Doppel_Entendre
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2019
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- 3
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Howdie, I once had an account on this site, back in 09' but that handle is lost to me. I took a long time off brewing.
I am here to learn. I am not new to brewing but in the past I have relied too much on creativity and intuition which are both positive traits but have previously made me lazy. Before my break from brewing I was selling my beer, -more or less- legally and was beginning to make some progress towards taking my hobby commercial. A brewery in AZ was seriously discussing a collaboration with me and my partner after trying something we called Bernie Mack Ginger Black, a lightly gingered, robust porter that we presented at just the right time of year for its mile wide flavor profile to cozy up against a perfect backdrop of dry desert chill. Before this I almost took home the fair day goose in a tournament that Samual Adams held to find them a new recipe and though I did not win, the staff took the time to write me a very kind and enthusiastic letter about my beer and assigned me a very high judgment. That beer was far too boozy and eclectic to ever carry their label, I knew that going into it but I just happened to have a bottle lying around when I went to mail them my serious submission, an IPA (that ironically they didn't much care for). I would sell my beer by the batch. This never covered my income but it more than paid for continuing to brew often and gave us just enough money to start the company...that then ran headlong in to a quarter million dollar licensing fee. We were in our early 20's, no one was going to give us that sort of money. That was it, I went off to school and forgot all about beer...
Last year I bought a house. To my delight my neighbor is about my age. To my further delight I learned that he was a green horned, fledgling brewer. Because it seemed written in the stars, I started brewing again. Right off the bat, my old knack for profile paid out and the first beer we did together was fantastic. It was the first time that my neighbor was ever able to make a beer that really shone bright and I was happy to put up a good early showing. However, my next beer with him was a lager. I did a lager because I wanted to challenge myself. I have a hard time with them. This was no different. I ran in to enormous difficulties with this lager. We could not get the yeast to kick off, my mash temperatures went wild and pulled tannins, a ton of color and far too much starch out of our grains. Our final product is too dark and too boozy for a Vienna lager. My hops also fell short on the bittering side and the beer as of now (not quite done with secondary) is not bitter enough. The other day we made an ESB. To my chagrin, my 3 read hydrometer is showing a potential alcohol of over 8%, wildly high for an ESB. I think I miscalculated when determining how much extract to use in place of grain for part of the recipe. What mistakes I have made I made in ignorance. I feel like I've demonstrated good intuition for recipe but that skill is useless if I don't know everything else there is to know about brewing. And so I am here. I hope to learn, connect with other brewers and share my own success whenever I have some.
I am here to learn. I am not new to brewing but in the past I have relied too much on creativity and intuition which are both positive traits but have previously made me lazy. Before my break from brewing I was selling my beer, -more or less- legally and was beginning to make some progress towards taking my hobby commercial. A brewery in AZ was seriously discussing a collaboration with me and my partner after trying something we called Bernie Mack Ginger Black, a lightly gingered, robust porter that we presented at just the right time of year for its mile wide flavor profile to cozy up against a perfect backdrop of dry desert chill. Before this I almost took home the fair day goose in a tournament that Samual Adams held to find them a new recipe and though I did not win, the staff took the time to write me a very kind and enthusiastic letter about my beer and assigned me a very high judgment. That beer was far too boozy and eclectic to ever carry their label, I knew that going into it but I just happened to have a bottle lying around when I went to mail them my serious submission, an IPA (that ironically they didn't much care for). I would sell my beer by the batch. This never covered my income but it more than paid for continuing to brew often and gave us just enough money to start the company...that then ran headlong in to a quarter million dollar licensing fee. We were in our early 20's, no one was going to give us that sort of money. That was it, I went off to school and forgot all about beer...
Last year I bought a house. To my delight my neighbor is about my age. To my further delight I learned that he was a green horned, fledgling brewer. Because it seemed written in the stars, I started brewing again. Right off the bat, my old knack for profile paid out and the first beer we did together was fantastic. It was the first time that my neighbor was ever able to make a beer that really shone bright and I was happy to put up a good early showing. However, my next beer with him was a lager. I did a lager because I wanted to challenge myself. I have a hard time with them. This was no different. I ran in to enormous difficulties with this lager. We could not get the yeast to kick off, my mash temperatures went wild and pulled tannins, a ton of color and far too much starch out of our grains. Our final product is too dark and too boozy for a Vienna lager. My hops also fell short on the bittering side and the beer as of now (not quite done with secondary) is not bitter enough. The other day we made an ESB. To my chagrin, my 3 read hydrometer is showing a potential alcohol of over 8%, wildly high for an ESB. I think I miscalculated when determining how much extract to use in place of grain for part of the recipe. What mistakes I have made I made in ignorance. I feel like I've demonstrated good intuition for recipe but that skill is useless if I don't know everything else there is to know about brewing. And so I am here. I hope to learn, connect with other brewers and share my own success whenever I have some.
