brew dog blog

Getting into beer and homebrewing has allowed me to meet some pretty interesting people — homebrewers in particular are relatively strange folk for the most part.  Dedicated to their craft, they embody a lot of the principles and attitudes I admire in people in general, and I’ve seen evidence of excellent homebrewers who are also excellent welders, chefs, entrepeneurs, designers, gardeners, and…chemists.

An association with a certain chemist has allowed me to trade beers for yeast and bacterial cultures — that’s right, I trade beer for the goods to make beer, isolated in the basement of a DIY lab in suburban New Jersey.  Recently my connection put together a blend of yeasts and bacterias meant to emulate the Rodenbach brewery’s culture that produces their distinctive Flemish Red style of beer, and I decided I had to get my shit together and brew in that style right away.

Having recently acquired a bottle of Lost Abbey Red Poppy, also within the style, I decided it was fate — I always try to drink a beer in the style I’m brewing on brew day.  I grabbed some specialty grains, hit up the “local” home brew shop for flaked maize and oak chips, and made it happen.  I brewed completely outside for the first time as well, which was awesome.  I stacked some milk crates, ran the hose outside, and went for it.  I’m glad I did, as it forced me to hang out outside all day in the yard, and it was a very peaceful and fun experience.  Brew Day is getting shorter and shorter, and I now have the whole process pretty much totally memorized.  I’ll post the recipes and some pictures here, and will also post a review of the (3*IPA)/2 which has been drinking really nicely the past couple of days.

The beer is named after the original, Dutch name for Brooklyn.  I designed the recipe to include some of the base malt I have left over, and added a complex array of high quality crystal malts to compliment everything.  Flaked Maize is a traditional ingredient.

Recipe:

5# Maris Otter

6.5# Vienna

3# Crystal Malt Mix (some English, Belgian, and American, mix of high and low, some red for flavor)

1# Flaked Maize

Hopped to 20 or 25 IBUs with some pretty old Northern Brewer pellets.

Mashed for 75 minutes at 153 or so, boiled for 75 minutes. Chilled down and pitched the yeast vials at 70 degrees. Vigorous fermentation around 36 hours later, it’s really kicking.  The OG came in around 1.090.

After primary, I will rack to a corny keg and drop in some medium toast oak chips, and let it sit for about a year.