Recently in Home Brewing Category

I tend to limit my brewing activities during the summer, but now that it's getting colder, it's time to fire up the brewhouse (i.e. my kitchen). I've been toying with the idea for this batch for a while now. The concept is that I will brew up a full 5 gallon batch of Russian Imperial Stout, ferment it out, then split the batch into two for secondary fermentation. One will simply condition as normal. The other will get an addition of Bourbon soaked oak cubes. Then! At bottling time, I plan to bottle some of the regular stout, some of the bourbon oak aged stout, and a blend of the two. This is most exciting, though I gather it will probably take a while for all of this to come together and condition well. Brewing is not a hobby for the impatient. So let's get this party started:

Brew #12 - Russian Imperial Stout
November 2, 2013

1 lb. Crystal 60 (specialty grain)
1 lb. Debittered Black Malt (specialty grain)
0.75 lb. Chocolate Malt (specialty grain)
0.5 lb. Roasted Barley (specialty grain)
0.5 lb. Munich Malt (specialty grain)
9 lb. Briess Golden Light DME
2 oz. Columbus hops (bittering @ 16.3% AA)
1 oz. Cascade hops (flavor)
1 oz. Cascade hops (aroma)
2 oz. Oak Cubes: American Medium Toast
16 oz. Bourbon (TBD)
Wyeast 1450 Denny's Favorite 50

Like my first attempt at a stout (which was nowhere near an Imperial, but still), the base of this beer is all light DME, so I'm getting all the color and flavor out of specialty malts, of which there are a lot. Indeed, this is the most malt I've used in a recipe since my second batch (a Belgian tripel), and this is a great deal more complex too. (I originally only planned on a half pound of Debittered Black Malt, but my homebrew shop was only selling it in increments of 1 pound, so I figured why not). Steeping the grains in 2.5 gallons of water (needed to add more because I was using so much grain), the wort got super black, almost like black ink, and smelled strongly of coffee. According to my calculations, this should come out at around 59 SRM (anything over 30 is generally considered "black", and my previous attempt at a stout was around 45 SRM).

Once I steeped and sparged the grains, I added 2/3 of the DME, adding the last 1/3 halfway through the boil. I actually had a bit of a boil-over mishap. Perhaps I started with too much water, which raised the level of the wort higher than normal (for me, at least). And it turns out that 9 pounds of DME takes up a lot of space too. In any case, I didn't lose too much liquid and the crisis was mostly averted, so all was well there (it just made for more cleanup, boo).

Aside from the amount and variety of malt, the other big change from my first stout recipe is a more well rounded hop schedule. I felt my last batch didn't have enough bitterness, and since this sucker is much bigger, I went with a high alpha hop in Columbus, and straightforward Cascade for flavor and aroma (not that those characteristics should or would be dominated by hops, but the Cascade should add some complexity, which is what I'm going for here).

Original Gravity: 1.098 (around 23.1°Bx). This is exactly on target, so I must have done something right! If all goes well, the ABV should wind up somewhere just north of 10% ABV, with enough residual sugar to stand up to the Bourbon and oak (FG should be somewhere around 1.023, assuming 75% attenuation).

Speaking of which, I used a Yeast starter for this batch. Yeast starters are not always necessary, but they seem to be a general best practice. All you do is pitch your yeast into a small amount of wort, which gets the yeast working and increases cell population dramatically, then you pitch the result into your full batch. For a beer this size, pitching more yeast is usually recommended, and will lead to a faster fermentation with less of a chance for off flavors or infection. This is my first attempt, and it seemed to go ok. Near as I can tell, I made a relatively small starter, and some recommend making a larger one, but I didn't really have time to keep stepping it up (I started it on Thursday night, and it was ready to go on Saturday). That being said, I'm guessing I significantly increased the amount of yeast I pitched, which is certainly better than just chucking one yeast packet in the wort (or paying another 6 bucks for a second packet).

So I figure I'll let this go in primary for two weeks, then rack to secondary (splitting into two three gallon fermenters) for an additional 3 weeks. As previously mentioned, I'll be adding bourbon soaked oak cubes to one of the secondary fermenters. Not sure which Bourbon I'll use for that task just yet (any recommendations? That Evan Williams Single Barrel in the picture is pretty good, but I might use something different) I also need to figure out if I'll need to reyeast after secondary (any ideas there? I see mixed reports out there...)

I'm really excited to see how this turns out, even if it probably won't be ready for a couple months (right around Christmastime). It should age really well too. In the meantime, I've still got that Brett dosed saison in secondary, and I think I'll be bottling that soon. And once the RIS goes into secondary, I plan to sneak in another batch of something less complicated. Perhaps that hoppy red ale I keep talking about...

Update: Fermentation is going strong. Since I was using a yeast starter, I began fermentation with a blowoff tube (instead of your typical airlock) and I'm glad I did. Within 24 hours, this sucker is fermenting like crazy. All was fine a couple hours ago, then I went out for dinner and boom, blowoff tube engaged fully. Otherwise, this thing might have popped the lid on my bucket, shooting yeast and partially fermented wort everywhere. Ha.

(Cross Posted on Kaedrin Weblog)

After two weeks in primary fermentation, the 5 gallon batch of saison has been split into two. About 2 gallons has been bottled (yielding a little less than a case), with the other three being racked to secondary and dosed with Brettanomyces Claussenii (WLP645 for the enquiring).

Crossing the Rubicon of funk wasn't particularly difficult just yet - it basically just consisted of opening the vial of yeast and dumping it in the secondary fermenter. The real test will come in a few months time, when the yeast has had proper time to work its way through the remaining sugars. Or maybe I inadvertently infected my entire house with Brett and will have trouble with all my future batches. The die has been cast, to continue the Rubicon metaphor.

Final Gravity: 6.9 Bx, around 1.007. As usual, my hydrometer gives a slightly lower reading, but we're still looking at somewhere around 6.8% - 7.2% ABV, which is a little higher than expected, but still on point. This puts attenuation in the high 80% range, somewhere around 88%. Hopefully, this mean there's enough residual sugar for the Brett, but not so much that the Brett version will be dominated by that character.

In the meantime, I'll have some non-funky saison to keep me busy (though I'll clearly want to save enough to do a side-by-side comparison once the Kaedrôme rises). I'm debating what to do with my next batch. Being the dead of summer limits options a bit. Saisons are great because they can ferment out at 70+ degrees with no real ill effects. But, you know, I just made one. I really want to make a hoppy red ale of some kind, and an imperial stout too. In both cases, I'd like a somewhat lower ambient temperature than will be possible during summer (and the bathtub trick is out because I'm redoing my bathrooms, though perhaps I could do something in a smaller container). And I'm going to want to do this split batch trick as well, dry hopping (for the red) and oak aging (for the stout) half the batches. Perhaps I'll just make it a busy fall.

(Cross Posted on Kaedrin Weblog)

My fourth batch, brewed almost 2 years ago to the day, was a saison that turned out fantastic when it was fresh, but degraded over time (and become super carbonated). I've been wanting to make another batch of saison recently, so I took the recipe for the initial batch, toned down in terms of malt, and threw in some fancy Nelson Sauvin hops for yucks.

The real adventure this time around will be splitting the batch into two after primary fermentation: half will be bottled at that point, with the other half going into a secondary fermenter and dosed with Brettanomyces. I've long ago established that saisons are the least coherent style in the history of beer... which is actually one of the reasons I love them so much. My initial batch (and half of this current batch) was patterned after Saison Dupont, a classic of the style. The Brett dosed half of this batch will (hopefully!) be closer to Fantôme's saisons, which is where the name of this beer (Kaedrôme, get it?) is coming from (big thanks to Scott of Beerbecue for suggesting that perfect name).

Allllrighty then, lets get this party started:

Brew #11 - Saison
June 22, 2013

0.5 lb. Belgian CaraVienne (specialty grain)
3.15 lb. Northern Brewer Pilsen LME
3 lb. Briess Pilsen DME
1 lb. Light Belgian Candi Sugar (liquid)
1 oz. East Kent Goldings hops (bittering @ 5.8% AA)
0.25 oz. Nelson Sauvin hops (bittering @ 10.9% AA)
0.5 oz. Saaz hops (flavor)
0.25 oz. Nelson Sauvin hops (flavor)
0.5 oz. Saaz hops (aroma)
0.5 oz. Nelson Sauvin hops (aroma)
0.5 oz. Bitter Orange Peel
1 tsp. Irish Moss
Wyeast 3711 French Saison Yeast (Primary)
White Labs WLP645 Brettanomyces Claussenii (Secondary)

I'll spare you the play by play, as that's mostly the same for every batch. The only thing I'll say about that is that my new kitchen kicks ass, and has removed 30-60 minutes from the process. It turns out that the "Power Boil" element actually lives up to its name (it still takes a little while, but much faster than my old stovetop). And the bigger, deeper sink makes cooling in an ice bath much quicker too. It only took a little less than 3 hours, including all the cleaning.

I hope the Nelson Sauvin hops work out with this one. I basically chose them on a whim, thinking they would go pretty well with the saison. I hedged a bit and used some Saaz that I had laying around too, so I hope it's a solid combo. Hop Additions at 60, 15, and 5 minutes remaining in the boil. Irish moss at 15 minutes. Orange Peel at 5 minutes. Pitched the 3711 yeast at 70 degrees.

Original gravity: 1.060 (14.6 Brix), pretty much right on target. My little homebrew app says I should be getting 80%+ attenuation out of this (maybe even as high as 85%).

Now I just need to figure out the process for the Brett dosing, but I've got a couple weeks for that. Again, general idea is to fill up my 3 gallon secondary fermenter, pitch the Brett in there, and bottle the rest of it right away.

I know very little about the different varieties of Brettanomyces, but in looking around, this seems like the one that fits me best. For the uninitiated, Brett is a wild yeast strain. It usually contributes funky, earthy characteristics to beers. Some people use descriptors like "horse blanket", "barnyard", or "band-aids" (among lots of other stuff, even smoky and spicy flavors), but that... doesn't sound good, does it? Indeed, Brett is generally viewed as a contaminant and thus something to be avoided, but if done properly, it can match really well with beer, especially sour beers. This saison isn't meant to be sour, though apparently the Claussenii strain that I'm using is more subtle than some of the others and contributes a "fruity, pineapple like aroma". I'm going for something along the lines of older Fantômes (which tended towards sour) or Logsdon Seizoen Bretta, but everything I read about Brett is that it's a little on the unpredictable side. So fingers are going to be crossed.

Since the primary fermentation yeast is going to yield a pretty dry beer to start with, I'm guessing that the Brett won't be a massive contribution, but that sounds good for my first attempt at this sort of thing. Unlike regular brewer's yeast, Brett will eat up pretty much any sugars left in the beer, so I need to give it a lengthy period to do its thing, at least a couple months. Luckily, it's a hardy organism and thrives in warmer temperatures (so summer was a good time to experiment with this sucker). On the other hand, my understanding is that Brett is difficult to clean, etc... and a lot of homebrewers advise keeping the equipment that touches it separate from your regular brewing materials. This should be fine, as I've basically been using the same stuff for two years and some of it could probably be refreshed anyway.

So this is going to be one of the more interesting batches I've ever made... if it goes well. Wish me luck!

(Cross Posted on Kaedrin Weblog)

I've mentioned this beer a few times since I brewed it, but haven't really done a proper recap. Oh sure, this bottle I'm reviewing was the last bottle in existence (supr .rar 24 bottle release guize), so it's not like you'll get to try it, but as per usual, I have some minor learnings. I think. I mean, I'm no master brewer, but then, that's the point. In W3C markup validation parlance, I get 1 error, 1 warning on this batch. Fortunately, beer fails gracefully, and drinkers are like browsers in that they tend to be forgiving of minor faults. Ok, I'll stop torturing this metaphor now.

First, the error, which was that I overcarbonated the beer. Normally, with a 5 gallon batch, you just pick up a 5 ounce packet of corn sugar and go to town, but I was making a small batch here, so I had to break out the measuring cups and figure out proportions. I clearly erred on the side of too much priming sugar here. Fortunately, all that means is a wicked big head that takes forever to go away. No gushers or anything that annoying, and if you pour carefully, it actually works well enough. Plus, this should be easy to correct in future batches.

Second, the warning, which is that I should probably be more careful about sourcing my hops. In particular, I'm going to be more wary of "loose" hops. This batch came out super piney and resinous, very dank stuff. Now, I enjoy that component of Simcoe and the like, but I also tend to associate that with hops that are less fresh. For my first batch of Simcoe IPA, I had the vacuum sealed HopUnion packets, and when I cracked open my first bottle of that stuff, it had this beautiful, massive grapefruit character. As time went on, that pine character emerged more and more, eventually fading back into the malts the way unfresh IPAs do.

I don't mean to say that the hop character was poor or that this beer was an immediate malt bomb (the way unfresh hoppy beers are), but I never got that big juicy citrus component that I was shooting for. Now, I did switch up the hop schedule, adding some Falconer's Flight and Citra into the mix (with Simcoe remaining on bittering and dry hopping duty), but FF and Citra are also known for their citrus components, so I was still hoping for more there. All my hops for this batch were just in loose baggies, not vacuum sealed or anything (like you'd get from Northern Brewer or HopUnion). Also, I was definitely buying the last of the FF, and there was only a little Simcoe left (in other words, those hops had probably been in the hop fridge for a while). Again, this wasn't a disaster or anything, but it's something I'm going to keep an eye out for in the future.

In general, though, the beer seemed to go over well. It was brewed for a specific event (the eponymous Fat Weekend), and we got through the full half case (which is all I brought) pretty quickly (and I only had one). But enough rambling, let's take a closer look:

Kaedrin Fat Weekend IPA - Pours a dark orange color with a big three finger fluffy, bubbly head. Smells super dank, resinous, piney, a little citrus too. Taste follows the nose, crystal malt with lots of dank, resinous, piney hop flavor, some citrus peaking out too. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, super carbonated, perhaps over-carbonated, but still very crisp and refreshing. Overall, it's a solid IPA, a little overcarbonated, and I'm getting the impression that the hops I used were not quite as fresh as I'd like, but it's still quite solid. Not quite as good as my first batch of IPA, but still a nice B level beer (borderline B+, and could have easily gone that way if I did the carbonation right)

Beer Nerd Details: 7.5% ABV bottled (12 oz). Drank out of a tulip glass on 5/11/13. Hops: Simcoe, Citra, Falconer's Flight. Bottled 2/18/13.

This, of course, reminds me that I should probably get off my arse and fire up my next batch. Planning on a saison at this point - a little scared to introduce Brett into my homebrew setup, but then Beerbecue suggested I name it Kaedrôme Saison and how can I really resist that? Can I do that without wild yeast? Maybe I can just find some strange farmhouse yeast instead of the typical 3711 or 3724 stuff...

After two weeks in the bucket, I bottled the Fat Weekend IPA today. Fermentation seemed to as well as usual. A week into the process, once fermentation had slowed considerably, I cracked the lid and dropped in an ounce of Simcoe hops. This is only the second time I've dry hopped a batch of beer, but hot damn, judging from the smells emanating from the bucket during bottling, I'm in for a fantastic little brew here. Last time, I got a huge grapefruit character, this time, I got a more well rounded fruitiness as well as a piney aspect that was very pleasant.

Final Gravity: 1.014, which is just about dead on what I was expecting. That being said, I also still seem to have trouble reading my refractometer. Comparing an actual hydrometer reading, I get something lower (around 1.012). The refractometer is showing something around 9.3 bx, which translates to around 1.016. I need to get better at this. Regardless, it's looking like I'm somewhere on the order of 7.3% to 7.6% ABV, which is close to what I'm shooting for, so all will be well.

Very pretty looking beer, a nice warm golden orange color, perhaps a hint darker than my last batch of IPA. As already mentioned, the aroma is fantastic, citrusy fruit and pine all over. I gave it a taste too, and I do believe this is going to be fantastic stuff. I got almost exactly 1 full case of beer out of this batch (2.5-3 gallons), which will be perfect. Though only half of what I normally make, I've found that hoppy beers don't last, and start to fade quickly. After 6 months, my last IPA was still good, but it was a bit of a malt bomb. This is something I've become more sensitive to as my palate evolves, so I'm glad I'll probably finish this case off before it has a chance to fade significantly. Fat Weekend is about a month out, which means that this should be fully conditioned and indeed peaking right about then.

Not sure what's going to come next here. I've been toying with the idea of an imperial red ale, but may also try a batch of barleywine or imperial stout too (and perhaps finally take the secondary fermentation plunge, complete with bourbon soaked oak cubes). Whatever the next batch is, I'll probably start it in March/April. If I end up going the big beer route, I'll definitely be spending more time conditioning the beer than usual, so it will hopefully be doing really well by next Autumn... But I definitely want to make a sessionable Summer saison, akin to my last saison attempt, but a little lighter. I'll plan for that in April/May, and that should last me through the summer...

So I've been slacking on my brewing hobby of late, though not without good reason. I spent most of December revamping my kitchen from the ground up, so there was much time when I simply wasn't capable of brewing anything (not to mention the sanitary conditions, which were obviously poor whilst work was proceeding). After putting some finishing touches on the kitchen in January, I'm finally ready to resume brewing. One of the nice things about my new kitchen is that I upgraded my stovetop, which now comes complete with a "PowerBoil" element that, you guessed it, boils water faster than my old stovetop (I'm forced to use electric, which is less than ideal for brewing purposes). And boy did that come in handy. I estimate that this shaved a solid 30-60 minutes off the brewing process, which came in at around 2.5-3 hours, including post-brew cleaning.

This batch is being brewed for a specific reason, the titular "Fat Weekend", a gathering of portly friends from all over the northeast (and some points west) which will be sometime in mid-march. Last year, I brought a variety of homebrews and was shocked to see that the Simcoe IPAs were the first beers to go (and got the best complements), so I'm making this specifically for that weekend. Let's hope it turns out well.

In terms of recipe, this is a variation on my Simcoe Single Hop IPA from last year (interestingly enough, brewed exactly one year ago to the day). For the most part, the malt bill is identical. A slight increase in Crystal 20, simply because my homebrew shop was only selling in half-pound increments, and I'm using pilsen for the entire base malt (which, again, is just based on what was available). The big change, though, is in hops. Instead of using just Simcoe, I'm adding in the trendy hotness of Citra and Falconer's Flight (both used in equal proportions for flavor and aroma additions). Simcoe will remain on bittering duty, as well as contributing the dry hop addition. Otherwise, we've got an identical recipe.

Beer #10: Fat Weekend IPA
Half-Batch (2.5 gallons)
February 4, 2013

.5 lb. Crystal 20 (specialty grain)
.5 lb. CaraPils (specialty grain)
.5 lb. Vienna Malt (specialty grain)
3.3 lb. Briess Pilsen Light LME
1 lb. Briess Pilsen DME
0.5 lb. Turbinado Sugar
1 oz. Simcoe (bittering @13.2 AA)
0.5 oz. Citra (flavor)
0.5 oz. Falconer's Flight (flavor)
0.5 oz. Citra (aroma)
0.5 oz. Falconer's Flight (aroma)
1 oz. Simcoe (dry hop)
1 tsp. Irish Moss
Wyeast 1056 - American Ale Yeast

Overall, pretty straightforward stuff here. The only major change is the hops. Citra seems very much in the vein of Simcoe, but it's got a more fruity and less piney, woodsy feel to it. I also usually get a more herbal fruit out of it... nothing like a Euro-hop, but distinct from the grapefruit and pine character of Simcoe. Falconer's Flight is actually a proprietary blend of numerous hops, including Amarillo, Citra, Simcoe, Sorachi Ace, and other Northwestern US hops, apparently even experimental hops not yet available by themselves. The idea of this blend is to approximate the flavor of the trendy hops in a blend featuring those same hops, but also less trendy (and thus more readily available) hops. Tired Hands has made a few beers featuring Falconer's Flight recently, and they're exceptional, so I'm thinking they'll be a good fit here. Really excited to see how this will turn out.

Brought 2 gallons of water up to steeping temperature 150° F - 160° F in record time (less than 10 minutes), steeped the specialty grains for around 25 minutes or so, drained, sparged with another half gallon of water, added the malt extracts, put the lid on to bring to a boil. Again, this happened in record time, at which point I added 1 ounce of Simcoe and started the timer. Realize I forgot to add the Turbinado sugar, so do some quick calculations, add about half a pound in, throw the lid back on to get the boil going a little better. 45 minutes into the boil, add half an ounce each of Citra and Falconer's Flight. I don't have a scale or anything, so I'm doing this by sight, but it seems to be working out fine. Also throw in the irish moss at this time. Finally, with 5 minutes left to go, I add the aroma hops, which is again split between Citra and Falconer's Flight.

Moved the pot to the ice bath to cool it off, brought it down to about 80° F, strained the wort (removing the hops) into the fermenter, and topped off with about a gallon of cold water, bringing the final temperature down below 70° (almost too low, actually, but still above 62°). This will produce slightly more than 2.5 gallons, but it'll all work out for the best in the end.

Original Gravity: 1.070. A little higher than my last batch, but not by much (this makes sense, given the hot scotchie adventure I engaged in last time). I'm guessing this will still clock in around the 7% - 7.5% ABV range, perhaps on the higher end, which is fine by me.

Like I did last time, I'll wait a week or so to let the primary fermentation stage end, then add the dry hops (1 ounce of Simcoe) for another week or so, at which point, I rack to the bottling bucket and bottle the suckers. I'm quite confident this batch will come out well.

After this one, I'm not sure what will be next. I've been toying with the idea of a hopped up imperial red ale, which could be a lot of fun (and would probably resemble the above recipe quite a bit, with some amber malt and maybe some other darker malts to balance things out). After that, I want to make a sessionable summer saison, similar to my last saison batch, if not quite as potent.

(Cross Posted on Kaedrin Weblog)

On the first Friday of every month, there's a beer blog roundup called The Session. Someone picks a topic, and everyone blogs about it. John at Homebrew Manual wants to know about everyone's relationship with beer and how it's made. He poses a series of questions on the topic:

Do you brew? If so why? If not, why not?

I have dabbled with homebrewing for a few reasons. First, I'm a huge nerd and actually did want to know more about beer and how all of its various characteristics were achieved, etc... But from my perspective, it was more about making something out here in the physical world. I recognized at some point that while I have participated in a lot of creative activities, both personally and professionally, most of what I've produced is virtual (i.e. most of my creative endeavors have primarily been done on a computer). There's nothing wrong with that, per say, but I wanted to make something out here in meatspace. So homebrewing has helped me scratch that itch, and I love beer, so it's been a really fun process.

How does that affect your enjoyment of drinking beer?

It's given me more perspective in what I like about beer, and I feel like my palate has become more attuned as a result. It also helps me understand what brewers are talking about, separating actual process from marketing fluff, and so on. In general, I think of all of this as a positive development, and I think I enjoy beer more now than I did a few years ago. I do think there's a danger in becoming too well versed in this, though I'm not really all that sure either (some of the other questions get into this, so see more below).

Do you need to brew to appreciate beer?

Of course not. In my mind, appreciation and enjoyment are easy. You don't need to know how something was made in order to appreciate or enjoy it. Indeed, I would say that most people don't know how the majority of things they use on a day to day basis are made, but that doesn't stop anyone from appreciating that stuff. Now, perhaps those that brew beer have a greater appreciation... or perhaps not. It's all very subjective.

Do you enjoy beer more not knowing how it's made?

This is sorta the flip side of the previous question, and like I said, it's all very subjective. Life is what you make of it, and enjoyment comes in many flavors. I think knowledge of brewing can be a benefit, or a curse. I recently came across some quotes from Mark Twain's book Life on the Mississippi, wherein he discusses the details of how he became a steamboat pilot. He learned to read the river, looking for subtle signs on the surface of the water that indicated danger, or where currents were strongest:

The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.

Sounds pretty cool, right? But then, Twain felt he lost something too:

Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river!

I think this question of what was gained or lost because of learning a trade wasn't quite a simple as laid out in the quotes above. In terms of beer, I do think it's possible to get so wrapped up in the details of the brewing process that some of the majesty of drinking beer goes away, or is at least transmuted into something different than what most of us experience. Is that a good or bad thing? Again, I think it all depends on your perspective. If you're so inclined, you could feel the loss that Train felt. Or you could see the gain of something else entirely. Or maybe vacillate back and forth. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

If you brew, can you still drink a beer just for fun?

Well, I certainly have no problem doing so. Would someone who has achieved a Twain level of mastery be able to? I would assume so.

Can you brew without being an analytical drinker?

This is a tough one, because I was an analytical drinker even before I brewed anything. I'd like to think that my analysis is better now that I brew, but I think we again come back to the subjective nature of the process. Are there brewers out there who can't help themselves but to analyze the beer they're drinking to death, even whilst in a social engagement? Probably. But I suspect most brewers would be able to turn off such analysis in at least some situations, alcohol being a social lubricant and all that. I certainly don't seem to have any problem doing so.

Do brewers get to the point where they're more impressed by technical achievements than sensory delight?

I think that's certainly possible, though I don't think it's an inevitable occurrence. In particular, I think a lot of brewers have become obsessed with strange and weird ingredients (I'm looking at you, Dogfish Head!) There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but my favorite beers tend to have a pretty straightforward set of ingredients. Oh, and they taste good. That's ultimately the bar that needs to be set for a question like this, and I think there are some breweries out there that take the whole experimental angle perhaps a bit too far, I think they're ultimately doing so in the hopes of opening up new avenues of sensory delight, which I can hardly fault them for. You never know until you try.

Does more knowledge increase your awe in front of a truly excellent beer?

I think it does, and actually, I think more knowledge has expanded the scope of what I'd consider truly excellent beer. There are a number of beer styles or flavor profiles that I've found to be an acquired taste, and I think knowledge has helped unlock some of the secrets of such brews. Of course, knowledge comes in many different forms, one being knowledge of other beers, another being how a given beer was made.

Ultimately, I beer is what we want it to be. It can be enjoyed with or without context, and while knowledge may change the ways in which one appreciates beer, it need not prevent enjoyment.

After three weeks in the fermenter, I finally bottled the Abbey Dubbel. Near as I can tell, the fermentation took off like a bat out of hell. Bubbles started appear in the airlock after just a couple hours, and less than a day into the process, I noticed this:

Yep, the yeast was so active that it took up all the headspace in the bucket and was infiltrating the airlock. Apparently this happens often in cases like this (high flocculation yeast with tons of sugar to feed on, as this is a big beer), sometimes even building up enough pressure to blow the lid off the fermentor (and spew yeast/beer all over the place). In an effort to forestall disaster, I removed the airlock and installed a blowoff tube. A couple days later, the fermentation had died down and I reinstalled the airlock for the remainder of the fermentation period. Things definitely slowed considerably after that initial week, to the point where I'm not sure the extra week was needed, but I figured better safe than sorry.

The beer ended up being a little darker than expected, but not at all out of character for the style. A dark amber color, actually very pretty when held up to the light (which you can't really tell from the image above). It's got that typical Belgian yeast aroma of spice and dark fruit, and the taste bears that out, though I think this could really use a healthy dollop of carbonation.

Final Gravity came in at around 1.014 or 1.015. If my calculations are correct, this has yielded somewhere on the order of 8.4% ABV - 8.7% ABV. Way bigger than I was going for (probably outside of style guidelines too), but not entirely unwelcome. Given an OG of 1.079, this works out to an 81.3% attenuation, which might be my record for highest attenuation on a batch (partially explaining the higher than expected ABV).

One other thing I tried when bottling the last few bottles: I added some cinnamon, clove, and pepper to the remaining beer in the bottling bucket and swished it around a bit. There wasn't much left, but I wanted to see if that treatment would actually come through in the resulting beer, which could be a sorta faux Christmas ale if it works (though I'll probably do another batch of that this year as well). I got about 6 bottles out of that (with a little more than a case and a half of the regular dubbel).

That just about wraps up this beer. All that's left is the conditioning, after which we'll sample on a weekly basis. I'll try to ensure I review it in a timely fashion (unlike most of my other brews!) I'm really looking forward to this one! Up next, I'm thinking about going for a highly hopped Imperial Red. I'm having trouble finding recipes for this, so if you have any, feel free to drop a comment. After the Red, I'm looking at a couple other options. Maybe a barleywine or maybe another Christmas ale. And I need to make another batch of IPA at some point too. To many beers, not enough liver strength.