I like quick homebrews, such as 20-minute kits. I like kegging. Within 16-18 days, I have delicious beer with minimal effort.

However, I didn’t start this hobby just as a way to do the laziest possible brewing. As you may recall from my post much earlier this year, I made a Belgian Tripel the right way. OK, I guess it was just partial mash, but I do not have the equipment for full mash. Regardless, it took three hours of initial brewing. I racked the ale to the secondary at the beginning of May. Using this handy calculator like always, plus temperature correction, the alcohol content was already a whopping 7.6 percent!

Another thing about Belgians is that all that sugar needs time. Keg after the standard 14 days, and I’ll lose some of the complex flavors (plus lots of the sugar will be unfermented). So I waited. It’s been almost four full months in the secondary and it’s time to keg.

But…Belgians also bottle well. Their shelf life is very good, and the flavors are purported to be better from a bottle than from a keg. Sure, it will take another two months for carbonation, but the best things in life are worth the wait, right? So I’m bottling the whole batch. As I sanitize bottles, prepare rubber rings for the caps (I’m using swing-top Grolsch-style bottles), and prepare priming sugar, I’m reminded of why I keg. One container to sanitize means much less chance of contamination.

Right before adding the priming sugar, I took the final specific gravity reading and had a quick taste. The alcohol content has crept to 8.15%. The beer itself was superbly clear, as though it had been filtered, thanks to the long secondary time. Unfortunately, in order to ensure that not all of the priming sugar was at the top of the batch, I had to stir it a little. I will give it a couple of hours to resettle. (See my comment below)

The taste confirmed the fear I had when I tasted it upon racking to the secondary: it’s too hoppy. Maybe cooling plus carbonation will help, but I’m stymied by the hoppiness. If anything, I underhop my Belgians, boiling the hops only 30 minutes. Maybe some of the pellets are making it into the primary and having longer contact.

Don’t get me wrong; the beer is delicious. I just wanted it to be a little fuller in maltiness and lower in hops.

My brother keeps begging me to make a nut brown. So I did.

A beer-lover friend of mine wanted to start homebrewing again, so we decided to combine a brewing session with socializing. I packed my car and headed south to brew. We both chose 20-minute kits from my favorite supplier. The nut brown looked really easy! In fact, 20-minute kits are so horribly easy that everyone should brew. We brewed two batches in the amount of time it normally takes me to do a grain/extract batch.

One new thing to which he introduced me was the use of a hop bag- not only did it reduce the trub I had to keep out of the carboy, it allowed complete control over hop contact time; I could remove the hops all at once when the boil was over. Initial specific gravity: 1.046 (finally, a batch in the range!!) As always, I tasted the wort to see what the flavors were like before fermentation. Sweet, nutty, with a hoppiness that will balance perfectly with the alcohol to come.

I was totally exhausted from being on my feet to brew, even though I took breaks and sat on a stool. I’m going to the doctor this week to see what I can do to remedy the problem.

BTW, I racked and tested my Belgian earlier this week- SG is 1.018 already- that’s about 6.5% alcohol! Four months to go before it’s aged well enough for drinking. Uh oh…

…but not a drop to drink!

As of last night, I racked the last beer into the keg. There are twenty gallons of fresh, malty, yummy beer and the urge to tap them early is hard to stop! I will say that as I racked all four, I took a hyrdometer reading and tasted them to ensure no batches were ruined. Now, I probably COULD have had one tiny sip of each, but they were so good I had a tad more. None is carbonated yet so I was tasting warm, flat beer and it was still good!!!

The only disappointing brew was the Scottish ale. It has lost the raw oaky character and is now very smooth, but it tastes too watery. Like a Michelob Ultra Amber: not offensively bland but still but blah. All kegs except for the Oatmeal Stout are force carbonating at room temperature. I had a heated argument (with a non-brewer I might add) regarding whether beer should be stored cold. I think I'll post on the forums to see if anyone knows.

I racked the Scottish ale Saturday morning and tasted the first bit from the siphon in a small wine glass.  While I like the two beers (a hefeweiss and a bourbon barrel ale) I have on tap right now, this beer is more delicious than either of them.  It is quite cloudy so I need to be sure to clear the yeast before kegging.

I have picked my Oktoberfest beers!  In addition to the Scottish Ale I ordered and made a week ago, I will be brewing Hex Nut Brown with American Ale yeast, Belgian Tripel with Belgian yeast, and last year’s taste test winner, Oatmeal Stout.  That means the only “new” brew will be the Scottish, as I’ve brewed all three of these at previous Oktoberfests.  But will the guests care it’s not new?  Doubtful that they remember, much less care!  I hope not.  I do have a lemon coriander Weiss that might also make the cut.

I chose these three because that will mean that all four beers this year will have distinctively different yeast.  I think in the future I’d like to mimic the “vertical tasting” concept done with wine: the same grape and vineyard is tasted through several vintages.  I’d like to make several of the same type of beer with different yeast, or have four with all the same yeast, or something else so that the beers can be better compared. 

This year will be a mesclun just like always.  Now, what food to serve: traditional or no?  Usually, I go with sauerbraten, wursts, and a variety of breads and whole-grain mustards straight from Germany.  No matter how much I make or buy, I almost never have leftovers.  I’m thinking that with the distinctively non-German beers I might instead have four stations of complimentary food pairings. 

Scottish Ale: A delicious meal in itself. So malty and sweet…can’t think of good pairings

Lemon Coriander Weiss: salsa, guacamole

Hex Nut Brown: white bean dip, fried mashed potatoes

Belgian Tripel: grilled fruit, baklava

Oatmeal Stout: Chocolate cake, cheesecake, macadamia-crusted something

The nice thing about all of these (except the fried potatoes) is that they can easily be made ahead.  Even the mashed potatoes can be made and rolled ahead, then quickly fried.  The other difficulty is it looks like most of the dishes are sweet, not savory, and I’m not a big sweets fan.

Well, now I’m just yammering with no point.  I need to order the beers and start brewing!