Stone Farking Wheaton W00tstout

Ok, this one is really nice. A lot of malt sweetness, both from non-fermentable sugars and from upper-end mash temps;a very nice (but subtle) touch from the bourbon barrel aging; pecans on the bottom of my tongue.

Also, it's dark as Satan's leathery wings, but not cloudy at all.

I need to give it another try from a tulip glass, I think. Maybe my brother's wedding this week will provide an opportunity.

The end of the berry beer

Opened the very last bottle of blackberry wheat tonight -- my advisor had enjoyed the six-pack I gave him last year so much that I figured that bottle's time had come.

The tartness and astringency I'd noticed originally appears to have gotten smoothed out by six months of aging. It's still cloudy as fuck, though, but you can't avoid that with wheat beer.

Life's too short for bad music or bad beer

We always knew that beer and metal are two great tastes that taste great together, but this is pure awesome:



That's mighty In Flames frontman Anders Fridén on the right, at Great Divide in Denver. Apparently they were there last month opening for Lamb of God before Randy had to put on a suit and fly to Prague.

Irish Redshirt Freshman

Bottled the small batch of what I've decided to call Irish Redshirt Freshman. Got about 1.5 gallons total (down from an original boil volume of 2 gal), which is a little less than I'd wanted, but that's life. Primed with dry table sugar again this time instead of mixing in sugar syrup; no sense in playing the national championship game flat due to a coaching error.

Now this little recruit has two weeks to get ready to play for all the marbles. Ironically, it's staying right here, while I'll be flying off to South Florida.

I'm drinking the sample I pulled off for gravity measurement (FG 1.010 against an OG of 1.050, thank you very much), and it's already quite tasty (though definitely young and raw -- again, like the Redshirt Freshman it is). A little sweet up front, with bitter underneath; a little puckery in the mouth.

Bottle conditioning blues

So, the last couple batches of beer I've brewed have had problems carbonating. I suffered through two weeks' worth of pumpkin spice beer which was both bad (the yeast never really were happy) and flat, and also subjected a couple of coworkers to it; but I put my foot down when my IPA came out flat too, cause that beer is damn tasty.

One of the MCB guys suggested reagitating the bottles every couple of days, and that worked ok. Oddly, the 12-oz bottles have showed a different carbonation level than the larger ones, which tells me that my sugar solution didn't mix evenly in the bottling bucket.

So anyway, last night I opened one of the big 22-oz bottles of pumpkin stashed at the back of my aging cabinet. I'd agitated them too, and wonder of wonders, it had a puny little head when I poured it! And that made it a lot more drinkable, naturally.

Moral of the story: if you're wondering whether a bottle has carbonated, check if there's yeast residue settled out at the bottom. If there's not enough, turn the bottle upside down a few times to get everything agitated and leave for a week.

Crafty, crafty brews

Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout at M.L. Rose West. Lovely subtle flavors, great malts.
Ms. Heel-Filcher is meanwhile enjoying a Left Hand Milk Stout. I do believe I've never had that beer with N2 instead of CO2.