Stone Cali-Belgique IPA

Score:4
Style: Belgian IPA
ABV:6.9%

For a guy who used to despise Belgians, I sure have been drinking a lot of them. It's been a while since I've had something from Stone and admittedly, that's always a bad decision. Stone has never let me down and this Belgian IPA was amazing.

I'm not claiming to be a beer reviewer or anything like that so bear with me here. There's something about marrying the sweet yeastyness of a Belgian and the floral bitter punch of hops, and Stone did this amazingly well. I've had others like it before and most notably Flying Dog's Ragin' Bitch, but forget that thing this Stone offering is the real deal, go pick it up if you can, I'm sure you won't regret it.

Cambridge Brewing Company: Sgt. Pepper

Score: 3
Style:
ABV:

I have been looking for a spicy beer for a while. I finally found one in

Pretty Things: Jack D'Or

Score:2
Style: Saison
ABV: 6.4%



I really need to do these reviews a bit closer to when I drink there beers. I had Jaack D'Or about 3? weeks ago and don't remember too much about it at this point. I remember getting a very nice hop note on the beer, with a hint of citrus. All in all it was a pretty good beer.

Cambridge Brewing Weekapaug Gruit

Score:1
Style:Gruit
ABV: 5%


Have you ever had a beer and wondered "what did I just drink?" well it finally happened to me. I have to be honest and say I didn't really know what a gruit was until I read the bottle to see what it was about.
Herbal beer? sure, why not. As a beer lover, I am always willing to try new things, so why not try out a style used before the mighty little hop came along.

 When I first tasted this thing, I thought interesting, and as each sip progressed I starting thinking, not for me. The best way I can describe this beer as is a grainy malty liquid that I was personally unable to finish.

Now, this isn't an open invitation to just skip over this beer in the store and go on to something else, give it a try maybe a gruit is for you. Keep trying new things, keep on drinking, and enjoy that beer!

Well's Banana Bread Beer

Style: Fruit Beer
ABV: 5.2%
IBU: n/a

I first heard about Well's BBB a few weeks ago, and seeing as how I've been chasing those amazing notes of banana from LongTrails Hefe, I was super excited to find and try this brew. When I smelt it after the pour, I thought, ok lets do this! Unfortunately it wasn't as bananay as I really wanted it to be. Overall I thought it was a great,drinkable beer with some nice banana notes

Rookie Mistakes: Cleaner V Sanitizer

Great to clean!

I am guilty as charged of this rookie mistake. When I first opened up my new Northern Brewer starter kit, I was pumped! It had everything I would ever need, including sanitizer (wrong!) Easy Clean IS NOT sanitizer! I mean I was dumb enough to just look at this stuff and not see that is says clean not sanitize. I've seen this issue come up on r/homebrewing before, so at least I know I'm not alone. Go out, get some StarSan and thank yourself later.

A Step Forward, A Glance Back

So, I'm still pretty upset about the failure that is my Irish Stout. I thought that perhaps my shortcomings with the wheat beer was just beginners problems. I need to take a look at my process and see exactly what it is that I'm doing wrong. I know for my first I stupidly used a cleaner thinking it was a sanitizer, but for beer 2 I had StarSan. I think it all comes down to temperature control. Two beers, two distinct but similar weird flavors. I'm taking on a pale ale next, with full temperature control, brew notes and everything else I can possibly think of (including no secondary) to make this thing work. I am desperately searching for that break through beer!

Not a good time

I opened up my stout this morning with the hopes and dreams of a 10 year old kid on Christmas, and what did I get exactly? COAL.

pfff..

My stout was carbonated very nicely, but I do somewhat fear that I over carbonated it? I also did a vigorous pour, so there is a little more head than necessary. Temperature control! Now that I have got one, I really have no excuse. Well I kind of do until my Fermwrap comes in the mail.

So if you are counting along with me that is 0 for 2 on my beer brewing adventure. I am going to really take a look at my process and make it the best I can for my 3rd attempt, or this is really going to start getting demoralizing.

Carb it up baby!

After a week of my ghetto conditioning chamber, I have yielded some decent results. My stout is still green but I have picture comparisons of the two brews after about 12 days in bottles.

Left: Basement                  Right: Conditioning Chamber

The angles are a bit off, but you can clearly see that the conditioning chamber stout has a larger head on it!
The basement stout also has more of a bitter bite too it, hasn't quite smoothed itself out yet. I let both bottles sit in the fridge for 24 hours so that the carb could soak up into the brew.

This also came in today:

Picked it up for 70 bucks!

Looks like whenever my ferm wrap gets in, I'll  be all set to have a better operation. I plan on using the fermwrap initially to condition the rest of my beer, and then when I brew my wheat in another week or two I'll definitely be using it for ferm control!

My next brew probably won't be the Hefe I so want to brew, as my buddy is deploying in a month and I promised we'd brew something so we could enjoy it when he got back in 6 months.

Bring on the Beers

Following up from my first post today, here's a few of the beers I've enjoyed over the past week or two:
I've also found that since I found out about Brewstrong! and Brewing TV, my days off are completely wasted.

Stayed local with Slumbrew, and wanted to try something from them. Happy Sol was alright, I really didn't think anything special of it, but I'm always happy to give my money to local breweries.

Monk's Blood! I saw this a few weeks ago and was really excited to try it. My impressions overall? It wasn't  bad, but it always wasn't anything fantastic either. I liked the 8% ABV kick it had, and I could definitely imagine putting a few down in a log cabin somewhere, maybe in some Monks robes.

 Oh Sierra Nevda, I have to admit, I've only tried your famous Pale. It's getting warm around here so of course I am starting to chase the powerful banana notes that Longtrail once gave me. I get more clove out of this hefe, but it was still a solid solid hefe.

Pretty Things. If it wasn't for Reddit, I'd probably pass right past you. I was more than interested in Pretty Things as soon as I found out they were operating out of the old Buzzards Bay Brewery. Anything coming out of there will always have a special place in my heart. I spent many a summer going to Westport to fill my growlers with their fresh fresh beer and laying around all day drinking it. Somehow on my quest to like Belgians I've ended up drinking almost nothing but Belgian. I thought Fluffy White Rabbits was a pretty solid tripel.

Rainy Day, Blog Away

So I decided to dedicate a little time on this rainy day off to update my blog and give some progress notes. As you saw in my last post, I've been conditioning half of my stout in a cooler with a hot jug of water. I just put a bottle I was conditioning in my basement at room temp in the fridge to try out tomorrow.

I unfortunately didn't pick up any new brews today, but I have about 4 of them to put up from the past week or  so.  So here is my stout after about 10 days of conditioning:

head on stout after 10 days

Head on wheat after 7 days

 Just based off this comparison, using corn sugar and monitoring temperature a bit better, there is such a huge difference. I also noted that the initial bitterness when first tested the beer before bottling was almost entirely gone. I'm still tasting some green, so I'll be letting it sit.

I'm still waiting for my first break through batch, that batch you can sit back and enjoy and go "oh man, this is amazing"  When will my break through be?