Tongue Splitter Pale Ale

It's been a long time since we've brewed. Unfortunately, brewing costs money and life seems to have been leaving my wallet a little on the empty side.

Well, we finally got some more ingredients the other day and we got back to work. We figured we'd try yet another new style, so we went with a Pale Ale. I would place it closer to an IPA though. Appropriately named Tongue Splitter Pale Ale, this five gallon batch has five ounces of hops. We used Sterling hops, Nugget hops, Glacier Hops, and two ounces of Cascade hops. Our house smelled incredible for hours. This brew should have some fantastic bite to it.

I think I fell in love with Sonya even more when she came running downstairs to tell me something and stopped in her tracks to say, "Oh my God! Our house smells delicious!"

You have to love a girl that appreciates a good brew.

Primary fermentation went very well. It just finished up last night. I'm getting ready to run downstairs right now to rack it into secondary. So in about five and a half weeks from now, I think we're going to have a pretty amazing beer.

I'll make sure to post something once we try it out.

Next week we plan to brew a Cream Ale. This will be another new experience. I've never brewed a Cream Ale before. I'm pretty excited.

But how couldn't I be? It's HOMEBREW!

Pumpkin Chlorophenol Spice Ale

The Pumpkin Spice Ale seemed to be doomed from the very beginning. You can read all about it in an earlier post.

I'm pretty sure that this recipe may be thrown out, but it depends on who you ask. Sonya, Ryan, and I decided to give it a taste test last Friday to see if, by some miracle, the beer turned out. After the first taste, Ryan and I just looked disappointingly into our mason jars of "Pumpkin Ale" and decided, nearly simultaneously, that it had the odd taste of Band-Aids. For anyone who has ever brewed, you'll understand exactly what I mean by that.

It's not like we had an unfortunate "lunch lady band-aid in the goulash" kind of problem. It's just something known as off-flavoring. Surprisingly, I blame it on what seems like the smallest mistake that we made.

The tap water.
Although we only used a little bit, Pittsburgh's water sucks. You get Chlorophenols in unfiltered tap water if your city adds any chlorine to the water. Chlorophenols smell and taste like vinyl.

In case you were wondering.

Sonya, however, said that she didn't mind the slight medicinal taste and thought it wasn't too bad. I'm glad to hear that because we have two cases of it that I would hate to see go to waste. Anyone interested in helping us drink these two cases of beer is more than welcome. Or if you happen to have a cut on your tongue or in your throat and can't figure out how to put a band-aid on it, come on over.

It's honestly not that bad.

Darn tap water.

Pumpkin Spice Ale

It took me about a week of researching, but I finally came up with my own beer recipe. I had originally hoped to have this brew ready for Halloween, but it wasn't ready yet, so it ended up getting pushed back a little. Actually a lot.

I made a recipe for a Pumpkin Spice Ale for our December batch. I know. I could have made a more fitting recipe for the month, but Sonya really likes Pumpkin beer and it seemed very challenging. Since I love a good challenge, once again, I figured "why not?"

Every time we brew, Ryan and I seem to get better at it. It goes much smoother, it's less hectic, and we figure out a solution to some problem we had before.

We had been a little nervous about this one since it was my own recipe, but we were confident and figured it couldn't be too bad as long as we didn't stray from that recipe. Except we did. Several times.

Eh, I'm still confident.

We didn't have the muslin bags we needed, so we just mashed the grains and pumpkin right in the water, then strained it all out. We'll catch the rest when it settles in either the primary or secondary fermenting.

Then we, and by we I mean I, accidentally swapped the bittering hops with the flavoring hops. It really won't matter, but I was pretty disappointed when Ryan pointed that out to me. Oh well.

The final thing that I was a little disappointed with was the fact that I accidentally used some tap water in the batch. Since it's so little, it shouldn't cause a problem, but I really like to use only spring water in the beer.

Even though we now have a wort chiller, we decided to use a natural chiller this time. Snow. It's cheaper than city water and it adds an element of ridiculousness.


I'll have to report back in about a month on the turn out.

Honey Wheat Ale

My mom and dad are not much of beer drinkers by any means. My dad will have a beer at night once in a great while and my mom will have a half of a glass once in a very, very great while. Recently, I found out that my mom actually really likes honey wheat ales, so I decided to brew my own so I could share some with her, too.

I get the most enjoyment out of sharing my beer with friends and family. It's really gratifying to be able to brew something and have everyone honestly enjoy it.

This batch turned out very well also. I have to say I'm very happy with all of my batches so far. All of the beer has tasted great. Everyone has been having a great time brewing. We have some great stories to tell and my knowledge of beer brewing is increasing every time.

Lemon Squeeze Ale

For September's batch, Ryan chose our brew. He decided to go with a summer ale.

Even though we decided to brew this summer style beer in the fall, it actually turned out to be one of my favorites. I'm pretty sure it's Sonya's favorite so far, too.

One of the things you have to understand about brewing is that it's an adventure every time. Sometimes things go exactly the way you hope and plan. Other times, you have to learn from your mistakes. Unfortunately, this time turned out to be one of those learning experiences.

If you've ever brewed, you know that the number one most important thing is cleanliness. Everything that comes in contact with your brew must be sanitized.

This was the first batch since the wort chillers construction, so we were excited to try it out.

Like I said before, this brew turned out to be my favorite so far, but you can probably guess where I'm headed with this.


Turns out, when we sterilized the wort chiller, we didn't do a good enough job. The beer was perfect for about two weeks. Then we noticed some things growing in the beer. Some clumpy, weird things.

We've learned.

It really did turn out great and everyone loved it so we plan on brewing this one again for sure. Next time without the chunks.

Belgian Dubble

Back in August I made a Belgian Dubbel. I've always really enjoyed Abbey Ales. For this batch we made a bit of a party out of it. A few friends of mine joined in for the fun. So we had a pretty big crew.

A Belgian Dubbel is basically a brown ale. It's a little stronger that a pilsner, yet milder than a triple. Seems obvious, I know. It was originally brewed in the Trappist Monostaries. The first one was in Westmalle back in 1856.

In case you wanted to know.












Mashing











Tony dissolving the DME











Adding the Styrian Golding Hops














Ready to be bottled


Everything turned out really well with this batch. It had a great aroma and a wonderful taste. Everyone who tried it said that would love to have it again, so I was very proud. I'm sure I'll make this batch again in the near future.