Tuesday, April 27, 2010

A Lull

I am having a bit of a pause in my brewing, but only for a month or so. I am moving in the next few days, which means a few different things as far as my brewing is concerned. 1. My brewing has paused, as I have mentioned, in order to move more easily (brewing will probably resume in a week or so). 2. West L.A.B. will be no more (I won't be living on West Linden Ave. anymore) . 3. I hope to increase my production some. I will have much more space for both brewing and storage. I am working on upping my refrigeration capacity, so if anyone has a source for good, cheap refrigeration appliances, let me know.

Earlier this month, I did a friend a favor and brewed two batches of beer for his grand opening party. I brewed a Chocolate Milk Stout (using chocolate nubs from Scott at the Olive and Sinclair Chocolate Company ) and my typical Special Bitter. The bitter tasted about like usual, but maybe a little lighter. I think that was due to using a different source for my Maris Otter base malt. The Chocolate Milk Stout was pretty phenomenal, if I do say so myself. I look forward to brewing that one again, hopefully sooner than later.

With that event taking up my kegs, I am pretty light on beer right now. I did brew a standard bitter before the party, though, so I wouldn't be completely dry. It is based off of my Special Bitter, but is attempt at a more session-able beer. I like the results, but I am not satisfied with them. That recipe will require some tweaking. So that's what I currently have.

On another note, one of the beer blogs I read regularly is by a fellow named Ron Pattinson, who is a beer historian and tends to write alot about beer history and old beer recipes and beer numbers and many things that are often dry, but he tends to give an entertaining slant. Ron also posts (usually-) weekly recipes from the early days of European (and mainly British) brewing. There also happens to be a brewery up in Massachusetts called Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project. These two came together to re-produce (as in produce again) a beer based back in 1832.



The beer is called a Mild Ale. It is not a dark-colored mild that most people know a mild to be today. This is a caramel/amber colored beer that really tastes more like an imperial ESB (if that makes any sense ). Well, I managed to get a hold of a couple of bottles of the beer through a friend coming to Nashville from Mass. a few weeks ago. Tonight I finally opened the first of the two, and it was very interesting and quite enjoyable. I plan to hold onto the other bottle for a while to see what aging does to it. I also intend to track down a homebrew-quantity version of the recipe and attempt brewing it myself. Well worth learning some brewing tips from the early 19th century.

Cheers!