Colorado Kitchen Brew

Awhile back, I attempted to clone Taddy Porter and came up short. Initially, this beer was to be round two in that quest. Then I had an even weirder idea. The Porter below was meant to be a variation on my original beer. Unfortunately, my local store was out of Maris Otter (a frustrating ongoing theme ), so I used Crisp Pale Ale instead. They were also out of the English yeast strain I intended to use, so I went with Wyeast's London Ale. I'm not using large quantities of grain, because I don't want a very strong beer. This one should land in the low to mid 5.0% ABV range. Whether I miraculously clone Taddy in round two, or simply make a nice Porter, what's going to happen to part of this beer once it's done fermenting is the real unique bit. While I could tell you up front what I'm planning, that would be boring. For now, here's the recipe for five gallons: Grains: 7 lbs Crisp Pale Ale 1.5 lbs Hugh Baird Brown Malt 1 lb Crisp Crystal 77 12

Ein Heldenleben This post started out as an extremely belated review of my Ein Heldenleben Dunkelweiss . Then I realized that this was the perfect chance to compare it against my very similar Mid-Life-Weisses that I brewed for a friend's birthday party. Looking at the recipes, you can see that the only major differences are that Ein Heldenleben has some Pale Wheat in it, while Mid-Life ditches the Pale Wheat for additional Dark Wheat and Munich Malt. The decoction mash, hops and yeast are the same. Let's start with the similarities. Mid-Lfe Both beers have banana and clove aromas that are more muted than I had hoped for. They're backed by scents of biscuits and subtle chocolate. Although the different lighting in my pictures show otherwise, the appearance of the two beers is very close as well. Both are appropriately cloudy and have soapy heads with decent staying power. Mid-Life has maybe a touch more amber to it. The similarities end once the beers hit th

My Dark Session Saison is ready. It's closely related to my Session Saison from a few weeks back, so I plan on doing a bit of compare and contrast this time around. It is also one of the five beers I brewed for my friend's birthday, so I have some pretty decent feedback too. Let's start with the pour. The beer has a nice pale chocolate hue and a dense cap. Head retention is good and a nice amount of lace is left behind. Compared to its Session Saison brother, this beer adds a distinct baker's chocolate bite on top of that beer's biscuits and bitterness. However, the Cara Munich malts didn't cut through with sweetness as much as I thought they would. A little bonus time in the bottle allowed the yeast to do its thing. It adds some sourdough and light earthy funk aromas that balance, rather than overpower. Like the lighter Saison, this one has a body that's more dense than an ABV of less than 5.0% would normally produce. As far as tasting notes

About this time last year, I declared that I didn't particularly care for Pumpkin Beer . My niece convinced me to brew her one anyway and Flaming Pumpkin was born. I liked the beer, but saw room for improvement. Since harvest season is here, I'm brewing an updated batch. The first big change is the move to a very simple grain-bill. Domestic Two-Row and some Caramel Malt are it. Also, I tweaked the pie spices to get a better balance than I had before. The amount of pumpkin was bumped because I baked more than I needed. A fresh pumpkin is a pain in the butt to cut into chunks, clean out and bake (45 min at 350F, by the way), so I figured I might as well use it. Personally, I think the flavor and aroma of fresh baked pumpkin is worth the additional work. But I was questioning my sanity for not using canned pumpkin at one point. Regarding mashing the pumpkin with the grains, I followed Scott Jackson's advice from Zymurgy and did a quick Protein Rest. Apparently the