Happy Holidays Everyone!
Here’s a brief update on what we’ve been working on recently
We’ve been busy the last few months getting all of our equipment set up and learning how to use it. The first couple of brews were a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone and our take on a Belgian golden strong ale that came out much more like a Saison (go figure with our choice of yeast). Although there were a few hiccups along the way, we made the best of it, learned quite a few lessons, and still enjoyed the fruits of our labor.
During the first brew, impatience and inexperience with an all-grain setup led to a few mistakes and missteps, so we didn’t quite get the results we were looking for. During the brew day, we had to learn to fly sparge on the fly, so to speak, and ended up watering down what went into the boil kettle, losing a few gravity points. Additionally, I rushed the conditioning process, so our flavor wasn’t quite what either of us was hoping for, coming in a little too sweet and not hoppy enough for our taste. The beer was still very drinkable, however.
Our second batch, the Saison-style beer, came out pretty decent, albeit quite under-fermented. During the fermentation process, the GFCI outlet that our fermenter temperature controller was plugged into tripped somehow a few days in. We didn’t catch it until the following morning, but by then, it was far too late. Our fermenter hangs out in the garage and, without the heater, chills down fairly quickly. This led to a sort of soft-crash and halted fermentation entirely. Personally, I would have liked it to be much less sweet and more alcoholic. Some friends we shared it with seemed to like it the way it was, though. This one had the distinct Saison flavor profile and spiciness that comes with Belgian-style beer and was very flavorful. Despite the setback, the beer was still very alcoholic and knocked me on my butt.
For our third brew, a Hazy IPA, so far, this brew has been smooth sailing. With the lessons learned from the first two brews, exercising a bit more patience, and doing a boatload of research, we’ve managed to pull off what I think will be the best beer we’ve made by far. This afternoon, I took a small sample to taste the difference from pre- to post-dry-hop and WOW. I am absolutely blown away by how peachy and fruity this thing is. The Anchovy hops we used shine through brilliantly, and I think that after some conditioning, this is going to be irresistible. I cannot stress enough how much this smells like canned peaches. I’ll update the blog after another week or so with some tasting notes.
Thank you for taking the time to read up on our journey thus far! We appreciate any feedback or questions. More to come in the near future.