yeast descriptions she liked the sound of White Labs 550 (Belgian Ale Yeast originally from Achouffe), it is a pretty mellow yeast, and I fermented it cool to further mellow the character since we wanted it to have broad appeal.

Last weekend we were down there and the beer went over well with her family (and luckily so did I).

Tasting 6/24/09

Appearance – Cloudy golden-orange (it clears as it warms indicating chill-haze). Nice two finger white head, retention is moderate at best. When it sank the head became clumpy, certainly reminiscent of the coagulated protein flakes I saw in the boil.

Smell – There is a complex spice aroma with clove, citrus, pepper, and coriander. It is hard to tell what is actually from the spices and what is just yeast derived. As it warms the smell turns yeastier, like fresh dough.

Taste – The flavor has similar spice notes to the nose, but it is enhanced by a solid bready malt backbone. It is a bit sweeter than I wanted, just .25 lbs of crystal may have been too much. More bitterness could also help to cut through the sweetness as well.

Mouthfeel – Not as carbonated as I intended, closer to a bottled British beer (~2 volumes). As a result the body seems thicker than ideal for a moderate gravity Belgian.

Drinkability & Notes – It is a solid beer, but it is not as dry/crisp as I was aiming for. This is partly a result of the lower carbonation, but I think the crystal malt is also partly to blame. I am happy that the spicing plays with the yeast, I don't think I would change the amounts if I brewed it again.

OBX Seafood Ale (Lemon Pepper Single)

Recipe Specifics
----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 4.75
Total Grain (Lbs): 10.75
Anticipated OG: 1.054
Anticipated SRM: 4.9
Anticipated IBU: 22.7
Brewhouse Efficiency: 62 %
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain
------
5.00 lbs. German Pilsener
4.50 lbs. German Wheat Malt
1.00 lbs. German Munich Malt

0.25 lbs. Crystal 10L

Hops
-----
1.00 oz. Glacier @ 60 Min.

Extras
-------
0.50 Whirlfloc 15 Min.
0.25 Tsp Yeast Nutrient 15 Min.
30 Black Peppercorns 0 Min.
2 Lemons worth of zest 0 Min.

Yeast
------
White Labs WLP550 Belgian Ale

Water Profile
-------------
Profile: Washington DC

Mash Schedule
---------------
Protein Rest 20 min @ 131
Sacch Rest 75 min @ 148

Notes
------
Brewed 5/01/09 with Audrey

Was ready to add acid, but the mash pH was perfect.

Collected 6.5 gallons of 1.042 wort.

Some of the best hot break I have ever seen, huge chunks of coagulated protein in the boil.

Zest of 2 lemons and 15 crushed black peppercorns added at flameout.

Boiled down to 4.5 gallons, let chill for 2 hours because I fell asleep, strained, pitched the whole 1.5 qrt starter that I made the night before, and gave 60 seconds of O2. Put into the chest freezer @ 64 degrees.

Strong fermentation, nearly blowing off after 12 hours.

5/04/09 Upped the temp to 70 to help the beer finish out as fermentation seems to be slowing.

5/16/09 Added another ~15 peppercorns toasted (to sanitize), and crushed.

5/23/09 Racked to secondary.

5/28/09 Ended up with ~4.25 gallons. Bottled with 4 oz of cane sugar (aiming for the high 2's volumes CO2). May not have mixed sugar in well enough as the sample from the end of the bucket tasted very sweet. Looks very clear. Gravity down to 1.010.

5/31/09 Already a faint hint of carbonation.

6/20/09 Carbonation does seems variable (although just a bit low for the most part), I will always stir the priming sugar in more thoroughly in the future.

Book Review: Microbrewed Adventures

Microbrewed Adventures is a combination travel log - homebrew recipe book. It covers the many beer related adventures that being the father of American homebrewing and the president of the AHA/BA has allowed Charlie Papazian to have over the years. Each of the stories has a corresponding recipe, many of which are clones or at least inspired by the interesting beers that he has gotten to sample all over the world.

Content: Each chapter covers a beer trip, or the stories of a group of like-minded brewers. Roughly the first half of the book covers America, while the second half explores the rest of the world.

I really enjoyed his story early on about Anheuser Busch's request that he brew them some homebrew (which they attempted to can with limited success) for a meeting of the Master Brewers Association. It is interesting to hear that Bud was even aware of homebrewing in 1983, let alone interested in trying what American homebrewers were creating.

For the sections on the various breweries the focus is on the people and the history, not on the brewing technique/ingredients etc... I would have liked to see more of this stuff, because lets face it I'm a nerd, but as it is this section would be good read for anyone who is just interested in beer not justhomebrewers.

There is some great back story on the pioneers of microbrewing for those of you late to the game (like me). The likes of Sam Adams, Anchor, Sierra Nevada, and Bert Grant. I thought the most interesting was the story of New Albion Brewing, a brewery that was there very early on, but didn't make the jump to major player like the others. For most of the breweries in this section there is an inset with a quick discussion and page number (all the recipes are together in the last section of the book) of a recipe for one of their beers or a beer inspired by an offering that Charlie got to try at some point.

Papazian then moves on to the second wave of brewers with stories about Stone, Rogue, New Glarus, Magic Hat, and Dogfish Head (among others). These stories were more familiar to me, but there are still some interesting side adventures and details along the way. All the time you get that great enthusiasm that all of his homebrew books were written with.

With the American brewers out of the way the focus shifts to Europe. The first section covers the start of the new wave of craft beer in England. From there he moves onto Mead, one of the more inspiring sections with discussions of getting to meet the two elder statesmen of mead making Brother Adam and Lt. Colonel Robert Gayre.

The next few chapters cover some of the historic brewing countries (Germany and Belgium), as well as some other countries that people might not associate with great beer (Sweden, France, and Italy). The breweries range from the iconic (De Dolle, Andesch) to the obscure (including homemade gotlandsdricke). These chapters are great as there is not nearly as much coverage of European brewers (especially the tiny ones) as there is for American brewers.

The rest of the book covers beer from a wide range of the rest of the world, Latin American, Fiji, Africa, and Russian. These stories are interesting well in excess of what you learn about beer. Being an international ambassador to brewing for the last 20 years has given Papazian the opportunity to meet some very interesting people, and these chapters really do that justice. I really like the stories of his time in Africa, not that any of the beers I have tried from the continent have been that good (even the Guinness Foreign Export Stout).

Recipes: Just like the content, the recipes run the gamut from well known craft beers to the indigenous "beers" of the pacific islands. The recipes are considerably better than in Charlie's other beers, no standard gypsum additions, and other no major issues that I can see (although I always hate to see the same 3/4 cup of priming sugar listed for virtually every beer).

Taking into account all of the positives, I still do not appreciate that it is unclear which recipes came from the brewers and which he just whipped up after being inspired by a beer. When I post clone recipes here I try to make it clear which information I'm sure about and where I am guessing, that way people can make their own judgment.

Each recipe comes as an all-grain and as an extract or partial mash variant depending on what grains are required.

Accuracy: Most of the book is just stories, so it is hard to dispute the accuracy. I didn't note any major discrepancies or typos, which again is a major upgrade over some of his previous books.

Readability: I like the way the recipes are all grouped together. It made it easier to just read through the the narrative portion without getting interrupted, and now I can just flip through the recipes if that is all I want to do. The writing style is fun, and not too technical. I would have liked if the book lopped off some of the stuff on well known American Brewers, but I guess there are a lot of people out there who might not know the stories behind them.

Overall: I think Microbrewed Adventures is well worth a read if you want to get an overview of brewing around the world. The recipes can be interesting, but I don't think the book is worth buying for them. The stories can provide plenty of inspiration even if you aren't going to brew one of the recipes he provides. I think this book really plays to Charlie Papzian's strengths as a writer and a brewer, and despite not being a big fan of his other books I fully enjoyed reading this one. That said this is not a book I would get if you don't already own most of the great ones available.

Blueberry Lambic - First Tasting

I've been holding off on reviewing this one for awhile, hoping it would improve, but the time has finally come to bite the bullet. After two years in the fermenter, 6 months on fruit, and 6 months in the bottle, I can officially call this beer a failure.

Appearance – Talk about a beautiful beer, brilliantly clear (right out of the fridge) purple-red with a one finger stark white head. Clearly a good amount of carbonation streaming through the beer and giving the head a lift.

Smell – Sadly the aroma does not have the same beauty. It starts off with a pleasant enough spiced blueberry note, but after that comes a harsh solventy assault. Not much else to speak of.

Taste – Nice lactic tang up front, but the finish has that same off putting chemical flavor as well as some vegetal notes. There is certainly some acetic acid as well that scrapes at my throat. It has none of the characteristic funky lambic complexity, it just tastes like a crappy infected blueberry wheat beer.

Mouthfeel – Light and crisp, except for the acid. The traditional hot sparge did not extract any tannins that are still hanging around.

Drinkability & Notes – What can I say? The base beer wasn't great and the fruit certainly didn't help matters much. Not sure what caused the problem, but when this beer is thinned with a bit of water it improves quite a bit, so part of the problem was probably the too big OG.

I am hoping that whatever bugs were in the lambic that I blended into the pluot flanders pale don't do any harm to it (I'll see when I bottle it in two weeks). Hopefully the changes I made for my second batch of lambic (namely adding more microbes to get fermentation going sooner than four days) will give me better results. I am planning on doing a third batch in a couple weeks, this time with a traditional turbid mash (that will be a fun day...).

Spirit of Free Beer - Competition Results

I thought I would share the results from my six entries to the Spirit of Free Beer homebrew competition which is put on each year by one of the homebrew clubs I belong to (BURP). I thought the judging was pretty good overall, most of the comments were right on target for my beers. I was planning on judging (as I did last year), but a week before competition it dawned on me that it was being held on the same day as my new girlfriend's birthday... guess which one took priority?

I put the category in parentheses, followed by the three scores. Below that is what I felt to be the most detailed/representative "overall impressions" from one of the judges and my reaction.

Wheat Triplebock (Eisbock) - 37/38/38 2nd in Category.

"This is a good tasting beer. Prune character followed by malt sweetness. Finish is balanced. I think the body is thin for the style and that it should have a more pronounced alcohol character."

I am very happy with this result for such a young beer, might give this one a shot at the NHC next year.

Cider 2008 (Common Cider) - 32/33/35 - 3rd in Category

"Yummy - very refreshing. Would pair well with a delicate fish dishes."

Pleased with this result. I think my technique is good, I just need better cider for my next batch.

International Session Ale (Northern English Brown Ale) - 31/33/33

"Quite good. Body is a bit light. There is a piney/resiny hop think was that supposed to be there. Maybe cut back a bit on the roast malts?"

Very pleased with this result considering I did not use an English hop and was not really aiming for any style in particular.

India Brown Ale (American Brown Ale) - 27/30/30

"Seems like this is a very big beer (higher gravity than normal?) for this style. Overly hopped for this style. Good beer for a hophead."

That judge nailed it, certainly too big/hoppy for the style, but glad they still though it was a solid beer. I actually think the judges like this one more than I do.

Temptation Clone (Belgian Specialty Ale) - 28/28/27

"Overall a very nice Belgian style beer without a lot of complexity. Hint of Brett a little that some malt note and wish there was a little more depth. I wish that the brewer had indicated what they did for this category."

Not sure what happened, I put a pretty detailed description of what I was aiming for on the registration sheet and on the bottle labels. This was my biggest disappointment as I really like this beer, but it is a hard category to judge when the judge doesn't know your intent.

Liquor Spiked Barleywine and Funky Old Ale Blend (Old Ale) - 19/20/20

"You've got enough complexity to make this an interesting beer, but it's by no means a good old ale. Sourness is not an expected component, so watch sanitation. Malt bill may be fine, but you need to work on the carbonation and condition"

It may have been a bit heavy handed on the Brett, but I didn't taste any sourness in either beer. I think more judges need to try a Gale's Prize Old Ale with a couple years on it. That said it probably would have done better as an Oud Bruin.

I think next year I'll send some beers to the NHC for the first time, the one bottle requirement really appeals to me compared to the 3 need by the SoFB.