Chthonian Dubbel

I've recently had an overcarbonation problem, as you may be able to tell. The other beer affected is the 100% "Brett" trois wit (the problem being, as many in the homebrew community now know, White labs Brettanomyces bruxellensis "Trois" is likely a Saccharomyces strain). The other thing I'm blaming is this Duvel glass, which has a laser etched "D" at the bottom of the glass that serves as a nucleation site to release the carbonation and get more foaming. I personally don't like the laser etched glasses because it drives too much carbonation out of solution which leads to an explosively foamy beer at first that then dies into a sad, flat excuse for the belgian it once was.

Back to the beer: I brewed this beer around October of 2014 when I first started this blog. I wanted it to be ready by about Christmas time as a winter warmer beer. Many people recommend aging belgian beers for 6 months or so, but I figured I would just allow it to age in the bottle instead of the carboy. I feel that the 3 months of aging would be more than sufficient to turn out a tasty beer that I could share with my family.

Sumpsimus Bohemian Pilsner - First Lager, First Water Tweaking

Oh, lagers, the strawman nemesis of the de novo beer snob; the dearest compadre to the uninitiated dark-beer-fearer. As homebrewers, I'm sure that most of us know at least 3 or 4 people who insist that they "can't drink ales", or only drink lagers, which is generally a way of saying that they don't like anything but Budweiser, Coors, or Molson. I've heard the opposite from newer beer-enthusiasts because they choose it as a form of rebellion against the majority lite lager drinking herd. In my opinion, both of these crowds are missing out. While it seems obvious that the BMC crowd may be missing out (in our opinion) on IPA, Stout, Barleywine, Belgian ales, Sours etc, the newer craft drinkers who think that lagers are boring, or that lagers are nothing but the lite corn beer are also missing out. Lagers can have so much flavor!

Scottish 80 - My first temperature controlled fermentation

When I was a beginner brewer, after I had learned the ingredients, the mash information and learned how to all-grain, after I had done a few all-grain brews and gotten my system down to repetition where each brew day went smoothly and I could churn out beers relatively easily, I thought that beer brewing was simple. Granted, it's easy to make drinkable beer, and not that difficult to make pretty good beer, but I never really admitted to myself that I wasn't making great beer. Sure, my stouts and IPAs were really quite good, but I chalk that up to having such strong flavored ingredients that they cover up many of the flaws of the brew. I still hesitate to say that I make great beer, but I truly think that as many have said before: controlling fermentation temperature brings your beer up by a big notch, and I am that much closer to making great beer.

Tasting - 12/12/12 Barleywine

I took a little break from writing for the winter break while I decompress from the last semester at university, but I'm back to writing for the blog now!

This beer had its genesis over 2 years ago now. I brewed it on 12/12/2012 as my last chance at brewing a beer for the line up of years and dates. It ended up being 12% ABV, and I bottled it a month prior to 12/12/13 so that I could drink the first bottle 12 months after making it. I didn't go overboard and make it with 12 malts or 12 hops.. I'm not that crazy, that's just poor craftsmanship for the sake of novelty.