Bradley Brothers Beer

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Must be getting towards summertime... #sierranevada #pilsner #summerbeer

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April IPA of the month!

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Another of the samplings from the weekend in Kansas City - KC Bier Company's Maibock.

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Passing through Nashville, I tried Black Abbey's Black Ale - a little aseasonal, but a great beer all the same. 

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In town for my brother's graduation, I had some Kansas City beers over the weekend, including this classic Boulevard Pale Ale.

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A very new, and perhaps misguided, experiment -- tonight I took the batch of Cream Ale and racked it into a secondary with a bunch of raspberries, hoping to end up with a Raspberry Cream Ale. Was this a good idea? Bad idea? Who knows, but it will be interesting to see what happens! 

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I bottled the Honey Amber Ale tonight, which means that now both of the Amber Ale varieties are in bottles and conditioning. I’ve given these batches names - the “Super Malty Amber” for the first batch, which was steeped too hot and consequently ended up sweet; and the “Honey Hop Amber” for the second, in honor of the fact that it’s both got a bunch of honey in it and double the hops (bitterness to counteract the sweetness)

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The champagne yeast that I pitched into the American Amber Ale today, in an effort to lower the gravity reading. We'll see if it dries it out any more...

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Gravity update - American Amber Ale

Another gravity reading taken today on the American Amber Ale was still at 1.034, which means no additional fermentation has occurred. At this point, I'm suspecting that I just have a very un-fermentable wort here; the grains might just have been steeped too hot, and so all the sugars in the batch may not be the type that the yeast can eat through. After three identical gravity readings, it would be normal to consider fermentation done and just bottle it up to carbonate. But with a gravity reading that high, the only concern is that the yeast will start processing some of those remaining sugars (of which there are many) when it's in the bottles, and that could lead to over-carbonation and exploding bottles. 

So to be doubly sure that everything that can be fermented in the wort has, in fact, been fermented, I decided to pitch half a pack of champagne yeast into the carboy today. Champagne yeast is generally hardier stuff than ale yeast, so I figured that if there was any chance that the complex sugars can be broken down, the champagne yeast will take care of them. Even if the gravity doesn't drop much more, I can at least bottle with peace of mind, and I'll just have a batch of pretty weak, pretty sweet beer (but beer, nonetheless)! 

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A side-by-side comparison of the Honey Amber Ale (on the left) and the American Amber Ale (on the right). The larger amount of caramel malts and Briess Pale Malt in the American Amber is very evident in the darker color of that beer. You can also see all of the hop residue built up on the top part of the glass in the Honey Amber Ale -- that beer had a lot more hops. 

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This seasonal ale from Unita was pretty interesting. The flavor upfront was a little sharp and maybe a little hop, but it had a great finish, with some hop flavors that I didn't recognize from other beers. The photo makes it hard to tell, but it also had a kind of greenish hue that I haven't seen in other beers that I can recall. 

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Brewing Update 5/1/14

This past Tuesday, I brewed a batch of Honey Amber Ale. This was based on the same recipe that I used for the American Amber Ale that I brewed a few weeks ago, but I made some strategic changes. 

(1) The American Amber Ale was based on a Briess Pale Ale malt, but I only had about 10 ounces of that left. Since I'm planning on a couple of Cream Ale brews next, I was already planning to order some Rahr 6 row malt (which works well with high-adjunct beers, which the Cream Ale will be - lots of Flaked Maize in that one) and I realized that I would have about 8 ounces of that left over after the two batches of Cream Ale. So I decided to base the Honey Amber Ale on a combination of the Briess 2 row and the Rahr 6 row, which ought to add some interest to the flavor. 

(2) I decided to swap that order of the hop additions. For the American Amber, I used the Cascade as a bittering hop and the Centennial as an aroma hop, figuring that since the Centennial was higher alpha, it might be better not to use it for bittering with a variety that isn't supposed to be very strongly hopped. But for the honey, I want some nice hop bitterness to counteract the sweetness of that sugar addition, so I thought it might be better to try to get a little more bitterness out of the Centennial. I also just about doubled the amount of hops in this one, putting this Honey Amber way out of the style specifications for an amber ale (up to 70 IBUs), but I'm excited to see how it turns out. 

I decided to add the honey right at flameout, figuring that this might be a good compromise of flavor and safety. 

Also on Tuesday, I tested the gravity of the American Amber and was surprised to find that it was still very high - up at 1.034. Since the fermentation seemed to be OK otherwise, this was pretty surprising, and I'm still not sure the root cause. A couple days later, it might be slightly lower, but it's still above 1.030. I'm worried that this might be because of some very unfermentable wort - I might have steeped the grains a little too hot this time, rather than too cold. 

Today, I used a sterilized racking cane to gently stir up the trub and get the yeast back into suspension, hoping that this might knock it down a few more gravity points. In any case, I'm nervous to bottle it at this gravity level, and am going to have to wait at least a few more days before I even consider doing so. If it has too many complex sugars in there, then at a certain point the yeast just won't be able to ferment it down any further, but unfortunately I have to wait a little while before I can be sure of that (even though I'm dying to go ahead and brew the first batch of Cream Ale). I'm already wishing I had a 3rd carboy...

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A very cool diagram from Lewis & Young's Brewing book

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...we are, after all, brewers. It is the essence of brewers to hold to certain traditions while working firmly in the present. Brewers have always done that... To become a brewer means that we must develop a feel for the interplay of the old with the new and the art with the science and be comfortable with it.

Michael J. Lewis and Tom W. Young, Brewing, 2nd. edition (New York: Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, 2002): 3.

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A seasonal American Ale from an Asheville-based brewery: Little Hump Spring Ale

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Excited to try a commercial-made amber ale out at a restaurant today. Very nice flavor and mouthfeel, with lots of banana notes and a nice tart finish. My amber is looking a lot more caramel, in part because I used the Briess pale alt malt (I think), but this made me all the more excited to try it.

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Tried this out over the weekend - sort of weird, actually. I'm not sure if it was the Amarillo or what, but it had a sort of unique taste that I couldn't quite identify. Tasted a bit like sparkling grape juice, if you closed your eyes.