A couple new beers

Hi y'all!

So, we have been fairly busy recently when it comes to brewing. That English Barley Wine that almost made us kill ourselves is in the bottle and already carbonated. The title we came up with was "Crom's Communion" Crom being the god Conan the Barbarian prays to in the movie... "Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it.". I used a fancy pants website to make a label as well.
It came in at 10% exactly, and it tastes just dandy at the moment, but 6 months of age on this fellow will make it wonderful. As for other beers I bottled up a new Braggot that we are pretty excited about. It is full of American Hops and lemongrass, the hops being very forward for a Braggot. It has bulk aged for a few months, and it has been in the bottle for about 4 days now. I'm looking forward to how this guy evolves over time.

Also, two days ago Quinn and I brewed up another batch of Sven the Spartan. Many things about this batch is different, especially in the grain bill. We felt that we would be driven to the poor house if we kept brewing Sven like we did before as it was over $100 buck for a 5 gallon batch. With several modifications later it is closer to $60 or so a batch. We also plan on reserving one gallon of this batch and doing something super special with it... details to follow.

Quinn pulled out all the cardamom infused stops on his latest "Dolphin's Monocle". With several million secret ingredients and a lower (more traditional) ABV this new batch of his Wit Beer is re-named "Blue Dolphin's Half Moon Monocle." It's nice to make a session beer now and again just to keep things interesting. It's in secondary right now, and should get bottled very soon.

As for what's coming up, a Brochet mead (Burt Sack Mead) as well as a couple Gruits. I've written a recipe for a Black Gruit and Quinn is thinking about a traditional one. Those should be kicked out in the next month or so. Anyway, talk to y'all later.

---Ricky

Stuff.

So,

The Beehive Brew off results came in last month and Quinn and I won a few awards and received wonderful feedback on all of our beers. We took gold again in Stout with a new Sven The Spartan Imperial Resistance Stout, we had a score of 44 or 45 out of 50. We also took Gold and Silver in Mead with a couple of Braggots. Gold was Brad The Braggart Braggot and Silver was for Your Peach Braggot Is In Another Castle. Last year Brad The Braggart sucked very bad, so we took notes, modified the hell out of the recipe and won gold. Those judges really know what they are doing.

We also won a little side award for Silver in an unofficial "Best Name" competition, we got a cert. and everything. It was for Sven. As you may have guessed we have already brewed a couple more things since the competition. There are a few fruit meads bubbling away in the beer room and a English Style Barley Wine that is still in primary that took WAY too much time to brew. By the end of the brew day both Quinn and I wanted to take a nap and our significant others wanted to kill us. That, my friend, is the sign of a successful brew day.

We have had a couple set backs, a couple of our brews caught a brett infection, so... we had to take drastic and expensive action. New buckets/glass, new auto-siphon and hoses. I hope we caught it so it doesn't sneak into our future beers.

Quinn and I have some really great ideas coming up. I'm sure we'll have another version of Quinns legendary "Dolphins Monocle" Wit-bier, another Sven as well as some new things in the next couple of months. The temp it just right for most ale yeasts, so we should get those fellers bubbling before the snow hits.

---Ricky

Beehive Brew-off entries and such.

Beehive Brew-off entries and such.

Howdy,

So, many things have happened and many batches have been brewed since the last post. We made an American Strong Ale that is called "Surrogate Bastard" and a chipotle and chocolate stout that developed over a conversation over at Utahbeer.blogspot.com. And that is just naming two of several new batches.

Last year was the first annual "Beehive Brew-off", a homebrew competition that is mainly Utah based, but open to the entire country. There were over 300 entries last year and Quinn and I threw in 4 or 5 beers to see what the judges thought. The feedback was awesome and we even won two awards. Having had only 6 months of brewing experience under our belts at the time the feedback and awards were a huge motivator for us.

So, this last year we have really taken a lot of advice and brewed as much as we could. We easily brewed 4 or 5 batches a month at the peak this last year. It has been fun, expensive and refreshing. So, anyway, we decided to enter 10 beers this year. Some are pretty good, others are a bit weird and we want the opinions of the professionals. If the advice from the judges give us the same amount of motivation this year as it did last year then we'll have to buy the lot next door just to store the bottles.

We are all looking forward to hearing the results and seeing old friends. Even my sweetie helped out on a blueberry wine last week, brewing is contagious!

---Ricky H.

Boy Howdy!

Wasn't that last post by Quinn funny AND informative? Oh wait, Quinn still hasn't posted anything yet. Who would have thought of him as the "Silent" partner in this.

ANYWAY, we have a few new things to talk about. We hosted a very informal beer tasting at a Renaissance Fair, brewed a few more batches of a few more things and had a good ol' time. First off, the original mild I posted about earlier turned out very good. We're calling it "A Mild Case of Alcoholism". It is smooth, crisp and a variety of other adjectives. We tried to make another batch with a slightly different recipe and it turned out.... umm... very horrible. Some things need to be tweeked, but it will be a consistant brew around here now.

At the moment we have another batch of Quinn's world famouse "Dolphin's Monocle" bubbling in the other room, strictly temp controlled as flucuating temperatures killed a Golden Ale we just made. We also have a Scottish Wee Heavy that is bottle conditing at the moment. Next weekend we have many a thing planned so I, OR QUINN will update you on that later.

(Just screwing with you Quinn)
---Ricky

Braggots, Milds and Strong Ales!

Hi Y'all,

So, that Braggot I mentioned in the above post is a week into secondary and looking good. However, what I am really interested in chatting about is a new style the Nano-Brewery just put caps on last night.

The new style is called "Mild". This is a beer that in only produced in a very small part of rural England/Wales/Cornwall. It was very popular in the 1600's and fell out of style about 50-100 years ago. The idea behind this beer is that it is very low in alcohol 2.5 to 4.5 % ABV, has almost no hop bitterness or aroma and is kinda sweet and refreshing. Miners would drink this after a hard days work as you could drink a ton of it without getting drunk and it was thin enough in body that it would be very refreshing.

The "Clever title yet thought up" Mild we bottled sits at just slightly over 4%ABV. Quinn, who wasn't too excited in making a low alcohol beer at all, convinced me to put a fair amount of peated malt in the batch, so there is a definite smoke flavor in the beer as well as slight Plum and Chocolate tones. It was primed for carbonation along the lines with the style, meaning it should be just a little carbonated. Hopefully this beer will be a hit, as it is clean refreshing and cheap as hell to brew.

Thanks to Brandon for helping bottle this beer up, and for helping on a new brew that Quinn came up with.

---Ricky Hansing

Brewing stuff today.

Today we are brewing some new stuff. The initial idea was to finally pump out some of the Gavinator, but with us both being too poor to afford the supplies a full batch of that dog-gone brew plans have changed. After kicking around the kitchen and a short stop over at Jones Bee and The Beer Nut, I am heating up water for the revamped version of "Your Peach Braggot Is In Another Castle".

This time around I am making the malt a little darker and more complex as well as using a higher quality honey. The honey is a combination of a single hive honey from Park City and an Orange Blossom honey. I'm also hitting this batch with a bit more hops with a longer boil. It should mitigate some of the extra sweetness the last one had, and give it a bit more flavor. I am also not sure if I am going to go with pure peaches this time, as they are WAY out of season. That I'll figure out once I toss it into secondary fermentation.

---Ricky Hansing

The Gavinator

So,

After shifting it around a few times, and having Quinn toss his eyes at it, we have a finished recipe for the "Gavinator, a strong brown Doppelbock". The idea came from a trip last fall to the dog park with a few friends. Our friend Emily has a pup named Gavin. He is best buddies (when they are not eating each others faces) with our dog Malachi. Gavin is a sweet, strong and brown dog and having gotten into the habit of naming our beers after people we know we decided to throw dogs into the mix. Here is a picture of Gavin himself:
What a handsome devil he is, all dressed up and posing for a picture for his Mom. I've been thinking about letting him help with the recipe by humping the primary fermentor, I know he would gladly help us out.

In other "beers we made that are named after people" news, we cracked a bottle new Brad the Braggart Braggot. The first one, in my opinion, had the subtle flavors of being punched in the face with a glove soaked in beer. To put a finer point on it, I put way too much lavender in it. In the new recipe it was decided that a softer approach was necessary. So we still put lavender in it, but just a little. We also put heather and a few other herbs in there to add complexity and make it not do that whole, sucking thing, it did before. I think it may have worked, it is still very young but has some killer residual sugar and complexity. Give it about a year and it should start getting really nice.

---Ricky

A few days off

Hi,

Having survived my first Christmas season at Masseys Jewelers and having accrued quite a bit of comp. time I have been given a good five days off in a row. Having never had five days off in a row from any job, ever, I am about to have more time on my hands then I know what to do with. With travel being a too expensive option and sitting on my ass being too tempting I am trying to come up with some cheap little brewing ideas.

I'll throw some ideas at Quinn and see if any stick to both of us. I have a Smoked Porter and a Double Bock idea that has been in the works for a bit, but who knows. There are some Mead ideas out there that have been waking me up in the middle of the night in need of a cold shower. So, who knows what we'll do, if anything. I am just psyching myself up to do some brewing this upcoming vacation. Anyway, watch this spot for potential vacation brewing adventures.

---Ricky

Hi everyone,

As I am sure you have noticed, this is the first blog posting here. I started this blog on impulse, as I am not typically the type to make a blog. However, over the past year or so of brewing we have had many friends help Quinn and myself out and many more who want to keep apprised of all our brewing exploits. When I say brewing exploits, I mean they want to know when more booze is ready so they can come over and drink some.

With that being said, this blog was also started with the intent of keeping another record of all our brewing adventures. Quinn and I have a spooky little note book where we keep all our recipes and such in, but that only keeps a record of grain bills and such not the wackieness that ensues. The note book is covered in all types of crud, so that counts a little in the "Wackieness" categories, but not enough in my book.

So, for fear of this post getting too long and boring whatever poor fool happens upon this blog I'll end on some ACTUAL BREWING CONTENT! Heavens, what a thought? So, yesterday we had a bit of a bottling party. We bottled three fruit wine we had brewed a few months back, two of which I'll let my co-brewer fill you in on, as they were fully his recipes. The one I'm going to mention is a Sweet Plum Wine I hammered out.

I Love Asian plum wine more than I love myself, pretty sad I know but I am self deprecating like that. My wife, Quinn, Kitty (his lady) all love plum wine more then they love me also. With that being verifiable fact, I decided to make some. Diane, the wonderful plum bearing Secretary at my work happened to have a plum tree and gave me about 6 lbs of it. About 4 or 5 months later here we are, with a deep magenta wine. It sits about 10%ABV, is fairly full bodied for a plum wine, and has a near dessert wine sweetness. I didn't muddle with this as much as I typically do with all the other brews coming out of the house, so it comes off as straight forward plum. It is 100% drinkable now, but with its sweetness and slight tannin backbone it will age very well. I wish all our brews came off this well.


---Ricky Hansing, Co-Brewer