Colorado Kitchen Brew

After much waiting, my Old Ale is finally ready for the light of day. It looks great coming out of the bottle. Clarity is good and there's a nice dense head that leaves a fair amout of lace behind. I can tell right away that I went a little nuts with the number of grains I used. There are six of them in all. They each bring a different flavor to the party. Throw in the brown sugar and hops, and the beer gets busy in a hurry. I'm not saying I don't like the result, but this beer won't be winning any subtlety awards. The overarching theme is that of toffee and rum that's been bolstered by tobacco and black tea. There's a bit of a roasted note too, but it's in the background. The sweet/bitter balance is good. Even with an ABV of around 8.5%, the alcohol is well masked and doesn't add much warmth. The beer's body is dry, slightly heavy and has nice soft carbonation. The black tea and toffee flavors linger through the finish. My overall assessmen...

Following in the footsteps of my Westvleteren XII inspired Quad is this Tripel recipe. If you look at the hops, yeast and grain-bill, you'll notice that they're essentially the same as what's in the other beer. Although the Tripel dials up the bitterness just a touch with a larger first hop addition, the real difference is its switch to clear Candi Sugar. In the end, I should have two very different beers, despite them sharing all but one ingredient. On a side note, my Mash efficiency was much better than usual on this batch. Normally, I get a little above 70% with my stove-top setup . This time I was just shy of 80%. Because of that, the Original Gravity of this beer is extremely close to what I got from my Quad. Comparing the two beers when they're done should be very interesting. Here's the five-gallon recipe: Grains: 7 lbs Castle Pilsen 6 lbs Castle Pale Ale Hops: 0.5 oz Magnum (14.9% a.a.): 90 min 1 oz Styrian Golding (3.8% a.a.): 20 min 1 oz St...

I recently looked at my calendar and realized that St Patrick's Day is only a few weeks away. Thankfully, I have just enough time left to throw together a quick Irish Stout for the occasion. My favorite Stout from Ireland is Murphy's . I greatly prefer it to the old standby of Guinness. I did a fair amount of research and put together this recipe for five gallons of Irish joy. I doubt it will be anywhere near an exact match, but I think it will be tasty nonetheless. To help circumvent the chance of astringent flavors from the roasted grains, they were added after the Saccharification Rest. I also added a teaspoon of Irish Moss for the final 15 minutes of the boil. The five gallon recipe is below: Grains: 7 lbs Crisp Maris Otter 10 oz Crisp Roasted Barley 8 oz Crisp Chocolate Malt Hops: 0.5 oz Galena (13.4% a.a.): 60 min Total Boil Time: 60 min Yeast: Safale S-04 Mash Schedule: Saccharification Rest: 150F for 60min (Maris Otter only) Mashout: 168F for ...

It's the middle of Winter and time to brew a nice Weizenbock . My take on the style leans toward a heavier Dunkelweizen in character, but doesn't contain a massive alcohol bump. However, it should still have a nice, dense liquid-bread effect on the palate. Last year's Dunkelweiss had a very complex grain bill. In keeping with my 2013 resolution of doing more with less, this beer is much simpler. An even split of Dark Wheat and Munich Malt, plus a little Dehusked Carafa II for a hint of chocolate is it. I've broken the rules a bit, in that wheat makes up only 49% of my grist, rather than the German minimum of 50%. But what's 1% between friends? Rounding things out, Opal hops provide mild bitterness, but should add little to no flavor. With a projected ABV of around 6.5%, the finished beer will be on the lighter end of the recommended Weizenbock ABV scale. Having Bock in a beer's name doesn't always have to equal an alcohol bomb. I've not had th...

My anti-wintertime Brown Ale finished up right on time and is ready review. Let's see how things turned out. Unlike my heavier Winter brews, my Brown Ale clocks in at an easy drinking 4.9% ABV. It pours with the expected brown hue and sports a dense cream head. The head sticks around well and leaves a fair amount of lace behind. Although my grain-bill was built around nutty and toasted malt flavors, there's a distinct fruitiness at work balancing them. The yeast has to be the reason and I like the result. Bitterness is low; as intended, and brings an earthy black tea bite. The toasted and black tea flavors linger nicely through the finish. The beer's body is light, dry and perhaps a touch too fizzy for the style. Overall, this beer is a nice change of pace when I don't feel like popping open something strong. If I were to change anything, it would be dialing back the amount of Brown Malt I used. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with this one.

I've been doing some research on everyone's favorite Trappist beer: Westvleteren XII (a.k.a. Westy 12). Rumor has it that the beer's grain-bill is fairly simple. No specialty grains, just a couple of Belgian base malts. The real key fermentable is the Candi Sugar the monks use. It apparently provides much of the beer's complex dark fruit, chocolate and coffee flavors. This provides the perfect opportunity to experiment some more with Candi Sugar making . Since I'm using the Westvleteren beers as inspiration, rather than trying to clone them, no one can tell me I'm doing it wrong. Instead, I'm going to have some fun and hope that the end results are worthy of sharing with friends. The experimental part here is that you're not simply boiling sugar and water for a set time and calling it good. Instead, you get to rely upon your senses to tell you when the desired sugar is achieved. Since my senses aren't the same as everyone else, my idea of th...

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...