Colorado Kitchen Brew

In late 2015, shortly after this blog went on its long hiatus, I brewed my first Kriek Lambic. Five years and a lot of waiting later, it's bottled and ready to drink.  Just being able to start this beer took awhile. To create my aged hops, I took an ounce of Willamette leaf hops from 2014 and stuck them in a warm furnace room for a year. That hopefully dried them out enough to provide little to no bitterness in my beer. The beer itself follows a pretty straightforward recipe. My grains are a 2:1 mix of Pils malt and Flaked Wheat. The hops are the aforementioned aged Willamette. Cherries are a mix of sweet and tart whole cherries from my local supermarket. Finally, the yeasts are Wyeast's Lambic Blend for fermentation, with Red Star's Premier Blanc champagne yeast added at bottling time.   Before I dive into how the beer came out, here's the full recipe for the five gallon brew. Grains: 6lbs Castle Pilsen  3lbs Briess Flaked Wheat Hops: 1oz Aged Willamette Leaf Hop...

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 ...

Near as I can figure, Sours are to the 2010s what American IPAs were to the 1990s. They're the hot style in the US beer world and every serious beer drinker I know covets them. I'm personally not obsessed with Sours, but that doesn't mean I'm not anxious to brew one. My favorite Sour beer style is Flanders Red . More specifically, I'm a huge Duchesse de Bourgogne fan. I love the tart Red Wine quality it brings to the glass. While I'm not going to attempt to clone it, I am aiming for a beer that's similar. In keeping with my 2013 goal of doing more with less, my recipe is pretty straightforward, while still checking off all the style guideline boxes. In addition, I'll be adding an ounce of oak cubes to the secondary for a little extra something. The oak cubes will be soaked in Oloroso Sherry first to simulate the effect of the Casks that are used for one of my favorite Single Malt Scotches . Having done a fair bit of research on Sours, I...