Pumpkin Porter Tasting

I brewed this Pumpkin Porter in early October for a post-Halloween Halloween party that me and Michelle were having at our apartment. It turned out pretty good and everyone seemed to like it.

Served on tap at about 45 degrees in a nonic pint glass.

Appearance: Pours jet black with some reddish-brown highlights at the edges of the glass. Clarity is good, but you could hardly tell in such a dark beer. The puffy, two-fingered, mocha-colored head stays for a minute or two and leaves a scant ring with no lacing.

Aroma: Faint spice (mostly nutmeg, maybe some cinnamon), some roast character, and a bit of malt. No hop aroma. No esters or yeast character.

Flavor: Spices and mellow roast character. Slightly leans towards sweetness (could be the Golden Promise coming through?), but not in an unpleasant way. No diacetyl, esters, or yeast character. None of the flavors are sharp or assertive. No astringency. Very smooth, clean flavors.

Mouthfeel: Nice, medium body. Slightly over carbonated for my tastes. There is a bit of a carbonic bite, which for me is out of place in this kind of beer. The carbonation is a little distracting.

Overall: A solid, enjoyable beer. If the carbonation was lower I could easily drink this all night. Next time I would play up the roast and spice character slightly, add a bit more hop presence for complexity, and dial back on the carbonation for a creamier mouthfeel. I think this beer is about 80% of the way there, it just needs some fine-tuning.

Hoppyweizen Tasting

I brewed this hefeweizen/IPA hybrid in early June and finally got around to a proper tasting. The brew day for this beer was pretty rough (missed mash temp, low efficiency, off target on volume, ran out of DME to adjust gravity), but, all things considered, this beer turned out to be pretty decent.

Served at about 45 degrees in a Jolly Pumpkin tulip glass.

Appearance: Thin, loose white head falls quickly. Surprisingly poor head retention and lacing for a beer with 60 percent malted wheat and a pretty hefty amount of hops. Hazy brown with a muddy golden color when held to light. Not an attractive beer. Might have looked better in a proper weizen glass. Hopefully it tastes better than it looks.

Aroma: Bold fruity hop aroma with some banana from the hefeweizen yeast. Lots of grapefruit and lemon. None of the other classic yeast derived aromas like clove or vanilla came through. Just fresh, citrusy hops with a side of banana.

Flavor: Sweet malt backbone and assertive hop flavor mirroring the aroma. Citrus hop flavor takes the lead with banana in the background. Balance leans toward sweet but there is a lingering hop flavor.

Mouthfeel: Medium body. Full and creamy mouthfeel. Medium to high carbonation does a good job of bringing out the hop flavor and aroma. Could use a bit more carbonation, but ~3.00 volumes of CO2 is about as high as I'm willing to go with standard 12 oz bottles.

Overall: Aside from the appearance this is a pretty good beer. A wheat beer without a big pillowy head is just plain wrong to me. I've noticed head retention problems in several of my beers now. Time to start troubleshooting. I would have liked a more varied aroma and flavor (some clove and vanilla would have been nice). Pretty drinkable. Not the first beer I would reach for on a hot summer day, but certainly not the last. The appearance was really off putting for me, though. Next time I'll ditch the CaraMunich and dial down the hops a bit.

Table Saison II

I brewed a low gravity saison in early April and it didn't turn out very well. There were a number of problems both in recipe design and during the brew day. I hate to drain pour a good beer, but this wasn't turning into a good beer so no harm, no foul.

When designing the recipe for the first Table Saison, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible. I went overboard with that idea and used only pilsener malt for the grist. Now, for a higher gravity saison like Saison duPont, which purportedly uses 100% pilsener, that works. For a beer with a starting gravity of 1.038, however, I ended up with a thin, watery mess with no body.

The revised recipe (really a whole new recipe all together) has some Belgian pale malt for depth, wheat, and Carapils for body. I also added Styrian Goldings and decided to go with Wyeast 3711 - French Saison.

Table Saison II

OG 1.041 FG 1.002 ABV 5.1% IBU ~26 SRM 3.4

Assumed Efficiency: 70%
Target Volume: 7.75 gal
Target PBG: 1.030
Target OG: 1.036
Total Grain: 9.0 lbs.

39.0% - 3.52 lbs. Castle Pilsener
39.0% - 3.52 lbs. Belgian Pale Malt
13.7% - 1.23 lbs. Weyermann Wheat Malt
08.3% - 0.75 lbs. CaraPils

2.00 oz. Czech Saaz (4.0% AA) @ 50 min.
1.00 oz. Styrian Goldings (2.6% AA) @ Flame out

1.00 tablet Whirlfloc @ 10 min.
0.50 tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient @ 10 min.

Wyeast 3711 - French Saison

50% Carbon Filtered Waco, 50% Distilled

Mash at 154

Notes:
Brewed on 16 June 2011 by myself

Mashed for 60 minutes at 154 @ pH ~5.2. Had to add 1/4 tsp phosphoric acid to adjust pH

Collected 7.5 gal of 1.035 wort (mash efficiency 78.4%). Overshot target preboil gravity by 5 points. Need to adjust anticipated mash efficiency on low gravity beers to around 75%.

Removed .25 gal wort and added .5 gal filtered water for 7.75 gal of 1.032 wort

Boiled for 90 minutes and yielded ~6.12 gal of 1.041 wort (evaporation rate 14%). Usually average 11-12% evaporation, don't know what happened. Could have diluted with distilled water to adjust gravity, but decided to leave it.

Chilled to 70 degrees F and pitched smack pack of WY3711 without starter. Shook for ~2 minutes to aerate. Let free rise to 78 degrees F

22 June 2011 - Moved to fireplace. Ambient temperature ~75 degrees F.

30 June 2011 - Gravity 1.002. Bottled 4.6 gal of 75 degrees F beer with 4.28 oz table sugar for a target of 2.5 vol CO2. Yielded 19 12oz and 2 750ml bottles. Had trouble capping some 12 oz bottles (wider rim on Hacker-Pschorr bottles?) and didn't have larger size caps on hand for the rest of the 750ml bottles (Bruery bottles). Ended up dumping about 2.25 gal.