Brew Dudes Homebrewing Blog

SMaSH Beer Tasting With Azacca Hops

On January 20, 2016

To learn more about hops, we have been brewing single malt, single hop (SMaSH) beers to taste and experience the hop flavors and aromas that certain varieties are described as having. We feel it is one thing to read about flavors and another thing to taste them. Learn along with us as we have a SMaSH Beer Tasting with Azacca Hops

This variety is gaining popularity with homebrewers. I wrote a profile about Azacca hops and was pretty excited about them after I did the research.

Updated SMaSH Process

If you haven’t seen one of these videos before, my process for this experiment is to brew up a one gallon batch using one base malt and using an ounce of the specific hop that we want to learn more about.

The one ounce works well in the batch size and it economical since I don’t have to buy a lot of hops for what is essentially a test.

One gallon batches are great because they don’t take as much time start to finish as a 5 gallon batch and are easier to pour down the drain if need be.

Last year, the hop additions in the 60 minute boil used to be spread out. Now, I just do a bittering charge at the start (.25 ounces) and add the rest of the hop packet at flameout.

How Did The Azacca SMaSH Taste?

This hop variety presented itself as having a dried pineapple flavor in the beer I brewed. There was some citrus notes. Mike tasted some melon. I found it to have a strong bitterness in the aftertaste.

The few descriptors we did not detect were mango and papaya. It could be based on our lack of experience with these tropical fruits or that these flavors did not present themselves in the SMaSH beer. There seemed to be a lot of complexity to the beer’s hop flavor and aroma.

One thing we have been noticing with these new varieties is the level of flavors that are present in the finished beers. It can be difficult to pick out certain flavors as descriptor since there is so much going on in the aroma and flavor.

What Did We Learn From Our SMaSH Beer Tasting With Azacca Hops?

This hop is worthy of the hype. It will definitely bring a big bold presence to your hop profile. It is certainly a variety that will add something extra in your late hop additions in your IPA. We’re not sure if it would work in other styles but American ales are a place to start with your experiments.

Check out our other SMaSH videos on YouTube.

Let us know your thoughts about Azacca hops below.

Brew On!

Sour Beer Brewing Tastings

By Mike

On January 14, 2016

In Videos

John currently has two different sour beer brewing experiments going on of different ages. We gathered in his basement recently to check on the progress of those two brews.

18 Month Old Sour Beer

Our first taste test was on an 18 month old version of sour beer. The beer had been in primary for about a year, then it got racked to secondary. 18 months later, we decided to give it a taste. The Brett character is right up front and strong in the flavor. It tastes like a classic funky beer with notes of horse blanket. The acidity is pretty well rounded. It is not strong but it definitely has some acidity to it. There is still some interesting residual body to it. I suspect that if left alone it can continue to sour and evolve.

6 Month Old Sour Beer

The second batch we tasted was the same recipe but put on the one year old yeast/bacteria cake of the first beer. Here we are 6 months into the fermentation of the beer and we decided to open up the bucket and give a look see.

There was a very nice pellicle on this beer. It was bubbly and soft looking. We poked into it with the thief to try a sample. As ugly as she looked, this beer is nicely on its way. It is decidedly more sour than the first. We feel it is a function of a revived and evolved population of microbes from the original Roselare pitch done 18 months ago.

Sour Beer Brewing Wrap Up

Ultimately, I think that both beers need a little more time. Just in time to perhaps brew a third wort and pitch that on the most recent cake once the pellicle falls. Then we’d have three beers that we could possibly start talking about blending, doctoring, or even do some fruit additions.

Sour brewing is pretty new to us so it is a work in progress. Homebrewing is really all about diving in and getting something started.

Learn and rebrew.

Speaking of which, I need to get my sour batch going too.

CHEERS!

Let us know about your sour beer adventures. Please leave a comment below.

Chocolate Malt Stout

By Mike

On January 6, 2016

In Videos

As you may be aware, there are a few variations of Chocolate Malt. I decided to explore some of these roasted malts a bit more and a brewed a beer with a focus on English chocolate malt. My Chocolate Malt Stout might not really be very Stout like, but we did learn a few interesting points from this experiment.

Using Just Chocolate Malt In A Stout

The point of this was to brew in the style of a Stout using the basic backbone of a normal stout making process, but just attack the roasted malt side using one malt. I was really interested in the flavor difference of English Chocolate malt at 450°L and decided I’d go with nearly a pound of just that particular malt. I ended up adding a touch of pale chocolate too just to round out the nuttiness.

John once brewed Northern Brewer’s Oatmeal Stout. I was very taken back at how much chocolate character there was in that beer and wondered if the use of English Chocolate malt was a switch I should make from my normal American 350°L chocolate malt made by Briess.

Not Quite A Chocolate Success

The beer I brewed used Pale Base Malt, Munich Malt, Chocolate malts and CaraMunich basically falls very flat of my goal. There is very little chocolate character in it. The malt character is very dry but deeply rich from the Munich Malt. I think it was a mistake to use Munich malt in this stout. It added an element to the beer that was out of place.

Since filming this video, some of my impressions have changed about the flavors of this beer. John mentioned that as the beer was warmed, he got the impression of smoked meat. I found it somewhat solvent-like. I had several people come by over the holidays that also sampled the beer. Someone mentioned a Hefeweizen quality as well. All this leads me to believe that this beer is flawed on the fermentation side. My yeast blend was made from two slurries of WLP001 and WLP002, but maybe I picked up a contaminating microbe. Perhaps those slurries were just too old despite restarting them.

The chocolate malt alone without more crystal malt or other roasted malts to support the flavor profile is still a realistic issue here. But it’s hard to really nail that down when the fermentation is clearly flawed. The beer has continued to go south even in the cold keg which only supports the notion of a problematic fermentation.

What do you think? Please comment below and tell us about your own related experiences with English vs American Chocolate Malts.

Kriek Tasting and 2016 Preparations

By Mike

On December 31, 2015

In Videos

The year of 2015 comes to a close and we get ready to usher in 2016. We have some sour fermentations that will finish in 2016 so we thought we’d taste some commercial Kriek and think about the future.

We have a few sours coming together and maybe we will put some of different fruits or doing some blending. For inspiration, we samples two different commercial Krieks: Jacobins Kriek – Brouwerij Bockor and Lindemans Kriek.

Compared side by side, Lindemans’ reputation as being very extract fruit like and super sweet becomes apparent. I don’t necessarily think there is a good reason to put down any beer as every beer will find some audience. Otherwise, they don’t remain on the market as prevalent as the Lindeman product line has been.

Lindemans is a great way to introduce people to either “sourish” beer or to get people into beer that has fruit in it. In this tasting, their offering was like drinking cherry juice compared to the other Kriek.

The Jacobins Kriek has a lot of character more reminiscent of what you’d expect from a funky ferment, aged in wood and on fruit.

It tasted much more like what you’d hope to produce at home. It is a nice bottle if you can find it at your favorite beer store.

Check out some of our sour beers on this post: https://www.brew-dudes.com/sour-batch-tastings/6250

Well, this is the last post of the year. A big thanks to everyone that reads these posts over here on the blog site. We’ve almost entirely dedicated the site to the video postings from our YouTube channel. We plan to get more text based posted and recipe formulations up in 2016. (Still working on those plans).

Is there something else you’d like to see on this site vs. the YouTube channel? Let us know.

Thanks for riding along with us again in 2015. Here’s to a great 2016 and beyond!
BREW ON!!!

English Ordinary Bitter Tasting and Notes

By Mike

On December 23, 2015

In General, Videos

This post is about a style that’s near and dear to my heart, English Ordinary Bitter. Bitter is a low gravity, fast fermenting, unpretentious brew. It’s the style I chose to cut my teeth on when I started all-grain brewing many mashes ago.

This week, we do a tasting of John’s latest rendition of English Ordinary Bitter.

Look at any beer rating site and you’ll see within the top 10 “best beers” and you’ll see 9 monster IPAs and maybe one Russian Imperial Stout. They are all big, complex, and boozy brews.

These Brew Dudes love these beers as much as the next guy. We quest to find the best ones and the newest ones on the shelves at our favorite bottle shops.

You can call me a wimp if you will, but I rarely want to sit down and drink those in round. I appreciate the big beers but I think having a good session beer, one you don’t have to think about, is a good thing.

Not just a good thing – a great thing.

The entire English Bitter category is just that. There is a nice malt driven body with some toasty, bread-y notes. A subtle earthy and spicy hop presence that balances real well with that grist. Sometimes you’ll get some toffee or caramel flavors but those notes should be restrained as well. You have to really search for these flavors in a good session beer, mostly because they are all in concert with each other.

When we tasted John’s example, it was clear he was off to a good start.

In the literal sense, his yeast had dropped out very well and his fermentation was very clean. Perhaps a little too clean as the beer lacked a touch of ester quality that you normally get from a good English yeast strain.

His malt bill had produced a great English Ordinary Bitter color, light orange to a deep golden hue. The Maris Otter malt was very nice but for some reason in this brew I felt like there was a need for a bit more biscuit kick to drive that bread note home. A blend of caramel malts at a slightly higher percentage would have worked here too.

The best part about English Ordinary bitter is they are fast to ferment. Single infusion mashing is more than adequate in this style. You can very easily tweak the grist bill several times to dial in the perfect session beer for your liking. No waiting 30 days for that big Russian Imperial Stout to ferment or taking several weeks of different dry hopping schemes for your Double IPA.

Just mash, ferment, carbonate and drink.

Have you tried English Ordinary Bitter? Let us know in the comments.
CHEERS!!