Year in Review

A quick rundown of beers I have brewed over the last year.

1. Milk of Amnesia Imperial Irish Stout. This is my uncle John Woodmansee's stout recipe. This beer will mess you up! Made with Coopers hopped stout kit, a ton of dark dry malt extract, and a few packs of dry yeast. I think this beer ended up around 7.5% abv and it had a lot more fermentable sugar left in it. This is beer is VERY sweet and very thick. I still like grabbing a pint from the garage from time to time.

2. Freedom Fighter Scotch Ale. This was purchased as a kit from NW Brewing Supply in Anacortes. This was a wee-heavy Extract Kit with some steeping grains and Oak Chips. Not a big fan of this beer. Pretty classic Wee-Heavy profile but the oak gave it a nasty taste to it. Still aging in my garage. Who knows, someday it might be ok... :)

3. Milk of Amnesia Imperial Irish Stout part II. Kept the prior recipe the same minus about 2.5 lbs of malt extract and pitched a big starter of Wyeast Irish Ale yeast. This fermented out MUCH cleaner and brought the alcohol up to 9% abv. Also re-pitched a pack of Irish Ale yeast a few days before bottling. This gave me much better carbonation.

4. Celis Whit Whitbier clone. Found this in "Beer Captured". This turned out VERY tasty though it came out totally crystal clear...none of the classic Witbier cloudiness. The yeast (Wyeast Forbidden Fruit) was a little estery for my taste. LOTS of clove and banana tones. I would do this with Wyeast Witbier yeast and I would add the wheat malt as a late addition.

5. Sam Adams Cream Stout clone. Also did this from "Beer Captured". Did not taste like Sam Adams but it made a great Cream Stout. Great balance of creamy mouthfeel and roasty stout. This keg did NOT last long at all.

6. B3 Stout. Purchased the B3 stout kit from Morebeer.com. This beer rocked! A crowd favorite. Very nice balance between and Dry Irish stout and a sweet stout. This recipe was perfect with two exceptions. Yeast starter needs to be 2l and may benefit from a cleaner yeast like Wyeast 1053 and it needs twice as much Maltodextrin.

7. Hard Cider. Fermented out 5 gallons of Cedardale Apple cider with Wyeast Cider Yeast. I could NOT get this to settle out. I transferred it to a secondary vessel, cold crashed it, added finings..nadda still very cloudy, finally stop caring about clarity. Turned out VERY dry so I added 1/2 a bottle of Wine Conditioner and bottle conditioned. It came out good, VERY fizzy like a champagne though. Ended up around 8% alcohol.

8. Cream Ale. Brewed this as a test batch for my sister's wedding before we found out that I couldn't serve home brewed beer there. Turned out like a classic yellow fizzy beer. I hated this stuff BUT people that like BUD/MILLER/COORS loved it. Very clean, crisp lawnmower beer. Sorry didn't beechwood age it :)

9. Dead Guy clone (Ninja Maibock). Bought the Brewcraft Dead Guy clone kit with VERY high hopes (I love Dead Guy Ale from Rogue). I cultured some of Rogue's "PacMan" yeast but pulling yeast from a bottle of "Shakespeare Stout". After completion this beer fermented out a bit too much. I ended up with a 9% abv water...almost no taste at all! I tried this again after about 3-4 months in the keg and it is much better. Some sweet Maibock profile, no alcohol taste. This beer put me on my lips! You can drink pint after pint then it sneaks up and snaps your neck (hence the name Ninja Maibock).

10. American IPA. Brewed this from "Brewing Classic Styles". This beer was incredible. Easy drinking IPA. The only change I would make would be a piney-er or more resin-ey hop profile like Stone IPA butVERY clean and drinkable.

11. Strong Scotch Ale. Based this off of a More Beer kit. This turned out VERY clean and drinkable. Took 1st at the Puget Sound Pro-Am. Went on to brew this at RAM Brewing in Puyallup and is now named Goat Roper Scotch Ale and is being served on tap in Puyallup.

12. Stout. Made a version of the B3 stout for friends 21st b-day. Added 2X the maltodextrin of the original recipe and used Wyeast 1056. This was VERY clean beer and served very well at the party.

12. Pale Honey Stout. Based off of More Beer kit. Mix of Honey Pale Ale and B3 Stout. This stout is great. Nice low-alcohol session beer. Thinking about adding coffee to this to kick it up a bit.

13. Blackened Brutal Bitter. Purchased the Rogue Blackened Brutal Bitter kit from More Beer. This beer is terrific. Nice roasty profile but with the finish of an IPA.