Funky Brewings

Finally another post for anyone that actually reads this modest brewing information repository. Between moving across the city and starting graduate school, blogging time has been nonexistant. Brewing history posts will, unfortunately, be even more seldom for a while and I will most likely only have time for quick posts on brewing activities.

Ahh, fall, time to start brewing again. The cool weather arrived early this year which means I have already brewed twice this fall. I cooked up another batch of saison early in September and this weekend I filled Saturday afternoon with a parti-gyle brew and bottling La Fontaine du Sang and Les Fleurs du Mal.

Only part of The Fountain of Flood was bottled. The remaining half was refilled with the first gyle to begin a solera. The second gyle received oak and a portion of my sour starter.

Dog Days of Summer Brew Update

When the temperature and humidity in the 90s, brewing just can't be any fun. Thus, since stocking up on saison in early July, nothing more intense than bottling has happened. I do have some aging beers that I can squeeze an update post out of.


Belgian Barleywine
When bottling the base beer I drew off one gallon to age some more with an "infected" oak spiral. Only bubbled a bit occasionally but never put up a pellicle. I figure at nearly 13% ABV that the bacteria and Brett. were killed off. Not much funk when I tasted it last week but it was still boozy and hot despite the extra aging time. I put it in the back of the refrigerator in hopes a few cold weeks will calm it down a bit. That main portion of the batch never carbonated so I will use wine or champagne yeast at bottling time.

La Fontaine du Sang
After two months in secondary, this one has just put up a bubbly and ropy white pellicle. A sample last week still tasted fairly clean and mostly like sweet caramel malt. Quite a ways to go for this one.

Les Framboises du Mal
I've added all the fruit I can afford to dump into beer, which now totals 5.5 lbs of raspberries and 12 oz plums from the fantastic Kimball Fruit Farm. The samples have tasted very sour and funky but I was dissappointed with the lack of fruit flavor and hue of the raspberry color, so I added plums to help rectify those problems. Although I have never heard of plums added to sour beer. The raspberries floating on top have beautifully disgusting crust.

The Difference Between Porter and Stout

With Ron wasting the summer writing about trivial subjects like lager and travel, little progress has been made recently in droning on about important matters. Those matters of course are porter and stout, and the difference between the two. So here is a quote from and industrial chemistry manual published in 1921.

"Stout, with a very dark color, malt flavor and sweet taste, brewed stronger than ale, and possessing a tart taste in the aged product, but less alcohol than ale; usually lively. From worts of about 16 to 18 per cent extract.

Porter, with a dark color, brewed like stout, but not so strong."

-"Industrial Chemistry: A Manual for the Student and Manufacturer.", page 921.

Tasting: Saison

What a wonderful feeling to open that first bottle of a much anticipated brew, raise it up to your nose, that first whiff encouraging glass to lips and take in all that goodness and hard work, comforting you that you made a beer just the way you drew it up in your mind.

Soft on the palate, a round maltiness (thank you Weyermann Vienna) gives way to a delicate bitterness. Then comes a yeasty pepper flavor along with floral and grassy flavors of several noble hops. A dry bitterness lingers. A spectacular beer for a night when both heat and humidity begin with an 8.

Crap, my glass is empty.

Saison

Inspired by a couple great beers, Saison Dupont and Ommegang Hennepin, I heeded the siren call of saison. To me, saison is four basic ingredients of beer combined in perfect harmony. Nothing fancy. Just the finest malts and hops fermented with a difficult yeast. That was the aim of this recipe.

Grain:
4 lbs. Belgian 2-row pale malt
4 lbs. US 2-row pale malt
1 lb. Vienna Malt

Hops:
60 Minutes - 0.75 Amarillo % AAU
60 Minutes - 0.5 ounce Saaz 6.8% AAU
15 Minutes -0 .75 ounce Noble mix*
0 Minutes - 0.75 ounce Noble mix*
*.5 ounce each of Saaz (6.8 AAU), Hallertau (3.8 AAU), Styrian Goldings (2.0 AAU).

Mash
113 - 20 minutes
145 - 50 minutes
162 - 20 minutes

Yeast:
pitched starter built up from Saison Dupont Vieille Provision
OG: 1.053
78 % Efficiency.

Update: Version 2 brewed 7/16/2009 using the same recipe. 1.051 OG.

7/16/2009: 1.020 SG. First batch racked to secondary.

7/28/2009: Bottled 5 gallons, primed with 3.5 oz table sugar. 1.004 FG, 6.1 ABV, 92 % AA.

Tasting: Les Fleurs du Mal

This has proved again to be one of my favorite recipes. The marriage of fruity Belgian yeast and American citrus hops has shown itself to be an excellent combination. I had only planned one batch of this for the summer but it has gone so fast I may have to brew up another to quench my thirst.

The color splits the difference between orange and amber and puts up big off-white head from the high carbonation. Oranges dominate the aroma among other tropical fruits with a grassy, herbal note adding some complexity. In the mouth, it presents a prickly carbonation and bitterness up front with a slight caramel sweetness and burning alcohol, which provides just enough kick to please a Scotch drinker, in the middle. The bitterness returns for a long, dry finish. Well chilled, its an ale that is very refreshing on a hot summer's eve.

The only change I would make would be to substitute pale malt of some, if not all, of the pils to give some extra malt to interact with the hops and yeast.

Beer in Colonial America, Odd Mixtures and Small Beer

Here are some interesting drinks from the late 17th century. They range from pleasant to downright nasty.

An historical writer of that time gives a list of the beverages which were then drunk in America. Among others he mentions "manatham," which was made from small beer, rum, and sugar; "tiff" or "flip," prepared in the same manner, with the addition of a piece of toast and butter; "hotch-pot," a beverage made of warmed beer with the addition of rum; and "sillibub," which was a mixture of warm milk and beer.

Then there was small beer, which was made from syrup by heating some water and adding a quantity of molasses and a little malt. The brew was then thoroughly shaken and afterwards a small quantity of hops and yeast was added and the whole was put in a barrel and allowed to ferment. The following day the beverage was cleared and was ready for use. "The Brewing Industry and Brewery Workers' Movement in America", page 36.

Suddenly I have the urge to stroll up to the bar at Drink and demand that the bartender (fuck you yuppies, I'm calling your precious mixologists what they really are) toss together a sillibub.