Yard City Brewing

Blackoat Mild

12#  Bairds Maris Otter

1#  Simpsons Golden Naked Oats

1#  Bairds Black Malt

1.75 oz  Styrian Goldings pellets - 5.2%  AA  (90 min)

Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale & 1068 London ESB

Irish Moss & Wyeast Brewer's Choice Yeast Nutrient

4 grams of CaCl in the Mashtun.

Mashed @ 153.

OG : 1.036

TG : 1469 @ 1.009, 75% AA & 3.6% abv, 1968 @ 1.010, 72% AA & 3.5% abv

In this beer I could get a little of the berry fruitiness of the Golden Naked Oats that people had written about- also some oaty, grainy notes.  Some coffee in the nose as well.  Pretty balanced.  I think twice as much of the Golden Naked Oats would've been better.

The 20 : Scottish 60/-

11 3/4#  Baird's Maris Otter

6 oz    Baird's Roast (3%)

1.5 oz  Styrians (5.2% aa) 60 min

Wyeast 1728

Moss & Yst Nutrnt

Salts in Mash Tun : 2g CaCl, 1g CaSO4, 1g CaCO3

Thick mash @ 158.5

OG: 1.031   TG: 1.009  71% aa, 2.9% abv

I love the 2.9% beer.  Biscuity and much fuller in flavour than it's meager gravity would suggest.  A great quaffer.  Next time I might add 1% dark crystal malt.  Maybe.

Dobbie's Best Bitter

15#  Great Western 2-row Brewers Malt

1#  Simpsons Dark Crystal (80L)

6 oz  Crisp Amber Malt

Cascade Hops : 35 IBUs @ 90 min, 1 oz @ 30 min, 1 oz @ KO, 1 oz Dryhop

Wyeast 1026 Cask Ale & 1028 London Ale

Moss, Yst Nutrient, & 4g CaSO4 in Mash Tun

Mash @ 152

OG: 1.047

TG: 1026: 1.011, 76.6% aa & 4.8% abv.   1028: 1.009, 81% aa & 5% abv.

American Pub Beer.  Nicely fruity, citrusy, and piney.  Pleasant and drinkable with some biscuity maltiness and medium body.

THANK YOU SAYS THE YARD!

You the good people of the Puget Sound have stood the Yard on it's head!!  A mesmerizing 10 beers, a smashing 75+ people, and a bewildering 34 gallons of fresh local ale!!   And on top of it, YOU the people, paid for it.  You said, "Yes, I will pay for Yard City Cask Beer & Real Ale Festival 2011, and yes, we will ALSO pay for 2012!"  That's right! You said you want a return of fresh, local beer that has attained it's condition in the keg from which it is dispensed!

Your festival will return!!    Thank you people.  Thank you...  YARD!

Four months after I pitched my starter of Wyeast's Brettanomyces Classenii 5151 on my Jib3 Saison, I deemed it ready for bottling.   In tasting it along the way, I was beginning to think that it would ever come around and taste like something I wanted to bottle.  The problem I had with it was that the amount of bitterness in the base bier didn't marry well with the excessive fruitiness produced by the Brett.

It has a big cidery, fruity, nose.  I love cider, and it smells so cider like that you might be shocked that it tastes like bier.  It has some pineapple, but also plenty of the bretty, horsey, "tacky" aroma that you associate with the other Bretts.  The conflict of fruit and bitterness aren't entirely resolved, but it does seem to have some drinkability.  Brett was added when the gravity was 1.006, and was bottled at 1.002.  Some more residual sugar might've been nice to add to the mix in order to balance the Brett character and bitterness.

N. Hjelte Claussen ran the lab at Carlsberg and gave Brettanomyces it's name.

The relevance I think that my blog has is in putting out information from my experiences with a few ingredients, or styles (i.e. Saison).  I thought I'd tell of my experience with Sorachi Ace.

One time at Cask Fest... (No, really!) I thought I heard someone relevant say that the Elysian Beer (either Hubris IIPA or Prometheus IPA) had Sorachi Ace Hops in it.  I was wrong. (Imagine!?)  Both those biers are "3 C's" beers.  Chinook, Cascade, & Centennial.  The beer in my taster glass had great lemon zest and grapefruit zest aroma in it.  It was pungent.  I'm always looking for the perfect lemony hop to help finish a Saison with.  Thinking this was the hop I'd been searching for,  I purchased a pound of Sorachi Ace pellets from the usual hop peeps.  Ken, the barleywine, was the first beer I chose to use it in, however Ken was a mix of hop varieties and therefore not a pure understanding of the hop.  In Ken, the hop seems to produce an oily lemony character, but again, it's tied up with Citra and Cascade.  This flavor seems to emulate, oddly enough, tannin from new oak.

I made this single hop beer with Sorachi Ace.

Hibachi Extra Pale : 11 gallons

19#  Great Western 2-row
1#    GW Munich
.5#   GW C-40
Sorachi Ace hop pellets - 10.9% AA
1.5 oz @ 90 min ~ 32 IBUs
1 oz @ 10 min ~ 9 IBUs
2.5 oz @ KO
1 oz dry hop per each 5 gallon half for 4 days

Wyeast 1028 London & 1056 American Ale
Irish Moss & Wyeast Yeast Nutrient @ 20 minutes

Mashed @ 152.5 for 60 minutes @ 1.2 q/#
(I think it took longer to convert because of my high pH <5.6?>)

1.053 OG

I believe both yeasts finished @ 1.008.  That's a well attenuated 85% & 6% abv.  Well over what I had wanted, but the beer still tastes like it has enough body to support the amount of hop.  1056 is the winner for the right flavor on this one.  I haven't used it in a long time so it's kind of refreshing to remember how much that yeast pushes hops way out front in a beer.

Sorachi Ace in this bier: resinous, lemony, ripe lemon, "oily", grapefruit, some piney qualities, and has that character I call "green" which is probably just the same as saying resinous or oily.  This is in the aroma. On the palate it seems more piney and I think I'd personally prefer it more if had a little less pine.

Tonight I'm sampling my friend smoga's Dubbel.  This beer won Best Belgian Ale Novembeer fest here in the Puget Sound.  Thanks for the bottle.

Steve's Dubbel pours with medium carbonation producing a nice off white head of foam.  Head stays as lacing throughout.  Beer is bright with a handsome medium copper coloring.  First aroma is of subtle spice, develops to light phenols.  There is plum in the nose as well as some light ripe banana or bubblegum, but spice seems more present.  Also some faint toasty malt.  The palate has plum character, some light acidity and yeasty bready tones, and some grainy and toasted malt character.  It all seems to lead to a balanced, pleasant finish with light bitterness and lingering malt.  Some alcohol warmth also emerges, but this bier isn't boozy at all.   Over all, a well balanced, subtle and somewhat complex example of the style.  A great sipper.  This subtle quality is present in all it's parts and makes it a winner.  I only want a tad bit more carbonation and, of course, a few more bottles of it...

It's a story of an American Barleywine. In a previous post, I told of my reason why I wanted to create a giant hoppy Barleywine. The Thames Valley II  yeast inspired me. I formulated this based on the amount of malt I thought I wanted to cram into my mashtun. I scaled back my hop addtions down to 4 in the kettle, plus dryhopping I'll do in secondary. I ended up with about 8 gallons in the kettle and 7 in the fermenters.

Ken

31# mix of Great Western 2-row & Gambrinus Pale Malt

1# Weyermann Carafoam

1# Simpson's Extra Dark Crystal (160L)

90 min: 2 oz. Nugget 12.1% aa, 2 oz. Soriachi Ace 10.9% aa (80 ibus)

30 min: 1 oz. Styrians 5.2% aa (6.5 ibus)

5 min: 1 oz. Styrians 5.2% aa, 1 oz. Cascade 5.4% aa

K.O.: 1 oz. each Styrians, Cascade, Citra @ 11.1% aa, and Soriachi Ace

Yeasts were 12 ounces of 1098 slurry & something like 6-8 ounces of 1882 slurry that I made a 1.040 starter for. Adjusted grav with starter is about 1.098 for that half of the batch.

Wyeast Brewer's Choice Yeast Nutrient^TM and Irish Moss were used as usual.

I saccharified at 150F for more than an hour, sparged, and stopped runnings when I had a kettle gravity of something like 1.082 or so. I boiled 15 minutes before I added the 90 minute hop addition. Gravity was still comin' out in the 1.040s, so I improvised a small bier. I ended up with 2.5 gallons of 1.048 small bier. Pretty big small bier! Medium bier?? With two additions of Soriachi Ace, I think it'll be fairly hoppy. I've primed that one in the keg.

I ran the ferment in the low 70's and left it in primary for 3 weeks because I was hoping for more attenuation. I split it favoring the 1882 with 4 gallons and 1098 has about 2.5ish.

1098: 1.102 to 1.028, for 73.5% aa & 9.9% abv

1882: 1.098 to 1.025, for 73.5% aa & 9.6% abv

I think those are the numbers anyway. I keep threatening to get a lab grade hydrometer. If there were to be a next time I'd skip the Carafoam and try to mash at 147F. It tastes really good though. Pretty hoppy and the nose is great, best from the 1882 half. Malt is great. It definitely tastes like an American Barleywine even if it is a little on the sticky side. It should age well though. I'll be dryhopping it in the last 10 days of it's existence in secondary with 1/2 ounce of each of the four finishing varieties, that is a 1/2 ounce each in both halves. That'll bring the total to nearly 1 pound of hops used for the entire batch.

A beer I made with Wyeast 1882 Thames Valley II.  I'm pitching the yeast from this ferment on a hoppy Barleywine.

Neville Premium Bitter (11 gallons)

14.25#     Gambrinus Pale Malt

.25#         Crisp Amber Malt  (27L)

1.5#         Simpsons Extra Dark Crystal  (160L)

90 minute hop addition:  1.5 oz Cascade @ 5.4% AA

& 2 oz Styrians @ 5.2% AA  (35 ibus)

KO hop addition of:  1.5 oz Styrians, 1 oz Cascade, and .5 oz of Citra @ 11.1% AA

Single infusion @ 153F for 30 minutes, vorlauf, run off with no mashout.

OG: 1.042  TG: 1.011  74% aa & 4.1% abv

First pour, 2 weeks young was creamy and malty, not as hoppy as I'd have thought, but a nice developing bitterness on the back of the tongue.  Some fruit esters, nice body and balance.  Pretty freakin' clean and malty.  Lightly biscuity.  Definitely at the dark end of the spectrum @ 14ish SRM.  I like the Simpsons Extra Dark.  At 9% of the grist there was a lot of color, but the dark carmel quality didn't seem over done.  It provided some dark fruit qualities to the malt character.  I also used it in the sour red that I made this year.  Oddly, the Citra seemed slightly present until the last gallon in the keg.  Then it suddenly became greatly pronounced as ripe red grapefruit.  Weird.

Next half I dry hopped and primed in the keg.  I used only a half ounce each of Cascade and Soriachi Ace.  The added aroma was a nice addition.  Some citrus, but mostly earthy and resinous.  It has all somehow remained very balanced.  Good beer even though it wasn't what I had in my head.

...of seeing a whole lotta nothing on this blog!  So I have to write something, no matter how insignificant.  Jib finished at 1.005 from 1.049 for about 90% apparent attenuation and 5.8% abv.  It's still in the secondary fermentor waiting to be bottled.  The other half of that batch was infected with my Clausenii starter and it's worked and still is workin'.  Makin' bubbles and tropical smells out the airlock.  Sweet.

I've been liking the hops more lately.  (Odd?)  When I smelled the esters of the Wyeast Thames Valley II a great while back, one word flashed in my head, "Barleywine!"  Whaa!?  Do you even LIKE Barleywine!!?  Well, I like a few.  Big Time Old Wooly to name one.  It won me over to the American style with it's grapefruity hops.  So far, Thames II has some nice apricot, peach, or other stone fruit esters.  I thought it could meld well with some american hop charactor.  We'll see.

A Saison for Big Brew 2010.  And I haven't made a Saison for more than a year so it was about time, I suppose.  I've always wanted to use triticale which is the wheat/rye hybrid so I incorporated it in at 10%.  I found it in flaked form at Fred Meyer.  Conversion was slow.  I opted to not do a protein rest because Triticale was flaked and also cause I was lazy.  Apparently, the triticale still had plenty of starch and therefore took longer to convert.  There might even be some unconverted starch in there... oops.  I plan to pitch my Brett. Clausenii starter on half of the batch as I rack it to secondary.  (I'm sure it'll love any extra starch.)  I formulated for 1.052, but I liquored down the wort pre boil, and a little too much...

Son of a Jib

17.5#       Gambrinus Pale Malt
2#            Flaked Triticale
1 oz.         Yakima Magnum - 14.4% aa  (28 ibus)  90 min.
1 oz.         UK Styrian Goldings - 5.2%      KO
1 oz.         French Strisselspalt -   2.9%      KO
.5 oz.        Citra                - 11.1%          KO

Moss & Wyeast Brewers Choice Yeast Nutrient
Wyeast 3711  French Saison starter

Mashed with 5 gallons of liquor @ 150F

OG:  1.049