While December is the perfect time to pour a dark, big beer--porters, stouts, barley wines, heavy browns--it's hardly the time to be brewing them, at least when the basement hovers around 50 degrees. I typically stray away from most lagers, which uses yeast that needs to ferment at lower temperatures. Dopplebocks can cause me to turn my head and tip my glass, but I would rather have an ale than most maibocks, Octoberfests and of course American lagers.
I had to swallow hard to face the fact that Tony's basement is under a constant chill and perfect for lagers. So we brewed our first ones last week: a Pilsner Urquell clone, which uses nothing but Saaz hops; and a lager using dry yeast, and Pride of Ringwood and centennial hops. It should be duly noted that centennial are typically used in West Coast IPAs, so we'll see what happens. Similarly, we just bottled an ale using mainly Saaz. Ya gotta experiment to learn, even if it results in a beer that's better as a marinade.
About 6 months ago, on a hot and sweaty July day, we brewed a double IPA and a barleywine. The double IPA is sadly about gone, but we're just now cracking into the barleywine. It's full of caramel and pipe tobacco, balanced with a slight bite of green apple.
Hahahaha, at about 10%, please ignore that last sentence. It's just fuckin' good.
Final note: I've been spending a lot of time blogging over at MnBeer.com, so please check 'em out if you haven't already.
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2 comments:
Those beers sound good!
I've been toying with the idea of doing an IPA with lager yeast... so many ideas, so little time!
Eric, your comments on lagers echo my feelings. Let me know how the clone turns out, though.
Ryan, if your Frankenstein beer ends up destroying a village, don't say you weren't warned.
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