Scotch Ale

12/18/03 - Scotch Ale. This year's Scotch Ale is in stores and bars as I'm typing this (of course), but my delay on this round of notes (besides the rigorous QC regimen I maintain) is that the recipe from last year needed very little adjustment. The only thing we played with was the smoked malt percentage. We still used German Rauch Malt, from Durst, but upped the amount from 1% to 1.5%. It's still subtle, which I think it should be, as we're not looking to make a smoked beer per se. We've placed 50 gallons of this beer into the old Jack Daniels barrel we have out back which should add some amazing oak / whiskey notes to the beer.

As a side note, we will be bottle conditioning the Big Beers starting from the Barleywine due out soon! We've been considering different methods of achieving the best results and will probably keep thinking about it right up to the last moment. For me, it's an exciting step that will allow confident aging of these distinctive beers. I'll be sure to let ya'll know how we decide to proceed.

Malt:
Pilsner Malt
10L Munich
35L Carastan
Chocolate Malt
Rauch Malt

SG 18°P
TG 3.6°P

Hops:
IBU - 28
Willamette - Bittering