view of the brew

Dave stirring the Off-Kilter Ale

still brewing despite a complete lack of posts

Fall has arrived in Missoula. Dave has grown a beard and Neil is dodging car doors on his bicycle. We are indeed still brewing, and we are going to make an effort to begin to post more regularly. Our new house in the Rattlesnake gives us a nice clean kitchen (and dishwasher, wahoo) to work with and a basement perfect for storing batches.

Since September we have brewed many types of beer and seen various results.

Our first venture was the ambitious "Goat Scrotum Ale", a recipe that called for anything we felt like throwing in it. We used a variation of hops, juniper berries, ginger, dark malt extract, and some other things laying around the kitchen. After doubts about fermentation we pitched more yeast a week into storing. We let it ferment for another week, conditioned it for a few weeks in a carboy, and to our surprise this batch came out to be somewhat drinkable.

After the questionable Goat Scrotum Ale we thought we'd try a traditional Brown Ale. This brew appeared to have all the qualities of a fine brown ale until the bottleing process, where we slipped up on the priming sugar. Distributing sugar into the fermented wort is CRUCIAL, without it done correctly you will have a flat, foamless brewha. We'll give the Brown Ale another try soon cause we were on to good things, thats for sure.

In mid September Dave dreamed up another ambitious creation. Dubbed the "Honey Hybrid" we attempted to splice two recipes and create a Honey Amber. Our average batch of homebrew calls for 6 lbs of malt extract. The malt extract is an important base for the brew, containing all the sugars that will eventually convert to the alcohol we're after. In this batches case we substituted the malt extract for clover honey. This honey contains the sugar we need, and should work as a nice base for a rich amber. We'll keep you posted on it's success (or failure).

Just last night we brewed a Scotch Ale titled the "Off-Kilter Ale". This batch called for some new brewing techniques and methods, and a combination of ingredients we're not used to either. This batch has dark chocolate and crystal malts, flaked barley, and light malt extract (both dry and syrup) which should bring a nice full taste. This batch has been fermenting through the roof, which is always a pleasure to see.

On Saturday night we plan on tasting a whole bunch of our beers that are stored in the basement. We'll update you with "roommate reviews", a truly unbiased review of our recent batches from the likes of Drew Johnson and Colin Scott.