Thursday, October 6, 2011

Dr. Strangebrew or: How I Learned to Stop Watching ESPN and Stir the Pot

In the spring the law school has its annual raffle to raise money for student funded fellowships, and this last year I volunteered to brew a batch of beer. The high bidder (winner isn't the word I'd use) chose a German brown, which was a first for me, but the style wasn't all that different from a porter I'd made a few years earlier. After hopping I performed the following steps:

1. Left the pot to watch college basketball.
2. Watched the pot volcano into a steady flow of brown hopped magma.
3. Removed said pot from the burner.
4. Rushed to the brew store to buy some replacement hops.
5. Ignored the actual label and grabbed 2 oz of Chinook.
6. Transformed a jolly Bavarian accordionist into an angry Arrogant Bastard-ish warrior.

I kid, it wasn't that strong, as I keep my boiling batch size on the small end. I ended up brewing him a different batch, and keeping half for myself, which has mellowed out in recent weeks. Here's the recipe:

Grains
1 pound chocolate malt
1 pound toasted rye

Extracts
7 pounds amber liquid malt extract
2 pounds amber dry malt extract

Hops
1 oz Hallertau (60 min) *remove by boiling over and caking onto stove
2 oz Chinook (60 min) *the mistake
1 oz Willamette (15 min)

Yeast
German Ale yeast

No real clues on what to call it, except you can't drink it very quickly and girls don't even pretend to like it. Dark IPA?

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