First all-grain batch

So much potential, just waiting...

There is a certain magic in starting with a bunch of malted grain and ending up with beer. Magic, and a fair amount of chemistry, attention to detail, and several hours of rather joyful work.

There is also a lot of pleasure. My first all-grain batch was something that I have been contemplating for quite some time; I even wrote a post about picking up the equipment to start all-grain brewing back in May. Real life has its way of running interference, so I only recently got around to brewing up this batch, an English brown ale. Figuring that my first extract batch was also an English brown and that it would be somehow fitting if my first all-grain batch was as well, I pulled a brown ale recipe out of Charlie Papazian's Complete Joy of Homebrewing; after brewing his Palace Special Bitter and loving it, I wanted to try another of his recipes. So, I found his Monkey's Paw Brown Ale recipe, got the ingredients, and now finally had a chance to brew it up.

Ah, but first, some more preparation was in order. I closely read - and re-read - and re-re-read - the incredibly helpful "First All-Grain Batch" chapter in John Palmer's How to Brew. Palmer also has a great chapter on batch sparging, and a recent issue of Zymurgy also had an article on this easy sparging method, so I read those, too. As any reader of this blog knows, every batch I've brewed has yielded not only beer but lessons - some, I can do without at this point. So, applying the brewer's version of the old adage "measure twice, cut once," I focused on preparation. It paid off.

Brewing on a gorgeous day.

On a beautiful day, sunny and clear, not too hot, I set up right in the doorway of my garage. Once the boil began, I'd be back in familiar territory, but first I had to mash the grain. I heated up water to the right temperature so that when it hit the much cooler mass of 10 pounds of grain, the net result would be right on to convert the starches to fermentable sugars. And it worked! It all worked! I'm still shocked and delighted to report that this stuff works! The pre-heated mash tun held the temperature, I stirred when it was time to stir, I measured temperatures, I added some hotter water as needed to maintain the mash at the conversion temp, and sweet heaven, it all worked! What went in as a bunch of grain and water yielded a goodly amount of deep brown, sweet wort, and a quick iodine test indicated that starch conversion was complete. In the meantime, I had heated more water to sparge with, and it all went smoothly. I ended up with about 6.5 gallons of wort ready to boil.

Spent grains: they gave all they had.

About three weeks later, it was time to crack open the first bottle. I always feel a lot of excitement about that moment, and the excitement was even greater because of this batch being a "first." Fresh, grainy, toasty-roasty, malty aroma with a whiff of floral hops. Deep brown color. Nice, creamy head. Malt forward taste mingling with earthy, floral hops. Notes of chocolate and coffee. Medium mouthfeel, which gave the brew a rich, creamy quality but avoided seeming heavy. I was ecstatic. So was the queen.

I am hooked all over again.

Homebrewed English Brown Ale: a postscript

A few extra days of cellaring and conditioning has really rounded out the homebrew's flavor profile.  Served in a red wine glass at cellar temperature, it has a malty aroma: a bit of bread, lots of brown sugar, some chocolate.  Hops are present too, just a bit of flowers coming through.  The taste is a touch sweet, the brown sugar is there, as is the chocolate.  It has a nice, medium mouthfeel, and the carbonation is feeling just right.  The hops provide that key bit of balance, with the floral notes and bitterness coming through softly.  The finish is rather long, with that brown sugar and chocolate combo remaining balanced off by the hops.

Now, it's not like I made this recipe up.  Far from it!  My hat's off to Brewer's Best for putting the kit together.  So, don't take this post as me saying that I've come up with something great.  Rather, I'm quite impressed with the kit, and this beer has turned out very nicely, particularly for a first batch of homebrew.  If you're reading this and thinking about homebrewing, go for it!  You can make some good beer right from a kit and learn a ton in the process.

My boy, Sir E, is proud of his English Brown Ale.

Good Beer, and Good Beer News

As I write this, I'm feeling like dreck due to a head cold that hit late last night.  I had hoped to continue my stout reviews, but that will have to wait a few days.  A beer doesn't sound like the best idea right about now.

I did want to mention a couple of things, though.  First, I went out to dinner last night with a friend who was in town to visit his folks (he grew up here).  He wanted to go to Cottage Inn Restaurant.  We were pleasantly surprised to find two excellent craft beers on their "special" list.  One was Magic Hat's #9, a terrific beer from Vermont that my friend, Sean, tipped me off to.  Turns out it's not hard to get here -- in fact, I saw a six pack at Kroger the other day -- but finding it on tap was very nice.  Luckily, I was drinking it before my cold set in, though by the end of the evening I knew I was coming down with something.  I won't review it here other than to say it's got a nice combo of floral, bitter, and fruit flavors and was a joy to drink.  The brewery describes it as "not quite pale ale," and that was about right.

The other beer on tap was Bell's Best Brown, which is always delicious -- or at least it was supposed to be available.  My friend ordered a pint only to be told that they were still finishing up the last keg of Oberon.  Now, that didn't necessarily say much for its freshness, perhaps, but my friend was more than happy to have one last pint of Oberon before it disappears into hibernation.  I'm guessing the Best Brown will be tapped soon.  I'll admit that I never thought of Cottage Inn as a place to grab a craft beer, but I'm happy to have been proved wrong.

On a completely different note, I've been selected to be the Ann Arbor Craft Beer Examiner for the Detroit edition of Examiner.com.  Once my articles are up and running, I'll post more info here.  Some content will overlap with this blog, and some won't.  I will be continuing the Michigan stout series at both venues.  For Examiner.com, I'll write beer reviews, tip readers off to beer-related events, and get a chance to explore and write about Michigan's brewing community and rich craft beer offerings.  Please stop by and check it out.  And if you have any tips, please send them my way!