In brewing Belgian beers, I always have a rough idea of what I'm wanting, but often times am surprised and excited by the end result. That's part of what I love about Belgian beers, the freedom to be creative without worrying about strict guidelines. Unlike other beers I brew, there often times are no commercial examples to compare the final beer too. This happened with two of my better beers, El Jefe and Bangy Tangy. Both of those beers were concepts that turned out to be great, and unlike any other beer I've had. Such is the case with the Burning Beard.
This beer actually came from my label design of all things. I had wanted to name a beer this for awhile, and had brewed several beers (one that was terrible) and also designed several labels, but none of them felt right. One night driving home from El Jefe's house I came up with the label idea in my head. I liked the label so much I decided to brew a beer based on a couple ideas, including the use of cherries (I had been drinking Three Philosophers a lot at the time). I created the recipe and then on brew day dumped in some extra ingredients that I had around that I wanted to use up. When I transferred it to the secondary, I transferred it on top of 24 oz of frozen cherries and stuck in the fridge for a week. I had read in a couple books about a short period of lagering for Belgian Triples and Strong Ales, so I "lagered" it for a week at about 38 degrees. After bottling it and letting it age a couple weeks, I was impressed with the results and its only gotten better.
The name fits because the color is a dark amber, with reddish and copper hues. It has a foamy two finger white head. The aroma and flavor are a bit harder to pin down. It has some nice fruity esters and some yeastiness in the nose. There's a nice subtle, underlying cherry aroma that isn't overpowering at all. I upped the carbonation to give it more of a "Belgian" feel and it worked, with a nice fizziness that gives way to a soft mouthfeel. It's sweet and spicy with just a subtle cherry presence in the finish. I was worried about the 2 tablespoons of coriander I added, but there is very little if any lemony/coriander presence, but instead some nice complex spiciness. Definitley one of my more complex but well balanced beers, I am very happy with the turn out.
I'm crazy busy with the start of school so I will be posting (and brewing) less frequently coming up, but I will be posting some beer reviews of some beers I've had lately.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

On Wednesday I was able to get some bottling done, which was nice. I bottled my white beer, Inky's White and also bottled the Burning Beard. I had planned on brewing/pitching the Bangy Tangy on top of the Inky's yeast cake, but time restraints didn't allow it. Instead I collected the yeast in a bottle and hope to reuse it later. I've never done this before, but heard good results and in some email exchanges with CNY brewer Travis, was assured that he's had success with it.

Brewing philosophy: I've been reading Brew Like a Monk recently, which is an inspiring book, especially because it really emphasizes my philosophy in brewing, which is creativity and looking at beer from an artisnal standpoint. One quote in there is from Radny Thiel from Ommegang Brewery, who says that " ...if your approach is more product-oriented than process-oriented, then you are on your way to artisnal." This speaks to me primarly because I'm not a detail oriented person. I have definite weaknesses in my brewing, and a lot of them have to do with the finer points of the brewing process. While I want to produce the best beers I can, I don't aim to make clone brews or always style specific. In fact, that's when I get the most dissapointed sometimes. My Mayabock, is a good example. I love Maibocks, and for some reason that beer didn't hit the mark as a Maibock. Dave @ Muckney gave the beer a good review, and thought it was enjoyable, but missed the style mark. I was frustrated that it was not the "maibock" I was aiming for and was very disappointed. But two of my better beers- Bangy Tangy and Irie Stout were beers that came out of ideas I had for what I wanted the beer to taste like from a conceptual idea. It's not that I think brewing to nail a specific style is bad, or being an anal/detail oriented brewer is a bad thing. I just think different approaches work for different people and reading Brew Like a Monk confirms for me some of the approaches to brewing that work best for me and often yield the best results.

Burning Beard Update: With the above statement out of the way, the Burning Beard was very interesting when I transferred it. I fermented the beer at first in the low 80's, but then in reading in Jamil Zainasheff's Brewing Classic Styles book ( a great resource btw), he mentions that often times Belgian yeast strains fermented too hot can cause too much alcohol/solvent flavors. I then freaked out and moved the fermentation bucket back to the basement, dropping the temp down to the mid 60s. After a week it was done fermenting, and I transferred it to secondary, adding a little over 24 oz of frozen sweet cherries. In both Jamil's book and Brew Like a Monk, a number of the recipes for triples and strong Belgian ales have a secondary fermentation for a week to a month at 33-45 degrees. With this in mind I threw the secondary in my fridge at about 38-40 degrees and held it there for a week. At about 5 days, the beer tasted great, a very mild cherry presence, so I decided to wait a day or two to bottle. At bottling, it was a very dark pinkish color, think pink lemonade with a little ice-tea in it. Very interesting. There was quite a bit of alcohol presence, that I hope will mellow out a bit, but it had a nice cherry subtlety to it without being over powering. I'm excited to see how it conditions. I don't really know if the beer will turn out the way I was thinking in my head, but the color was a suprise and I'm hoping the cherry will be a nice soft flavor balanced against some fruity esters.

This post is long enough as it is. I'll reflect on my Hopshot IPA soon.
Salud!
Beared Brewer

Today I brewed a beer I've been waiting to brew for awhile. The Burning Beard Belgian Ale. The name of one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands, Clutch, The label and the beer the name is attached to have gone through several variations, but I think in both cases, this could be the beer/label/name to stick.
Fronted by an awesome bearded brethren, Clutch is a mix of metal, rock, and blues that always brings it! Aptly named, the Burning Beard is a bit of a hodge-podge of some ingredients I had laying around and a basic idea of what I want it to end up like.
Inspired by Three Philosophers and the wonderful subtle cherry flavor that comes through, I plan on adding a pound or two of frozen cherries to the secondary to give it a nice presence without being overly cherry. In addition, the beer is made up of organic light dme, organic pilsner, organic wheat, and a small amount of caramel malt I had extra from another beer. I also added a pound of organic cane sugar and used up a little under a pound of amber belgian candi sugar I had left from a previous dubbel. I hopped it with some hops I received in an organic hop sampler from Seven Bridges (great deal btw, 8 oz for $13). I used Perle for bittering and East Kent Goldings for flavor and aroma and added 2 table spoons of organic corriadner (again using up some leftovers). I am fermenting it around 80-85 degrees with the Wyeast Belgian Abbey 2 yeast, which I hope will give it some nice fruitness.
I'm excited to see how it turns out, and I'm vowing to have patience with it. It should end up around 7-7.5%, and I think it could be very good.



Later this week, some reviews and an update on my Cali-Common/SOC Draft Ale
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

With a new baby, time in the brewery gets harder to find. This weekend I was excited to be able to get three things done in the brewery...
Friday night I bottled my Northwoods Ale. It turned out to be a much lighter beer than I had originally intended, but I think that the maple syrup and the wild rice will make it interesting. When I tasted it while bottling, I was happy to notice a maple syrup presence and the wild rice gave it a dry crispness. This should be interesting as it matures.
Saturday I bought the ingredients to make my next two beers: Whitefish Cranberry Wheat and La Libertad. La Libertad is a west coast ale inspired by my trip to San Francisco and in particular Anchor's Liberty Ale.
Sunday I brewed the Whitefish and transferred my Morris Park Porter. I decided against adding the coffee this time around, mostly because I've never made a porter before. And secondly this tasted awesome when I transferred it and I don't want to mess with it. And with the results of the latest batch of Burning Beard (read below) I decided I'd just leave the Porter alone this time.

Bad Beer:
For the first time in my brewing history, I had to sadly pour out a batch. The Burning Beard Belgian Ale was terrible. I don't know what went wrong, but its awful. Kristen thought it tasted like olives. Not exactly a beer flavor I'm going for. It doesn't taste like it was contaminated. I think I used way too much flaked wheat. It has a terrible dry finish that really fights with the cranberry tartness. Whatever the case, its really bad. I've poured out most of the batch so far, and the nice thing was that I had plenty of bottles for the Northwoods. Bottom line: I need to stop messing with my good recipes.

Tonight I'm brewing my Burning Beard Belgian Ale. The name comes from one of my favorite songs by the band Clutch. I've changed the recipe some, so I'm intrigued to find out how it turns out. This beer is a Belgian White beer, but I'm going to use some different ingredients this time around.
The last time I brewed it, I used mostly extract and it turned out well, but I wanted to try to do it using more flaked wheat. I also add orange marmalade, a trick I learned in Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing book. This book is like my bible for brewing, I find it much more helpful and interesting than any other brewing book.
The last time I made this beer, it was called "Bangy Tangy" named for a friend of mine. A couple of my friends continue to refer to the beer as such. After my friend Josh came up with the name, I tried to brew the beer with a some tangyness. I decided to add cranberries to it because I had some left over from another beer I had made. I brewed half a pound and then added half a pound to the secondary the last time I brewed it. This time I'm going to just add the cranberries in the secondary to give it more of a presence. I'm also hoping that the cranberries give it a bit more of a redish color.

The recipe is:
.75 lbs of Belgian Pils
.75 lbs of Belgian Pale Malt
1.5 lbs of Flaked Wheat
.36 lbs of Flaked oats
3 lbs of Dry Bavarian Wheat Extract (I'll add this the last 15 min)
.5 lbs of Light DME (I'll add this at the start of the boil).

1 ounce of Hallertau hops
2 tablespoons of Orange Marmalade
1 lb of frozen cranberries
Belgian Witbier yeast.

It should be interesting. I found a recipe for a Hoegarden Clone that used 3 lbs of Flaked Wheat and 1 lb of Belgian Pale, then Wheat Extract. I was intrigued by this. I use Beer Tools and came up with this recipe to use that much flaked wheat. I've only used it in small amounts in my Inky's White. I'll be interested in the end result. I'm hoping for a slightly redish tint because of the cranberries, and a light, crisp body. I'm not adding Paradise seeds (something I did the last time) simply because they are expensive and I think they'll be lost in the flavor profile because of the marmalade and cranberries.

Tonight, I'm also going to be bottling another beer of mine, my "house beer" Bearded Fury Pale Ale. This will be the fourth time I've made this beer and I haven't made it in awhile. It tasted good when I transfered it to the secondary and I've sinced added another ounce of Fuggle hops. It'll have been in the secondary fermenter for about 2 weeks.

As for other upcoming beers, this is what I have planned for the months of October and November:
Northwoods Ale: Last year I brewed a beer using wild rice. Per usual I didn't give it enough time to mature before I drank most of it. The last half of the batch was really good as the wild rice had mellowed into the flavors. I've changed the recipe some, and the beer is basically a standard British Bitter, pretty basic. But I'm going to first boil wild rice, then put that into the mash tun. Then to mellow out the flavors, I'm going to add maple syrup at the end of the boil. It should be a good nutty balanced ale for the winter. I'm going to give it plenty of time to mature this time.

Yinzer Ale- My in-laws are from Pittsburgh, home of Yuengling Lager. This is a beer that I love everytime I get a chance to drink it. If we drive out to P-town we bring some back with us. Well I can't lager because I don't have the access to a fridge that I could control the temps and use for brewing. Plus I don't enjoy enough lagers to make buying one a priority. I would love to be able to make bocks, but I'll make due for now. Anyway, my brother-in-law has been asking for a Yuengling clone for some time. I made a light cream ale this summer using rice solid extract that was a pretty close representative to a standard american lager like Bud or Miller Light (It was a gift, not my choice!). Using the success of that, I'm going to try to make a Pittsburgh Style Ale, using rice, and some carmel malt and the California Common yeast to get a beer that is crisp and dry. It'll hopefully be somewhere between a Iron City and Yuengling. I'm making a 3 gallon batch first so that if it sucks...well then it was experimental.

California Pale Ale- After visiting California recently (see my next post) I was inspired to brew a super hoppy beer. I'm not a hop head really, and my friends enjoy Belgians or brown ales more than hoppy beers. But this summer I brewed a California Common that was heavily hopped with Cascade hops and it turned out great. It was darker than a pale ale, and I'm bascially trying to achieve the same thing. I was in the Bay Area and out east of Oakland in a hop growing region. All the beer I was drinking was heavily hopped, so I'm going to brew a pale ale and use several ounces of Cascade and Chinhook hops.

El Muerto (version 3.0)- I've made El Muerto several times and I'm changing the recipe yet again. I've been annoyed by what seems to be too sweet of a character in some of my beers and I think it might be a result of using Amber Malt Extract. So I'm going to brew El Muerto again, but this time not use any Amber LME, and instead increase the crystal malt for coloring. I'm hoping that will give it more of the malty, carmely flavor I'm looking for. I'm also going to increase the hops. I've been bored by what is one of my more popular beers, so I want to make it a bit more ...just more malty, more hoppy. I'm also going with a different yeast. I've brewed it with 1056 American Ale, Rogue Yeast, and now I'm going to use the California Common yeast to hopefully bring out more of the malty and hoppy flavors. We'll see how it turns out. I know I shouldn't mess with a good thing, but I want it to be one of my "flagship beers" and since it started off as a clone of Dead Guy, I just want to keep tweaking it until its a unique beer.

Whitefish Cranberry Wheat- This is going to be my Christmas beer. My parents have a home in Stone Lake Wisconsin, home of a Cranberry fest, cranberry bogs, and basically everything cranberry. After harvest time (late September) cranberries are extremely cheap to buy. Last year I made this beer and it turned out great. A nice subtle cranberry taste in a refreshing wheat beer. Its brewed with 2lbs of cranberries. I'm looking forward to brewing this beer again.

Thats all for now.
The Bearded Brewer