A short history of my homebrews (as told by someone who had to drink them...me)

As I sit here enjoying my most recent brew (A super hoppy American Pale Ale-partial mash) after a long day of work I find myself thinking about the 6 batches I have personally made to date, and how they have come along so far, from my greatest hit thus far (first batch surprisingly) to my lowest of lows (my second to most recent). I should point however that will all 5 brews I have learned a great deal from each one, and while I don't plan on pointing out my own little "lessons learned" I hope it will be somewhat evident to those familiar with the process from my entry below.

First up...The Irish Stout, this was a kit given to me by my sister as a xmas gift this past year, with the help of my wife helping suggest what I might really enjoy (I'm sure after the first day we were up there and my very vocal anticipation to go visit the DogFish Head Brewpub she must have been relieved to know that while it may feel odd to purchase a family member beer supplies for xmas..she had obviously made the right choice :). It did not take long upon our return to Chicago to pick up my first home brew equipment kit and get rolling with this guy. In face I still have some of the saved bottle caps which were labeled "1/13/07". I was somewhat uneasy brewing for the first time here, simply because I did not fully understand the process of what was going on....particularly with the steeping grains...I came damn close to boiling those with everything else!

The final product was....delicious! Even a huge hit with my wife who has always been my biggest supporter in all my hobby endeavours (they don't make blogs big enough, or rather I don't have the time to document all of that trial and error), but I got the sense that she truly did enjoy this beer, and that was reinforced by her frequently asking what the Stouts "head count" was at through the following 2 months.

I even went out far enough to sterilize some oak chips and drop small chunks into 12 bottles at bottling time...yep that's how recklessly experimental I can be at times :). Strangely enough all were drank (oak chipped beers) within the following 1.5 months and came out pretty nice I must say.

Next in my rotation was the English IPA, this I dubbed and "English" IPA because..well that's what the home brew store guy said I had purchased ingredients for..essentially I went in there and explained that I was new to the process and really wanted to brew up a batch of IPA, what followed was a flurry of questions on my choice and preference of ingredients during which at some point I invariably switched from "I'm not sure if I'll be using Coopers extract on this recipe..could you tell me more" to "Of coarse I'm using Coopers extract and leaning towards an English IPA rather than an American one, for Christs sake what the f do you think I am?"

Okay, so it didn't get that extreme, but at some point I did just let the employee start guiding my ingredient selections, I handed over the reigns and am happy I did so because what came about was a truly tasty IPA in my opinion. I credit this batch to one addition primarily, no not a hop addition, but rather the addition of Water Salts to the recipe, it truly let the Simcoe hops come through, both in bittering and in flavor (which by the way I prefer over Cascade). Another reason this mineral addition to the wort was most important was due to my usage of mineral water for all 5.5 gallons used making this batch (remember I'm an aquarium dork and water purity is pretty important there...I just kept flashing back to how I used to treat Air Jordans tank and how I would like my brew to come out pristine as well :). Also important I felt were the oak chips that I let the secondary rest upon, which gave it just the slightest hint of Oak and vanilla.

All in all I enjoyed making and drinking these IPA's, but now know they were much more American IPA due to the extreme hop (both bittering and flavoring-6 oz of Simcoe plugs) presence used.

Next up came...well the Nut Brown Ale kit! Now this was one hell of a funky brew. It was funky in that I used one extra gallon of water (at fermentation...not boiling!) and that it was ALL kit, meaning 3 lbs of Coopers "hopped" Nut Brown liquid extract, and 2 lbs of DME Light added to a 3 gallon boil. Then fermented with 6 gallons of mineral water. Now you don't need a cool program like ProMash ( http://www.promash.com/ ) to tell you what might come about from this batch....as my buddy Ted identified his similar brew http://www.tedbrews.com/2007/03/malty-brown-fizzy-h2o.html as "Malty Fizzy Brown H2o" or something very similar. The only difference is that I still have a case of this stuff left, and it was not my first batch! So anyone who would like some questionable water that after 48 ounces may make you feel somewhat buzzed-feel free to drop me a line and I will help you out with that pursuit. I must have know it would turn out this way as well, I didn't even snap any pics!

Well next on my agenda was the brewing of my American IPA (yep..second IPA in as many months). This brew signified my departure from using mineral water for 100% of my brews, while I used an eclectic (to say the least) blending of bittering/aroma/flavor hops I also did put any thought into my brew water (hell I was still shooting from the hip on this guy after the Nut Brown Nightmare). This was truly a work of art in my opinion, I found myself truly enjoying the process of brewing here (yes even brewing all extract I felt that way), I had some excellent entertainment lined up with my favorite home brewing podcast-Basic Brewing Radio ( http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=radio ), a six pack of Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA (for inspiration!), and one dozen Malpaque Oysters ( http://www.penncoveshellfish.com/malpeque.htm ), which for those who are not that familiar with me-that is my favorite type of Oyster, which of course is one of my favorite seafood items.

As I mentioned this batch signified my departure from water quality stringency due to a somewhat "flat" finish to the beer. I believe the best way to explain the finished product is that it popped when you first tasted it, but died down the further back it went. So by the point it hit the back of your tongue the bitterness was non-existent, which ended up being extremely smooth, but still left me wanting something more.

Next came my Cherry/Vanilla Stout, which was heavily influenced from a recipe found in the Complete Joy of Home brewing ( http://www.amazon.com/New-Complete-Joy-Home-Brewing/dp/0380763664 ) but came out tasting like cheap wine (yeah...even cheaper than boxed, I'm talking a throw away batch of Cisco ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco_(wine), which sadly I have to admit I have tasted back in my more reckless and youthful days).

It is fair to note that this batch was made with 10lbs of dark sweet cherries (most recipes call for sour cherries for flavor) and that the vanilla was added a little recklessly at bottling on my part due to a little frustration (and desperation to make something out of..well...something no one wanted to drink!)

Now this batch is at week 3 in the bottle and I believe will mellow out to something that could be fun to taste on a monthly basis. One benefit that did come out of this brew and it's cursed path is that I was able to meet a fellow home brewer while checking out with my 10lbs of cherry (at that time I was jazzed to announce to someone just why I was buying so many frozen bags of sweet, dark cherries) who also has a blog which I enjoy thoroughly.

And that bring us to date, and my most current brew-American Pale Ale (all cascade), this batch was my first partial mash brew, and thus far ( 1.5 weeks in the bottle) I am happy with. I should point out that the brew is nowhere near as conditioned as I would like it, I am still proud of it even at this point. So proud in fact that I will be sending 4 off to Samuel Adams for their yearly Long Shot contest ( http://www.samueladams.com/promotions/LongShot/Default.aspx ) for fun. Most importantly I look forward to sharing it with others and reflecting on the process, and just how I would improve on the recipe the next time around.

Thanks for reading!