Scotsmen on the Moon

Decided to stop by the Lunar Brewing Co. in Villa Park after work today, just to see what was new. I ended finding a mighty Wee Heavy, served in a giant thistle-shaped glass for $6. This chestnut-hued ale was rather straightforward, but tasty with caramel malts balanced by a judicious amount of hops and unusual spicy character. (The beer is pictured to the right.) There were many other treats at Lunar Brewing Co., including a 10 percent alcohol anniversary beer from Surly Brewing Co. in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Very intriguing. What monster could Surly have created? I was tempted, but after 21 ounces of the Wee Heavy (and remembering that I had another Scotch Ale at home) I decided I should probably just head home. However, I will back soon to the Lunar, to sample the house beer along with the fantastic line up of guest beers that included craft brews such as Two Brothers Hop Juice, Founders Dry-Hopped Pale Ale, Victory Golden Monkey and Three Floyds Robert the Bruce. Many other craft brews and imported lagers and ales were to be found in the cooler; some more reasonably priced than others. The other house beers included the popular Moondance IPA, Marzen, raspberry cream ale, oatmeal stout, a Maibock and a nut brown ale. Lunar Brewing has a page on Myspace, which is updated fairly often.

Once I home, I poured a bottle conditioned Arcadia Scotch Ale and decided to make the evening a mini-Scotch Ale tasting. I've had some Arcadia beers before and the brewery is a very interesting traditional English operation. The Arcadia Scotch immediately differed from the Lunar Wee Heavy. The color was a darker chestnut and it had a more powerful aroma of raisins. The carbonation, was good. I've found Arcadia beers to be fairly highly carbonated, so I gave the beer a more vigorous pour to help ensure a smooth mouthfeel. The bone white head didn't last too long and dropped leaving a tight collar of foam. The first sip was smooth and cleanly malty with some toffee character emerging towards the finish, which ends up being a mouth full of raisin character and alcohol laced with a roasted grain and hop bitterness. The heavy caramel malt flavors lingered on my tongue creating a long finish that was just short of cloying.

Arcadia Scotch Ale is definitely one of the good ones. The brewery is inconsistent: I've had good beers, outstanding beers and poor ones from them, but I have to congratulate them on the Scotch Ale.

A Dogfish kind of day

I opened this beer thinking it was a Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale kind of evening.

Starting at 9pm I'm going to be waiting for my work pager to go off, so I thought I'd have one beer to sort of calm the nerves. I've had the Indian Brown Ale before and had mixed feelings about it, so I thought I'd try it again. Something about a dark brown ale fits a cool, wind-whipped rainy day. This particluar dark brown ale smells quite good; the aroma of dark dried fruits such as figs and raisins is assertive and has me anticipating a sweet tasting beer. There's a hint of coffee with cream in there, too. The mouthfeel is slippery smooth with just a bit of the tingle of carbon dioxide.

The hops are certainly kept in check until towards the finish and they're more earthy than spicy. A fairly bright tartness comes through initially in the rather balanced finish. After some time, this character turns a touch medicinal, but is not offensive. The bitterness is not as pronounced as the 50 IBUs (according the brewery's website) would suggest; perhaps all the sweet malts and caramelized sugar has tamed the bite of the hops. The finish is actually rather rich with latte and burnt caramel notes. Despite its surprisingly low viscosity, this is certainly not a low-calorie beer, this is verified in the sweetness. Lest I forget, it's a good looking beer, too. A collar of foam persists well after the head falls and some sparse bits of Brussels lace are left behind.

The Dogfish Head Indian Brown is certainly an enjoyable beer with the kind of burnt caramel sweetness that is satisfying this time of year, much like a springtime bock. I'm drinking this solo, but the brewery's website mentions pairing with balsamic vinaigrette salads, smoked meats, duck confit, braised ribs, venison, prosciutto and stews. It also mentions that a 12-ounce serving is 238 calories, which makes the beer a bit of a snack in itself.

Bottling time for Saison Morency Summer

Filled 12 22-ounce bottles and one 11 to 140-ounce swingtop. The beer cleared up quite a bit, leaving behind a half-inch of mostly hop sediment. Tasted from the bottling bucket, this batch was a pretty clear gold, almost straw color. Brewing a partial mash and full wort boil must've kept the color light. The finish doesn't seem as bitter and there is more a tart character to the beer (in the middle, not really in the finish). Very smooth and slightly viscous up front, but finishing very dry.

I've very happy with this fermentation. Since racking to the secondary the beer has dropped an additional 10 points after fermenting from 1.053 to 1.016! If all goes well, this should be a very tasty dry ale after three months or so, say July or August. A recent issue of Zymurgy magazine featured a cover story "A Saison for Every Season" and I can definitely see doing that. I'm thinking that the batch I just bottled would be my summer batch and that I'd brew an autumn batch in June. Hopefully I'll still be able to get my hands on some on the Wyeast 3724 or White Labs 565 Saison yeast. That said, I'd like to be squeeze in a three gallon batch of witbier in the next couple weeks.

Hoppy Spring Wheat "pigged" and bottled

Tried to package this last Tuesday, but the gravity seemed high, so I let go a few more days. I didn't even bother taking a gravity reading (risky I know) and went ahead and packaged the beer into two 32 ounce brown PET bottles and one Party Pig

So far this beer has a big Amarillo hop and wheat malt flavor. A surprising toasted note, too. Quite tasty. This beer could go fast. If this initial tasting at packaging time is any indication of how this beer actually turns out I may have to brew this again. (I know I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Meanwhile, my three-gallon batch of Saison continues to sit in the secondary. I may take a reading sometime this week, if the hops ever decide to settle.

Two fermenters going....maybe a third?

I have two beers fermenting right now. One is the three-gallon saison, which is in a carboy (secondary) with dry hops and the dregs of one 750-ml bottle of Saison DuPont. The other beer that is fermenting is a simple extract hoppy "American-style" wheat beer. It's just one four-pound can of Alexander's Wheat Malt Extract and some Amarillo hops, fermented with SafAle US-05. I tasted it the other day (after five days fermentation) and it was rather bitter with not as much late hop flavor than I wanted, but dry hopping should fix that. The beer wasn't ready to packaged yet (the gravity was a few points too high) so I'm occasionally rousing the fermenter (once every couple days) to see if gets any drier. Meanwhile, I'm still enjoying red ale from the Party Pig. The wheat beer will be packaged in my other Party Pig and maybe a couple bottes, while the Saison will be bottled in 22s. Part of me wants to get a third fermenter going with another beer while the weather is still cool (I have another carboy and the wheat beer should be ready to package later this week).

Saison Morency 2008

Brewed a three-gallon batch of saison a couple weeks ago and I racked it to the secondary today with some additional Spalter dry hops. It's a simple beer: I infusion mashed three pounds of Pilsner malt along with seven ounces of flaked wheat, added two pounds of Briess Pilsen dry malt extract and a half ounce of Spalter hops at the start the boil, another half-ounce at 15 minutes left in the boil and an ounce for the last two minutes. I neglected to add some Irish Moss for his batch, which could explain why it's cloudy. I'm guessing I'm going to end up filling 10 to 12 22-ounce bottles with this batch. That's not a lot of beer, but I like the trade off of better hop utilization and more control over color that is achieved with full wort boil.

However, if I keep my batches to three to four gallons, I'm going to have brew more often. I intend on saving some time by brewing an extract batch here and there, which is what I plan on doing later this week. I picked up a four-pound can of Alexander's Wheat Malt (liquid) today and plan on making 3 to 3.5 gallon batch with that extract and some Amarillo hops, keeping a lot of the hops late in the boil for a big hop aroma and spicy character, keeping the IBUs around 30 and original gravity around 1.042. I'm hoping that I can the beer in a Party Pig and probably a few bottles in 10-14 days.

Red Ale Regalia

Tasting all things red that I've homebrewed, which is a red ale that is aging quite nicely in Party Pig and has probably at its peak. This red ale is rather hoppy up front, no doubt due to the addition of about a half ounce dry hops in the Party Pig. The beer is quite delicious and I had to keep myself from consuming more than a few pints. I'm rather pleased with this beer, especially with the performance of the Fermentis S-04 dry yeast. The beer is fairly clean, with just enough residual sweetness to play well with the hops. The S-04 clears very well, too. I definitely think the Fermentis yeasts are big improvement over the dry yeasts from 10 or 15 years ago.

Pictured to the right is Montmorency Ale. It's not quite red; maybe more pink. It was a five gallon batch brewed with one gallon of Montmorency tart cherry juice. No sweet cherries here; just tart ones and it shows - this beer has a tart character that I think is just about right. The nose is tart cherry, but there's also some lactic notes and phenolics from the yeast (although I think the lactic character could be from the cherries); almost a smokiness. The mouthfeel is fairly creamy once the carbonation settles, but the carbonation takes awhile to settle. The head is very impressive, too, with spun sugar bits sticking to the sides of the glass. I'm not sure how I achieved this, perhaps it just the yeast - Wyeast 3463 Ingelmunster Ale.