Summer Brewing

Longer days and short nights makes for plenty of extra time after the kids are in bed to do more brewing. There are a lot more reasons to brew in the summer time; my favorite are cookouts and gatherings with friends. John and I discuss in this weeks video post what some of our plans are for not only some summer style beers, but also some longer term projects.

Summer Brewing and summer beer styles for me include clean crisp easy to drink beers. Two of my favorites for the summer are wheat based beers that are pretty clean and sometimes doctored with some early summer fruit like locally grown berries. My second favorite style is American Cream Ale. We seem to be talking about cream ale a lot lately, but it really is that time of year when a cream ale after putting the mower away is pretty much heaven.

Johns plans include attempting to redeem his Saison brewing efforts from last year’s Saison Throwdown. John also has a growing collection of New Zealand and Australian hops that he’s been meaning to brew with. Perhaps an ad hoc Australian IPA will be in the works in the near future.

Finally, we both are also looking at using some of our summer brewing schedule to laydown some longer term projects. Namely we both want to put down out first sour beers. John has a Lambic-style brew planned. I am still debating something darker and sour, like an Oud Bruin or something in the Flanders Red category. I am toying with the idea of a sour stout or even a straight up pitch of souring microbes into my tried and true Brown Ale recipe.

As always the summer has limitless possibilities, and so should your summer brewing plans and dreams. Did I mention that I still need to get that brew stand built???? Maybe that’s a good garage summer night project.

What’s going to be brewing in your kettles this summer?

BREW ON!