Yard City Brewing

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

Tonight I'm tasting my friend Zach W.'s 2 year old Imperial Stout.

Pours bright.  Deep garnet.  Doesn't look too heavy or viscous.  Some heading with some lacing.  Nice medium, medium low carbonation with some creamyness.   Great rich aroma.  Aroma has some bittersweet chocolate, plenty of tobacco, and something that reminds me of black cherry.  Also some creaminess in the nose.  Body is medium.  A little leaner than I was expecting, but not light.  Palette has some bittersweet chocolate.  It's tangy, somewhat light bodied.  Some acidity.  Some hop bitterness that marries well with dark malts.  Developing warming from alcohol.  What keeps me coming back is the lingering darker chocolate bitterness staying on the back of my tongue and marrying with the alcoholic warmth.  Nice Work Z!

Yesterday I bottled my first real sour bier.  In bottling the Yard City Sour red, I chose to blend it with some Mix-a-Lot and a teensy bit o' B5.  Yard City Sour is 2.5 year old sour red produced using Wyeast Lambic Blend with a terminal gravity of 1.006.  Mix-a-lot is a hodge podge blend and feeder that did well at 1.005.  B5 is the  the club Strong Dark Belgian, that is the "Big Beautiful Belgian for the Bourbon Barrel" with a gravity of 1.013.  They were blended as follows for just under 5 gallons total:

1%   B5: for it's woody character & some tannins and the tiny bit of residual sugar.

              It's a 9% abv bier.

8-10%   Mix-a-lot: for complexity to the blend, differing sourness than YCS, & body.

The rest:  Yard City Sour, 'bout 6.7% abv

Bottled with Red Star Champagne and sucrose to about 2.7-2.8 volumes.

I used a 6 gallon carboy in blending.  (I really had to think this out!)  First added B5 and yeast and sugar to carboy.  Racked Mix-a-Lot portion onto that with CO2, and then the YCS with CO2.  Racked the mixture to the bottling bucket.  It looked like it was well mixed.  I hope the blend does well.  I'm thinking it could take several months for the different beers involved to mingle.  Plus, the tiny bit of residual sugar in B5 that will be continue to be fermented will add to it's progression in character over the years.

The Goals in producing beers for the Yard City Cask Festival were:

Low alcohol, quaffable, sessionble beers

Young beers

Priming them in the keg to produce appropriate carbonation

When I made the Mild & first Bitter I could then set the date for the event.  I set it for 3 1/2 weeks out.  Brad had already made his bitter the previous Saturday, making his beer four weeks old before tapped.  Worried about not having enough festival beer, I made yet another bitter only 2 weeks before the event!  (Crazy, I know.)  I'm very happy to report that all the beers were ready with all of the goals achieved.

I used information on priming beer for low carbonation in the keg from multiple sources: Sutula's Mild Ale book, Foster's Pale Ale, and the Tastybrew priming calculator.  I decided to go with priming the kegs at different rates.  Some were 7/8 oz of sucrose, some 1 1/8 ounce, and Brad primed his at 1 ounce.  All were refermented in the keg warm (68-72F), then chilled to celler temperature a few days before dispense.  All primings worked fine.  What I really learned was that, just like a cask coming into a pub celler in London, one needs to actively manage the refermenting beer during this time of conditioning.  I monitered the pressure in the keg with this, bleeding off excess as needed, and comparing with common pressure/temperature/volume charts.

Side spiel about the two stuck mashes I had on the 10th, right here.

W Feb 10, 10

Major Tom Mild

• 12.5#  Baird's Maris Otter
• 1.5#    Castle Kiln Coffee  (180L)
• .25#    Briess C-120
• 1.75 oz.   UK Styrians 5.2% aa  (18 ibus)
• Wyeast 1968 London ESB & 1028 London Ale
• Irish Moss & Wyeast Brewers Choice Yeast Nutrient & 3g CaCl (kettle)

5 gallons H2O @ 152F: 30 minutes, no mashout (ala English Brewers).  Vorlauf & run off.  Such great extraction in the mash that I had to liquor down in the kettle to achieve desired OG.

OG:  1.037

Captain Hastings Bitter

• 13#     Baird's Maris Otter
• 1.25#  Briess C-120
• 3 oz.    UK Styrians 5.2% aa, 75 minutes (31 ibus)
• 1.5 oz. UK Styrians 5.2% aa, K.O.
• Wyeast 1028 London Ale & 1882 Thames Valley II
• Moss, Yeast Nutrient, & 2g CaSO4 (kettle)

5 gallons @ 149F: 30+ minutes, no mashout.  Vorlauf & run off.

OG:   1.039

F Feb 19, 10

Grampa Wigan Bitter

• 13#   Gambrinus Pale Malt
• .75#  Briess C-20
• .25#  Thomas Fawcett & Sons Amber Malt  (50L)
• 1.5 oz.  Weyermann Chocolate Rye  (188-300L)
• 3.25 oz.  Cascade Pellets 5.4% aa, 90 minutes (35 ibus)
• .5 oz.    Cascades, 5 minutes
• 1 oz.     Cascades, K.O.
• Wyeast 1968 & 1098 British Ale
• Moss & Nutrient, no salts (I think) and unfiltered water

5.5+ gallons @ 154: 30 minutes, no mashout.  Vorlauf unt run off.  A speedy 4 hour beer!

OG:  1.039

Pictured is the beer engine that Brad & I put together for our Yard City Cask Festival.  Brad cut mine out and I assembled it and fixed it up real purdy.  His is just a different shape and the important details of the machine (which I'm too lazy to write up) can be found here.  (Note the Rochefort 8 coffee container in background!)

Hand pumps

The Yard City Beer Brewery, in absolutely no conjunction with CAMRA (The Campaign for Real Ale) or the town of Wigan (having the Wigan Beer Festival the very same date!), presents to you a one and only event of monumentis proportions: The Yard City Cask Beer & Real Ale Festival/Party 2010!  (YCCBRAF/P10)  Reserve please! Saturday, the 6th of March.  This in celebration of the great British contribution of the spectacular workings of Real Ale.  (That is, beer receiving it's condition in the vessel from which it is dispensed.)  We hope you join us for the tapping of no less than 3 (and probably no more than 3) English styled beers of modest gravity and full flavoured to the delight of your taste(s).

To this we say... now be on with it!

This is the 3rd installment in our quest for Belgian Pale Ale.  As you may tell from the picture it seems extra pale and not the orange tones as in the last two.  I used about half a percent of Weyermann Carafa in the grist of the previous example, and a darker crystal malt in the first.  I forgot to include Carafa in this bier, thus the Belgian Extra Pale Ale moniker.

BPA III

15#   GW 2-row

2#    Weyermann Vienna

1#    Briess C-20

2 oz   Cascade   6.3% aa  @  90 minutes

2 oz   US Tettnang            @  KO

3/8 oz  Cascade                @  KO

Wyeast 3711 French Saison & 3739 Flanders Golden Ale

Irish Moss & Yeast Nutrient, No salts added

28ish quarts.  Mashed @ 15: 30 minutes, then up to 167.  Ph : 5.1/5.2

OG:  1.051

TG:  3711: 1.008   84.3% AA, 5.73% abv

       3739 : 1.007   86.3% AA, 5.86% abv

The 3739 shows to be a "true top cropper".  It had a giant krausen.  It also proved to be a big attenuator at about 86% in this bier.  Our usual star, the 3711 yeast, produced an unbelivably sluggish ferment.  I recieved both yeasts at the same time.  (I believe they were both stamped September 17th?)  And for some reason that package of 3711 was bunk.  It finished though.  I still have a pack from that lot, but since then Wyeast has offered it up as a product available year around.  Woot!

When I mashed this bier I intended to saccharify at 152F, but I overshot it and rolled with it.  Even at a higher temp, both yeasts attenuated fabulously.  When tasting this bier, I can tell that it has more mouthfeel and viscosity than the previous BPA.  That one I mashed at 152.  This 3711 BEPA is deep gold with a nice white head that produces some lacing.  It's super fruity with big tropical esters, like pineapple.  There's flowery hop, maybe some citrus in the nose and on the palate.  It's pretty balanced and drinkable with some remaining bitterness on the tongue.  I still want it to be a smaller bier, let alone with more color.  I'm shooting for a 5.2% bier next time.  I'll also have the De Koninck yeast, the Schelde, for the next one.