September Homebrews

Cooling down my wort

This past month of September has been pretty hectic for me in terms of home brewing. I came back from the US engaged and needing to save as much as possible to be able to pay for a wedding, so I resolved not to buy a single beer this year and quench my thirst with my own home brews and my limited reserves. Being a worldly man with a taste for diversity, I've had to get to it and brew enough different types of beers to ensure I don't grow bored of drinking the same thing.

I had a few bottles left of the limoncello spiked pale ale that I brewed in spring with Mo'Problemas. It had mellowed out significantly and, even though the limoncello was still highly noticeable, it had integrated nicely and made the pale ale that much more flavorful. Some were even carbonated.

I also had about five liters of a stout I'd brewed from extract at the end of June, whose second fermentation had been spent in the company of 8gr. of French high-toast oak chips and which I spiked with just a little bit of Legendario rum from Cuba.

Boiling the oak chips to make sure nothing gets in my beer alive

These beers were all fine and dandy, but they weren't always the best thing to drink on a warm summer afternoon, so I was in a pretty dire position the first few days. I therefore started by brewing a couple of two gallon batches of more summer adequate beers, a pale ale and a light golden ale.

The pale ale was meant to be American in style, but the hops, which I bought in the month of April and carelessly kept in the fridge, were a little too old and stale to be used for a hop forward beer. I found that out the hard way when I tasted it. As a result I wound up spiking every bottle I opened with healthy doses of Amaretto, banana, orange or other liqueurs, depending on my mood. Most of the liqueurs didn't manage to hold up against the stale hop flavor in the beer, until I tried spiking it with pacharán. Pacharán is a traditional Spanish liqueur made from sloe and whose sweet aniseed taste can apparently work well with bitter but bland beer. Live and learn. Now I just have to buy another bottle of pacharán to finish the rest of the bottles.  This thing goes down fast because the more pacharán, the better the beer, making it one of my most expensive beers to date.

Rum spiked and oaked stout

The golden ale however, which I planned as a softer version of Belgian golden ales, was much less hop-centric. The oxidized and stale hops fit the style like a glove and the 3.9% ABV gave me a break from the other alcohol-filled options in my fridge. The only minor issue was that it could've used a little more filtering in order to truly be a golden ale. It was pale gold, yes, but also cloudy like a hefeweissen. Not that that matters too much. After all, barely having enough for myself I don't think I'll be sharing so no one will have the chance to judge.