Nanobrewing

An interesting article on nanobrewing.  I think Alberta needs some major regulatory reforms to allow this to happen.  Hmm, I think I just found my new hobby...

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/drink/2012/12/nanobrewing_how_tiny_beer_making_operations_are_changing_the_industry.html

Fun Places to drink beer

I have decided to upload some of the pictures of fun places Sith@Heart and I have enjoyed a nice beer.

Hofbrauhaus, Munich

The Prince of all tasty, tasty lies...

Hail Satan!

Random beer drinking pic

Westvletern 12 - Calgary

Homebrew: Pumpkin Stout

After Halloween there was a special at the Superstore - free pumpkins.  So here we go!  This recipe also features a lot of stuff I had on hand, so it is pretty cobbled together.  Here's hoping it works.

Steep at 150 for 30 minutes:

3 lbs pumpkin “meat”, roasted at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes (until starting to caramelize)


3.5 oz roasted barley

7 oz chocolate malt

11 oz medium crystal malt (75L)

Boil:

1oz "mystery" hops (whole) (maybe cascade?  I am not entirely sure)

3 kg dry light malt extract

After 55 minutes, add:

1tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

.5 oz East Kent Goldings hops (6.1% AA)

Fill to 5 gallons.  Pitch:

Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale

Home Brew: White House Honey Ale

My brother brought to my attention President Obama's homebrewing exploits at the White House.  One of his recipes was for honey ale.  As luck would have it, my friend Taryn has an apiary and we had discussed making a honey beer.  This seemed like too big a coincidence to pass up.

Here is the link to the original recipe:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/09/01/ale-chief-white-house-beer-recipe

I had to make a few changes to use up ingredients I already had, also substituted the yeast for something better (I think).  Here it is:

Steep for 30 minutes at 155 degrees:

8 oz biscuit malt

10 oz pale crystal malt

2 oz medium crystal malt 

Bring to a boil.  Add:

6 pounds liquid malt extract (light)

1 pound dry malt extract (light)

1.5 oz East Kent Golding hops (pellets)

2 tsp gypsum

After 45 minutes of boiling, add:

.5 oz Fuggles hops (pellets)

After 50 minutes of boiling, add:

1 pound honey

After an hour, I let it cool, topped it up to 5 gallons and pitched Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale

Mango hefe follow up

After letting the hefeweizen ferment for 2 weeks, I added the puree of 4 mangoes (heated to 160 degrees to pasteurize) and added them to 3 gallons of the hefe.  I let that ferment 2 weeks and then bottled.

The result was, as I expected, a nice beer, but with subtle fruit notes.  The mango hefe in Vegas must have used juice or extract, rather than fermenting the fruit.

The beer is still pretty tasty, although one of the bottles massively foamed up when I opened it, so I need to be careful...