Extract Pale Ale for Club Competition

It's been a slow homebrewing year so far. In March, I made my first batch of the year, and extract saison (11B01) for my wife. I brewed this up in the kitchen while hosting my cousin John and two of his friends, all of whom wanted to learn how to brew. They have since brewed up several of their own batches up in Punxsutawney, though I've not had the pleasure yet of tasting any of them!

Anyway, I finally got around to kegging the saison last week while brewing my second batch of the year (11B02), an extract clone of Geary's Pale Ale. I brewed this last Friday and will keg this Friday. After force carbonating and trying out my new Beer Gun, I'll be taking a few bottles to the August meeting of the Indiana, PA Alesmiths (IPAs) for an intraclub competition. Should be interesting to taste everyone's version of the same extract/all-grain recipe, and hopefully mine will hold up despite its young age!

A colleague and friend of mine has been growing his own Cascade hops - last week he surprised me with a generous gift of a mason jar jam-packed with over 9 ounces of freshly picked hop cones (lightly dried). I'll be using some of these to dry hop the pale ale on Friday.

The cider I made last October is still sitting in a carboy in the cellar. I hit it with a lambic yeast mix and there's a nice white pellicle (sp?) sitting on top of it. Just have to figure out how to sweeten it a bit before kegging and bottling!

Three friends and I have also been putting together a nice 10 gallon all-grain system in a garage, including a nice counterflow chiller. We brewed a couple of batches this year, but due to various circumstances (busy schedules, old yeast, new system, etc.), they didn't turn out well. We hope to rectify that soon! And tuck this name away for a later day ... Indiana Brew Works.

Yes, I'm Still Alive

Well, so much for blogging in 2010!

I did do some brewing last year, though it was a lot slower than in years previous :(
A big reason for that was the majority of my free time was spent working on my house in preparation for our first child!

Aidan Finn McElroy was born Dec 20. He weighed in at 6lb 12oz, 19". He'll be three weeks old tomorrow and is healthy and happy!

My first 2011 batch will be an extract saison for my wife, now that she can drink again. I hope to brew a bit more often now that we're getting back into a routine. I've also been working with some friends in town on a ten-gallon all-grain system that we're having fun with.

Earth Bread + Brewery Delivers

I suppose you could take that title to mean a few different things, but this past Monday evening, it was quite literal! Indiana Homebrewer Co-founder Emeritus Jon (aka santoslhalper) came back to western PA for a few days from Philly. On Monday night, he stopped in Indiana to visit a few of us who remain in town. Jon is now an assistant brewer at Earth Bread + Brewery in Philly.

'Round about 7pm, Jon and the rest of the crew (Dave, Justin, James, and Joe) popped over to my house for a tasting. Jon brought with him four growlers of Earth Bread + Brewery beers: Durham Strasse (a Berliner Weisse), 2bok4sur (a Doppelbock), Resin 2 Smile (an IPA), and Biere de Septembre (a biere de garde).

After those, we opened up a bottle of homebrew from an acquaintance of mine from work - it was superb sour Belgian ale and I hope that we'll get more soon. Finally, we cracked open the last four homebrews that a few of us have been working on with the 10-gallon all-grain system. We had a bitter, a saison, a lager, and pale ale.

All in all, a great evening. A big thanks to Jon for hauling growlers across the state for us. He left with a case of our homebrew, but I think we still got the better end of that deal!

2nd RateBeer Pittsburgh Gathering

I didn't get a chance until now to write up something about the terrific beer tasting I went to back in August at the Sharp Edge Creekhouse. You can check it out at The Hop Press.

That was a good day!

An Oktoberfest Wedding

On Saturday, my wife and I went to the wedding of one of her former coworkers/classmates. The reception was interesting in that it was an Oktoberfest theme. After the mass, we all went across the road to the hall, and the attached pavillion.

Before dinner, we all gathered at the covered, outdoor pavillion where a polka band played various German-Polish music. There were hot pretzels with mustards, and a veggie tray, and two beers on tap (Bud Lite and Yuengling, not real German beers).

The reception hall was set up with 10 different rows of tables. Roughly four tables per row. Each two tables were given a German region name, and each table of the region was given a German city name. This was a cool way to seat guests - find your region and city. Once you found your seat, the wedding 'table favor' was a nice dimpled beer glass with your name on a ribbon. Voila, you automatically had a way to get your beer for the rest of the reception.

The food was OK - brats, roasted chicken, potato salad and potato pancakes. And, of course, a German-chocolate cake.

The final touch - it was held in New Germany, PA.

The Hop Press

There's a new feature over at RateBeer, if you're not a frequent visitor. They've started a new blog/media service called The Hop Press for some of the more frequent contributors, rather than sticking with the weekly articles. It's still in some development, but the content frequency has increased and will hopefully offer more correspondences from beer geeks 'on the street'. The few articles I wrote (about one year) have been archived at Nate's Notes. I hope to add articles a bit more frequently now.

A Busy Brew Night

Last night was our first brewing night in a couple of weeks and our last for a couple of weeks. Between some conflicts and travel plans, getting four of us together at once gets to be difficult sometimes.

Regardless, last night was productive. Joe brewed up a 10-gallon batch of pilsener, and while he was doing that, Dave and I were packaging a back log of brews. First, we bottled a 5-gallon batch of Joe's first pilsener. Next up was Dave's first 10-gallon batch of a bitter, which we split into half - two cases of bottles and a five-gallon keg. Finally, we ended with my last 10-gallon batch of saison (tasted great!), with five gallons going into a keg, and two cases of bottles.

Had a good brew night and finished all the bottling/kegging within our normal brewing night time. I have to say, I hate bottling and last night was not my idea of fun, but I'll appreciate it more when I can crack open a few of those bottles and enjoy some great homebrew.

My First 10 Gallon Batch

Short post. Tonight I made my first ever 10 gallon all grain. It was a simple saison recipe that I scaled up from a 5 gallon recipe that I did a month ago. The first batch of saison that I made on July 28 was kegged up two weeks ago and served at a party at our house. With 50 guests, several of them beer lovers and homebrewers, it took all of 3 hours to kill 5 gallons.

So, tonight I scaled up to 10 gallons. The only major changes were, hopefully, improvements. Last time I used a little wheat DME. This time, it was all grain. I used 16 lbs of pilsner malt, 2 lbs of wheat malt, and 2 lbs of honey. I used Hersbrucker and Hallertauer, and a touch of crushed coriander. Pitched with saison yeast.

I doughed in at 5:40 and pitched by 9:50, so not too bad for double the liquid volume!