New to the TRI Brew Crew

I was very excited when JWC (Jason) asked me to contribute to this blog. I have only been brewing a short time but I've learned quite a bit, and my hope is to share some of my knowledge and insights about this great hobby.

Over the summer while my wife was completing her master's degree I was left to my own devices and of course that meant I did a bit of home brewing. I thought I would talk about my Aldeeran Wit Beer and Boba Fett IPA, both of these beers were a blast to make and all came out great.

Aldeeran Wit:

I brewed this beer for my wife, Wit Beer is one of her flavor beer styles and because I had not made a Wit I thought it would be a fun challenge. I found the recipe in "Brewing Classic Styles" by Jamil Zainasheff and John Palmer (an excellent recipe book by the way) and went to my LHBS (local home brew shop) and grocery store to pick up my supplies.

This is a great and simple beer made of liquid wheat malt extract, oats, Hallertuaer hops, coriander, citrus zest and the secret ingredient chamomile tea. The only problem was zesting 8 oranges and 2 grapefruits to get 2.5 oz of citrus zest but it was worth it in the end. I was very pleased with this beer, after fermentation and conditioning it was an explosion (hence the name) of citrus and coriander in your glass and Sarah loved it. As it has aged the citrus and coriander have dropped out a bit but it is still a great drinkable beer which I will have to make again when summer rolls around.

Boba Fett IPA:

This is one of my favorite home brews it is a bad ass IPA (hence the name) but before I can go any further I have to get something off my chest. Ok give my a minute this is very hard for me to say in such a public forum... I am just going to come out and say it.... I AM A HOP HEAD.... phew, that feels better, alright I feel like I can move forward. Please do not misunderstand me I love a great malt forward porter, stout, dopplebock etc, its just I LOVE the floral, citrus and some times dank flavors that come for our friend the hop cone. That is why I love this beer, it has a ton of late addition hops and is dry hopped which gives a great hop flavor and aroma without a lot of the bitterness (which I feel turns a lot of people away.) This is the second time I've made this beer, it is inspired by one of my favorite commercial beers Bells Two Hearted Ales. The first time I used the Dead Ringer Kit from Northern Brewer and I was very pleased with the results, this time I went to my LHBS and built the kit myself.

This a very simply recipe Light Golden Liquid Malt Extract, Crystal 40 Malt to steep and 6 oz. of Centennial Hops. I am so pleased with the way this came out, it has a great juicey fruit hop character without over powering the carmel sweet malt backbone. This beer is very fresh I bottled it less than a month ago so the hops are still in the front, I will have to be sure to drink it fast to preserve all of those hop flavors that I love. I do not think I will have a problem with that since the beer so balanced and drinkable. My only regret is not saving a bottle from the original batch to compare to this batch. From what I remember they are very similar, which is great it gives me a lot of confidence in my process. I will have to save at least one bottle this time so that I can really compare the to the next batch.

I am going to save my adventures into partial mash brewing for my next blog post, thanks for letting me share.

Cheers,

Cytorunner