Once again, it’s time to look ahead to the new year of brewing. What would I like to achieve in 2022?

• Session Beers
  • I’ve always had session-strength beers as a regular part of my brewing rotation, and have had some really great successes. I’ve done well with IPAs and stouts, and would now like to branch out a bit. I recently made a session strength dark mild, which I just put on tap and am really enjoying. A Scottish 70-/Heavy is on the schedule, and I might even aim for a patersbier soon.
• German Pils
  • I had this as a goal last year, and although I’m getting closer, I’m not quite there yet with any consistency. I’ve been pulling the various levers of mash and grain bill and hop rates, and want to get things to the level of regular perfection soon. During 2021, I discovered that a German pils on the high end of bitterness didn’t work well for my taste buds, and something on the low end needed a touch more bite. Initial tastes on a recently kegged lager are promising.
• Pre-Prohibition Lager
  • I recently had the 1903 Lager from Craftsman Brewing Company (Pasadena), and this beer was amazing as a pre-Prohibition style lager that clocks in at 5.2% abv. The malt character was fantastic, against some really nice hop qualities. It’s hard to find much information on this beer, so I’m going to need to look around a bit in the world of pre-Prohibition lagers to figure out a comparable recipe. In any case, this is a beer style I want to make!
• IPAs
  • I’ve made some good IPAs, and even some great ones, but I’ve not yet settled on a “house” recipe. I need to change that. I have found that “traditional” West Coast IPAs with a heft measure of Centennial and Cascade are most to my taste, so I want to revisit previous successes and see if I can’t replicate those. I might even return to a session rye IPA, to hit the session beer goal again.