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.

Summer drinkin beer

I made a wheat ale yesterday that I designed for maximum session drinking during the summer. Ingredients as follows.
6 pounds of liquid malt extract - 65 percent wheat and 35 percent amber barley malt.
1 ounce of Willamette 60 min
1 ounce of Cascade 15 min
1/4 teaspoon of crushed grains of paradise last 3 min of boil
dry wheat ale yeast from Danstar
The original gravity was designed to be 1.040 and measured exactly 1.040 at pitching.  This will be a very light, low alcohol beer. I poured the wort between the fermenter and boilpot twice to aerate in hopes of getting a very good attenuation. At 24 hours, the bubbling is very active. I am on the fence about adding a small amount of apricots - about 1 pound - to the secondary fermenter for flavor. I like the idea of it, but I may want to try something new and flavor the beer at bottling with honey or triple sec, the latter if the alcohol is too low after fermentation.

Brown Ale

I bottled my brown ale today and took a warm, uncarbonated taste. MMMMM. It's going to be good - thank God. I've had too many misfires, and it's about time one went right. The beers will condition for about a month before they are served, and I think they'll be fantastic. The color was a nice deep brown but very clear after two weeks in the secondary fermenter. I'm still getting used to the giant kettle I have, which steams off a lot of water during the boil. I need to up the boil size to 6.5 gallons to make sure I get a nice 5 gallon batch. This one turned out at 4.5 gallons and made only 45 bottles. Still, that was a good thing because the beer ended up a touch stronger as a result.