Ordinary Bitter

Last Saturday was brew day for me. I finally got around to a style I've been meaning to brew since August, the Ordinary Bitter.

Here is what the bjcp has to say about the ordinary bitter:

Medium to high bitterness. Most have moderately low to moderately high
fruity esters. Moderate to low hop flavor (earthy, resiny, and/or floral UK
varieties typically, although US varieties may be used). Low to medium maltiness
with a dry finish. Caramel flavors are common but not required. Balance is often
decidedly bitter, although the bitterness should not completely overpower the
malt flavor, esters and hop flavor. Generally no diacetyl, although very low
levels are allowed.

I went with a pretty basic recipe for this. Nothing fancy, for a 6 gallon batch at 70%:

• 7.00 lb Maris Otter
• 1.30 lb Crystal 15L
• 1.00 lb Victory Malt
• .85 oz Northern Brewer [8.50%] (90 min)
• .75 oz East Kent Goldings [4.00%] (30 min)
• .60 oz East Kent Goldings [4.00%] (0 min)
• 1 whirlfloc (10 min)
• 2 liter starter of WLP005 British Ale

Estimated OG: 1.040
IBUs: 31.6
Color: 7.7 SRM
BU:GU ratio: 0.787

I mashed at 154° for 60 mins and boiled for 90 mins.

The 2 liter starter was probably overkill for a beer this small, but I bought the yeast back in July so I wanted to make sure I had a good supply of viable yeast.

I'm sure I did now, because I went from 1.039 to 1.011 in 48 hours. I checked on it Monday night and was surprised that the Krausen had fallen already and the yeast had dropped out. I thiefed a sample and got the 1.011 reading. Not bad!

I'm going to leave it a couple of days more, then rack to a keg with a half ounce of east kent goldings to give it a little more aroma.

Should be ready to drink next week!

California Common

I brewed up a california common back in August. A california common is the proper name for what is also known as steam beer.

Steam beer was a beer originally produced in California around the turn of the century. German immigrants to the bay area setup breweries to supply beer to all the local workers. Germans have a long lagering tradition and would naturally try to apply their lager knowledge to the new beer they were producing on the west coast.

Unfortunately, there were no cool, damp caves as in Germany, nor was there any readily available source of ice to keep the beer cold. So, they did the best they could and produced lager beer at moderate temperatures (60-65°) instead of the cooler temperatures a lager would normally require (40-50°).

The result was steam beer, now known as the California Common.

My California Common turned out well. It took a long time to fully ferment, nearly a month in the primary. It has now been in a keg at cold temps for another month and is quite tasty. It has a nice creamy character and clean finish. The Northern Brewer hops that are the trademark of this style give this beer a slightly odd 'spicy' taste. So it's initially a surprising taste, but it grows on you.

Schwarzbier

Yesterday was not the best brew day I ever had. I was creating a schwarzbier and was pretty excited about it. I started to mill my grains but my Barley Crusher kept binding up. The roller that spins free was completely stuck. I had to take the whole thing apart, clean it and put it back together. That got me through about 5 more pounds before I had to break it down again.

Well, I got through that, got all my grains crushed and was ready to dough in. I added the grains to the water and was thinking to myself that it looked awfully runny. But I figured Beersmith has always figured mash volumes correctly, so I went with it. After starting the mash I went to double check the volumes and realized that Beersmith had indeed calculated them correctly, but I was reading them off the wrong recipe. D'oh!

I decided to just continue on. I figured there was nothing to be done now. I headed out to grab some breakfast while the grains were mashing and realized my car had been broken into. Fantastic! It took me a good hour or more to get that dealt with (calling police, cancelling a credit card that was stolen, etc) and by the time I got back to the beer, it had been mashing for 2 hours. Oops.

Oh well, I drained the mash tun, sparged and soldiered on. Started the boil, turned my back for a second and had my first ever boil over. yay!

I finally got it finished and into the carboy. Ended up overshooting my target OG by 6 points. 1.059 instead of 1.053. Guess that one will be a little stronger than intended.

Still it had a beautiful color and smelled fantastic. I fed it a healthy slurry of German Bock yeast and hopefully will soon have 5 gallons of delicious beer!

I hope you like fruit!

I brewed what should have been a very nice Irish Red a while back. The grain bill looks good, the hopping seemed right, but the one unknown was the yeast. White Labs WLP004 Irish Ale yeast. It's an Irish beer, so Irish Ale yeast should be just the ticket, right? Wrong! This yeast produced a host of fruity flavors in the beer. It completely upsets the balance and makes the beer hard to drink.

I'm disappointed, but I'm not going to give up so easily. I'm going to brew the same recipe again, but substitute either a clean Ale yeast or a clean lager yeast. There is a good beer hiding in this recipe. I'll find it yet.