Coming up...

Barring the loss of a my refund check / leftover scholarship money due to me from WMU, or more unexpected financial shortages, nothing should get in the way of the next two batches on deck for the homebrewery, including an old friend and a new one.

I would like within the next week to pump out another batch of Annabelle (this time with the correct yeast), and get her fermented, and overlap her secondary (which requires mellowing at lagering temperatures...50-55 degrees) with the brewing of a new batch, and my first lager (which requires, unlike ales, low fermentation temperatures of 50-55 degrees). I figure that it would work nicely to coincide specific temperature requirements of the two beers so as not to have a giant freezer powered by the thermostat keeping all of five gallons cold.

The new recipe, currently under the working name of a "Champagne Lager" (though don't confuse this with High Life, the Champagne of Beers"), is a light colored but stronger (7%) lager that should take on several of the characteristics of Champagne, including a dry finish despite a high original gravity, some fruity notes at the finish, and a pleasant acidity. The flavor should be clean and crisp (characteristic of lagers) and should resemble something of a dry, tart Molson XXX. I can't think of an easier way to really nail it down. Any delay on making this beer, besides my furious work schedule, is because I'm waiting on Dan Barrett, head brewer here at the Kalamazoo Bell's site (former main brewery, now pilot brewery) to harvest me a slurry of lager yeast for personal use. I could buy some and reculture it myself, sure, but it would take a bit of time and money, and I like the idea of using Bell's proprietary yeast in my homebrew. Most importantly, it is essential in lagers, more so than in ales, to pitch a large amount of yeast, as the low fermentation temperatures make the yeast sluggish and more likely to die/flocculate having not finished the job, resulting in underattenuated (syrupy sweet) beer. So a brewery sized slurry of yeast for a 5 gallon homebrew batch should dry the beer out nicely. A grain addition of some German acidulated malt, which has in it naturally occurring lactic acid, should provide a nice tartness found in the most drinkable of beers, as it serves to perpetuate thirst and balance the presence of alcohol.

Overall, what I believe to be a well thought out and original brew. I failed to mention that the catalyst for this recipe was the kindly delivery by a local homebrewer of some leftover Glacier hops from February, wanting to make sure they would be put to use. Aged hops (in this case 6 months) are much milder and often more pleasant than new ones, especially for beers such as this where the hop character is secondary to other subtle flavors. Further, Glacier hops are nearly impossible to find, and we can't order them in the store through our suppliers, so I took this as a rare opportunity to explore a new ingredient. Expect this batch to be in the fermenter in less than two weeks, ideally.

Currently bottled and ready to drink at 1210 California (the new place):
Rachel, Hannah, Eva, Amarillo IPA, and the Bastogne Tripel, as well as an assortment of previous offerings.

Eva

Just wrapped up brewing Eva on a short and early brew day. Forgetting to take a hydrometer reading, I'm not sure how my efficiency fared this time, but everything seemed to run its course smoothly with no big mistakes, messes, or boilovers. I would have liked to brew her before the Canada trip, but finances and lack of propane got in the way, so I'm crossing my fingers that 2-week-old crushed grain will have minimal effect on the finished product. Of course, we're moving from this apartment in 10 days from today, so hopefully Eva will grind out a solid, short fermentation and be ready for secondary (or even bottling) by the 19th or so. She was, if you remember, a leftover "kitchen sink" kind of beer last time around, and I didn't exactly take too much time or care in her fermentation. Essentially, Eva is a perfect quick beer, not too high in alcohol that it requires significant aging, if at all, and enough roasty toasty specialty malt to cover up any yeasty flavors that come hand in hand with young, immature beer. Of course it tended to improve over time, and I'll evaluate this upon carbonation with the last bottle of last batch's Eva (now about 4-5 months old) which has been hanging out in my mini-fridge for a good while.

In other news, www.dierksenkougan.com will be developed soon and be the HQ for starting to organize the brewing fiasco that will be my sister's wedding. It should be a nice, clean, semi-professional site that may just be rather important in a decade or so.

Rachel and Hannah are mere days away from being ready to sample, and supplies of the Tripel and the IPA (which I plan to brew again soon with other single varieties of hops like Simcoe or even a full Tettnanger IPA which I've never before seen) are still above the case mark. I'm being careful not to drink up any one batch at a time so as to have plenty of good offerings to share when requested. I'd also like to always have some of each of the six regular beers available at any given time, making Annabelle, appropriately, my next endeavor, and likely the first beer to be brewed at the new apartment on California Ave. Party Sept. 3rd, by the way.