Long Pause Beer

Alaskan Smoked Porter + Stephen Kirby talking about the cask program at Hogshead ... that's what did me in.  I've never tried the Alaskan product but hearing such high praise as "timeless" and "quintessential" drove me into recipe development. Luckily, I caught a podcast by Stephen, in which his London porter was being consumed all-too-quickly. He was kind enough to share recipe tidbits, which I mostly incorporated here. Ideal... what is my ideal porter? Chocolate, comforting, soft, chuggable. Add a touch of smoke, because I'm tired of paying $18 for Schlenkerla 4 packs.  The Moon Under Water is George Orwell's conception of an ideal pub. The Smoking Moon Under Water is my conception of an ideal smoked porter. Here's the recipe: Recipe Grain 4.25 lbs. Colonial Pilsner - Deer Creek 2.5 lbs. Pecan Smoked Pilsner Malt - Sugar Creek 2 lbs. Barke Munich - Weyermann 3/4 lbs. Flaked Oats 1/2 lbs. British Chocolate malt (450L) 1/2 lbs. Dehusked Carafa I ...

Two beers inspired this one: Suarez Cocalis and Plan Bee Ash. The former is a "black country beer" aged in oak. 5.7% ABV, 750mL format, pure dynamite. The latter is a 5.5% "dark barn beer" featuring roasted malts. 5.5% ABV in a 375 mL bottle that makes ya want it in a 750. So I harvested the bottle dregs from each and pitched them alongside one sacc and one brett strain. They were too good to go to waste. I love the approach both breweries take to the beer making. Plan Bee may be the most "local" brewery in the US. They're floor malting barley, keeping bees and using the honey to ferment and carbonate, hand bottling,  this list could go on for days. They use what they have available in each season - anti-industrial brewing as we know it today. Suarez makes thoughtful beers in a similar vein; seasonal and local with intentional philosophy. Unable to replicate these approaches, I channeled some of their sentiment. I used what I had on hand to make somet...

Here's the fourth iteration of my house pale ale, Eternal Evidence. Intention I drew inspiration from a podcast about modern West Coast IPA. Green Cheek and North Park discussed using all pilsner malt to allow hops to shine, so that's what went down. My water profile was also inspired by the ep. Looking for a more local touch to my beer, I sourced Deer Creek Floor Germinated Colonial Pils malt, which is only a few hours from my apartment. Forest + Main sources their malt for many of their beers, so the quality must be there too, right? Plus, supporting a small craft maltster rather than a multinational conglomerate is much more appealing. Cascade and Chinook do the heavy lifting on the hot side to capture some of that classic Sierra Nevada west coast character, and to encourage biotransformation of the 3MH compound. I tossed Strata in the mix in hopes of adding the strawberry-dank-peach thing that I tasted in an Equilibrium DIPA a while back. Drinkability. Balance. Subtlety. Re...

 We know what's going down here - continued development on my Pale Ale. This one will be much shorter than the last recap. Recipe + Process Weyermann Pale Malt - 6.5 pounds Weyermann Barke Munich Malt - 1.5 pounds Flaked Oats - 1.45 pounds Rice Hulls - 0.3 pounds Water Additions : 3g Gypsum, 4g Calcium Chloride Final Water Profile: 108ppm Calcium, 61 ppm Sulfates, 80 ppm Chlorides, 57 ppm Bicarbonates 1.5 ounces of Cascade in the mash 60 minute mash at 157 12 minute lauter, no sparge 1 mL Cascade Hop Shot (38.8% AA) at 60 minutes .25 ounces of Chinook at 30 minutes .53 ounces of Strata at 5 minutes .5 ounces of Cascade at Flameout .5 ounces of Chinook at Flameout 1 ounce Cascade at Dry Hop  .5 ounces Cascade Cryo at Dry Hop 1 ounce Strata at Dry Hop .5 ounces of Chinook Cryo at Dry Hop 1g of Aromazyme at pitch 1 packet of Safale S-04  Put hot wort into sanitized fermenter, placed it in the snow outside to cool overnight, then pitched 10 days of fermentation, then transfer...

 Toward the beginning of January, I brewed an altbier and a pale ale. These were my first "successful" brewdays that resulted in fermented wort ... I think. Eternal Evidence 002 , my 'house' pale ale, yielded the most results.  OG - unknown ... I got caught up in various other small fires. BeerSmith estimated 1.051 FG - 1.010  ABV = (1.051 (?) - 1.010) x 131.25 = 5.4% ABV Water .5 gallons of distilled water 5.5 gallons of tap water ~100 ppm chloride, ~60 ppm sulfate, ~159 ppm calcium, ~100 ppm bicarbonate  Malt 6 lbs. German Pale Ale  1 lbs. Weyermann Barke Munich 10L 1 lbs. Flaked Oats Mash in at 166, mashed at 156 for 60 minutes, mashed out at 166 for 5 minutes mash pH strip indicated ~5.1 ... BeerSmith estimated ~5.5 Hops 1 oz. Magnum (10.6% AA) at Mash In 1 mL (10 IBUs) of Cascade HopShot (38.8% AA) at 60 minutes 0.50 oz. Loral (10.6% AA) at 30 minutes 1 mL Cascade HopShot at 10 minutes 0.20 oz of Chinook Cryo (21.9% AA) at flameout 1 oz. Loral at hopstand 0...

Last but not least, Chapter 15. We've made it guys! This chapter features practices by Haze producers such as Other Half, Bissell Brothers, and others. I'm going to break things down by ingredient to give a general overview: Water Other Half: neutral, low in mineral ... OH favors calcium chloride additions Prison City: chloride-heavy  Reuben's Brews: n/a Breakside: gypsum-heavy trending toward a Burton profile, looking for a snappy finish (10:1, 8:1, 4:1, then most recently 3:1) sulfate-chloride ratio Bissell Brothers: neutral water that undergoes carbon filtering, then they add gypsum and calcium chloride for a 1:2 sulfate-chloride ratio, finishing around 100 ppm of chloride and 50-75 ppm of sulfate Great Notion: soft, neutral water, then they add a 1:2 sulfate-chloride mixture as well as sodium Sapwood Cellars: carbon filtered water, then add 1.5:1 chloride-sulfate ratio Mash: pH, Temperature, Grist Other Half: low ABV beers mash around 160 for enhanced mouthfeel and feat...