Tasting notes - Anchor Steam Clone

I sadly don't have an Anchor Steam to use as a comparator, but from my memory the clone I made is hoppier than the original. It has a nice orange/amber colour, good head, and slight citrus notes. Slightly drier and hoppier than I was expecting, but on the whole pretty tasty (and my guests liked it too - I barely have any left after my party!)

Beer o' the Day - Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale

Ok, I have had some interesting beers in my life. And then there is this one. You can clearly taste the smoke, bacon and maple. On a breakfast plate - delicious. In a beer - maybe less so. This is a beer you should try at least once, but probably no more than that, either.

Ingredients, as per the bottle: Briess Cherrywood smoked malt, Weyerman beechwood smoked malt, house-smoked hickory malt, Great Western 2 row, Munich, C15, C75 malts, applewood-smoked bacon, pure maple flavouring, Rogue micro hopyard Revolution and Independent hops, free range crystal water and Pacman yeast.

I will say this - at least it is not boring! And that is the most important thing.

Beer o' the day

Today's beer o' the day is the limited release Lagunitas Imperial Red Ale.

As the bottle says "Net contents: 12 fluid oz's ...of hops, malt, hops, yeast, hops, water, and hops." A very hoppy red ale, but as you expect from Lagunitas - very tasty!

NP article - What the Baltics have done for beer

http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/02/25/happy-hour-what-the-baltics-have-done-for-beer/

I was enjoying an imperial stout just the other day (from Phillips Brewery). Great for cold winter days!

Other good beer blogs

As awesome as this blog is, I can't say it is the only good beer blog out there. Here are some other good ones:

http://petebrown.blogspot.com/

http://barleymowat.com/

http://www.greatcanadianbeerblog.com/

Homebrew: Anchor Steam clone

Thus far I have only brewed ales, because the ale yeasts ferment at or near room temperature. Lager yeasts ferment at temperatures below 10 degrees. Without access to a fridge that would hold a carbuoy, this can be tricky.

However, Anchor Steam seems to be an interesting hybrid. It uses lager yeast, but the recipe says to ferment at 15 degrees. Lucky for me, that is about the temperature of our cold storage, so here goes:

(note - in order to make sure it fit in the cold storage, I made a 3 gallon batch, not the usual 5, so the measurements are adjusted accordingly. Except the yeast - I unthinkingly pitched the entire packet, as opposed to 3/5ths. Not sure what effect that will have...)

Recipe taken from Clone Brews (Szamatulski)

Steep 238 grams medium crystal malt (75 L) for 30 minutes at 150 degrees F

1.7 kg light dry malt extract

water volume: 8.5 Litres

20 grams Northern Brewer hop pellets (9.8% AA)

boil 45 minutes

9 grams Northern Brewer hops (9.8% AA)

3/5 tsp Irish moss

boil 14 minutes

9 grams Northern Brewer hops (10.3% AA)

I cooled the pot to about 65 or so degrees F, then pitched a packet of Wyeast's 2112 California Lager yeast. As noted above, I pitched the hole thing. I then set the carbuoy (filled to 3 gallons) into the cold storage.

Random beer picture

I get thirsty just looking at this