Brew Roster 2013

Upcoming:

PattyC's Award-winning Lemon Rosemary American Wheat Ale
When friends Julie and Ryn got to talking to Mark and I about our brewing hobby, Julie expressed some interest in seeing how rosemary tastes in a homebrew. Ryn suggested a wheat beer since rosemary and lemon go so well in other forms of cooking. One quick Google session later that night, and I found homebrewtalk.com user PattyC's Lemon Rosemary American Wheat Ale. It sounds like an excellent beer to me, so I've added it to the list. Hopefully Julie and Ryn can join us for a brew day and we can give it a try!

mcmillb1's Christmas Ale
Ran across this on the Reddit homebrewing subreddit, www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing. User mcmillb1 posted this Christmas Ale recipe, and it sounds great. It's the end of September as I write this recipe into the Brew Roster, so it's perfect timing for a Christmas ale. Mark and I are brewing a beer of his devising this weekend - I don't think he's decided what, yet - but maybe this one can be set for next weekend.

FATC1TY's Pale Ale
Suggested by user FATC1TY on www.homebrewtalk.com, this pale ale recipe sounds like it'd make a great beer for the end of the summer. Looks tasty - a little bit bitter, but not crazy, and about 5% ABV. My in-laws are having a shindig up on the New River for Labor day, and I've always wanted to brew a beer up there on the bank of the river. Maybe Mark can come up and we can try this one out up there.

Kraftwerk's Ryeball (Rye Pale Ale)
Kraftwerk, yet another user on HomebrewTalk, posted a recipe for a rye pale ale that looks fantastic. (What is with me an pale ale today? It must be summer time, huh?) He notes it took about seven weeks in the bottle to fully mature, so it might be a good one to target sooner than later, so it's ready about the beginning of October - still fully summertime here in NC.

rjparjay's Kolsch
Ran across this guy on www.reddit.com/r/homebrewing: rjparjay's kolsch recipe. He describes it as a balanced citrus/bitterness kolsch summer sessional. Seeing as my buddy Mark and I enjoy a good kolsch, especially in the heat of a North Carolina summer, I think this would be a good one. Hopefully we can get it into the rotation shortly, since we'll have a free keg soon.

Completed:

May

usurpers26's "How Rye I Am" Rye Saison
Once again Mark has scoured the Internet to find a great recipe for us to try. Homebrewtalk.com user usurper26 posted a recipe for his or her "2011 1st Place Best In Show in the HBT competition", the "How Rye I Am" Rye Saison. A 15 gallon recipe, it was a bit beyond our skill and wallets as written, so we Mark modified it to a 5 gallon batch size, keeping the percentages the same (24% Rye!) and some of the monster Wyeast 3711 (I understand why it's got this reputation now. Check out the short video of the Rye Saison's fermentation!)

Brewday was great - good weather, and everything went smoothly. No scalding water burns for Mark this time. We finished in just about five hours - I think we're getting better at this whole all-grain thing. Sadly, part of that was we forgot that the recipe called for a 90 minute boil, and just went a straight 60. Nevertheless, I'm sure it'll turn out fine.

April

Northern Brewer's Pale Ale
With Mark's Russian Imperial Stout set to be our House Stout, I decided I would like to start brewing some quick, easy pale ales and tinker with them until we come up with a great recipe for a House Pale Ale. As a starting point, I grabbed Northern Brewer's recipe for their English Pale Ale and we had a go at making that one.

There's something nice about the easy with which one can make a pale ale. Just 9.5 pounds of grain went into this batch, along with 3oz of UK Kent Goldings. The simplicity really let us focus more on what we were doing, and I think, will allow us to understand more of what each ingredient or change in process does to the final beer. And as a bonus it's quick to ferment and age, so we can brew a lot more of it, a lot more often. I'll be interested to see how it turns out.

March

Jamil Zainasheff's Russian Imperial Stout
Mark has been interested in a RIS for a while now, and earlier this spring we decided to give it a shot. This is by far the biggest beer we've ever made - just pounds and pounds of grain as far as the eye could see. When all was said and done we ended up with about 6 gallons of super-sticky motor oil infused with a plantation-worth of hops and four (!) packs of liquid yeast were going to town on all the sugars.

Fast forward a few months: We now have the RIS bottled and ready to begin the year-long aging process. We've tried a couple and they're already delicious (I'm more than happy with the result), but it's clear they'll only get better over time as aging adds some complexity and character to the finished beer. We'll have to crack them open 12 months from now and see how we did. Already, though, we're planning to make this a yearly or twice-yearly thing. Please welcome to the team our new "house stout".