I brewed anyway.

I decided to go for it, on this beer, big and rich, intensely sweet but also highly hopped. A smorgasbord of beery flavors all in one. Freshly smoked pale malt, mashed in condensed maple sap, three different high-alpha hops… A barleywine style ale, meant to be aged for a long while and sipped slowly.

Vermont Breakfast Ale

5 gallons, all-grain

Ingredients:

• 7 lbs. Maris Otter pale malt
• 3 lbs. Maris Otter smoked over maple
• 1 lb. 150°L crystal malt
• 1 lb. Biscuit malt
• 1/2 lb. maple-smoked cara-foam malt
• 1 oz. Chinook hop pellets (@11.8% aa)
• 1 oz. Simcoe hop pellets (@12.2% aa)
• 1 oz. whole Horizon hops (@11.9% aa)
• White Labs Super High Gravity yeast (WLP099)
• 3/4 cup maple syrup (for priming)

Procedure:

Condense 6 gallons of fresh maple sap down to 4 gallons (16 quarts) [Alternatively, add 1 pt. pure maple syrup to 16 quarts water]. Heat to 164°F. Crush grains. Dough in and hold at 152°F for 60 minutes. Heat 14 quarts water to 170°F. Begin runoff and spargeProcess of rinsing mashed grains., collecting 22 quarts sweet wort. Bring to a boil, add Chinook pellets. Boil 15 minutes, add Simcoe pellets. Boil 45 minutes (60 total), add Horizon hops and remove from heat. Steep the Horizon about 10 minutes then remove them. Chill wort to 75°F, take a hydrometer reading. Pitch yeast, seal and ferment two weeks in relative warmth (65 – 70°). Rack to secondary and age in a cool dark place (50°F) for eight weeks. Prime with maple syrup, bottle and store somewhere where you will forget about them for a year.

OG: 1078

IBU’s: 107

For more info on Barleywines, I highly recommend Fal Allen and Dick Cantwell’s volume in the AHA Classic Beer Style series, appropriately titled “Barley Wine“.

This was the second brew made with some of the grains I smoked a few weeks ago. Although I was using maple sap, the grains were actually smoked over oak, so I am mixing woods…. The weather has already turned too warm for much more sap to run, I fear, but I have enough sap in storage for the three beers and the mead I will brew with it. I may not be able to make any syrup this year, but I have my priorities!

Märzen/OktoberfestA German festival and a German brew. The brew is typically lagered and cold-cellared for at least eight weeks and German beer laws demand a starting gravity of at least 1.052. 2012

5 gallons, all-grain

Ingredients:

• 6 gallons fresh raw maple sap, boiled down to 14 quarts
• 2 lbs. oak-smoked Munich malt
• 7-1/2 lbs. pilsner malt
• 1 lb. 60°L crystal malt
• 1/2 lb. melanoidin malt
• 1 oz. Perle hop pellets (@8% aa)
• 1 oz. Tettnanger hop pellets (@3.5% aa)
• White Labs German BockBock is the term for a strong malty lager beer of German origin. Several substyles are based on bock, including maibock or helles bock, a paler, more hopped version generally made for consumption at spring festivals; doppelbock, a stronger and maltier version; and eisbock, a much stronger version made by partially freezing the beer and removing the water ice that forms. yeast (WLP830)
• 1 cup maple syrup (for priming)

Procedure:

Crush the grains. Heat condensed sap to 166°F. Dough in and hold mash at 155°F for 60 minutes. Heat 14 quarts water to 168°F. Begin runoff and spargeProcess of rinsing mashed grains., collecting 24 quarts sweet wort. Bring to a boil, add 1/2 oz. Perle hops. Boil 30 minutes, add Tettnanger hops. Boil 15 minutes, add remaining 1/2 oz. of Perle hops. Boil 15 minutes (60 total), remove from heat. Chill to 70°F, take a hydrometer reading. Pour wort into a sanitized fermenter, splashing well to aerate. Pitch yeast, seal and ferment at 60°F for eight to ten days. Rack to secondary, lager cool (45°F) for three months (!). Prime with maple syrup, bottle and condition cool for at least two months.

OG:1070

IBU’s: 30.4

Notes on maple: I have the luxury of being able to tap my own trees and get fresh sap. If you don’t you can approximate the sap for the mash by adding about a pint of maple syrup to 14 quarts of water. The warning I always repeat at this stage: use REAL maple syrup (preferably from Vermont, of course), not the 2% maple flavored corn syrup!

Notes on yeast: I reused the yeast culture from the Doppelbock I brewed in December, built up to a quart of slurry. This is reputed to be the yeast used by Ayinger, who make a fantastic Märzen…

Another note: You too can arrange a brewing session with the Guru – see the link on the home page for info about how to hire me to teach you to brew, or lead a beer tasting session!

More info on OktoberfestA German festival and a German brew. The brew is typically lagered and cold-cellared for at least eight weeks and German beer laws demand a starting gravity of at least 1.052.-style beers: see the book “OktoberfestA German festival and a German brew. The brew is typically lagered and cold-cellared for at least eight weeks and German beer laws demand a starting gravity of at least 1.052., Vienna, Märzen” by George Fix – not the best book in the AHA style series, a little too technical and scientific for me, but contains a lot of interesting history and some good recipes…

When I designed the recipe for this beer I was thinking I needed a strong light-colored lager, hoppy but with some malt body, smooth and slightly toasty in flavor. Basically a jumped-up Bohemian Pilsner, I decided to call it “Imperial”, hopping on a PR bandwagon that really makes no historical sense. That’s when the voices started repeating the closing line from a commercial that must date back some 40 years – “For about what you pay for the King of Beers, you can have Tuborg, the beer of Danish Kings..”. The commercial closed on a gorgeous glass drinking horn full of a clear golden beer, sitting on rocks amid crashing waves, if I remember correctly. The connection was immediate and obvious – here I was going to brew a beer that would outrank either the king of beers or the beer of kings – it was the Emperor of Beers!

There is no such thing, traditionally, as an Imperial Pilsner. The only beer that was brewed specifically for an Emperor, probably, was the Russian Stout style. Over recent years, as styles have been resurrected, the term “Imperial” has been used (overused) to describe a stronger version of an existing style. As long as everyone understands that, no one will get hurt. What I brewed today is an abomination, a monster, a beer that should not exist. Well, I am probably exaggerating, but it is not a beer you will find on many beer-store shelves.

Imperial Pilsner

5 gallons, all-grain

Ingredients:

• 9 lbs. Bohemian Pilsner malt
• 1 lb. toasted Bohemian Pilsner malt
• 1/2 lb. carapils malt
• 1/2 lb. carafoam malt
• 1 oz. Spalter hop pellets (@5% aa)
• 1 oz. Tettnanger hop pellets (@3.5% aa)
• 1 oz. Saaz hop pellets (@4% aa) recultured yeast from Arcobraü Zwickel Lager
• 3/4 cup corn sugar or 1 cup extra-light DME (for priming)

Procedure:

Toast 1 lb. pilsner malt on a cookie sheet, 15 minutes at 375°F. Crush grains. Heat 15 quarts water to 164°F. Dough in and hold mash at 152°F for 60 minutes. Heat another 14 quarts water to 168°F. Begin runoff and spargeProcess of rinsing mashed grains., collecting 26 quarts of sweet wort. Bring to boil, add Spalter hops. Boil 15 minutes, add Tettnanger hops. Boil 40 minutes, add Saaz hops. Boil 5 more minutes (60 total), remove from heat. Chill to 70°F and take a hydrometer reading. Pitch yeast, seal and ferment warm (65°F) for six to eight days. Rack to secondary, lager cool (40 – 45°F) for three weeks. Prime and bottle, age cold (35 – 40°F) for six weeks.

OG: 1064

IBU’s: 38

Note on yeast: Yes, this is the same yeast culture I used in my Bohemian Pilsner and my Schwarzbier. For the former, I collected the dregs from several bottles of the actual beer and fed it to build up a sizable pitching slurry. For the latter, I harvested a pint of dregs from the primary fermenter when I racked the Pilsner and again built up a large volume of slurry, a process I repeated again over the last few days leading up to today’s brew.

Note on toasted malt: It is not particularly traditional to include toasted malts in a beer like a pilsner. However, when my wife visited her cousin Janet on Long Island last summer, she brought back a really yummy local brew, Blue Point Brewing’s Toasted Lager. In the back of my mind I have been thinking about a clone of that beer, and that no doubt influenced this recipe.

One piece I have been asked to do more frequently, though, is tasting notes and reviews. I guess there are some folks out there who respect my taste and opinions about beer and want to know what I’m drinking when I’m not drinking my own homebrew. So OK, I will try to take notes from time to time and post some reviews of recent interesting commercial beers I’ve tasted.

One person who has asked for these reviews is my friend Sarah, wife of webmaster RickMy neighbor, my colleague, my webmaster, my friend, my house-husbanding yard stick.. And coincidentally, she dropped off a beer for me the other day that she had found in a store (not ours) while doing some errands. She and RickMy neighbor, my colleague, my webmaster, my friend, my house-husbanding yard stick. shared 5/6 of a six-pack while waiting for me to get around to tasting my one bottle and giving my two cents. I’ve done one better and actually given them a clone recipe to brew it. Since today would have been Sarah’s late step-father Greg’s birthday, it seems especially appropriate to raise a glass to him, review the beer and publish a recipe to brew your own at home.

Coal Porter, brewed in Bar Harbor, Maine, by Atlantic Brewing Co.

This is a deep reddish-brown to almost black porter, with a thin but resilient tan head. It pours with the impression of thickness (which it really isn’t) and glows in the glass.

The nose reminds me of espresso beans (not necessarily brewed espresso, just the roasted beans), with hints of molasses and burnt sugar. There are some hop notes in the nose (a very English profile, to my senses) but the balance is towards roasted malt and sugars.

The first taste has traces of the same molasses, burnt sugar, perhaps toffee, and roasted malts. I detect a bitterness at the back of the tongue, but not much hop “flavor”. As the beer warms a little, there is more molasses and caramel, perhaps even a hint of praline/pecan. I like the balance between the roasted malt and the sweetness, it might well benefit by just a bit more mid-boil hop flavor.

This is not so much an American-style porter (like, say, Great Lakes Brewing’s Edmund Fitzgerald or the late-lamented Catamount Porter) but more of a mellow, sweet English-style brew, even approaching the sweetness and roastiness (if not the strength and full body) of the Taddy from Samuel Smith’s.

Overall impression: very drinkable sweet porter, not far from an English brown stout in terms of malt profile. If you like hoppy, aggressive American porters, this is probably not going to be your favorite. But if you like a more malt-oriented sweet porter, you will enjoy Coal Porter.

3.9/5

The Recipe:

5 gallons, all-grain

Ingredients:

• 8 lbs. 2-row pale malt
• 1/2 lb. 60°L crystal
• 1/4 lb. dark Munich malt
• 1/4 lb. chocolate malt
• 1/4 lb. black malt
• 8 aau’s* Target (or Magnum) hop pellets
• 5 aau’s Willamette (or Fuggles) hop pellets
• English Ale yeast (Danstar Windsor dry yeast, White Labs London Ale yeast)
• 1 cup amber DME (for priming)

OG: 1050

IBU’s: 37.5

Mash: 60 minutes in 13 quarts water at 152°F.

SpargeProcess of rinsing mashed grains.: 13 quarts water at 170°F.

Kettle: 60 minute boil, Target hops for 60, Willamette at knock-out.

Pitch yeast at 70°F.

Primary fermentation: 68 – 70°F for eight to ten days.

Secondary fermentation: cool (45 – 50°F) for three weeks.

Bottle condition cold for months (Atlantic claims to cellar theirs for six months before release).

What’s an “aau”? Hops used in a recipe are measure in basically three ways, depending on where you are in the process. The bitterness of a particular batch of hops is indicated as a “percent alpha acid”, or %aa. The higher the number, the more bitter the hop. The number of ounces of a hop used multiplied by its aa rating give the “alpha acid units” value, or aau. For example, 1/2 oz. of a 7% aa hop would give 3.5 aau’s. 2 oz. of a 4.5% aa hop would give 9 aau’s. When the hops are used in the boil, the aau’s are multipled by a utilization factor (ranging from .7 for dry-hops or hops added for less than 5 minutes of boiling; to 4.5 for hops in the boil 90 minutes or longer), a table of  which can be found in our Seven Barrel Brewery Brewers’ Handbook (p. 299). This gives you the approximate IBU (International Bitterness Units) rating. In this recipe, there are 8 aau’s for 60 minutes (factor of 4.25, or 34 ibu’s) plus 5 aau’s at KO (factor of .7, or 3.5 ibu’s), thus 37.5 IBU’s in total.

The thing about this brew that makes it only “semi”-traditional is the fact that the smoked malt I used was my own. I was playing around last week with a way to smoke grains at home, over various local woods. Five pounds of the grain in this recipe was smoked on my grill over birch chips, giving it a wonderful sort of wintergreen aroma… The mash smelled really cool, and the wort in the kettle smelled even more amazing.

Rauch’n’Roll

5 gallons, all-grain

Ingredients:

• 5 lbs. Bohemian Pilsner malt
• 1 lb. melanoidin malt
• 2 lbs. birch-smoked Pilsner malt
• 2 lbs. birch-smoked Vienna malt
• 1 lb. birch-smoked 30°L crystal malt
• 1/2 lb. honey malt
• 1 oz. Sterling hop pellets (@5.7% aa)
• 1 oz. Liberty hop pellets (@5.2% aa)
• White Labs Old Bavarian Lager yeast (WLP920)
• 3/4 cup corn sugar or 1 cup light DME (for priming)

Procedure: Crush malts. Heat 15 quarts water to 163°F. Dough in and hold mash at 152°F for 60 minutes. Heat another 13 quarts water to 170°F. Begin runoff and spargeProcess of rinsing mashed grains., collecting 26 quarts sweet smoky wort. Bring to boiling, add Sterling hops. Boil 45 minutes, add Liberty hops. Boil 15 more minutes (60 total), remove from heat and chill to 75°F. Take a hydrometer reading, pitch yeast, seal and ferment at 60°F for eight to ten days. Rack to secondary, lager cooler (45°F) for three weeks. Prime with corn sugar (or DME), bottle and age cold (38 – 40°F) for six weeks.

OG: 1058

IBU’s: 31

Note on smoked malt: Not everyone will be able to smoke their own malts, obviously. You can substitute 3 lbs. German Rauchmalt (beechwood-smoked) and 1 lb. each Vienna and 30°L crystal. The Rauchmalt is more intensely smoky than my own home-smoked malts, thus you need to use less for the smoke level of this brew. More smoked malt will mean more smoky flavor, and it is easy to overdo it.

Home-smoking grains:I built a 12” by 12” box, 3” deep, out of hardware cloth, then lined it with aluminum window screen. The hardware cloth is sturdy as a frame, the screen is a much finer mesh. My gas grill has a tray you can set in on top of the flames to use wood or charcoal for grilling.

Birch chunks on the left, pilsner malt on the right...

I built a small pile of wood chips at the far left end and placed my screen box on a grill at the far right. I placed 2 lbs. of grain, dry, in the screen box, sprayed it with water to moisten it, and lit the gas under the wood only. Because it was not actually touching the wood but only the metal tray, the wood never actually caught fire but smoldered, nice and smoky, for over an hour.The draft pulled the smoke from the wood across and through the grains, which I stirred and re-misted every 15 minutes. After an hour of smoke, I spread the grain out on a large cookie sheet to dry then packed it away in 1-lb. units in zip-lock bags. I did a total of about 20 lbs. in different combinations – some pilsner malt, some crystal, some Vienna, some wheat, etc… over birch and then oak and then maple. Four or five of my next several brews will include a smoked component.