Motherland Imperial Stout early tasting

This was taken on my birthday as just a first sample of the Motherland Imperial Stout from below. The apple flavor I mentioned isn't an acetaldehyde flavor but rather a young beer flavor, I suspect from the priming sugar. Overall this bier should age well and round into a beautiful elixir of the soul! Overall it's very well bittered yet malty the way a good RIS should be. It's a split between an Am. vs Eng. version of this bier probably leaning more toward English.

My next RIS attempt will have 2-4% more roasted malt to bump up that character substantially and a clean American ale yeast with prominent C-hop character. Just go in a different direction for the experience of it!

Explication Wheat Ale

My home state of Mississippi has just one micro brewery in the whole state. They are a brave lot and do well with what they have to work with, meaning a very bier illiterate state. Perhaps bier culture or lack there of is a subject for another blog entry, but for now on to the subject of this entry. Lazy Magnolia is the name of the brewery and my favorite bier they produced was a Krystalweizen named Blue Heron. I used the past tense because it is a now discontinued product, lost in the streamlining of their offering a few years back. Again reference the lack of bier culture in MS as the culprit of many of Lazy Magnolia's more flavorful offerings were among those discontinued.

What's a bier lover to do when one of your favorite brews is no longer available? Make it yourself of course! My attempt at cloning this fine krystalweizen, currently ranked as the 2nd best krystalweizen in the world on Ratebeer.com, was set in motion on a visit to the brewery last fall. I asked and the brewer gladly shared what yeast they used to ferment the bier. Blue Heron is best discribed as a maltier more banana forward version of a fresh Paulaners, only filtered for clarity.

The recipe is as follows, yes it's this simple!
6 lb 11 oz Marris Otter Pale Malt
4 lb Wheat Malt
4 oz Aromatic Malt.

.6 oz. Tradition @ 60 mins
.2 oz. Tradition @ 5 mins

Mash at 130 degrees farenheit for 30 minutes.
Raise the mash to 152-153 for 30 minutes.

I had an original gravity of 1.056 (I believe)
Make sure to include extra fining agents in the boil and or secondary and make plans to lager the bier to aid in clarity.
Voila almost instant krystalweizen.

The bier is still bottle conditioning so I don't have a final verdict, but the early returns are pretty good. Did I mention you let this bier ferment at it's own pace. The brewer said they let it go as high as 80-85, YIKES! My fermentation was at ambient temps and reached as high as 80-81 degrees briefly. My first impressions are that I've at the very least ballparked Blue Heron. Mine is certainly banana heavy but there is some nice clove and spice underpinning. Here's a video I made showing the making of the bier and a few pics of the first sample. Note the video is wrong on the amount of wheat malt, I actually used 4 lbs as in the recipe above.

This is a brief video I put together from photos of the brew day.

Final gravity was 1.011, very drinkable brew that continues to impress. Clear!!!

Another pic showing the clarity/color. It's a solid 4 srm and clear, not quite brilliant.

Of course I have to share the label with you as well. I've been wanting to do something a bit more elegant for a while and this seemed the perfect opportunity.

Motherland Imperial Stout

I brewed up my first Russian Imperial Stout bier this past December, 12-10-09 to be exact. I brewed up about 4.5 gallons including the yeast cake I dumped the bier onto. When it was all said and done the brew yielded about 3.5 gallons of finished bier. I let the bier sit in primary for 8 weeks, no worries about autolysis here! At the 8 week mark I bottled 1/3rd of the batch as 'standard'. I moved the other 2-2.5 gallons to secondary where they sat for 4-5 weeks on whiskey soaked hickory chips. That's not a misprint, I used Hickory! Screw French oak... I'm southern give me the hickory! Maybe I'll run through that process on here sometime, but for now all you need to know is that I hand selected the wood, gave it a quick dip in boiling water, rinsed, toasted, & soaked in whiskey!

That brings me to this past weekend where I bottled the 'wood aged' RIS. Since the bier was extremely clear I decided to re-pitch a little yeast, about 1/4 pack. Also of note is that I bottled half of the 'wood aged' bier and added about 12 oz. of strongly brewed Kona coffee to the remaining 1+ gallon and bottled it. Thus I got 3 different biers out of this one brew which is always exciting!

Here is the recipe with accurate numbers etc.

Malt & Fermentables
% LB OZ MALT OR FERMENTABLE PPG °L
71% 9 8 British Pale (Maris Otter) 37 3
8% 1 0 Molasses 36 80 (Note I used 12 oz. Molasses & 4 oz. Steens Pure Cane Syrup)
7% 0 14 British Crystal 95-115L 33 105 (Actually used my homemade crystal malt)
5% 0 10 Roasted Barley (Thomas Fawcett) 34 559
3% 0 6 Pale Chocolate Malt 34 165
2% 0 4 Flaked Wheat 34 2
2% 0 4 American Black Patent 26 500
2% 0 4 American Crystal 60L 34 60
1% 0 3 American Chocolate 34 127
Total 13 5

Batch size: 4.5 gallons
Boil: 6.25 avg gallons for 90 minutes
Original Gravity 1.090 (1.082 to 1.095)
Final Gravity 1.021 (1.023 to 1.029)
Color 46° SRM (Black)
Mash Efficiency 84%

Hops
USE TIME OZ VARIETY FORM AA
Boil 90/FWH 0.6 Nugget pellet 13.0
Boil 20 mins 1.5 Cluster pellet 5.9
Boil 20 mins 1.0 Amarillo pellet 7.5

Bitterness 73.5 IBU
BU:GU - 0.80

Yeast - Windsor Ale Dry Yeast

Alcohol 9 % A.B.V.
Calories 302 per 12 oz.

Miscellaneous
USE TIME AMOUNT INGREDIENT
boil 15 min 1 Whirlfloc Tablet

My mash schedule was along the lines of 146 degrees farenheit for 75 minutes and 155 for 30 minutes with a standard mash-out. The early tasting results are that the bier is substantially malty sweet, fairly strong bitter/dark chocolate tones, mild coffee, hints of caramel & toffee, with black currant & stone fruit perhaps a bit of fig. While it is yet young it is showing substantial promise for my first 'big' bier.

As always I enjoy building labels for my brews, particularly those that have some meaning or significance to me as a brewer. Obviously crafting a bier that I plan on having bottles of around for 2-4 years is an occasion to celebrate. Below is the finalized label for Motherland. Note the boxes in the bottom right hand corner. I will check the appropriate box denoting which version of the bier each bottle is.

Wandering Son of Scotland

Anyone who knows me well knows I long to one day return to the home of my ancestors. While it is true that my ancestry like 99% of Americans is a mixed bag, it is being a son of America and a wandering son of Scotland which gives me identity. I'm not sure what it is but for a very long time, long before I became aware that I was of Scottish decent, I've been moved by the sight of the Scottish countryside! While I'm amazed by scenes like these;



it's really the scenes like these;



which speak to my soul and makes my heart swell with pride yearning for the homeland from which my people and my name came. I realize it's a romantic view of Scotland which grows more socialist and less free with every passing day, yet I'm still drawn. I hope to receive a church appointment in Scotland once I'm done with seminary, live there for a few years. Only time will tell if this dream is realized. In the meantime I'll have to settle for the occasional one of these;

while keeping visions of this in my head!

Schlante!

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!

Sloppy Drunk Mild Ale

This is my label for my most recent creation, a British style Mild Ale brewed while listening to Big Joe Williams and dedicated to this legendary bluesman.  Before posting the recipe I'd like to say a few more words about Joe Williams than can be reasonably fit onto a bier label.  Big Joe was a bluesman in every way.  Bigger than life vocals, song writer, amazingly delicate guitar work delivered with force, sometime talent scout for a couple of record labels, and overall lover of life.  For some time I've kept a running tally of what I think are the greatest songs ever.  'Baby Please Don't Go' makes my top 3.  For posterity sake, 'Redemption Song' is number 2 and 'Strange Fruit' comes in at number one.  Far and away my favorite version of Baby Please don't go is sung by Big Joe Williams, though BB King performs one of the more rollicking versions.  Anyone who's a fan of the blues should give Big Joe's work a listen, you will be impressed!

Now for the recipe.  The recipe is simple enough. It's Jamil's recipe with 1/2 lb carapils added.
Fermentables:
5# Marris Otter (Any British Pale Malt will do)
.75# Crystal 60
.5# Crystal 120
.375# Chocolate Malt
.5# CaraPils
Hops:
.75 oz. Kent Goldings - 60 Mins.
.5 oz. Fuggles - 20 Mins.
.5 oz. Fuggles - 0 Mins.
Your IBU target is 17-20. Also if you want to keep it in style eleminate both late boil additions.
Yeast:
Safale S-04 (pitched on approx 1 qt of yeast cake from Irish Red Ale)

Mash @ 158 degrees
Brewhouse Eff. 71%
O.G. 1.036
target F.G. 1.011