Hard Cider

Before beer it was hard cider that was the preferred beverage by the drinking (working) class in America. In the 17th-18th century cereal grains let a lone malted grains were not in abundance in the 'New World'. Thus apple cider with added sugar (brown sugar, molasses) was the most popular beverage. This is probably when American 'Apple Jack' was discovered by leaving barrels outside when an unexpected New England cold snap rushes through the valley and freezes the cider (freeze distillation).

I've enjoyed hard cider from time to time. My first hard cider I drank was Cider Jack in the 90's, Cider Jack has been said to be the first cider that "surfed the microbrew wave" in the 90's. With craft brewing sales up and brewery's in planning reaching unprecedented levels hard Cider once again is selling well. See AdAge, in Australia, and poetically by the New York Times.  It's easy to see that cider is an easy transition for a white wine drinker. American brewers are even getting in on the cider action as seen by Harpoon and now Sam Adams with Angry Orchard. Here's a list of cider brands currently being sold in the US. 

This is my first attempt at making hard cider. I went to my local orchard and picked up 6 gallons of fresh juice and local honey. Came home poured it all in a sanitized glass carboy and pitched a packet of US-05 and added yeast nutrient. How different can it be from brewing beer... During fermentation lots of sulphurous egg-y smells were being kicked off. Many time if you smell this during beer fermentation it's a sign of unhealthy yeast. My hopes were not high. After fermentation completed and I racked the cider to secondary to sample was a sulphur mess. It did not fade with time. At this point what I suspect happened after talking with other fermentation artists is that the un-heated cider and honey may have contained wild yeast which may or may not be well suited for creating a delicious beverage. This cider could be referred to as hashtag fail #fail. 

Take two... The plan this time was to heat the cider and honey then cool and knockout into a glass carboy like I would when brewing. Light simmer for five minutes with yeast nutrient. Then pitched US-05 yeast. Starting gravity of 10*plato. Expected abv of 4%. Fermentation smelled like apple honey butter. Racked to secondary and it was all right. This has since been kegged and back sweetened with honey. Crystal clear, light strawbale color. The keg will probably last awhile, but I guess hard cider can be a nice change of pace at times.

Cranberry Sour Red Ale

Cranberries are one of only three fruits that originated on North American soil, along with blueberries and concord grapes.  Cranberries are usually only served as a side dish at Thanksgiving, but I enjoy cooking with cranberries year round. A few years ago I used cranberries for a different sort of holiday ale inspired from an orange ginger cranberry sauce recipe. I've been wanting to brew a sour beer with cranberries because the natural tartness of cranberries should complement the sour flavors in a Flemish inspired red ale very well. So, I'm going to add a copious amount of whole cranberries and cranberry juice for a deep ruby color and a lip smacking tart flavor.

Cascade Brewing in Oregon made a sour cranberry ale and New Belgium did as well as part of their Lips of Faith series. This home brew Gose with cranberries sounds good too.

In this batch I'm using whole cranberries from Vermont Cranberry Company and (100%) cranberry juice for a deep cranberry color and flavor. The whole cranberries were added with ten minutes left in the boil, while the juice was added to the fermentor.

Recipe: Pale malt, Aromatic malt, Honey malt, Caramunich 60, Melanoidin malt, and chocolate malt. Mash warm. Lightly hopped. A pound of fresh cranberries, half a gallon of juice. Fermented with Wyeast 3628 Roeselare Yeast Blend.

Autumnal Squash Ale

As an alternative to brewing a pumpkin beer I brewed a fall seasonal beer with a medley of squash (acorn, buttercup, and delicata) and barely any spices (1/4 tsp). This beer was brewed for Thanksgiving Day to pair with a pumpkin cheesecake. The dessert itself had all the traditional pumpkin spice flavors, so it was nice to have a refreshing gourd flavored ale to pair with the dessert that wasn't overly spiced.

With this batch I also tried a new technique for the squash (pumpkin, etc.) addition. In the past, I've always added the cooked pumpkin meat to the mash. This time I added the cooked squash with five minutes left in boil. As I'm drinking this beer right now I'm happy with the results. The squash flavor is more present in the aroma and flavor with an aftertaste of honeydew melon. Great clarity with orange, copper color. Pairs well with the pumpkin cheesecake.

The grist bill was fairly simple with three malts. Pale malt, Munich malt, and Aromatic mashed warm at 152*f for a malty balance for the squash. Six pounds of assorted winter squash (three pounds cooked) added with five minutes left in boil. Bittered with super galena hops and spiced with Chinese Five spice at end of boil. Fermented with US-05.

Strawberry Sour

Brewing with my favorite childhood fruit is always fun, but I wanted to try this fruit in a sour style beer such as Upland Brewing Co.'s Strawberry Lambic and I believe Mr. Barlow brewed a strawberry sour that is currently ageing. While many home brewing texts state that it is difficult to attain a pleasant strawberry flavor or that it changes into something like apricot I have not had this problem. By using fresh fruit and adding it to primary fermentation the flavors of the fresh fruit have been woven into the beers aroma and flavor in ways that surprised me.

With this beer I added two pounds of strawberries to two and a half gallons of amber wort (12.6*p) and pitched wyeast roeselare yeast blend. I'm really enjoying the flavors that are developing in my aging flanders inspired red, framboise, and oud bruin that featured this yeast blend. I brewed this batch a couple weeks ago and the aroma is already fantastic. I'm looking forward to drinking this sometime next year. I may or may not add more strawberries next spring when strawberries are in season once again depending on flavor development until then.

Recipe: Pale malt, Munich malt, Melanoidin malt, Flaked Barley, Briess Crystal 120. Fermented with Roeselare yeast blend and two pounds of strawberries.

Pomegranate Wild Ale

My first experience with this brand of Pomegranate juice was while I was working at my first brewery job at Olde Saratoga Brewing Co. in Saratoga Springs, NY where we poured hundreds of bottles just like the one pictured into fermentors to create Origin by He'brew.

Olde Saratoga Brewing Co. is a contract brewery that is owned by the UB Group which owns a plethora of different distilled brands, malt beverage brands, a chemical and fertilzer co., an airline co., and an Engineering co.. That's why Kingfisher brand beers are brewed at Olde Saratoga. I didn't realize who owned the company until after I saw my first pay check and didn't recognize who was paying me. So, I took the time to look up the company. For me, it rubbed me the wrong way, this isn't what craft beer means to me. I felt like all of a sudden I was a number that worked for huge multi-national company that probably didn't care about a lowly factory worker. I don't have a problem with contract brewing I have a problem with profits going to a far off land away from the American economy in which I live.

In this world in which we live in I believe one of the only ways we have left to vote is with our wallets and pocketbooks. Every time we buy something we're making a political, social, and philosophical act. Do you want to support this or that? Who do you want to give your hard earned money too? I prefer to support the community in which I live. For example; independently owned restaurants, not chains. Now, I'm not trying to be all high and mighty as not everything I buy is a responsible purchase (upcoming iphone release for example) but I try hard to choose the more responsible purchase than not, even if it costs more. I'm shocked that even many retailers sometimes don't even know where the beer their selling and stories their regurgitating come from. For example I had to explain to a retailer that cans of 21st Amendment are not brewed in San Fransisco (Bitter American by 21A is one of the best new beers around, go try it) but are contract brewed in Minnesota. He wouldn't believe me until I showed him on the side of the can exactly where it was brewed. Also, I find many self proclaimed beer geeks hold beer stories near and dear to their hearts without actually looking into the origins or whether the story (marketing) is actually true. Even after I've told people truths I know about the process of how beers are produced they still don't want to believe it. I've even over heard them tell the same false story to somebody else after knowing the truth. Why is this? Why do so many people prefer (and even knowingly choose) romance over reality? As you probably figured out I'm a purist that's become a little jaded from what I've seen (and had to do). When brewing my beers I hold myself to the highest possible standards. We're here (on earth) for such a short period of time, what's the point of pulling the wool over peoples eyes or allowing ourselves to be blind. Be honest, buy local, and take the time to investigate. Ignorance isn't bliss it's just ignorant, rant over.

I've been wanting to brew with pomegranate juice for awhile and I felt the cranberry like tannins and tartness of pomegranate juice would be great in a sour beer. I pitched a Lambic yeast blend and 32 fl. oz. of juice into the primary fermentor. Time will tell how it turns out as this will age for up to a year.

Recipe: Pale malt, Munich malt, Melanoidin malt, Flaked Barley, Briess Crystal 120. Lambic yeast blend and Pomegranate juice.

Kriek

As I discussed in the Pineapple Wild Ale post a great way to stretch a brew day is to brew a batch of lower gravity wort and split the batch between different fermentors and add a twist to each fermentor whether being yeast, fruit, spices or keep one as a control. As part of a double brew day this batch of Amber wort started at 12.6*P (1.050 SG) and was hopped to 10 IBU's but then had different juice added directly to each fermentor. In this one I added dark cherry juice and pitched roeselare yeast blend to try and re-create the flavors of classic Kriek.

Recipe: Pale malt, Munich malt, Melanoidin malt, Flaked Barley, Briess Crystal 120. Aging with Roeselare yeast blend. Black cherry juice (32 fl. oz) added to primary fermentor.

Carrot pLambic

As the title suggests I brewed a carrot beer. A couple months ago I made a small one gallon test batch (50/50 wort/carrot juice by volume) and fermented it with American ale (dry) yeast to see what a carrot beer would even taste like first. The finished beer was very earthy, slightly tart, and orange. At a rate of 50/50 by volume of wort and carrot juice it was a little absurd but it allowed me to fully understand the impact of carrot sugars in a fermented beverage. I could see carrots working in many styles such as saison, Belgian white, Gose, and Berliner Weiss. Or even something malty with many carrot wine recipes having a rum raisin or even pumpkin pie like spice blend why not try other orange vegetables such as butternut squash, carrots, sweet potatoes and yams in fall seasonal beers and not just pumpkins.

The direction I'm taking with this batch though is a bit more wild, pitching Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend. Accentuating the earthy and tart flavors the carrot juice provided. This was the third part of a split batch of golden wort that also produced pineapple wild ale and a tropical wild ale.

Recipe: Pale malt, Flaked Oats, Wheat malt, Flaked Barley, Flaked Maize, and CaraPils. Bittered with whole leaf centennial. Fermenting with Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend. 80/20 wort/carrot juice by volume.

Tropical Wild Ale

As part of the split batch discussed in the pineapple wild ale post this fermentor had a tropical juice blend added to primary and was dosed with brettanomyces lambicus and brettanomyces bruxellensis. The juice "Morning Blend" consisted of pineapple, apple, orange, pear, peach, papaya, and grape. When using juices for brewing I prefer to use natural and/or organic juices that are free from growth inhibitors (chemicals added to any food to prevent/ward off spoiling) that may kill the yeast and not allow the wort to ferment.

Recipe: Pale malt, Flaked Oats, Wheat malt, Flaked Barley, Flaked Maize, and CaraPils. Bittered with whole leaf centennial. Fermented with a blend of brettanomyces strains.