Colorado Kitchen Brew

2014 turned into quite the year of transition for me. I went from brewing two times a month to around once every two months. Because of that, my blog has been rather thin since May. That said, I feel I covered some pretty decent ground. The kind folks at Deschutes sent me a bottle opener and a knit cap for my Red Chair clone , which means I must be doing something right. I also had great fun with my Wood Aged Beer adventure. My first Sour emerged too. I realized a while back that the internet is awash in homebrewing websites. With that in mind , much of my effort has gone toward material for my nascent (and not quite ready for prime time)  Buzz Free Brewer  blog. Over there will eventually be a lot of material on non-alcoholic beer that you'll be hard pressed to find on other brewing blogs. This site will live on, however. I have quite the backlog of obscure beer styles to brew and generally off the wall experiments. This site is the perfect space for them. Happy 2015

It's been a long time (16 months, to be exact) since my first ever Sour hit the brew kettle. After nearly 14 months in the secondary and two more in the bottle, my Flanders Red is ready for the light of day. Was the wait worth it? I'd say yes. I was rather nervous brewing a beer that takes so long to mature. If something went terribly wrong, I wouldn't know about it for quite some time. Then I relaxed, had a homebrew and decided not to worry about it. The result of my efforts netted a very interesting beer that isn't quite what I expected. As with quite a few Sours I've had, there's not much of a head on this one. It takes an aggressive pour to form and quickly dissipates. The beer also has a fair bit of haze. However, what really matters is what happens on the palate, so it's time to move on. Although the guidelines for this style indicate strong fruitiness inspired by dark fruits, my beer leans toward the lighter ones. Cherries, green grapes