Big A IPA - 2004 Edition

8/30/04 - Big A IPA - Well I guess Stash got tired of Sy and Paul laughin' away at him on their lawn chairs (rumor has it he's the one that kicked in the trailer door) and so the Polish purveyor of prodigious potables decided to up the ante by revamping his Big A IPA. 6.6 percent alcohol? Please, try 9. 70 IBU's? Stash figures 100 will do just nicely, thanks. The malt bill has pretty much stayed the same, but the hopping has been totally updated for the challenge of it all. The bittering's done with Magnum and a tad of Cascade for the harsher notes it imparts. Once again the flavoring additions were added every 5 minutes for the last 30 minutes of the boil. These were done using Horizon with Ahtanum added at the very end of the boil. Columbus were used in the bright tank for dry hop aroma.

It's the end of the summer and this beer still has a long way to go to reach maturity. The beer is still a tad hot and I'd sit bottles down for at least 6 months. The flavor is quite nice with the Belgian malts showing their beautiful characters. I think the flavor additions in the hopping could use to be bumped up and I'm sure Stash will look into that next year. All in all I think this is another fine effort by the Smutty crew. Enjoy.

Malt:
Pale (2-row) malt
Belgian pale ale malt
Aromatic malt

ABV - 9%

Hops:
IBU - 100
Bittering - Magnum and Cascade
Flavoring - Horizon
Aroma - Ahtanum
Dry Hopping - Columbus

Maibock

4/30/04 - This year's Maibock is about to hit the shelves and it's not even May yet, how about that. The production gods must be smiling down on the Smutty boys. We once again pulled off the double decoction and are quite happy with the results. The difference from last year was a matter of color. We were trying to lighten it into the golden range, by dropping some of the specialty malts. We went from 33% Munich and 12% Belgian Pale Ale malts to 15% and 26% respectively. However, the decoction still darkens the beer to such an extent that we ended up in the amber range. It's a beautiful color but not exactly what we wanted. I may try 100% pilsner malt next year.

Barleywine

2/20/04 - This year's Barleywine is a showcase for the subtlety of the S-hops: Simcoe and Santiam. These hops were featured in all the additions except for the dry hops, where we used Horizons. You gotta love the smoothness of the bittering character of those Simcoes, even at 90 IBUs, which by the way was a slight drop from last years 100 IBUs. We loved the malt profile from last year so that hasn't changed. The biggest difference is of course that we have finally moved into bottle conditioning. This is the first stab at this practice here at Smuttynose and my first venture into this realm since my homebrewing days. Back then it was a matter of necessity, but now I'm really only looking to scavenge any remaining oxygen from the headspace of the bottle as we fill them. The first batch actually went fairly smoothly but then we became too smart for our own good and tried to bottle at a warmer temperature and weren't able to keep enough CO2 in solution and so ended up with a beer slightly less lively. The first batch was bottled at 45°F while the second was at 50°F. The bottle conditioning process was right out of homebrew practice with a small amount of yeast (3 gallons for 30 BBL's) and an appropriate amount of white cane sugar (dissolved in hot water) added right before bottling. That night I had a recurrence of the old nightmare (you know the one) where your couple cases of homebrew are slowly exploding in the back of the closet but you're deep into your fermentatively induced dreams and think it's your neighbor (you know the one) who wears the hunting cap, with flaps, year round taking pot shots at your right front tire. Now multiply this nightmare by the fact that it's not 2 cases but upwards of 500, sloooowly exploooding all night long. Alas this never happened and I've managed to keep my job through another seat of the pants experience.

The beer itself pours with a beautiful orangey white head and has an aroma of tangerines and citrus that fades into pine. The bitterness is resiny yet smooth with the malt body holding it's end up nicely. I'm getting a bunch of citrus notes with a hint of vanilla. It's definitely still hot right now but don't worry it's bottle conditioned so lay it down for six months or so at least. Enjoy.

Malt:
Pilsner Malt
Belgian Pale Ale Malt
Caramunich
Aromatic Malt
Special B
Brown Sugar

SG 22.5°P
TG 4.2°P

Hops:
IBU - 90
Simcoe - Bittering
Santiam & Cascade - Flavoring
Santiam - Aroma
Horizon - Dry Hopping

Imperial Stout

1/20/04 - This year's Imperial Stout was perfectly presented recently down at Redbone's Stout and Porter Festival. We poured a firkin which had been maturing for over a month and had included an extra plug of dry hopping. Beautiful beer. Great nose, big silky body, long legs, wow. I know what you're thinking: dude, you gotta get out more. And, of course, you'd be right. The alcohol content on this beer was reduced slightly from last year and we were a bit nervous about that, thinking it might not balance quite as well. It certainly dosen't have the warming character of some Imperial Stouts but at 8% ABV it's really not out of range for the style. Another change we made was to reduce the roasted malts. We backed off both the Chocolate Malt and Roasted Barley from 5% to 4%. We felt that last year's vervion was a tad too acrid and at 75 IBU's we didn't want the added bite of too much roasted grain. I really don't think this beer needs much ageing, but it'll be interesting to taste in six months or a year. I've got my cellar stocked, but of course it's a lot cheaper for me. It's good to be the brewer.

Malt:
Pilsner Malt
Munich Malt
Crystal 120°L
Carastan 17°L
Chocolate Malt
Roasted Barley

SG 21.5°P
TG 5.9°P

Hops:
IBU - 75
Magnum - Bittering
Cascade - Flavoring
Fuggle & Cascade - Aroma
Columbus - Dry Hopping

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

Octoberfest

10/10/03 - Octoberfest. Well, the Octoberfest is now upon us and that means another chance to decoct. We've pretty much managed to dial in this procedure here (if Dan would only hit those conversion temps!) It's amazing how much color and character comes from even a single decoction, which is what we used this time. With a mixture of Belgian Aromatic and Munich malts making up 30% of the grist, I would expect a gold to copper color, but we ended up with deep orange to amber hues. Nice malty sweetness in the nose which carries over into the flavor quite well. At 28 IBU's there's a nice hop bite from the Northern Brewer's which is perhaps a tad out of style, but dern it, I love hop buds! The beer lingers with a nice blend of hops and malt which is smooth but not cloying.

On a separate note we've finally installed our liquid nitrogen dropper to purge the bottles before filling. This should give us much better shelf life on all our beers, and more confidence in laying down the Big Beers for aging. I'm not sure if the Octoberfest is really suited for this, but as things start cooling off here in New England we'll be rolling out the big boys soon! Cheers!

Malt:
Pilsner Malt
Belgian Aromatic
20L Munich

Hops:
IBU - 28
Northern Brewer Bittering
Northern Brewer - Flavoring

Pumpkin Ale - The First Batch

9/16/03 - Pumpkin Ale. After many years of success of the Portsmouth Brewery's Pumpkin Ale, as well as Kevin Love's petulant insistance that we corner the market, we decided to capitalize and brew our own version of this squash beer. I know what you're thinking: squash!?, in a beer, are you kidding? But, alas, no, I am not kidding. In fact, it turns out the elder Americans would use pumpkin as a starch substitute when grain stores were low. The idea of brewing a traditional New England pompion beer intrigued me and I proposed buying the Champion Pumpkin of New Hampshire and brewing a single batch with this Mother of All Gourds. (Visualize the cover to Eat A Peach. Now imagine an 800 lbs pumpkin being trucked on over to the brewery. Brilliant.) However the limitations of being a production facility require certain practical restraints and so we went with pumpkin puree instead of fresh pumpkin.

The one characteristic I wanted clearly defined was that underneath the pumpkin and spice flavors was truly an interesting beer in its own right. I've had too many spiced and fruit beers that are overdone and enter the realm of soda pop, causing you to have one but not another, let alone several. And let's face it, I gotta sell beer here. So we started with a base beer that is orange in color and fairly hoppy. We knew the spices would need some sweetness for balance so we used a mixture of crystal and carastan malts. To this we added pumpkin pie spices at the end of the boil. We actually found that adding pumpkin into the fermentor at the end of primary gave us the most interesting pumpkin flavor, and so that's when we add the puree. We've gotten a great response to the beer which I think is well desreved. The nose is full of spice, mostly cinnamon, with hints of the Liberty hops. The flavor is full, with a nice bitterness, but definitely balanced by the malt. It lingers off into a nice dry spicy, hoppy finish that stays with you but is never overbearing.

Malt:
Pilsner Malt
Light Carastan
Light Crystal 60 °L

OG 14°P
TG 3.0°P

Hops:
IBU - 35
Cascade Bittering
Cascade Flavoring
Liberty Aroma

Spices
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Clove

Big A IPA - 2003 Edition

6/23/03 - Big A IPA. The Killer Keilbasa has unleashed another fine IPA on us this summer. Nice job, Stash. This beer marks the first full cycle of Big Beers that I've overseen during my tenure here at Smuttynose. Luckily we were able to sample the whole lineup at The Barley Pub, in Dover, NH, thanks to Mr. Scott Mason and staff. I hope ya'll managed to head over there. For the most part I thought the beers have stood up fairly well. I definitely have some changes in mind, but nothing too drastic. As always we welcome your comments, critiques, encouragments, rants, raves, and inebriated babblings.

For this years Big A, Stash ventured away from the European hopping regime of last year and went with a definite West Coast style Imperial IPA. The decission was based on finding a hop combination to use for our upcoming 12-ounce release IPA, due out next spring! The first batch used Cascade, Centennial, and Amarillo, in that order, for bittering, flavor, and aroma. Another difference from last year is we decided to add the flavoring additions is equal amounts every 5 minutes over the last 30 minutes of the boil. And, let's face it friends, it warms a brewer's heart to see that many hops disappear into the kettle. We kept the rest of the beer the same as last year in terms of malt bill, starting gravity, mash temperature, et al. After fermentation we transferred the beer onto about 10 lbs of Amarillo for a dry hop addition. Definitely not enough, but that's as much as we could stuff into our hop bag. The beer has a nice orangy color with a slight haze. The aroma is citrusy with a hint of grapefruit. The flavor is all hops, resinous and dry with just a touch of malt sweetness holding it all together.

Malt:
2 Row Pale Malt
60° L Caramel

OG 18°P
TG 3.5°P

Hops:
IBU - 80
Cascade Bittering
Centennial Flavoring
Amarillo Aroma & dry-hop