Mad Alchemist » beer

2011 Brewers Association Style Guidelines

Mad Alchemist — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 01:19:17 +0000

The 2011 Brewers Association Style Guidelines are available. I like to reference both the BA style guidelines and BJCP guidelines, then break the rules when I feel like it’s necessary to do so to hit the flavor I’m looking for.

Brew Masters

Mad Alchemist — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:56:10 +0000

A Discovery series I’ve fallen in love with: Brew Masters. From the Discovery website:

Sam Calagione, craft beer maestro and founder of Dogfish Head Brewery, and his partners in suds travel the world searching for exotic ingredients and discovering ancient techniques to produce beers of astounding originality.

While pompous beer geeks think he’s selling out (by the way, get over yourselves), this is a very interesting and entertaining series that will hopefully bring more attention the the craft, micro, and homebrewing scenes. I have my fingers crossed that the series will be successful and will continue to air.

Samuel Adams Boston Ale Clone

Mad Alchemist — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 01:43:07 +0000

I attempted to pay homage to Sam Adams Boston Ale recently by brewing what I called New England Stock Ale. It tastes great with all the adjustments I had to make, and I’m taking it in my own direction from here on. That said, it was close enough to Boston Ale for me to believe I’ve just about figured out how to clone it, so here’s my recipe (the previously-linked post has more info in the original post and comments about how I arrived here):

I’m giving percentages and IBUs instead of weights so this can be scaled to any size you want.

Ingredients

Rahr Pale Ale (85%)
British Crystal 60 (15%)
Hops: Fuggles, East Kent Goldings, Spalt
Yeast: White Labs WLP008 East Coast Ale Yeast
Water: Residual Alkalinity 61, 1.5 Chloride/Sulfate Ratio, 100+ ppm Chloride, 50+ ppm Calcium

Target Profile

Original Gravity: 1.053 SG
Final Gravity: 1.014 SG
Color: 13.2 SRM
Bitterness: 25 IBUs
Alcohol by Volume (Est): 5.08%
Carbonation: 1.8-2.0 Volumes

Process

Mash @ 154°F for 60 minutes
Boil for 90 minutes
Late Hop with equal parts of all varieties @ 10-15 minutes to achieve IBU of ~25
Dry Hop with equal parts of all varieties for 3 days (~1.5oz total for 5 gallons)
Ferment at 60°F and allow to rise to 68°F after primary fermentation is complete
Carbonate to 1.8-2.0 volumes using dried malt extract (ideally, krausen, but DME is fine)
Age for 4-6 weeks @ 60°F
Drink @ 50°F-55°F

I’m pretty confident that you’ll end up with a beer very close to Boston Ale if you use these methods. As I mentioned, I did attempt to create an homage to Boston Ale before, and it was close enough that the aforementioned recipe should be very similar to a clone of Samuel Adams Boston Ale. Cheers!

Craft Brew Action Request

Mad Alchemist — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:02:10 +0000

The brewing community is asking for our support for America’s small brewers by making a simple request to your U.S. Representative to co-sponsor H.R. 4278. This bill seeks to reduce beer excise tax for small breweries, cutting costs and creating jobs. For those of us who are beer nerds, it also means more variety in beer! I’m proud to say my congressman, James McGovern, is already a sponsor. Find out the details on the Brewer’s Associations H.R. 4278 Action Request.

Beer Wars

Mad Alchemist — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:05:04 +0000

If you appreciate beer and/or brew it yourself, watch Beer Wars. It is an enlightening documentary on the beer industry as a whole, with a focus on the craft brewer trying to make it in the marketplace. It gave me a tremendous amount of respect for all independent brewers, especially Dogfish Head, and unfortunately made me dislike Anheuser–Busch InBev even more than I already do. It’s in about every format imaginable, so watch it.