13E - American Stout

Info:

• Brewer: Chris
• Mash: mini-mash
  
• Date: 9/26/2009
• Size: 5.75 gallon at pitching

Discussion:

• Simple stout recipe with American hops
• I added an ounce and a half of malt I got at the Guinness brewery last year
  

Grain Bill:

• 2lb Gambrinus organic pilsen malt
  
• 1lb roasted barley
• 8oz oats
  
• 6.3oz chocolate malt
• 4oz 40L
• 5lb light extract (in boil)
  

Yeast:

• Wyeast 1084 - Irish Ale
  

The Mini-Mash:

• infuse to 152F, hold for 60 minutes
  
• sparge and collect wort

The Boil (90 minutes):

• 5lb light extract @ start of boil
• 2.0oz Willamette (homegrown) @ 60
• 2.3oz Willamette (homegrown) @ 15
• Irish moss @ 15
• 0.5oz Cascade (5.5%) @ 5
  
• Total: 45 IBU (ish)
  

The Finish:

• OG: 1.060

10A - Fresh Hop Imperial American Pale Ale

Info:

• Brewer: Chris
• Mash: single infusion
  
• Date: 9/6/2009
• Size: 7.75 gallon at pitching

Discussion:

• Thanks to Hop Union and a drive to Yakima, I've got 6 pounds of fresh Cascade :)
• The idea is an imperial pale ale, clean malt with lots of hop flavor and aroma but not overly bitter.
• Hops loss from the hops is crazy! Even wet, they soaked up a quart per pound.
  

Grain Bill:

• 14.5lb Gambrinus organic pale malt
• 2lb Weyermann Munich type I
  
• 1lb red wheat malt
• 8oz 40L
• 2lb of fresh Cascade
• 8oz corn sugar (in boil)
  

Yeast:

• Safale US-05
  

The Mash:

• raise to 151F, hold for 60 minutes
  
• mash out to 170F, hold for 10 minutes
  
• sparge and collect wort

The Boil (90 minutes):

• 1.0lb Cascade (fresh) @ 15
• 1.0lb Cascade (fresh) @ 10
  
• 1.0lb Cascade (fresh) @ 5
  
• 1.0lb Cascade (fresh) @ lights out
  
• Total: 100 IBU (ish)
  

The Finish:

• OG: 1.062

4 pounds of Cascade post-boil in the keggle

Harvest time!

It's harvest time and that can only mean one thing... mega fresh hop brews! As the hops trickle in over the next few weeks we'll be posting some recipes including a dark IPA fermented with lager yeast, a couple of Belgian recipes, and, of course, more renditions of the classic Northwest hop bomb.

Don't forget to look out for these fun fall projects:

• honey - for mead (honey wine), of which there are many many types, can also be used in beer
  
• cider - straight up or fermented, use a clean ale yeast and give it lots of staged nutrient additions to ward off sulfur
  
• grapes - for wine of course! check out local vineyards to source fruit, look for a Brix of at least 24
• wild berries - you can ferment almost anything, just treat them like wine grapes
• pickles - late in the season, but good cukes are still available
• pickled peppers/garlic/etc - the name says it all, pickle whatever you can find
  

22B - Imperial Smoked Porter

Info:

• Brewer: Chris
• Mash: infusion
  
• Date: 6/30/2008
• Size: 10.25 gallon post-boil

Notes:

• Similar to the smoked porter I brewed in December, except I stepped up the IBUs and added some Munich. This one is going to have some zing in it because of a healthy dose of Zeus.
  

Grain Bill:

• 22lb Gambrinus organic pale malt
• 1lb 6oz 60L crystal malt
• 3.5lb chocolate malt 350L
  
• 1lb German rauch malt
• 1lb Weyermann Munich type I
  

Yeast:

• Wyeast 1098 - British Ale

The Mash:

• dough in to 154F
• rest 60 minutes
• sparge with 180F
• collect 12 gallons
  

The Boil (90 minutes):

• 2.0oz Zeus (16.4%) @ 60
  
• teaspoon of Irish moss @ 15
  
• 1.5oz Mt Hood (5.0%) @ 10
  
• Total: 50 IBU(ish)

The Finish:

• OG: 1.072
  

14C - Hophead Imperial IPA

Info:

• Brewer: Chris
• Mash: single infusion
  
• Date: 6/13/2009
• Size: 5.25 gallon post-boil

Grain Bill:

• 16lb Gambrinus organic pale malt
• 10oz Briess crystal 40L
• 8oz CaraPils
  
• 4oz Belgian Special B
• 1lb 8oz sucrose
  

Yeast:

• Fermentis SafAle US-05
  

Misc:

• small amounts of gypsum, baking soda, and salt to the mash water
  
• yeast nutrient
  
• Irish moss
  

The Mash:

• mash at 151F, hold for 60 minutes
  
• mash out to 170F, hold for 10 minutes
  
• sparge with 170F, collect 7.5 gallons

The Boil (90 minutes):

• 2.0oz Zeus (16.4%) @ 70
• 0.5oz Centennial (9.7%) @ 20
• 1.0oz Cascade (4.5%) @ 15
• Irish moss @ 15
  
• 0.75oz Amarillo (5.0%) @ 10
• 0.7oz Summit (18.1%) @ 10
• 0.75oz Amarillo (5.0%) @ 5
  
• 0.5oz Cascade (4.5%) @ 5
• 0.7oz Summit (18.1%) @ 1
• sucrose @ 1
• Total: 127 IBU(ish)

The Finish:

• OG: 1.100 (it's imperial, right?)
  

Dry Hops:

• 1.0oz Amarillo (5.0%)
  
• 0.5oz Cascade (4.5%)
  
• 0.5oz Centennial (9.7%)
• dry hops will be blended together and sit for 5 days in secondary
  

18D - Belgian Golden Strong Ale

Info:

• Brewer: Chris
• Mash: single infusion
  
• Date: 6/12/2009
• Size: 5.5 gallon post-boil

Grain Bill:

• 15lb Gambrinus organic pilsner malt
• 8oz Briess CaraPils
  
• 2oz Belgian Special B
• 2.5lb sucrose
  

Yeast:

• Fermentis SafBrew T-58

Misc:

• 2 tsp gypsum added to water at dough in
• a pinch of salt added to water at dough in
• these were done to adjust the pH and general water conditions because my water supply is on the soft side
  

The Mash:

• dough in to 120, hold for 20 minutes
• raise by infusion to 153D, hold for 60 minutes
  
• raise by infusion to 170F, hold for 10 minutes
  
• sparge with 170F, collect 7.25 gallons
• Pre-boil gravity: 1.060
  

The Boil (90 minutes):

• 0.5oz Zeus (16.4%) @ 70
  
• Irish moss @ 15
  
• 1.0oz Mt Hood (4.4%) @ 10
• sucrose @ 5
  
• 1.0oz Mt Hood (4.4%) @ 1
• Total: 30 IBU(ish)

The Finish:

• OG: 1.093

10A - Yet Another American Pale Ale

Info:

• Brewer: Chris
• Mash: single infusion
  
• Date: 5/25/2009
• Size: 9.5 gallon post-boil
• The new twist here is the use of Gambrinus organic pilsner in place of Briess organic 2-row. The kernel size was a bit smaller, so I had to adjust my mill (a Crankandstein 3D). We'll see how the change in base malt pans out...
  

Grain Bill:

• 17lb Gambrinus organic pilsner malt
• 14oz Briess 60L

Yeast:

• Wyeast 1056, made up into a healthy starter
  

The Mash:

• mash at 151F, hold for 60 minutes
  
• mash out to 171F, hold for 10 minutes
  
• sparge with 171F, collect 11 gallons (ymmv - I add the last gallon or two start to the kettle, as I'm of the opinion that over-sparging leads to astringency issues, which is a serious flaw when making a pale ale.)
  

The Boil (90 minutes):

• 1.75oz Centennial (9.7aau) @ 60
  
• forgot the Irish moss @ 15, d'oh!
  
• 1.5oz Cascade (4.0aau) @ 15
• 0.75oz Centennial (9.7aau) @ 10
• 0.5oz Cascade (4.0aau) @ 5
  
• Total: 49 IBU(ish)

The Finish:

• OG: 1.050

Dry Hops:

• 0.5oz Cascade (4.0aau) at end of secondary
  
• 1.0oz Centennial (9.7aau) in a quick tertiary
  

11B - Nutty Man Brown Ale

Repeat of last years batch. Was great last time, should be great again.
Info:

• Brewer: Cindy (to shy to post, or maybe just to busy with that beer?!?!)
  
• Mash: Steep and Extract
  
• Date: 04/11/2008
• Size: 5 gallons post-boil

Ingredients:

• 4 lbs Extra Light DME
• 1 lb Crystal 80 L
• 10 oz Crystal 120 L
• .5 lb Special Roast
• 4 oz Chocolate Malt
• 3 oz Crystal 40
• 4 oz Carafa II
• .8 oz US Goldings
• Nottingham Dry Yeast

Process

• Stepped grains for 45 minutes at 150 degrees F.
• Added DME, hops.
  
• Boiled 60 min.
• Pitched yeast starter.
  
• Fermenting in the house at around 68 degrees F.
• To easy, to tasty!
  

OG: 1.045 (recipe has said 1.041). Slightly high for style.
Color: recipe said would be 26 SRM. Very dark - almost purple.
IBU: 17
FG: 1.011, right on the low end of style. Could maybe raise the steep temperature a smidge to help that.

10A - American Pale Ale

Based off of Chris's excellent brew from last year. I'm making this for a wedding, so in interest of being a little more broadly appealling I've cut the hops a tiny smidge (not to say Chris's was over hopped, it was perfect in my opinion, but brew to your audience..)

Info:

• Brewer: Ryan
• Mash: single infusion
  
• Date: 4/11/2009
• Size: 7 gallon post-boil

Grain Bill:

• 13.5lb Gambrinus 2-row malt
• 0.6lb Briess 40L crystal
• 0.2lb Briess 80L crystal (40/80L split based on "what you got it what you brew" - I didn't have any 60L on hand)
  

Yeast:

• Safale US-05

The Mash:

• start
• 20qt @ 170F (1.4qts/lb)
  
• settles @ 151
  
• rest 75 minutes
  
• mash out
• 8.6qt @ 212F (0.6qts/lb)
  
• settles @ 171
• rest 15 minutes
  
• sparge
• 20qt @ 171F

The Boil (90 minutes):

• 1.4oz Centennial (9.7aau) @ 60
• teaspoon of Irish moss @ 15
  
• 1.4oz Cascade (4.0aau) @ 15
• 0.7oz Cascade (4.0aau) @ 5
  
• Total: 45 IBU(ish)

The Finish:

• OG: 1.056 (its good to be a gangsta)

Dry hopping schedule is based on conversation with Chris about what really happened...

• To be dry hopped with 0.5oz Cascade (4.0aau) in secondary - 5 days (then remove)
  
• To be dry hopped with 0.5oz Centennial (9.7aau) in secondary - 5 days, after Cascade removal, then immediately bottle.
  

16A Half Wit White Ale

WitBier (1D)

Working on "simplifying" the american adjunct mash. Instead of doing a full adjunct mash, I "just" pre-boiled the wheat and oats and added them to the main mash (which was resting at 113F) to bring up to mash.

This theory was pretty much a total failure, its definitely not easier and efficiency was in the toilet (1.042 vs 1.052 with same ingredients). The little mash rest for the adjunct part of the mash in the american adjunct style pash breaks down a lot of the simple starches. Without that, they tend to form a spetzle like noodle that will congeal to bottom of the kettle you are using to gelatenize them in. Don't use this recipe, unless you just like screwing around and don't care how it turns out. The american adjunct mash method is superior in pretty much every way. We'll try another theory next year and drink our sorrows in the meantime.

Info:

• Brewer: Ryan
• Mash: pre-geletanize and add in mash (yes I'm totally making this shit up, but my temperature-volume calculations at least worked almost perfectly with mixed water and grain, and I did those by HAND, like we had to in the old days, so there!).
  
• Date: 04/11/2008
• Size: 5 gallons post-boil
  

Grain Bill:

• Adjunct Boil
  
• 3.0lb unmalted wheat (ground to coarse grist in my hand flour mill)
• 1.0lb rolled quick oats

• Malt Mash
• 2.5lb 2 row pale
  
• 3.0lb 2 row weyerman pilsner
• (if you have any 6 row, now would be a good time to use a pound, I didn't have any)
• 1.0lb munich
• 1.0lb rice hulls
  

Yeast:

• Safbrew WB-06 dry wheat yeast

The Mash:

• Add 8 qts/lb at 161F to adjunct target 148-150F, rest 20 minutes
• Start main mash, qts/lb @126F target 113F, rest 30m while adjunct boils
• Bring adjuncts to boil, stir constantly (it will help, not as much as you'd like, but some). The boiling glue will slowly thicken, adding two more quarts of hot water during the boil will keep it from sticking solid.
  
• Add adjunct back to main mash - target 154F, will likely need ~1-2qts of 212 to bring to temp.
• Rest (planned 50 minutes, actual 75 minutes - this is converting like crap)
• sparge at 180F.
• Yes its a sticky mess, and go ahead and start scrubbing the mash boil pot now... I hope it wasn't your good pot (I have several crappy ones - and I used one of those, whew!)
• Ended running off 6.2-6.3 gallons, gravity didn't drop very fast and it kept sticking. A batch sparge might work better here.
  

The Boil (90 minutes):

• 20 minutes naked boil (the wort not the players)
  
• 1.2 oz Mt Hood (4.1aau) @ 60
• 0.5oz Mt Hood (4.1aau) @ 5
• peel from two mandarin oranges, .5 oz crushed coriander and the "mystery spice" (red peppercorns .2 oz) crushed and added @ 5 (left in primary)
  
• Total: 20 IBU

The Pitch:
OG: 1.042

16A Wit Guy White Ale

WitBier (1D)
Based on from "Wit Guy White Ale" from "Radical Brewing" Mosher.

Yep, I'm doing it again, this is one tasty beer and is likely (in some form at least) to form a regular part of my yearly schedule.

Info:

• Brewer: Ryan
• Mash: 2 part adjunct mash
• Date: 04/04/2008
• Size: 5 gallons post-boil
  

Grain Bill:

• Adjunct Mash
  
• 3.0lb unmalted wheat (ground to coarse grist in my hand flour mill)
  
• 2.5lb 2 row pale
• 1.0lb rolled quick oats

• Malt Mash
• 3.0lb 2 row weyerman pilsner
• 1.0lb munich
• 1.0lb rice hulls
  

Yeast:

• Safbrew WB-06 dry wheat yeast

The Mash:

Mash schedule based on "Adjunct Mash Procedure" in "Radical Brewing" by Randy Mosher

I was going to try and explain the mash, but decided that it was easier to just plot it. Since I didn't have gnuplot installed I thought to myself "how hard can it be to do this in open office"? Well it turns out that its basically impossible. So I downloaded gnuplot and plotted it in about 2 minutes.

The basic idea is that you do a short mini mash with the wheat, oats and pale. This is then boiled to gelatinize the wheat starch. While this is going on the malt mash is brought through acid and protein rest with hot water like a regular infusion mash. The adjunct mash is then add that back to the malt mash to raise to mash out temperature. After this another short infusion of water is added to go to a high mash, then sparge at 180F.

The Boil (90 minutes):

• 20 minutes naked boil (the wort not the players)
  
• 1.2 oz Mt Hood (4.1aau) @ 60
• 0.5oz Mt Hood (4.1aau) @ 5
• peel from two mandarin oranges, .5 oz crushed coriander and the "mystery spice" (red peppercorns .2 oz) crushed and added @ 5 (left in primary)
  
• Total: 20 IBU

The Pitch:
OG: 1.052

Blonde Bombe 6B

Catching up on my notes here, I'm a tardy tardy boy. Someone should beer me!

Info:

• Brewer: Ryan
• Mash: british straight infusion
  
• Date: 04/04/2009
• Size: 10 gallon post-boil

Grain Bill:

• 16lb pale 2 row malt
• 2lb Munich
  
• 1lb Crystal 20L
  
• 1lb Malted Wheat
  

Yeast:

• Safale US-05
  

The Mash:

• Add 190F water to 152F rest 70 minutes
  
• sparge with 180F
• collect 12 gallons
  

The Boil (60 minutes):

• 2.25oz Williamette (5.2aau) @ 60
  
• 1.0 oz Williamette (5.2aau) @ 20
  

The Finish:
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.001 (can you say attenuated? I knew you could). Works out to about 6.4%abv, hence the Bombe part!

Its a little to red, but not bad overall. The malt really comes through nicely considering how light and attenuated it is.

Got Wood?

Decided to add some wood to the lambic. There are several reasons for this; I wanted to give a slightly more authentic environment for the brett which (based on my limited understanding will use some of the wood sugars as part of its life cycle) and also I'm hoping that the brett will make a home in the wood (from which it can venture forth into future brews). The basic idea for using a notched piece of wood to carry over yeast propagation is based on the concept of a "brew stick" used by the vikings and early celtic brewers (Palmer briefly discusses this in his online book How To Brew, and several other books I have touch on the topic). I've been kind of interested in older and strange techniques lately so this seemed like a fun way to add a little adventure to both the current and maybe some future brews.

I had some alder left over from a bunch of scraps that I picked a couple of years ago from a furniture store. Traditionally you'd use beech, but alder is also a relatively mild wood so I thought it would serve for this purpose. I cut several 6" long by 1/2" square pieces then cut a bunch of notches into each piece with a saw about half way through and 1/2"-3/4" inches apart. The notches will add surface area for the yest to (hopefully) infect the wood through and should also help with the rapid emulated aging process.

Since it was "fresh" wood that had never been used for beer (albeit quite dry) I wanted to get most of the flavor out and definitely any residual wood resins. To do this I boiled it in 5 changes of water until it didn't really change the water color after a 30 minute boil (each change was boiled for ~30 minutes). Hopefully this will mellow it to close to the right amount of wood character for the size of batch I'm making and still leave enough surface area for the yeast to take hold. The basic idea was try and simulate several years of leaching and aging in the kitchen in a couple of hours. After boiling it I put it in the oven at 400F for 45m (at which point it was pretty dry looking) and then put it under the broiler (on low),
until it started to smell pretty toasty. It hadn't quite changed color much yet, but was close, this should carmelize a small amount of the wood sugars and add a little bit of interesting character. I quick chilled three of these sticks under cold wate rand then tossed them into the lambic.

We'll be taking a sample in a month or two and see how its going :)

Peachy Keen Nut Brown

Info:

• Brewer: Ryan
• Mash: british straight infusion
  
• Date: 01/10/2009
• Size: 5 gallon post-boil

Grain Bill:

• 9.75lb pale 2 row malt
• 0.75lb Special Roast
  
• 0.5lb Victory
• 0.5lb Crystal 40L
  
• 0.25lb Chocolate (350L) - this was a little darker than we had wanted, prefer pale choc, but what you have is what you use..
  

Yeast:

• Danstar Nottingham dry
  

The Mash:

• Add 190F water to 152F rest 60 minutes (I used the remnant sparge water from the Lambicus Insanitus batch since I had planned this as a filler brew ot kill time while it was boiling)
  
• sparge with 180F
• collect 7 gallons
  

The Boil (60 minutes):

• 1.2oz US Goldings (5.1aau) @ 60
  
• 0.5oz US Goldings (5.1aau) @ 5
  

The Finish:
OG: 1.055

The Fruit:

• 6 lbs of defrosted frozen peaches saved over from last spring pitched into primary after initial fermentation had taken off (next morning around 11:00).

Notes:

This is a beer I've made variations of several times before with slightly different base recipes, the nut brown tends to compliment the peaches sort of like an inverted peach cobbler where the savory and nutty components of the beer are complimented by the peaches and residual malt sweetness.

Lambicus Insanitus

nfo:

• Brewer: Ryan
• Mash: Turbid Mash (Wild Brews by Sparrow page 141)
  
• Date: 01/10/2009
  
• Size: 6 gallon post-boil

Grain Bill:

Main Mash

• 8.5 lbs 2 row malt
• 5.5 lbs unmalted wheat (hard white, ground to a mix of coarse grist, graham flour texture, and flour)
  

Yeast:

• Wyeast 3278 Lambic Blend
  

The Mash:
This is the mash schedule from "Wild Brews" by Sparrow (pg 141). I basically treated it like a series of batch sparges where you denature the resulting liquid to stop conversion. Actually doing this really helped me to understand what the constituent components of the final wort are like. With a decent mash tun with a false bottom this isn't as hard as its often made out to be, although be prepared for it to take a while and to have a relatively long boil at the end.

• Target of 28qts (2qts/lb) total liquid addition
  
• add 5.6qts water (20%) at a little below boiling (roughly 190, with some tweaking) to target 113F, rest 15 minutes
  
• add 5.6qts water (20%) at a little below boiling to target 126, rest 15M
• draw off 4qts (~30% of liquid) to kettle, heat to 190 and hold
• add 8.4 qts (30%) water at 212 to target 149F, rest for 45m
• draw off 8.1qts (50% of liquid) to kettle, heat to 190 and hold
• add 8.4qts (30%) of water at 212F to target 162, rest for 30m
• draw off 11qts and start heating, the grain bed should be pretty much dry after this. Heat kettle to 190F
• Add all the liquid from the kettle back to the mash to target 172F, rest 20m
• my 10 gallon mash tun was almost completely FULL at this point
• Sparge with 190F water until around 1.008, this got me to right about 8 gallons pre-boil
• Pre boil gravity 1.050
  

The Boil (longer than you want):

• Strange mix of ancient hops I've saved up.
  
• .6 oz of 2003 tett
• .6 oz of 2003 williamette
• 3 oz of 2005 goldings. This is the only one with any real bitter left. The rest were long past the "cheese" state. Hopefully these don't throw the bitter to far over, the original recipe called for 4.8 oz of debittered, I'm at 4.2. Well we'll roll with it and see what happens. Post boil it was fairly bitter, but not overly so and since we're going for a ~6 mo+ fermentation I expect a lot of that will scrub out.
  
• Boiled down to 6 gallons over the course of almost 3 hours. While that was going on I basically finished my second batch (peachy keen nut brown, post to follow). I tried to keep it to a "soft boil", lightly rolling but not overly vigorous to minimize excess maillard.
• This is the first time I've used the converted keggle I got from a freind of a guy at work. It has a false bottom so I just pitched in the hops loose and crossed my fingers. Worked awesome, drained almost completely dry and basically no hops made it through. The old keggle will be retired and I may try to convert one of my 7 gallon pots to work the same.
  
• Cooled to roughly 80F
  
• Put in a 7 gallon carboy and pitched in the lambic blend.
  

The Finish:

• OG: 1.060
  

Commentary:

Was the turbid mash worth it? Well only time will tell, I can say that it definitely produced a different wort than any I've ever made before. It was very "bready" and had a definite dextrinous after taste/mouth feel to it. Could you emulate this by just adding dextrin? Maybe, but I don't think it would get the same mix of starches and sugars. The interim run-ofs were interesting to see and taste, there was a definite progression from the first run being almost completely white to the last being a pale golden straw color (which is what the final sparge was like). This definitely helped me grok at a more fundamental level what happens here since I could tast, smell, feel the product, which imho made it worth the experience. I would caution anyone else who wants to try this that this needs a decent sized mash tun (10g for a 5-6g batch) and a 10+gallon kettle because of the large volumes used. Would I do this again? Probably yes, its definitely way easier than a 3 step decoction :)

Updates

American Wheat:

• It's on draft
  
• The recipe came out on the maltier side for style, also low on the hops for my taste. Overall a tasty beer, though. Note: the mash/recipe was more complex than I would normally use for this style.
• Next time: 50% 2-row 50% wheat malt in a straight infusion with more hops.
• FG: 1.010
  

Smoked Porter:

• Hubba hubba! What a beer! Conditioning in the keg, can't wait to tap it :)
• Very chocolaty, with a hint of smoke. Good balance.
• Next time: add a small amount (4oz) of black malt to give it a small bite, more like semi-sweet chocolate than milk chocolate.
• FG: 1.017
  

Weizenbock:

• In secondary.
• Grain bill, mash, and hops were right on, I just with I had some authenic yeast.
• Next time: use a German weizen yeast, it'll be a real treat! I am going to use something that puts off a lot of banana and clove.

American Barleywine

• In secondary, dry hopped with a massive amount of Centennial and Amarillo
• Because of high OG, it's too early to tell what the final beer will be like, still a lot of sweetness because the yeast still has a ways to go. The rousing from the transfer to secondary perked it up quite well. Gravity at transfer was 1.029.
  
• After another month or two, I'll be transfering it to a tertiary fermentation, in which it'll sit until next fall. With the gravity where it is, the yeast will hopefully slowly chew it down to at least 1.018
  

Lambic

• fermenting slllloooooooowwwwwly, we'll give a full report next fall...
  

the Future

We started this blog with the header reading:

"The idea? Brew all 28 classic beer styles between Winter Solstice 2007 and Winter Solstice 2008. The results? Read and find out!"

Well, if you read the post mortem, you saw that we came close to the goal and fell short by a batch. No matter, we learned a lot and made some _awesome_ beer!

So, what does the future hold? The plan looks like this: keep on brewing.

Aside from that, we'll keep posting here about brews, equipment, growing hops, and everything else brewing related. We'll also be doing quarterly themes, based on the solstices of course :)

cheers,
the Brewers