Backtracking

Of course, I am always coming up with more ideas and new recipes to expand Dk and the styles we represent, but with the recent success of the second batch of Hannah, I want to spend the next few months fine-tuning some of our first recipes.

You see, Hannah Jr., though it seems at first taste exactly like the old Hannah, really is an improvement, even in the most subtle ways. I did a few things differently, just by gathering up all my knowledge that I've acquired thus far, and it paid off. She's more stylistically authentic; higher in alcohol, more noticably hoppy, and less saturated in citrus and coriander, this Hannah is even better than her first run. And her first run was damn good.

But Rachel and Cristin could use some work. Rachel was drinkable, even enjoyable to some degree, and I'm happy with how our first batch ever came out...Hell, I'm happy it even came out. But all optimism aside, I still love the Amber Ale style, and I failed to represent it with Rachel. So back we go, to the beginning.

Cristin has the same story. Nate did a great job with is first beer, but being beginners, we really didn't understand as much as we do now about the mashing system, so Cristin ended up watery and thin, with (dare I say) too much Cascade hops jumping out on your tongue for its malt balance. We could easily go back and brew it again, and find that balance.

Until now, Dierksenkougan has been about exploration of our favorite styles and replicating to the best of our knowledge. Granted, I've tried to make each recipe original, and not use too much of a blueprint from existing recipes or ideas or even styles, but now we have an impressive style catalogue under our belts: an amber ale, an American wheat and an American pale, a porter and an IPA, a creative holiday brew, and soon a heavy and alcoholic Scotch strong ale. That's seven good starts, and not a batch has failed, but we can really do better.

Expect to see new Rachel and Cristin recipes and updates soon. Following that, I'll probably be itching to try something all-new, but even another round of Jasmine wouldn't hurt, though replicating her will be difficult, since she was somewhat a labor of both patience and indifference. But I'll see what I can do.

In other matters, Annabelle is still hanging out in the secondary fermenter. I plan to give her a taste tonight to make sure she hasn't gone bad or soured or anything, but I don't forsee any problems. I really want to bottle her, but she's only been aging for about 2 weeks, and in her best interest, I'll give it her the whole month treatment. For certain, Annabelle is a different kind of brew, and she will be gross and possibly ruined if we try to drink her too soon.

Sam

Annabelle Progress

Just a quick progress update. I moved Annabelle into secondary today. She fermented all the way through, exactly as planned without a hitch. I understand this beer will not be everybody's favorite, since it's sort of an obscure and esoteric style, but trust me that, from what I can tell by tasting it so far, this may be stylistically the best representation of a Dierksenkougan beer yet. The hopping and malt levels are seemingly perfect in balance, along with a great bitterness from the kilned barley and smokey earthiness from the rye and smoked grain.

If all goes well, I might consider entering this batch into a national homebrew competition (yes they have them, and yes it's a bit nerdy but it's a great way for professionals to critique your beer as a culinary artform) and get some feedback. The big stress in these competitions is on staying within the boundaries of a specific style (meaning color, bitterness, adjunct flavors, presentation) while retaining uniqueness and personality. Cross your fingers that Annabelle stacks up.

Big thanks to Molly, Markus, and Data for helping out with this batch, by the way.

Cheers,
Sam

Annabelle Recipe

Access the specific Annabelle recipe here.

Holly, Hannah, and Annabelle

We've been bottling and brewing like crazy maniacs over the last couple of days. Here's the scoop on all things Dierksenkougan:

Holly and Hannah are in the bottle, and should take just less than 2 more weeks to be complete and ready to drink. Hannah, as expected, is perfect, and should be an ideal twin of her former self. And Holly has greatly improved with her month or so in secondary fermentation, really mellowing out so that the chai flavors aren't overpowering like we feared they may be. She'll still be strong, but I'm really looking forward to a drinkable and even enjoyable holiday brew. She'll be done in two weeks as well, but unlike Hannah, could probably use even more aging in the bottle due to her complex flavor profile. We'll slowly be breaking open these bottles (she was a smaller batch, with about 35 bottles) and watching how they change over time.

Annabelle is the newest member of the Dierksenkougan catalog, and I've been very excited to brew her since we started. Building off the concept of several Founder's beers, namely Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale and Red's Rye, Annabelle should be a first for Dk in several areas. Through it was somewhat troublesome and messy, I chose to brew Annabelle in a double mash and double boil, which means to the rest of the world that I basically brewed two different beers simultaneously, and mixed the resulting contents together in the end. This has historically been done for a long time; the British porter style was actually once called an "entire," meaning specifically a mix of three stock beers (two thin and cheap brews with one more expensive, dark, and more alcoholic brew) and was traditionally served to porters under that name until the style became a standard and was brewed as a single batch under the porter name.

So back to Annabelle. Basically I brewed two different batches: something close to an amber ale or a lightly hopped British bitter, and a pitch black and virtually unhopped stout with a touch of rye grain and smoked barley. Combined, I'm hoping to create a strong Scotch ale like Dirty Bastard, with some rye sourness and smokey undertones representative of the historical Scottish style. Scotch ales are traditionally only lightly hopped, since importing hops to Scotland was expensive and growing them in the region was nearly impossible. As a result, Scotch ales were hopped with very strong hops (note: hops differ like dogs; there are several breeds of the same basic plant. Some are very strong and require only a fraction of the amount to impart the same amount of bitterness as other weaker varieties) and were brewed to be incredibly malty and alcoholic, instead flavored with smoked malts and regional spices like spruce tips. I confess, this is not a style for everyone, and to some it may taste like pure gasoline. But hopefully, others will enjoy the flavor and strength and be opened up to a more esoteric style of brew that is very atypical of the American style. Such is my goal.

The second and perhaps more important reason I chose the double-mash-double-boil technique was that I have noticed several of our beers are turning out too thin and watery, which I assume is from my habit of diluting our final wort with cold water to bring the batch up to 5 gallons. With a five gallon brewpot, leaving room for preventing boilovers and accounting for evaporation over the 60 minute boil leaves us with far from a 5 gallon result. So I pulled out the secondary brewpot, an 8 quart size, and made sure that combined we were producing at least 5 gallons of beer. No dilution, no thinness, hopefully. Especially for this robust style of beer, which needs to be thick and malty to really be enjoyed authentically.

Annabelle will need a lot of time in the secondary fermenter. I expect she'll be done fermenting in a couple of days, and out of habit I'll pull her off the spent grain husks and other trub before bad things start happening. After about a month in secondary, which, also required of the style, I will keep colder than usual (between 60 and 65 degrees), we'll bottle her and let her age for as long as I can keep myself from opening a bottle, which will probably be about 2 days. Expect Annabelle in early March.

Holly and Annabelle labels to come. Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday break.

Cheers,
Sam