Inside this issue:
Rogue Night at Steve & Clark's
Presented by Rogue Ales sales rep Tyronne Irby and supported by Tracey Dense at Brew Works, we had 50 brewers to attend a special tasting of some Rogue Beers that are not available in NC. The ales tasted were Rogue Smoke, McRogue Scotch Ale, Old Crustacean Barleywine, and Rogue Imperial Stout.
After almost 10 days since the tasting, I can still recall the quality of all the ales. A few detected a minor flaw or some ingredient they wanted more of, but almost all came away impressed with the XS line of beers. All were aggressive quality beers with little regard given to cost.
4th Annual Micro Festival-Durham
The 4th Annual SE Microbrewery Festival was again a great success. Well attended by several Carboy members during both sessions, we had a super time tasting beers, listening to music, socializing and then tasting more beers. Some brave souls even attended both sessions.
With a few new micros and some special beers brewed by some vendors just for this festival, there was enough interest generated to keep most beer lovers coming back for more.
Everyone had their favorites but I really liked the Caesar's Head Scotch Ale that was under the counter.
Of the classic brewing waters, only one has the hardness required for an IPA or strongly hopped beer without water adjustments. Which one?
A-Dublin
B-London
C-Munich
D-Burton
by Jeff Vogt
After tasting Jeff's Smoke Porter at the January Carboy meeting, I was anxious to review the recipe. At 1062 it has plenty of malt and mouthfeel for this style beer. The smoked malt that was used was restrained but clearly in aroma and taste. Very clean with no major flaws. A fine example Jeff. Thanks!
| 6 lbs Munton's British Amber DME
| 1 lb Munton's Extra Light DME
| 1.25 lbs Weyermann German Smoked Malt (1.6L)
| .5 lb Hugh Baird Chocolate Malt
| .63 lb Hugh Baird 90L Crystal
| .25 lb Hugh Baird Carastan 90L
| .25 lb Carlson Black Patent Malt
| .5 oz Chinnok Whole Hops aa-12% @60 min
| .25 oz Chinook Whole Hops aa-12% @45 min
| .5 oz EKG Whole Hops aa-5% @30 min
| .5 oz EKG Whole Hops aa-5% @10 min
| Wyeast 1056 American Ale
| IBU's-44
| OG-1062 FG-1014
| |
Add crushed grains to 160 F water and hold for 30 minutes. Remove grains. Add malt extract and hops according to the hopping schedule.
Boil for 60 minutes, chill, transfer to carboy, pitch yeast and aerate wort. Leave in primary for 3 weeks and secondary for 3 weeks.
Saturday April 5th
Entries are already starting to filter in for the Shamrock Open II which is scheduled for April 5th at BB&Y's. Mike Wallace and others on the organizing committee have this event well planned. If you plan to enter beers, the deadline is April 1st (no kidding!).
We have entry forms available at BrewBetter Supply and American Brewmasters and we will have them at Wednesday's meeting. Entry fees are $6.00/1st, $5/2nd and $4 for all other entries. Thus 3 beers is only $15.
With the Shamrock Open as the first leg in the run for the NC Brewer of the Year Award, we should have a huge turnout of beers. I assume that the Charlotte brewers will flood this event as they attempt to wrestle the 1997 NC BOY award away from the Triangle area.
We have several excellent brewers in our club and I'm sure we will be wll represented. After 168 entries in 1996 in our first competition, we may well draw close to 200 entries this year.
If you haven't volunteered your help as a judge or a steward, please plan to see Jim Navecky if you want to steward or Steve Murphrey if you want to judge. It is not too late to offer your help. We still have several openings and as the entries climb, we may be crying for more.
Name the Rogue beer that was not tasted at the recent Rogue Night.
A-Dead Guy Ale
B-McRogue Scotch Ale
C-Rogue Imperial Stout
D-Rogue Smoke
April 26th
The US Open will be held on April 26th in Charlotte. The US Open will be the second leg of the race for the NC BOY 1997 Award. I would like for as many as possible to have some beer ready to enter in this contest. Check out their website at
dezines.com@your.service/cbm for more details. Ed Gaston is the event organizer and he can be reached at 704-510-1121. I'll try to have forms available at the March Carboy meeting.
Recipe:Rattler's Oatmeal Stout
by Tony Hewitt
At the January Carboy meeting we tasted a delicious stout by Tony Hewitt. If you want to try this recipe or the earlier one by Jeff Vogt and have questions, I'm sure they will be at Wednesday night's meeting and would be happy to help you.
| 7.5 lbs American 2-row malt
| 12 oz Flaked Oats
| 10 oz Roasted Barley
| 8 oz Caramel malt 80L
| 1 oz North. Brewer aa-8.8% @60 min
| 1 tsp Irish Moss @10 min
| 1 oz Hallertauer (no aa) @6 min
| Wyeat London Ale 1028
| OG-1053 FG-1011
| |
Add grains to 13 qts water at 168F to stabilize at 148F. Sparge with 170F water after complete conversion. Boil and add hops etc according to the schedule.
Primary for 4 days at 68F and second. for 10 days at 68F. Tony said, he finished with 4 gal but he reports his sparging methods have now improved and he should be close to the same OG for a 5 gal batch. Adapt to your system.
A glass instrument used to measure the specific gravity of a liquid in comparison to water.
A-test tube
B-spectometer
C-hydrometer
D-your favorite beer glass
An Introduction to High-Gravity Brewing
BARLEY WINES
By Jeff Vogt
In last month's Fermenter, Larry asked us to ponder, philosophically, whether we as homebrewers can legally/morally brew a beer that is more than 6-percent alcohol by volume taking into account our states' arcane laws governing malt beverages. As I understand it, it is only illegal to sell beer with an alcohol content greater than 6%. Regardless, I won't think twice about brewing and sharing strong beers. For given our collective thirst for certain "outlawed" styles our best option is to brew them ourselves. Therefore, with National Homebrew Day rapidly approaching, and our plans to brew a "big beer" for the occasion, it might be of interest to look at Barley Wines to better our understanding of the style and of high-gravity brewing more generally.
Brewing Barley Wines Ingredients
All-Grain Barley Wine Recipe (3 gallons)
Partial-Mash Barley Wine Recipe (5 gallons)
Keys to Brewing Successful Barley Wines
The Barley Wine is the richest and strongest of all British ales. The style is characterized by a malty sweetness often balanced by high hop bitterness, low hop aroma, heavy body and its alcoholic warmth.1
Barley Wines can be both pale and dark in color. Traditionally, Barley Wines were left to mature for extended periods in casks which were rolled periodically to stir the yeast in its secondary fermentation in order to further convert sugars to alcohol.2 The effects of a top-fermenting yeast, extended aging and a high level of alcohol give the beer a warming quality and winy taste that is often associated with wine, port, or sherry.3
It is a traditional British style that has been adopted (and adapted) by American brewers who have used their creativity and a propensity for bolder beers to create a distinct American-style Barley Wine. The American versions of Barley Wine tend to be characterized by American Hop varieties and a more in-your-face hop aroma and bitterness than the traditional English versions. The American-style Barley Wine will be the focus of this article from here on out.
1b) American-Style Barley Wine: Tawny copper to dark brown in color with a full body and high residual malty sweetness. Complexity of alcohols and fruity-ester characters are often high and counterbalanced by the perception of medium to assertive bitterness and extraordinary alcohol content. Hop aroma and flavor may be medium to very high, and use of American hop varieties is typical. Diacetyl should be very low. A caramel and vinous aroma and flavor are part of the character. Chill haze is allowable at cold temperatures.
O.G. 1.085-1.120 (21-30) F.G. 1.024-1.032 (6-8)
IBU 50-100; Color 14-22 SRM; Alc/Vol 8.5-12.2%
Brewing Barley Wines Ingredients:
Malt: The bulk of fermentables (80-100%) in a Barley Wine are going to come from two-row pale malt. Additionally, small quantities of Caramel/ Crystal Malt will provide a certain caramel-like sweetness, color and added body to the beer and Munich malt similarly contributes a deep amber color and a malty sweetness to the beer. One may also choose to add various specialty malts in small quantities to experiment with their respective flavor components. A small amount (~2 oz.) of finely crushed Chocolate malt will protect against chill haze without contributing significantly to color or flavor. Adjunct sugars such as honey and molasses can also be used successfully, in quantities not more than 5-10%, to boost the fermentables without thinning the beer's body and producing 'cidery' off-flavors.
Hops: What, perhaps, most defines the American-style Barley Wines are the domestic hop varieties used for bittering, flavor and aroma. A recent article by Jim Busch suggests pairing hops with similar properties for added effect. For American ales he suggests selecting combinations of the trademark citrusy hops of the Pacific Northwest - Cascades, Chinooks, Centennials, and Columbus. Other American varieties that tend to interact well together in ales are Willamettes, U.S. Fuggles, Yakima Goldings, and Mt. Hoods.4 Regardless of choice, the purpose of the hops in a Barley Wine is to counterbalance the intense malt sweetness so as to make the finished product less cloying.
One is likely to do well with an early addition, a late addition or two, and even dry hopping to accentuate the hop aroma.
Yeast: Ale yeasts have a limited alcohol tolerance. In a high-gravity beer this can mean that the yeast may have difficulty fermenting (attenuating) all of the available sugars.5 Some have used champagne yeast in the secondary, given its high-alcohol tolerance, to help finish the ferment. But, this potentially could result in over-attenuation. Similarly, George Fix writes that in high gravity ales strains of the Brettanomyces genus, which have a high-alcohol tolerant, are used to complete the ferment.6 Yet a by-product of some of these strains are strong fruity esters in the aroma. Nonetheless, these options should be unnecessary.
A big starter is key to brewing a strong beer. If enough yeast is pitched and you aerate your wort well, the yeast will stay viable and remain in suspension long enough to complete the task. Another option is to repitch the yeast from the secondary of a normal gravity beer. This provides a healthy quantity of pitching yeast.7 In selecting a yeast one should be looking for a strain with strong attenuative properties. The beer should ferment down around 70% of its starting gravity. Ideally, the yeast chosen will have moderate flocculation characteristics, for you want the yeast to stay in suspension for an extended period of time so as to further convert sugars to alcohols throughout the primary and secondary fermentation. If the yeast is highly flocculant it will drop out of solution with the rest of the particulate matter in the beer and prematurely stop the fermentation. Frequent rousing of the yeast by swirling your carboy will help keep the yeast in suspension. Finally, the yeast should have a high ethanol tolerance. Ethanol, a by-product of fermentation, becomes present in high quantities in a strong beer. At a certain level this will kill off yeast. In a Barley Wine as the alcohol level of the beer increases so does the ethanol content which at some point will overwhelm the yeast. In general, Wyeast 1056 is a clean, fruity yeast that does well in high-gravity worts if a large starter is pitched. Similarly, Wyeast 1728 (Scottish Ale) and 1084 (Irish Ale) can be expected to perform up to the task. One might also try various Belgian ale yeasts, such as Wyeast 1214, that tend to be appropriate for higher-gravities.
Water: Moderate to hard water is most appropriate for Barley Wines. Refer to Mike Lewandowski & Mike Wallace's excellent water chemistry article in last month's
Fermenter to make the appropriate adjustments for your water.
Procedure:
All Grain: Brewing a high-gravity beer such as a Barley Wine is not much different than brewing any other beer, you just use more malted barley. A simple single-step infusion mash is sufficient for converting the starches in the barley malt to the fermentable sugars. Hold the mash at 152 - 156 degrees F for 60-90 minutes or until an iodine test shows complete conversion of the starches to sugars. Because a Barley Wine has such a high starting gravity it is necessary not only to use a great deal of grain, but to effectively concentrate the sugars. For the all-grain brewer this can be accomplished by using only the first runnings of the mash. This procedure, which has recently been discussed on the Homebrew Digest as 'No Sparge Mashing', consists of increasing your grain bill and collecting only the first runnings of wort from the lauter tun without using any sparge water. One must still recirculate the runnings before boiling to produce clarity and further extract sugars from the grain bed, but sparging with 170 degree water is unnecessary. While this leaves behind a great deal of sugars that have not been extracted from the grain bed (more on this later), what results is a more concentrated wort at a higher than standard gravity. You can figure on using approximately 4.5 to 5.0 pounds of grain for every gallon of beer you wish to produce.
Note: If your homebrewery setup doesn't allow for the larger grain bill necessary for such a procedure, bite the bullet and brew a smaller 2.5-3.0 gallon batch. Your end result in quality is sure to be worth the sacrifice in quantity.
Once you have completed recirculating the first runnings and have started your boil you can turn to the question of what to do with all of the grain that remains in your lauter tun? Why not make another batch of beer with the remaining sugars. Often brewers will run sparge water through the remaining grains to create a Small Beer. A small beer is a weak(er) beer brewed from the 'last runnings' of the mash. The small beer that resulted from the grain that remained from my last barley wine had a 1.054 starting gravity - hardly a 'small' beer! Such beers can range in style from Scottish Ales to British Bitters to American Ambers and so forth depending on your grain bill, your hop and yeast choices, and the resulting gravity and color. Use your creativity. With careful planning your brew day can become a 2-for-1 effort.
All-Grain Barley Wine Recipe (3 gallons)
| 12.25 lbs. Pale Ale Malt (81.7%)
| 1.0 lbs. Munich Malt (6.67%)
| 1.0 lbs. Caramel (60) Malt (6.67%)
| 0.375 lbs. Honey Malt (2.5%)
| 0.375 lbs. Biscuit Malt (2.5%)
| 2 oz. Chocolate Malt
| 1 cup Honey
| .75 oz. Columbus Hops 11% (60 min)
| .75 oz. Centennial Hops 8.7% (60 min)
| 1.0 oz. Cascade Hops 5.0% (15 min)
| 1.0 oz. Centennial Hops 8.7% (15 min)
| 0.5 oz. Cascade Hops 5.0% (steep)
| 0.5 oz. Centennial Hops 8.7% (steep)
| 0.5 oz. Cascade Hops 5.0% (dry)
| 0.5 oz. Centennial Hops 8.7% (dry)
| Wyeast #1056 (500 ml Starter)
| |
O.G.: 1.100 - 1.104
F.G.: 1.024 - 1.032
IBU: 104
Mash/Extract: An alternative to No Sparge Mashing for those that lack the capacity for such a volume of grains is to simply mash those grains that your system is capable of, then to add several pounds of extract to your boil to increase the fermentable sugars.
Partial-Mash Barley Wine Recipe (5 gallons)
| 6.0 lbs. Light Dry Malt
| Extract
| 5.0 lbs. Pale Ale Malt
| 1.0 lbs. Victory Malt
| 1.0 lbs. Caramel (60) Malt
| 0.25 lbs. Smoked Malt
| 3/4 cup Molasses
| 1.5 oz Mt. Hood aa-6% @60 min
| 2 oz Liberty aa-4% @60 min
| 1 oz Mt. Hood aa-6% @30 min
| 1 oz Goldings aa-4.5% @15 min
| 1 oz Goldings aa-4.5% (steep)
| 1 oz Goldings aa-4.5% (dry)
| Wyeast #1056, #1084, or #1728
| |
O.G.: 1.094 - 1.100
IBU: 90
Extract: Extract brewing of high-gravity beers is no different than that of 'ordinary' beers except that if one concentrates the sugars in the boil and then dilutes with water in the fermenter, the potential hop bitterness is affected by the gravity of the wort. Nonetheless, great barley wines can be made with extract. The first step in planning is to calculate how much extract you will need to raise your wort gravity to a level within style. In a 5 gallon boil you can expect to achieve 6.6 to 7.6 gravity points per pound using Liquid Malt Extract. Similarly, using Dry Malt Extract the yield in a 5 gallon wort ranges from 8.8 to 9.6 gravity points per pound.8 In brewing smaller batches, 1 pound of Liquid Malt Extract or Dry Malt Extract will give 1 gallon of wort a gravity of 1.033 or 1.044-1.048, respectively. Thus, one can figure on using 10 or more pounds of extract for a barley wine. Additionally, steeping a small amount of specialty grains before the boil can add color, flavor, and a greater degree of complexity to an extract beer. Before adding your extract, heat your water until it reaches 150 - 170 degrees F. Remove your brewpot from the heat and add your crushed grains. Hold for 30 minutes, then remove the grains, add your extract and heat to boiling, adding hops accordingly.
| 6.0 lbs. Light Dry Malt Extract
| 4.0 lbs. Amber Dry Malt Extract
| 1.0 lbs. Caramel (60) Malt
| 1.0 lbs. Munich Malt
| 2 oz. Chocolate Malt
| 1 cup Honey
| .5 oz Chinook Hops (60 min)
| 1.0 oz. Cascade Hops (60 min)
| 1.0 oz. Cascade Hops (15 min)
| 1.0 oz. Cascade Hops (15 min)
| 1.0 oz. Cascade Hops (steep)
| 1.0 oz. Cascade Hops (dry)
| Wyeast #1056, #1728, or #1214
| |
O.G.: 1.086 - 1.092
IBU: 68
Fermentation: If you pitch your yeast at a sufficient rate, primary fermentation should be complete within a week or so, often in as little as four days. It doesn't hurt to rouse the yeast every day or so in order to keep them in suspension and working at converting sugars to alcohol. Temperature of the fermentation should be kept below 70 degrees F. Higher temperatures will produce considerable esters while lower temperatures will provide for a cleaner flavor profile. A secondary fermentation is recommended to aid in clarifying the beer and to prevent 'yeast bite' by separating the trub from the beer.
Conditioning/Bottling: Because of the strength of a Barley Wine the yeast can often become exhausted by the end of the fermentation process. Thus, by bottling time there may not be any viable yeast that remains. Therefore, in order to successfully carbonate your beer and to aid in conditioning it is suggested that you add a small dose of fresh yeast when you bottle.9 Barley Wines and other strong, bottle-conditioned beers improve with age. The flavors will blend in the bottle and become less harsh and smoother. It is with aging that a barley wine picks up the oxidized, sherry-like notes that can add to the complexity of flavors in the beer.
Keys to Brewing Successful Barley Wines:10
1. If you aerate the wort well and use lots of yeast, you shouldn't need any wine or champagne yeast to get good attenuation.
2. High Fermentation temperatures (over 70 deg F) will result in estery Barley Wines. Lower Temperatures will give cleaner flavors.
3. Condition for at least 6 weeks for best results (several months would be better)
Conclusion:
Hopefully this article has provided a useful introduction to the Barley Wine style and has pointed out some of the important aspects in brewing this and other high-gravity beers. If the complexities of commercial examples of the style such as Old Crusty, Bigfoot, and Old Foghorn are to your liking, what could be better than a homebrewed version to have readily available and to call your own. If you choose to brew a Barley Wine plan your brew, brew it, ferment it, bottle it, and let it sit. Be patient and allow the beer mature and develop. You will be rewarded with not just good, but great beer. Get brewing!
Dominion Millennium '95 (varies each year)
Malts: Pale Ale Malt; Caramel Malts; Virginia Honey
Hops: Mt. Hood and Liberty Hops (kettle); English Kent Goldings (dry)
O.G. 1.106 (25.0 Plato)
IBU: 100
Alcohol Content: 10.0% by Volume
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale
Malts: Two-row Barley Malt; Caramel Malt
Hops: Nugget (bittering); Cascade (finishing); Centennial & Cascade (dry)
O.G. 1.096 (24.0 Plato)
F.G. 6.0 Plato
IBU: ?
Alcohol Content: 11.06% by Volume
Rogue Old Crustacean
Malts: Harrington Malt; Klages Malt; Crystal Malt;Munich Malt
Hops: Chinook; Centennial
O.G. 1.110 (26.0 Plato)
IBU: 120
Alcohol Content: ?
Anchor Old Foghorn
Malts: Pale Malt; Crystal Malt
Hops: Cascades
O.G. 1.100 (25 Plato)
IBU: 65
Alcohol Content: 8.7% by Volume
1. Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson's Beer Companion (Running Press , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1993) pp. 100-105.
2. Michael Jackson, The New World Guide to Beer (Running Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1988) p. 174.
3. Garrett Oliver, "Barley Wines - The Power and the Glory," The Malt Advocate 5 (1), pp. 16, 19.
4. Jim Busch, "How to Master Hop Character - Exploring Hop Flavors and Aromas for More Targeted Recipe Formulation," Brewing Techniques 5 (1), pp. 30-33 (January/February 1997).
5. Gregg Smith, "Barley Wine," All About Beer 17 (6), p. 70, 66 (January 1997).
6. George Fix, Principles of Brewing Science (Brewers Publications, Boulder, Colorado, 1989) p. 156.
7.Jim Busch, "A Matter of Immense Gravity - Some Tricks to Successfully Brewing Strong Beers," Brewing Techniques 4 (2), pp. 20-25 (March/April 1996).
8. Ballard, Ray. "High-Gravity Brewing: Homebrew 1.101," Zymurgy 18 (5), pp. 73-74 (Winter 1995).
9. Busch, "A Matter of Immense Gravity...", p. 22.
10. Tom Cannon, (BURP sponsored BJCP class on Strong Ales), September,
1996.