Colorado Kitchen Brew

I'm doing a 4-for-1 with this installment, and will be bundling my finished beers going forward, rather than writing a blog for each.  That should leave me space for more brewing oriented posts. This month, I've got beers I posted the recipes for back in November, December and January. First out of the gate is Enchanted Nightmare Imperial Stout. This beer is an amalgamation of extra grains and hops I had that were combined with some 2-Row and additional hops to create a 9.95% ABV Stout for the depths of Winter. So what if it wasn't actually ready until the Spring Equinox arrived? A beer like this can't be rushed. My beer pours nearly pitch black, and has nice ruby highlights. The head could stand a touch more staying power, but is appropriately dense. In the mouth, the body is a little lighter than I expected. The carbonation is very soft, and feels just about right for this beer style.  When I bottled this beer, I was slightly worried that the whiskey and oak were a li...

While 2020 was easily my worst year ever, all of those weeks cooped up at home meant I had more time than usual to brew. One of my final brew days of 2020 was devoted to this Barleywine.  My beer is loosely based on various takes I found on Great Divide's Old Ruffian , which is a beer that used to be a regular member of their lineup. That's not the case anymore, which is why I decided to tackle my own.  The main area where I've diverged from what I came across online is with the specialty malts. I've bumped them all up just a tad. In addition, my homebrew store doesn't stock Crystal 80, so I went with Crystal 77. I'm fairly certain my hop schedule is different as well. To finish my beer off, I'll be adding an oak spiral toward the end of secondary fermentation. This beer won't be ready until mid April at the earliest, so I have quite the wait ahead. My 5 gallon brew is below: Grains: 17lbs Rahr 2-Row 12oz Crisp Crystal 77 12oz Briess Victory 8oz Briess F...

The New England/Hazy/Juicy IPA is a beer style I've been having great trouble getting into.  Part of it might be a "get off my lawn" issue regarding what my brain thinks an IPA is supposed to be. I grew up with two IPA styles: an English IPA that is bitter, amber, moderately strong and uses English hops, and an American IPA that is bitter, amber, moderately strong and uses American hops. In the case of the American (now considered West Coast, blech) the more "C" hops the better, damn it. The clarity had better be good too, because I must be able to see through my glass. Pale and hazy is the realm of Wits and Weizens, not the IPA gosh darn it. And by the way, who took all of my VHS tapes?   All that said, now that I'm on the wrong side of 50, it's time to open up the mind a bit.  The brewing process of the Hazy IPA is what intrigues me most. It's probably the main reason I'm taking a stab at the style.  Most everything regarding hops happens late ...

I recently stumbled upon a box of homebrew that I'd been cellaring for quite some time. Nearly three years, to be exact. I'd kind of forgotten about it, so finding the box was a pleasant surprise. Half the fun was deciphering my markings on the caps. I'm sure it made perfect sense to me at the time. Three years on, not so much. The first beer I deciphered was a bottle of my Kitchen Sink Barleywine . Let's see what happened over the years. First off, the beer is as bitter as ever. I was expecting that side of the beer to dial back, but that doesn't seem to be the case. However, the hop aroma has become much more subdued. The pine is still there, but the citrus has mostly faded. With much of the hop aroma out of the way, the biggest development in the nose is a prevalent mix of toffee and tobacco. They give the beer an almost English Barleywine character. Once in the mouth, more changes are in store. The aforementioned bitterness still hits right away, but t...

It's November, which means it's time to brew a pumpkin beer! What's that? Pumpkin beers are already off the shelf? Oops. Oh well. I'm brewing one anyway. The pumpkins I bought have been staring at me for too long. I'd hate to see them go bad. This year's beer is a bit of an experiment. The recipe is basically what happens when my Power Outage Pumpkin , Burton Warmer , and Taddy Porter Clone all come together in the same pot. Hopefully the result will be worth the effort. Rather than shoot for a specific weight of pumpkin, I simply baked a couple of Sugar Pie Pumpkins (thank you allrecipes.com ), chopped them up, and tossed them in the Mash. Fresh pumpkins are a pain in the butt to prep, so I figured I might as well use everything. Despite my grumblings, I still think the flavor and aroma of fresh baked pumpkin is worth the additional work. The total weight of the two pumpkins after being cleaned out was roughly five pounds. Last year's beer u...

It's been 20 (20???) years since my roommate and I brewed Gushing Geyser , but I can still recall a bit of what the original beer was like. So, does this new iteration taste like I remember? Pretty darn close. Out front on the nose, there's a nice light roasted note that's complemented by a caramel sweetness. The Willamette hops bring a nice earthy and floral note. The aroma reminds me of why I liked them so much 20 years ago. Overall bitterness is mild and very clean. If I recall correctly, the original beer had a slightly rustic (I swear that's a flavor) edge. The original beer utilized Bullion hops rather than Newport, which pretty much explains the difference. A medium-light body makes for easy drinking, while the moderate ABV makes it safe to have more than one. The beer does have a bit of what I've heard many homebrewers refer to as the"extract" taste. I can't completely describe the flavor, but I know it when I taste it. The closest I can ...

In keeping with the theme from the Twitter Bitter I brewed recently, below is a Session beer version of an American Porter. All of the Porter style points are hit, but with an alcohol content of around 4.5%. To make up for the beer's lack of heft, I've thrown in a bit of Dextrin Malt to compensate. This is the second beer for my Wedding in May. Hopefully it will please both my fiance and guests. The full 5-gallon brew is below: Grains: 5 lbs Great Western Premium 2-Row 1 lb Weyermann Light Munich 12 oz Great Western Crystal C60 8 oz Bairds Chocolate Malt 8 oz Briess Carapils 6 oz Bairds Black Malt Hops: 1 oz Glacier (5.6% a.a.): 60 min 1 oz Glacier (5.6% a.a.): 15 min Mash Schedule: Saccharification Rest: 152F for 60 min (No Black or Chocolate Malt) Mashout: 168F for 15 min (All Grains) Total Boil Time: 90 min Yeast: Safale US-05 Original Gravity: 1.047 Estimated Final Gravity: 1.011 IBU: 29 SRM Color: 28 Fermentation Schedule: 2 Weeks ...

What do you do when it's your first chance to brew in over a month, but the local homebrew store is closed? My initial reaction was to panic. Of course my homebrew store had to be closed on the one day I had time to shop! How typical! Then, I started to go through what brewing supplies I already had at home. Leftover Malt Extract from a beer kit ? Check. Some random specialty malts? Check. Hops? Check. Yeast? A spare packet of dry that I'd forgotten I even had. The beer I decided upon is an American Brown Ale . For grains, I used all of the liquid extract I had. The Caramel 60L was leftover from my Power-Outage Pumpkin brew day. My Chocolate Malt was leftover from an Oatmeal Stout . The Hops were around from my last online shopping spree. It's brewing time! Oddly enough, the ingredients I had on hand let me put together a beer eerily close to one of the first beers I ever brewed back in the mid 90's: Gushing Geyser Brown Ale. That beer netted me my first e...

Mine My Red Chair clone attempt is ready to go. It's time to see just how close I got. A report on the outcome of a clone-brew wouldn't be complete without popping open a bottle of the real deal. With that in mind, I grabbed some Red Chair from the store to drink side-by-side with my beer. Let's start with appearances. My beer is a bit lighter than the Deschutes brew. Both have dense caps that stick around nicely and leave good bits of lace behind. Moving onto what really matters, there are a surprising number of similarities between the two brews. Most noticeable is the bitterness profile. Although the Deschutes brew has a touch more grapefruit to it, the level of bitterness between the two beers is almost identical. Citrus is the overarching theme, with a touch of pine in the background. The bitterness of both beers lingers through the finish, where they get a little peppery. Their's In other areas, things veer off course. My beer is more malty and c...

I'm not a huge fan of trying to clone commercial beers. I did it once with Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter , but haven't tried since. However, I'm all for a challenge. When a friend of mine asked me to try and clone Deschutes' Red Chair Northwest Pale Ale , I decided to grant his wish. Thankfully, the Deschutes website happily lays out what's actually in the beer . What their site doesn't do is tell you what lovibond Crystal Malt to use, how much of each malt to use, which maltsters provided their malts, and what yeast strain they ferment with. I did a little hunting and found all sorts of conflicting information about Deschutes' yeast strain. The only consistent thread was that they use a proprietary yeast, rather than one of the strains most homebrew shops carry. Multiple sources (including the bastion of reliable information that is Wikipedia) stated that Ringwood Ale is the closest commercial strain. Yet another source said to use London ESB .  I...

After a lot of waiting, my Wheatwine is ready to go. Let's see what happened. The beer pours with a hazy mahogany hue and sports a dense cream cap that's slow to form. Head retention is OK, but not great. However, a nice smattering of lace is left in the beer's wake. With 70 IBUs on hand, I was expecting a rather hop forward beer. That's not so much the case. Instead, there's a good sweet/bitter balance at work. Pine, citrus and candied fruits dominate the nose. There's also a healthy dose of fresh toasted bread. In the mouth, the grain flavors are dominated by toffee and sweetbread, while the bitterness carries in pine and citrus from the nose. Even with an ABV near 9.5%, the beer packs no alcohol heat. Letting the beer warm to cellar temp allows more of the woodsy and toffee flavors to come through. The beer finishes sweet, oddly enough. There's just enough residual bitterness to keep the sweetness under control. The beer's body is heavy, dense...

My Power-Outage Pumpkin , that was literally made during a power-outage, is ready to go for Halloween. The beer smells fabulous coming out of the bottle. My extra dose of pumpkin must have done its job, because that's the first aroma you get. Letting the nose linger a bit brings forth the full pumpkin pie effect I was shooting for. The beer is lightly sweet, bready and has a good compliment of pie spice to go with all that pumpkin. Yay me! Things change a little bit in the mouth. Baked pumpkin is way out front, without being overpowering. The bitterness is just enough and doesn't add any flavor to the mix. Pie spices also help balance the sweeter flavors of brown sugar and caramel. The pie spices linger through the long and somewhat dry finish. I've definitely decided that I'm not a big clove or allspice fan. Even though I dialed back both significantly this year, their flavor still doesn't work for my palate. Thankfully, the others who have tried this...

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 ...

Wheatwines are a style that I've just started looking into. I've only a had a couple of them and that was enough to pique my interest. For my brew, I've decided to to take what's essentially a Hefeweizen on steroids grain-bill, toss in some CaraWheat malt for a touch of sweetness and then hop it to American Barleywine levels with American hops. A clean Ale yeast, plus the high bitterness will make sure no one mistakes this creation for a Weizenbock. Since my canning pot setup doesn't allow for huge amounts of grain, I've taken the partial-mash approach and added Malt Extract to push up the Original Gravity. Although it feels a little odd brewing a big beer in August, something this strong needs at least 3-4 months to mature. I'll be back around Thanksgiving with a final report. Here's the five gallon brew: Grains: 8 lbs Rahr White Wheat 4 lbs Rahr Pale Ale 8 oz Weyermann CaraWheat Hops: 1 oz Galena (13.4% a.a.): 60 min 1 oz Falconer...

My Cream Ale was ready just in time for my big 24 Hours of LeMons race. I'm sorry that I'm just now getting around to writing about it. My first thought is that the beer fills its role well. It's light and slightly spritzy. The perfect lawnmower beer (not that I actually have a lawn). Everyone on the LeMons team enjoyed it. One of them even suggested I start a brewery, but I'm pretty sure he was delirious from a day of racing. My fiance says she enjoys the beer's lightness and easy-drinking nature. My friend Matt went around telling anyone who'd listen to try it. My thoughts are a bit mixed. The beer is definitely more of a Blonde Ale than a Cream. Although the bitterness level is low, the Willamette hops bring a flowery essence that really seems to define the beer. If I were truly brewing to style, I'd get knocked pretty hard for that one. Thankfully, I wasn't. Malt flavors are subdued, while the body has a bit more heft than I was hoping for.  ...

It's May and my Prohibition Bock is ready for Spring. Let's see how it turned out. I must say that I really like the look. The beer's clarity is excellent and its chocolaty hue is topped by a dense cream cap that does a nice job of sticking around. The beer leaves a bit of lace behind too. So how would I describe the aroma and flavor? Chocolate Alt with an American twist. Baking chocolate and caramel are the central theme. The overall effect wasn't quite what I expected, but I'm pleased and so are the friends who've tried my beer. The sweetness is well balanced by a mild bitterness that has a certain rustic (that's a flavor, right?) edge that seems to come with American Cluster hops. The yeast is clean, but all I could think while drinking was Alt. This is a beer that definitely rides the line between Lager and Ale. Rounding things out, the finish carries a lingering sweetness, while the beer's body has a nice heft to it. Overall? Not a bad li...

Sometimes you just want to throw together a quick and easy beer. Malt extracts are a great way to accomplish this. The mess will be minimal compared to all-grain, plus you'll be done in a couple of hours. That's a pretty good deal when you want to brew, but don't have a lot of time to devote. For this beer, I'm making a nice and easy drinking Cream Ale. According to the BJCP style guideline for Cream Ale , a combination of two-row and six-row malt is common. To get my two-row/six-row malt blend, I'm combining Briess' two-row based Pilsen Light extract with their six-row based Golden Light extract. Together, they should hopefully give me the malt profile I'm looking for. A small dose of Cluster and Willamette hops provides just enough bitterness, while a clean American Ale yeast handles the fermentation. A couple of weeks of cold bottle conditioning will provide a little extra smoothness. Where I'm veering off script is in the use of sugars and ...

I feel like my Kitchen Sink Barleywine is finally ready to review. It's been a long wait, but I think the results were worth it. Sink pours into my snifter with a deep chestnut brown hue that has decent clarity. A generous head provides nice retention and leaves a solid serving of lace behind. Pine, oak, orange marmalade, citrus and lightly toasted bread greet the nose. The hop aromas are way out front, but not overpowering. In the mouth, the 87 IBUs bring a forceful bitter bite that carries the pine and citrus from the nose, without being overly grapefruit happy. Malts are there with a toasted edge. There's not much sweetness to be found outside some of the hop flavors, but that's OK by me. The bitterness lingers long into the finish. The roughly 9.5% ABV adds a nice warmth going down, but the alcohol is otherwise well masked. Letting the beer warm to cellar temperature makes the experience even better. The beer's body is substantial from the large grain-bill an...

The Pre-Prohibition American Lager (a.k.a. Classic American Pilsner ) has made a comeback. However, back before Prohibition, many American breweries were also producing Bock beers in addition to their pale offerings. With that in mind, I'm attempting to make a Pre-Prohibition Bock. I have no idea how true to form my beer will be, but I think the outcome should be pretty tasty. Although corn is now used as a cheap adjunct that lightens a beer's body and flavor, it was originally brewed with out of necessity. This is because the six-row barley native to America is harder to work with than European two-row. Unlike two-row, six-row barley is too high in protein to make stable beer. Using 20-30% Corn in the mash dilutes the protein and solves the stability problem.  Unlike my Classic American Pils , I'm doing a multi-step mash for this beer. The flaked corn is added after the Protein Rest. The Saccharification Rest is done at a fairly high temp to help give the beer...

The Leftovers It's time for a cleanup of leftover grains and partially used packets of hops from 2012. With the exception of the 2-Row base malt, everything in the recipe below has been sitting on the shelf, or in the fridge waiting to be used. I had several open hop packages, some leftover toasted malts and a half-full bottle of malt extract too. I also had yeast cultured from my White House Honey Porter . My decision was to use almost all of my leftovers and make a partial-mash Barleywine. The finished beer will be quite strong and quite bitter. A toasted malt backbone should nicely complement pine, spice and citrus hop flavors. Because of the beer's strength, it will not be ready for at least three months and should improve with age. The recipe has been scaled up to five gallons from the 2.5 gallons I actually brewed: Grains: 9 lbs Rahr 2-Row 8.5 oz Victory 7.5 oz Brown Hops: Bittering: 0.75 oz Chinook (11.1% a.a.): 60 min 0.5 oz Colum...