Brew day

Brew day today, and while the boil continues, I’m musing on my recent brewing and wondering what to do next. I thought I’d come to the end of the planned brews and looking back to my last Brew stocktake   it seems that’s right. I had planned 4 brews back in April. Turns out I’ve done 6 since then, hmm, actually 7, but this did include all the planned brews, or versions of them. The amber lager as ale idea got split into two (numbers 6 and 7 below). I’m surprised I followed the plan this closely!

1. The Citra hopped pale ale, bottled as “Trial Tipple”. That was a success. I now know what citra hops taste like and it was so drinkable that it’s now all drunk
2. The attempted repeat of the good brown ale. Sadly it didn’t work the way I wanted. It’s beer alright and tasty, but came out lower alcohol than intended for reasons I don’t fully understand. Bottled as “Lay Down” anyway, though it’s not ideal for that plan.
3. A small beer off this brown ale
4. A lager hopped with Sorachi Ace. Bottled as “Ace of Cups”, which is one of my more inspired brew names IMHO. It’s pretty nice, if you like lager, which I don’t much
5. My favourite pilsnerish pale ale hopped with Nelson Sauvin hops. Bottled as “Monty’s Choice”. Haven’t tasted this one yet. It’s only been in the bottles oh 3 weeks today eh? I’ll pop one in the fridge to try tonight.
6. A pale “summer ale”. This is my latest attempt at a fresh summery brew that I actually like. It’s hopped with Centennial, Cascade and a little Hallertauer. I’m hopeful, though the mash started a degree or two hotter than designed. This one is still in the fermenter
7. Today I’ve mashed an amber ale, hopped with Amarillo and Willamette plus a little centenial at the start. This is still in the urn, nearly finished it’s boil. I hope I’ve used enough hops to balance the fuller grain flavours.

There is still nice cool weather available. Should I brew again before summer? If so, what?

 

Brew stocktake

I feel the Montjoye beer stocks are getting thin. So to help decide what next to brew, I’ve just been through the cupboards and done a stocktake. There is still a great deal of booze!

Beer:
13 PET bottles of Golden ale. This is 49 x 330ml serve equivalents. I’ll take this to parties and events in the prompt.
the rest are all in small glass bottles, 330ml or near that.
7 of Little Teapot stout- nice to drink in cold weather, and works well in a stew.
9 of Amiable Ale English mild- best drunk unchilled but I think this has gone too fizzy to take to parties now- like much of my brewing sadly
16 Twice Bitten dry amber lager. This has been very popular. I think it goes down better in hot weather, so this might sit for a while.
2 Free Falling pale ale (hopped with Cascade only, hence the name). Other people seem to like this. I think it’s a bit boring.
7 Festival ale (English best bitter)
6 golden ale. This was supposed to be pretty much the same as the one above, but I think there was a mix up with the grain. It turned out weak and I added “adjunct” to strengthen it
36 Merry Measure brown ale. I like it, it’s a lighter take on a brown. It wasn’t hugely popular at the CF tasting, some thought it sat between styles.
So 83 serves of beer in glass. Plus the PET makes 132 serves (plus the few bottles in the fridge, which I didn’t count)

Cider:
13  of the 2015 apricot cider- likely the most popular thing I’ve made yet.
55 or so of 2016 apricot cider not yet bottled.
36 mulberry cider. Really too dry to be pleasant to drink. It might develop. Works fine in cooking.
56 a full batch of the new ciderry
Which makes160 serves of cider.

Or 292 serves of booze, not counting the various macerated spirituous things in the pantry, or the bits and pieces of mead and fruit wine.

Writing this confirms that what I am short on is pale ale. So the next brew will be a pale, hopped with Citra, which I haven’t used yet but comes recommended by Rurik. I’ll see how that tastes, but I have only a precious couple bottles of my favourite- a Nelson Sauvin hopped beer (this one is a lager, but I prefer it done as a pale ale). So I’ll probably make one of those too.

I’d like to redo the brown ale that tasted AMAZING at 18mths old, and lay it down for… in 18mths time. This started out quite hoppy and sweet. The last bottle I drank had developed raisin flavours and was really smooth. Yum, I want more of that if I can manage it.

I’d also like to try something like the amber lager as an ale. I think that would land somewhere near a Little Creatures pale.

Well, that’s four brews planned, that’ll do for now.

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