Out of the Cellar: Golden Spark

2013: Same beer. Same glass.

Today is the first anniversary of my blog, as well as the first anniversary of the first beer I ever wrote about: Golden Spark.

Certain strong beer styles age very well. The Belgian Strong Pale Ale (BSPA) is one of them. With that in mind, I cellared the last few bottles of my beer and patiently waited for it to evolve. Has it changed much since last Spring? In a word: Yes.

Here's what I had to say in May of 2012:

"After two weeks in the bottle, the beer had great carbonation and a nice dense head. Due to my forgetting to throw in Irish Moss during the boil, there was as a fair amount of chill haze, which didn't bother me. Pears and apricots dominated, with a hint of spicy bitterness. Fast forward to a month plus in the bottle and things have changed. The fruits have faded and let the bitterness through. The mouthfeel is extremely dry and deceivingly light."

To keep things interesting, I poured the beer into the same glass I used in 2012's blog. The most notable difference right out of the bottle is the appearance. In April of last year, the beer had a significant haze. Now, it's more clear (something the photo doesn't reflect, unfortunately), but still on the hazy side. The head is big like before, but seems more dense. Its retention is excellent, but not as much lace is left behind.

So how about everything else?

2012: The beer in its infancy.

It really seems like the beer has brought back some of the characteristics from when it was first bottled. Apricot is really prevalent in the nose and it follows straight into the flavor. Behind it are pear, coriander and a bit of lemongrass. Bitterness is lighter than before, but still peppery. The body feels heavier and not quite as dry. The 9.7% ABV is still well masked, but does provide some warmth going down. The heavier body makes this more of a sipping beer than it was.

The final verdict? Aging this beer was a fun experiment. I was surprised that it became a bit more like its younger self in flavor and aroma. I realize that hops fade as a beer ages, but I wasn't expecting this much fade in just one year. The body becoming heavier was unexpected as well. There are still two more bottles of this left. I may very well hang onto those until 2014.

As I final note, I've put several other beers I brewed in 2012 into my cellar. It will be a few months before I write about any of them because they're still young, but my Dubbel, Tripel, Quad, Wee Heavy, Old Ale and Barleywine are patiently aging. Hopefully they'll all evolve like this beer did.

Comments

Kitchen Brewing Part 3: Sparge and Boil

The mash emerges from the oven. Now that we're finished with Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, it's time to Sparge. As you can see from the photo, the grains have absorbed a lot of liquid. In a traditional all-grain setup, your Mash Tun has a valve at the bottom to release the first running of Wort. The grains are then rinsed with the sparge water to extract any remaining sugars. My stove-top method doesn't afford such luxury, so a different method is called for. The grains have gained a little weight. There are a couple of choices at this point. One choice is to lift the grain bag out of Pot A and place it into the sparge water in Pot B to steep for 10-15 minutes or more. The other is to lift the grain bag up, put a colander under it and slowly pour the sparge water through the grains into the original pot. I prefer the former, because I get a better extraction rate from my grains. All that absorption means that the grains weigh a lot more than they did going i

Kitchen Brewing Part 2: The Mash

Always start your session with a beer. Now that the equipment is together from Part 1 , it's time to start brewing. I'll be brewing an English India Pale Ale for my demo batch. The beer's details will be out in a future blog. Ingredients ready to go. I'm lucky to have a homebrew shop with a grain mill, so I've crushed my grains at the store. The hops have also been measured out ahead of time to keep things simple. You don't have to do this, but I recommend it. My setup. My stove-top setup is pretty simple. Two kettles, a grain bag and a metal spatula are pretty much it. I also like using a hop bag (available for around $5.00), but it's completely optional. If you're doing all-grain brewing, canning pots work best for batches of 2.5 gallons or less. Anything larger and you'll be battling spill-overs. They also work well for partial-mash batches of up to 5 gallons, where you can top off your wort after the boil. We hav

Saving Money: Simple Yeast Culturing

A few members of the family I just finished racking my English IPA to a secondary fermentor. As part of the process, I saved some of the yeast in the primary for future use. Here then, is the start of a series of articles on yeast culturing. Back in the "good old days," homebrewers didn't have a ton of yeast choices. In some cases, brewers would even use bread yeast from the baking section of the grocery store. In practice, you hydrated the packet of dry yeast you got at the homebrew or grocery store and pitched it. The packets were cheap and worked, but there wasn't much variety to be had. Nowadays, there are several dozen strains available. While a few strains are still dry , most are liquids that come in pitchable tubes , or smack-packs . The liquid yeasts give consistent results and provide tremendous variety to finished beers, but are pricey. If you only use each pack, or tube once, you will quickly discover that yeast makes up 15%, or more of the cost

Colorado Kitchen Brew

Search This Blog