4th Generation Brewery

You may have noticed the name of my brewery has changed. That's with good reason. The original brewery name was rooted in the elements of my family genealogy, as is the new brewery name. The roots of my family reach to the Scottish Highlands and Clan Donald in particular. My great grandfather's last name is Cooley and he was a brewer of bier during prohibition, thusly my brewery was named Clan McCooley paying homage to both my Scottish roots and my more recent family history of brewing. I decided to change the brewery name to take it more away from the "Clan/Scottish" influence and more versatile. Thusly I've embraced 4th Generation Brewery as the new name. That's not all, I've embraced a brewery motto.... Brew Free or Die! Read more below in a statement I made to my local brewing community.

I'm 35, have a mortgage, amazing wife, 2 awesome kids, am in a mentoring program for ministry, work hard 5 days a week. I'm obsessive about a few things like educating my children, family, faith, college football, and homebrewing! But all the things that are truely important too me I can count on one hand without using all my fingers! The fact is I find being honest with myself about who and what I am is far more important than concerns which arise from promoting, consuming, or creating homemade malt beverages. My great grandfather and grandfather brewed beer in rural Clarke Co. MS during prohibition and BEYOND! My father ran shine during the 60's and his father before him cooked it. Me I'm the 4th Generation and my son and daughter will be the 5th Generation. That's who I am, that's why I promote homebrewing... oh yea and I like good beer!
I like the founders of this great nation believe every man has the right to choose for himself what is right and wrong too a point. I just believe that point stretches beyond the limits currently imposed by the laws of this great state! It is with this in mind that I proudly proclaim... BREW FREE OR DIE as the motto of 4th Generation Brewery, formerly known as Clan McCooley Brewery, both names deriving from my proud brewing heritage.

Smashing Blonde Ale

In certain circles of the homebrew community the idea of brewing a SMaSH ale is embraced as a means to experiment with grains and hops to develop an understanding of the properties unique to those ingredients. A SMaSH is any bier brewed with one grain, usually a base grain, and one hop. For my first SMaSH I decided to use Am. 2 Row (Rahr) and German Tradition hops. This bier turned out to be really good, much better than I thought for such a simple recipe. When tasting this bier you get a grainy underpinning with candy sweetness and earthy spice notes. The hops really shine in the flavor. Also this is the first all-grain, my 4th AG batch overall, bier that has had excellent head and lacing. The pictures below tell the story, though the full glass is of the bier at 1 week in the bottle and isn't fully carbed so the head is suffering.

Recipe:
11 lbs. Am. 2 Row (Rahr)
1 oz. German Tradition Hops @ 60 mins.
.33 oz. German Tradition Hops @ 22 mins.
.33 oz. German Tradition Hops @ 8 mins.
.33 oz. German Tradition Hops dry hopped
Yeast US-05
Mash Temp 151-152
OG 1.056 (this is a guess as I didn't take an OG reading)
FG 1.008
IBUs 27
SRM 6
Carbed with 3/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon of corn sugar


Label

The bier!

The bier almost gone with very nice lacing!