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