Easy Ordinary Bitter

Sometimes you sit down for your evening brew and notice that your crate of full bottles has somehow turned into a crate mostly of empty bottles. You realize that even with careful rationing, you may only make it about 2 weeks, maybe 2 and a half, before you don't have any evening brews anymore.

In these situations, swift, decisive action will carry the day. you can't always afford a full 6-8 hour brew schedule and a month of fermentation. So it's useful to have an easy extract recipe on hand that's simple, consistent, and will top up your stores.

So this is my very basic adaptation of Papazian's "Palace Bitter" recipe. The use of extract eliminates the time-consuming mash step as well as the full-volume boil--which also saves time during the cooling step because you can add the hot wort to cold water and greatly reduce chill times. Here's how the recipe goes:

Easy Ordinary Bitter

Grain/Extract Bill:
5 pounds Munton's Amber Dry Malt Extract
1/2 pound 40 Lovibond Crystal Malt (for steeping)

Mash Schedule:
Bring 3 gallons of water to approximately 150 degrees F. Steep 1/2 pound of 40L Crystal malt for about a half hour. (To avoid having to strain, you can use a steeping bag. Just make sure to squeeze out all the malty goodness when you remove it.)

Hop Schedule:
1 oz Cluster Pellets (7.4% Alpha Acid) 60 minutes
1/2 oz Nelson Sauvin (14.6% Alpha Acid) at flameout, before chilling

Yeast:
1 package US-05 dry American ale yeast combined with 1 package S-04 dry English ale yeast, rehydrated.

Fermented for one week in primary, then bottled with 3/4 cup of corn sugar for natural carbonation.

Original Gravity: 1.0489
Final Gravity: 1.011
Approximate ABV; 5%
IBU: 26.5

Review:
This beer is orangey-pale in color with a nice, rocky head. It smells yeasty with a hint of something that reminds me of honeydew.  It is quenching and light-bodied, with a touch of oatmeal sweetness grounded in sturdy hop bitterness. It's an easy beer to make and to drink...good for drinking with food or for the removing of edges.

Amber Ale

This week, I'm presenting the recipe and review for one of my very own beers. If you happen to be into the ancient and wonderful art of zymurgy, then feel free to give the recipe a go. Let me know how it turns out.

Amber Ale

Batch size: 5 gallons

Grain bill:
5 pounds Pale Malt
5 pounds Vienna Malt
2 pounds Victory Malt
2 pounds Malted Wheat

Mash Schedule: 90 minute, single-infusion mash at a temperature of 152°F with a mash ratio of 1 quart of water per pound of grain.

Hop Schedule:
1 oz Cristal Pellet Hops (10% Alpha Acid) 90 minutes.
1/2 oz Falconer's Flight pellets (5% Alpha Acid) 90 minutes
1/2 oz Falconer's Flight pellets (5% Alpha Acid) steeped for 10 minutes at flame-out, before chilling.

Yeast:
1 package US-05 dry American ale yeast combined with 1 package S-04 dry English ale yeast, rehydrated.

Fermented for one week in primary, then transferred to a secondary fermenter and conditioned for two weeks before bottling with 3/4 cup of corn sugar for natural carbonation.

Original Gravity: 1.052
Final Gravity: 1.0128
Approximate ABV; 6%
IBU: 51.7

Review:
This beer looks like: a nice, somewhat murky (on account of the wheat) amber color. Exhibits a fairly dense, white head with decent retention.

...smells like: pine needles, with a little bit of pineapple and a hint of yeasty funk from the English ale yeast.

...tastes like: a mild hop bitterness with a bit of a grassy character at first, but smooths out into a nice malty character with a crisp mouthfeel.

...is ultimately like: a beer that's good and drinkable, just how I like it.

Game On!

Welcome, one and all, to Amateur Hour! If your idea of fun is to read about an average guy trying to do a bunch of things he knows virtually nothing about—then failing, experimenting, trying again, failing again, and finally posting the whole embarrassing affair to the internet—then boy are you in the right place. 

This whole idea came about when I decided to get back into miniature gaming. I used to play a little bit of Warhammer 40k but I eventually abandoned the hobby as too expensive. However, I recently rediscovered the classic game of Bloodbowl, which can be obtained for free or next to free. After reading through the LRB 6 (The player-maintained living rulebook) the deep desire to collect, paint, and play with little plastic men was reawakened deep in the nerdimost chambers of my being.

Unfortunately, since I still had school to finish at the time, I could not leap straight back into my old obsessions. In the interim I had to limit myself to ogling the many excellent miniature modeling and gaming blogs out there which I cannot hope to rival in quality (for a small selection of these, see the right side bar.) In this way, I discovered the preponderance today of not only Blood Bowl, but a whole slew of other vintage and independent games (especially Skulldred by Delaney King over on King’s Miniatures. Check out that stuff.)

That was when I realized it. I must try them all.

And then that was when I realized another it. I’m poor.

And that was when I realized a third it. I wanted to try to do it as DIY as possible. This would allow for maximum creativity and minimum expenditure.

And that was not really a realization at all. I have always loved doing and making things for myself. My girlfriend makes fun of me constantly for it. I already make my own beer and my own bread, my own fiction, and my own artwork. I plan to start making my own yogurt and cheese, growing my own food, mixing my own cleaning products and building my own furniture; my response to discovering nearly anything I enjoy is to wonder if I can produce it myself.

So I figured, why not put it all in one place? Hence this blog. Of course, I can’t tackle all of this stuff at once. It will probably be mostly miniature gaming and modeling, with the odd beer post every once in a while. At least until I become obsessed with something else.

Sound good? Good.

So to begin in the next installment: My Custom Blood Bowl Pitch.

Peace!