Twelve months ago, I was in the process of assembling a list of kit to embark on my home brew adventure. Here’s what I’ve came up with so far:
- #1 – US Pale Ale, fairly high gravity, unfined, slightly luminous colour but a solid start
- #2 –Pilsner. Almost overreached myself with this complicated recipe but good results, a little thick for a pilsner but not bad.
- #3- Accidental Stout. Well sort of a stout but this one was a relief more than anything as I thought I’d cocked up completely. Need to come back to stout properly in the future.
- #4- Earl Gray IPA. This was a hit, cold brewed tea added to the wort after the boil and citrus hops. Only issue was I didn’t make enough.
- #5- Bitter Failure. If #3 was a hit, #4 was a sad miss. Lesson learned: Don’t dump ice into the wort to cool. I still have a few bottles left of this, it never quite improved.
- #6- Pilsner 2.0. Same recipe as the first, but refined the method, including the purchase of a proper wort chiller. Very passable Czech style pilsner.
- #7- Sorachi Ace IPA. First crack at a single-hop IPA. Along with the Earl Gray, this is my joint favourite so far.
- #8- Bitter Success. After the abject failure of the first attempt at an English Bitter (#5), I did much better this time. Goldings and Fuggles aplenty, it doesn’t blow your mind but drinkable and not rancid!
As mentioned in my last post, life took a few happy but unexpected turns through 2015 with a new job and my wife falling pregnant with our first. As such, my brewing rate did slow somewhat but with 8 brews in a year, that’s not bad is it? I’m pleased to say little Henry made an appearance in March and is doing well so as we are getting settled, I’m going to get on with some more brews.
Whilst I was deciding what to do, the fab people at Brewdog selflessly released the recipes for their entire back catalogue of beers, all free, open source, and scaled to Home Brew amounts. (The book is available here) I have chosen three to be getting on with: Dead Pony Club (a favourite of mine), Alice Porter (which I hope to leave to mature for a few months) and TM10. The last one is a limited edition saison brewed as part of the Tate Modern’s 10th anniversary in 2010. it was only available in the museum and I never got to try it. I’ve not brewed a saison yet so this is hopefully going to be a good beer for the summer, if it comes! I’ll update on the progress of this and life in general as it happens.
Cheers for Now!
Larbert Home Brewer 