Ye Olde Tap Room

There's a nice story in Patch about Ye Olde Tap Room near the border of Grosse Pointe Park and Detroit. It's a great little drinking spot. The story goes into the history of the place - but it doesn't really talk about the coolest part - the giant chalkboard over the bar with hundreds of beers listed. The bar basically has a greatest hits of beers from different countries. The Belgian list is particularly impressive. I also may find it entirely necessary to take my wife to the end-of-Prohibition party on May 7, which sounds incredible.

wheat ale updates

My attempt to clone Oberon worked with some success. I produced a nice wheat ale that has definite hints of Oberon-like taste, but I think the process of getting the yeast from Oberon bottles may have brought along a little bit of diacetyl that gives the beer a bit of unwanted tang. Still, at a block party this weekend I served the beer on tap and had no complaints. In fact, most of the beer is gone at this point.

The next beer batch for me is probably going to be nice session brown ale. I may make two batches in short order and put one in the kegerator and bottle the other. That should give me enough beer to last through October. I may take a swing at an IPA just because I haven't made one before. I also would like to try a Belgian wit beer. I think I will bottle the wit because I want to try to carbonate it with a bottle of triple sec and see how it turns out.

Black Beauty

Because I simply couldn't wait, I put a bottle of my black, bitter stout in the frig last night so I could try it today. And quite simply, this is the best beer I have ever made. Coming in at about 6.5% ABV and with an IBU of 63, it tastes much mellower. There's a hint of smoky, a hint of chocolatey and a bit of sweetness, but not much. It's great - a truly wonderful beer. Thank you beer gods.

The sweet smell of success

After several disasterous batches over the winters, I have now produced three consecutive amazing brews. The summer wheat ale I made with grains of paradise is a winner, the black stout with 63 IBUs will be ready to drink in a few days and tasted amazing right out of the fermenter and the Oberon clone using Oberon yeast is in the secondary and looking good. I think I am starting to get the hang of this!

The only real issue I have is that I have made so much beer that I really have to give some of it away. It's gotten ridiculous. I have at least three cases of beer in the house. I think a tasting party is in order.

The Oberon experiment

So - I started collecting yeast from the bottom of Oberon bottles a month ago or so and used a 1-gallon fermenting jug to build up the yeast supply. I made two additions of amber malt dissolved in water. I made a batch of beer yesterday (May 15) with the following recipe: 1 pound of light, dry malt extract, 1 pound of caramel malt 10 steeped at 150 degrees for 20 minutes. 3.5 pounds of liquid wheat extract and 2.5 pounds of liquid light malt extract. 1 ounce of Willamette for 60 minutes and 1 ounce of Cascade for 15 minutes. OG was 1.055. IBU - 24.

I pitched the yeast and it is bubbling nicely. Here's my concern. After four weeks in the fermenting jug, it smelled a bit cidery. I didn't see any growth that would indicate bacteria infection, but something didn't smell right. In a 5-gallon batch, a little stinky liquid wouldn't ruin the batch, but bacteria and funky yeast that makes cidery beer could. In the end, it could be a $25 mistake, but at least I proved I could make beer after the apocalypse.

Wheat beer, mmmmm

After a run of bad luck with beers, I feel like I have emerged from a dark, dark night and produced some killer products. After two weeks in the secondary, I bottled my wheat beer, and of course sampled it - warm and uncarbonated. It was very sound. Very dry and with a hint of spice. The final gravity was an amazing 1.00, meaning there is very little sugar left in the beer. The ABV works out to roughly 4.2% and it has a nice caramel color and surprisingly is very clear for a wheat.

My effort to grow yeast from Oberon bottles has worked very well and I will pitch my next batch with the Oberon yeast. I hope it turns out ok. As a back up, I plan on gathering some yeast from the first few bottles of this wheat, which uses a Safale style. I also put my black, hoppy, stout into the secondary - mainly to prevent autolysis (death and stinkiness) of the yeast. I think it is ready to bottle now, but I don't have enough bottles available.

Stout with a touch of IPA

I brewed a dark, strong stout yesterday that will be like a smokey, bitter sipper. It's not a style I would normally gravitate to, but I wanted to do something different. It smelled awesome and will have a really rich flavor. Although it could have about 6 or 7 percent alcohol depending on the attenuation, people will think it is stronger. Here's the grain bill: 3/4 pounds of Simpsons Extra Dark crystal malt, 1/4 pound of roasted barley; two pounds of Briess light dry malt extract and 6 pounds of dark malt syrup, which was added late to the boil at 15 minutes remaining. Liquid malt can produce more unfermentable sugars if it is boiled for the full boil. The hops included 1 ounce of 18.5 AAU Summit -- incredibly bitter -- which was used for the full 60 minutes as well as 1 ounce of Cascade split at 5 minutes remaining and at the end of the boil. Based on my calculation, that's a lip puckering 63 IBUs. The beer is fermenting nicely in the basement at 63 degrees. It's colder than normal, but hopefully this will keep out unwanted fruity esters that would be strange in a beer like this one.