Brett Stock Ale: 4 Years

Before moving down to DC I enjoyed a couple months of unemployment between when my previous employer (a purveyor of no-verification loans) went belly up and my new job started.  I'd been thinking about making a beer with Brett since soon after I started brewing, but I had hesitated, not wanting to risk letting the bugs make the jump to my clean beers.  Not knowing when I'd be able to brew after moving I decided to spend my last few days in Massachusetts brewing four sour/funky beers to leave at my parents' house to ferment/age.

One of those beers was a Old Ale with Brett C, something the English traditionally called a stock ale.  This is the sort of beer that is perfect for blending; it has big complex flavors, but not the amount of sweetness you'd expect from a strong English ale.  Historically this blending was done to order by a publican, but there are still a couple of bottled blends available like Olde Suffolk from Greene King (I wish they bottled the funky "5X" portion, 12% ABV, two-year in oak). 

Funky Old Ale

Appearance – Deep brown with a wonderful clear garnet highlight when held to the light. A hard pour produces an inch of head that fights to maintain verticality, but steadily sinks to a light-tan ring over five minutes.

Smell – Vinous, port-like, slightly dusty/musty, just a hint of toasty malt (or is that oak?). Certainly smells like an English strong ale rather than anything from Belgium, despite the Brett (the claussenii strain was originally isolated from a stock ale).  As it warms there is a slight alcoholic sharpness to the nose.

Taste – The dank cellar quality comes through stronger in the flavor than it did in the aroma, but it is still backed up by some of that aged-wine character.  Not much bitterness remains after the years, but it doesn't take much to balance the small amount of residual sweetness.  The finish is short, almost abrupt.  As the beer warms the flavor becomes spicy from a combination of the oak and alcohol.

Mouthfeel – The body is a bit thin.  For a big beer like this a thick creamy body would have been nice, but it isn't unpleasant as is.  The medium-low carbonation is perfect, glad the Brett was finished when I bottled.

Drinkability & Notes – Too easy to drink, the lack of body means that the flavor doesn't linger to reveal all of its complexity. Certainly a beer that is built for blending with a fresh/sweet ale, something I may try out with one of the last few bottles.

Pliny the Younger Clone Recipe

I first sampled Russian River's Pliny the Younger at a BeerAdvocate American Beer Fest about five years ago.  I've had samples of it a couple more times since that night, mostly from growlers, but that first sip left an indelible stamp on my tongue.  The hop flavor was dominant, with complex citrus and fresh pine, while the beer was still remarkably smooth and easy to drink.  Over the last few years I've made a handful of attempts at replicating PtY using information gleaned from talks, articles, and emails from Vinnie; the beers were good, but not quite there.

After I finally bought a kegging system last year, my hoppy beers got considerably better.  I credit a couple techniques that kegs allow me to do for this improvement.  The ability to flush the keg with CO2, which reduces oxidation preserving a fresher hop character.  Keg hopping, which allows the beer to remain in contact with the dry hops until second before serving.  Force carbonation, which enables quicker, more reliable carbonation of strong beers.  With the kegs (not to mention the moratorium on Younger growler sales this year) I thought it was time to give a clone another shot.

I've learned to anticipate 20% lower efficiency when brewing a big IPA as a result of the huge amount of wort lost to the hops.  I used half a sack of Great Western 2-row (paler than their pale malt) along with a small amount of carapils (for added body).  I mashed just under 150 to ensure the targeted 85% attenuation of the original.  The high attenuation keeps this beer firmly in the DIPA category where a sweeter beer would come across as an American barleywine.

The other big change I made was switching to hop extract for part of the bittering addition.  Extract adds IBUs without contributing vegetal matter to the kettle, which steals wort and can give grassy flavors at high levels.  I was originally planning to derive all the bitterness form extract (20 ml), but right before brewing I realized that the two Northern Brewer HopShots I purchased were 5 ml each not 10 ml; I decided to add 2 oz of Columbus to augment the bitterness from the extract.

For hop aromatics I added a total of 9 oz of Amarillo/Centennial/Simcoe at the end of the boil (with 3 oz of the blend at flameout, at the start of chilling, and three minutes into chilling).  I stirred the wort continually as it cooled to speed up the cooling process, reducing the amount of hop aromatics driven off.  I've had the best luck using pellets for late additions since they contribute their flavor quicker than whole hops, and don't suck up quite as much wort.

With the wort cooled I pitched a decanted starter of White Labs 001, the same strain Vinnie uses for his hoppy beers.  He has suggested not pitching "too much" yeast as the cells will strip out some of the bitterness from the beer.  Not knowing exactly what this meant and not wanting to stress the yeast, I made a 2.5 qrt starter, a bit short of the 4 qrt starter that yeast pitching calculators suggest for a beer this gravity.  Luckily fermentation started after 12 hours, and was going strong after 24.  My basement is in the high 50s this time of year, perfect for keeping the strong fermentation just below 70 degrees. 

To help boost the attenuation, Pliny the Younger includes some easily fermented refined sugar.  I could have added this to the kettle, but I wanted to cut the yeast a break and give them time to reduce the gravity of the wort significantly before adding the cane/corn sugars.  Too much osmotic pressure from concentrated sugars can put a lot of stress on yeast (enough sugar can exert so much pressure that it make a liquid shelf-stable, as in the cases of honey and maple syrup).

The original dry hops schedule (at the bottom of the post) calls for four separate dry hop additions.  That sounds like too much time/effort/risk for me, so I simplified to one dry hop addition and one keg hop.  The same amount/timing worked well on the great Double IPA I brewed last winter, so it seems like a good idea for this one.

Hoping to have a party when this one is ready since this is a beer best consumed quickly (and for safety reasons not all by me).


Pliny the Younger Clone

Recipe Specifics
-----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.25
Total Grain (Lbs): 27.19
Anticipated OG: 1.094
Anticipated SRM: 6.6
Anticipated IBU: 199.5
Brewhouse Efficiency: 48 % (65% including second runnings).
Wort Boil Time: 95 Minutes

Grain/Sugar
------------
92.0% 25.00 lbs. American 2-row
3.7% 1.00 lbs. Corn Sugar
3.5% 0.94 lbs. CaraPils
0.9% 0.25 lbs. Cane Sugar

Hops
------
10 ml HopShot @ 90 min.
2.00 oz. Columbus (Pellet 13.00% AA) @ 60 min.
4.00 oz. Amarillo (Pellet, 6.90% AA) @ 0 min.
3.00 oz. Centennial (Pellet, 8.80% AA) @ 0 min.
2.00 oz. Simcoe (Pellet, 12.20% AA) @ 0 min.

Dry Hops
1.00 oz. Amarillo (Whole, 10.00% AA) 
1.00 oz. Centennial (Whole, 10.50% AA)
1.00 oz. Simcoe (Whole, 14.00% AA)

Keg Hops
1.00 oz. Amarillo (Whole, 10.00% AA)
1.00 oz. Centennial (Whole, 10.50% AA)
1.00 oz. Simcoe (Whole, 14.00% AA)

Extras
-------
0.50 Unit Wirlfloc @ 12 min.
0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ 12 min.

Yeast
------
White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Water Profile
-------------
Profile: Pliny the Water

Mash Schedule
----------------
Sacc Rest 15 min @ 143
Sacch II 60 min @ 149
Sacch III 5 min @ 156

Notes
-----
12/14/10 2.5 qrt starter made, crash chilled to 37 three days later

Brewed 12/19/10

Mash water 4.5 gallons filtered DC plus 3 gallons distilled, 7 g gypsum.

Initial mash temp was a bit low, heated up some water and boosted the temp closer to the 150 I was initially aiming for. 2.5 gallons (inc 1 gallon distilled and 3 g gypsum) added before the wort was run off.

About 1 gallon short on pre-boil wort, so I stole 1 gallon of runnings from the small beer.

Totaled 8 gallons pre boil ~1.065.

3 oz of hops at flameout, waited 5 min before starting the chill, added 3 oz more hops after about a minute, waited 3 minutes added final dose of 3 oz of hops. Cold ground water ~50 F, lots of stirring, cooled quickly.

The mash was capped and I used the second runnings to make an American Bitter.

1.084 post-boil, pre-sugar.

Chilled to ~64, strained, pitched the decanted room-temp starter, and gave 60 seconds of oxygen. Left at ~63 ambient to start fermentation.

Good fermentation after 24 hours, moved to ~59 ambient.

12/21/10 Measured fermentation temp at 68, which is spot on for what Vinnie suggests.

12/22/10 Added the sugars boiled in 1 pint of filtered water for a few minutes to dissolve.  Cane/corn sugar represent 11% of the fermentables by extract.

12/28/10 Down to 1.014, 85% AA, 10.6% ABV.  Right on target.  Krausen already dropped, but I'll give it a few more days to ensure the fermentation is complete before racking.  Nice lingering bitterness, nice aroma, but despite the huge late hop addition the citrus/pine/tropical aroma isn't as powerful as I expected (the dry hops will fix that).

12/31/10  Flushed a sanitized keg twice with CO2, pumped the auto-siphon in the keg, then flushed the keg again.  Racked to ~4.75 gallons of the beer into the keg, then sealed it up and flushed the headspace two more times.  Left at cool room temp for a day or two more before chilling.

1/2/11 Moved the keg to 35 degree fridge to help the yeast flocc out before adding the first dry hop addition.

1/10/11 Moved keg out of the fridge, allowed to warm for a few hours, drained 1 pint of yeast/trub through a tap, added the first addition of dry hops (weighed down by marbles).  Left at room temp ~64 F.  Beer tastes good, firm bitterness, but not nearly enough hop aromatics.

1/26/11 Removed first dry hop addition, added second dose.  Moved to kegerator and hooked up to CO2, vented, and left to carbonate.  Hopefully ready for a sample in two weeks.

3/1/11 About as close as I could expect to get without getting the exact details from Vinnie. Could be slightly drier, and a bit danker, but it has a hugely complex pine/citrus nose and loads of bitterness.  Well worth trying if you have an iron liver or lots of hophead friends.

-------------------------------------
Actual dry hop schedule per Vinnie.
DH 1 Simcoe, Amarillo, Centennial for one week and remove
DH 2 Amarillo, Centennial for one week and remove
DH 3 Simcoe for one week and remove
DH 4 Simcoe, Amarillo Dry Hop in Keg

I think an ounce of each of the hops at each addition would be about right if you want to go this route.

Courage Clone Tasting 2010

I can't believe this big funky stout is already three-and-a-half years old.  I've been drinking just one bottle every winter when I visit my parents for Christmas, a nice treat after the long drive up from DC to Massachusetts.  Luckily I've got enough left for another few years.

Courage Russian Imperial Stout Clone

Appearance -Pitch black, and opaque unless held right up to a light.  The tan head is pretty thin, with tight bubbles and decent retention. A longer lasting head would certainly be nice, but the beer still looks like a winter night.

Aroma - Over-roasted coffee, cocoa nibs, and starting to develop some tobacco.  Behind the dark malt there is some damp basement/oak.  A toasty character from the amber malt adds complexity to the dominant dark malts.

Flavor - Smooth dark malt roast, with some vanilla (I assume from the oak).  There is some alcohol in the finish but not too much for a Christmas beer. The combination of oak/vanilla/ethanol gives the impression of smooth bourbon.  The hop bitterness has fallen off over the years, but the combination of roast/oak/alcohol are still enough to balance the residual sugars (the better than average attenuation from the Brett A helps the balance as well).

Mouthfeel - Moderate body for such a big beer with a bit more carbonation than I like in a substantial beer like this,  I get a bit of drying tannins from the oak.

Drinkability/Notes -Getting to a very enjoyable point, but it still tastes like it can take some more age.  As it warms I get more complexity and the the body smooths out, I like this beer more every year.

BBR Kvass and Barrels

A few weeks ago Nathan and I recorded a double dose of interviews with James and the gang for the Basic Brewing Radio podcast.  Both episodes have since been posted.  The first interview covers the three kvasses we brewed (and I'm sure you've heard enough about).  We sent samples of each down for the guys, and they seemed to enjoy them.  The second interview goes into our group barrel aging projects.  The samples of those seemed to be appreciated as well.  James always does a great job keeping the interview focused and moving (and editing out my um's and ah's.)

Speaking of barrels, on Saturday Nathan and I brewed a dark saison at McKenzie's Brew House (winners of three of the last four GABF gold medals for saison).  Today half the batch is going into a three barrels to funk/sour over the next few months (where they'll be fed various sugars).  Their bottled saison was as funky and complex as anything I've tasted from Fantome, and the sour Baltic Porter was a revelation in complex woody/fruity funk.  While we were up there we procured one of their apple brandy barrel already had one beer aged in it.  The current plan is to start another solera with a strong golden sour. 

In other barrel related news we're just about three weeks out from bottling the porterish-stout that has been sitting in a second use bourbon barrel for the last year or so.  Next in will be a moderately strong malty brown.  The Belgian pale/single in the wine barrel is being lapped because it is still a bit sulfury, and not sour enough despite more than a year of bugging. 

More on all of those things later.

Beer Word Trends (Thanks to Google)

Google recently released a simple little tool that essentially lets you run trends on word usage over the last 500 years.  The tool searches over 500 Billion words contained in 1 million of the books they have scanned. I just played around with it for a few minutes and found some interesting beer related trends.

Beer and Ale had similar usage rates 200 years ago, with beer now the dominant term (lager is surprisingly unpopular).

There was a large spike in homebrewing interest during prohibition and then it crashed back down until the early 1990s.

Interest in wine is more variable than beer over the last 300 years.

There were spikes of interest in hops around 1700 and 1800, anybody have a theory on this one?

That's all I found, if you find any other good ones leave a comment.

Bière de Garde Tasting

I usually try to keep session beers on tap, but at ~8% ABV I broke that rule when I put on the Bière de Garde I brewed near the start of September. It has been a good complement to the ~4% Bretty Belgian Single, especially since my father and my housemate have been doing their fair share of the heavy lifting.

Bearded Guard - Bière de Garde 

Appearance – Clear chestnut-brown body topped with a dense off-white head. The head slowly trailing sticky lacing behind it down the sides of the glass.

Smell – Big toasty malt aromatics (rustic bread) mixed with strong fruity esters. The fruit character is dark enough (almost reminiscent of brandy) to match well with a bigger/darker beer, not nearly as fresh-grape-ish as it was in the lighter beers I've done with the Wyeast Kolsch strain.  Maybe a hint of spice from the hops, but not much.

Taste – Dry upfront, but with a nice lingering toffee sweetness in the finish. The malt comes through more than the fruit, with complex toasty aromas. It smells like a loaf of bread that has a couple of spots on the bottom that are almost charred. Enough bitterness to balance the slight bit of sweetness, but no more. A bit of warming alcohol in the finish as it comes up to temp.

Mouthfeel – Medium body, with a lively carbonation that ensures it isn't too heavy. Just about right, but if it was bottle conditioned I might have gone slightly higher on the carbonation.

Drinkability & Notes – I think this is a great beer, sort of a French Doppelbock. A bit maltier and sweeter than most of the commercial versions of the style, but nothing objectionable when there is snow on the ground.