Easing Back In

Only 6 weeks left in the residency. Working 70 hr weeks of 12 days on followed by 2 days off has taken its tole on Rowdy Reptile. The last time we brewed February (Schwarz) which we are saving until Elise can drink again. We still have the Pale Ale on tap and it is tasting great at this point. It's got a little bit of bitterness and a good hop aroma. Nothing brash and in your face, but a good beer to sip on. The Belgian Pale Ale is still there, but I think it's now past its prime and I'll probably be dumping it eventually to make room if it's not gone before then.

As I was writing about it, I decided to go pour a pale ale, and wouldn't you know, the hop aroma was getting so good because it was about empty! Now it's completely empty. Of course. Great. Back to nothing on tap.

In other news, I am going to be able to squeeze a brew in this weekend, and since I have the ingredients on hand, I am going to take another crack at a Belgian Dubbel. This time I'll use a commercial Amber Candi Sugar product (instead of trying to make my own). Otherwise, the base malt is about the same from previous batches. I made the starter tonight and will be brewing on Saturday after work.

Usually I make the starters (pic above) with enough time for them to ferment out and then cold crash in fridge. This was on short notice, so I'll be pitching the yeast at high krausen; basically when the fermentation in the starter is in full-swing. Hopefully the old yeast (Sept 2012....) still has some life left and the starter can grow enough new yeast to be able to ferment this one out like a dubbel should. I assume we'll be drinking this one in about 6-8 weeks

The hops are back again this year. The pic on the left is of the Centennials, and on the right is the Newport. The Centennials are growing a lot quicker than the Newport and the longest bine is about 10 feet high. This year we were able to string some trellis' up the side of the house to give the bines a little more room to climb and hopefully produce some more cones.

The next planned brew day is probably not going to be until around Cody is born and Elise's parents are in town to help (last week of June). With the extra help around I'll try to sneak away and brew an IPA. After that, I have a week off in July before I start my real job, and I'll brew a Summer beer: Pale, Saison, or Wit. We'll see if that even gets to happen, I hope it does as we'll need some lighter beers to balance the dubbel and schwarz.

With the residency ending and more people around to help drink, I hope that we can start brewing back up where we left off 12 months ago. Once we've got a nice stockpile going we can then start making the fun, experimental beers likes Bier de Mars, 100% Brett beers, and some stuff with oak. This year we didn't have time to make our Anniversary Barleywine or any of our winter beers, so hopefully this summer we can make some for the winter.