Given the success of the first batch (second place Saison in the 2018 Greg Noonan Competition), I was determined to dial in my grisette recipe. Taking the feedback from the judges, and a little more speculative process tweaks from Markowski’s book, I applied those here to make Green Mountain Grisette (Mk. II):
Going way back to before I had any idea of what I was doing 1, I got it into my head to make a red-as-possible Trappist-style ale. Something in the neighborhood of a Dubbel in terms of color (but redder) but closer to a Belgian Dark Strong in terms of strength and flirting with both […]
Not immune to hype and novelty, the Green Mountain Mashers (the local homebrew club, of which I am a member) caught wind of a little style catching on in San Francisco: the so-called Brut IPA. The more adventurous and experimental of us immediately started digging into whatever resources we could find. Not surprisingly, several of […]
Inspired by the Brülosophy Short & Shoddy project, I had me an idea. As I stuck a fresh shipment of hops into my refrigerator drawer, I noticed a few lonely bags hanging out down there. Hops that were (probably) still good, but certainly not getting any fresher. I guess what I’m trying to say is […]
Because we gotta keep some on hand at all times, and because we were rapidly running out of bottles: Evil Clone (Mk. III):
I don’t know that I’ve ever had a real actual true Trappist Single. There was St. Bernardus Extra 4 from our study group but… that seemed an unsatisfying answer, that singular data point. So what motivated this particular brew was two-fold: first, that I needed a glorified starter (hence the name) for a significantly bigger […]
It’s been since December that I last had Honestatis on draft around here 1 and felt I was overdue to brew the next batch. I’d been tinkering with the formulation a bit, following some tasting notes from the last time I’d brewed it with Dan, but as it happens… so was he. Rather than duplicate […]
Winter drags its ass out, Spring rolls in like a lazy bum, and Summer scratches at the door like an enthusiastic dog. And with that backdrop, we’ll need ourselves a moderate-gravity, crushable lawnmower beer. Thus, the Uncle Rico 1 cream ale is just what the doctor ordered: Yes. That Uncle Rico.[↩]
Six beers judged in ninety minutes. Even more challenging than it sounded. But it’s done.
I think it’s fair to say that I would eventually have gotten the itch to get a BJCP certification. But it was that November 2016 BYO Boot Camp with Gordon Strong that really kicked off this journey. In retrospect, it was only natural that he would encourage me to go seek my certification. But at […]