2022’s Brew Year’s Resolutions

Posted on January 3, 2022 by Andy Farke

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.

Follow-Up: 2021’s Brew Year’s Resolutions

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Andy Farke

I made a few brewing goals for 2021, and with the turning of the calendar page, it’s time to assess the damage (or progress).

Kveik.
- I set a goal to brew more with kveik, and did get two batches in with this family of yeast cultures, both IPAs. They turned out OK, but not great. I’ll probably play around more with kveik in the future, but I feel that the trend has perhaps run its course for my brewing tastes and needs.
- Final Score: 5/10
Pilsner.
- I set out to perfect a German pils, and came close. I’ve figured out my general grain bill and bitterness regimes, and now it’s just a matter of continued iteration. The Pilsnerpeton batch is perhaps the best from 2020/2021, and Farke’s Best Pils also came out pretty great. I just need a little more practice, and I’ll get there.
- Final Score: 7/10
Big Beers in Small Batches.
- I’m feeling really great about this one. I ended up with three small-batch beers higher than 7% abv, including the excellent Winter Dream Ale. Although I could have brewed more of these, I am actually pretty satisfied with where I landed on this goal. Each of the beers turned out fairly well, and it was about the perfect quantity for what I had energy to drink (or share).
- Final Score: 8/10
Belgian Beers.
- I didn’t do great on this one, probably because I got distracted by other brewing projects. Alongside the aforementioned Winter Dream Ale, I fermented three other beers with Belgian yeast. Two of these were old favorites (Raspberry Belgian and Pannotia White IPA), and another was a big quad for a homebrew club barrel project. So…I really have work to do here next year. Maybe a patersbier for Lent?
- Final Score: 4/10

Overall Assessment of 2021: 6/10 for brewing goals — not great, but not awful. I still had fun, though!

2021’s Homebrew Highlights

Posted on December 31, 2021 by Andy Farke

This was a big year for my brewing, even if I had busy stretches with minimal time. As I enter the last few minutes of 2021, here are my thoughts looking back…

Favorite Batch
- This was a tough one to pick! I had a decent number of beers I really liked, and so I chose the following two as my favorite batches:
  - Ill-Tempered Gnome. I don’t make American brown ales very often, but this one was just awesome. The hop character is particularly memorable, and I definitely want to make it again sometime.
  - Alstadt Altbier. I feel like I perfected my altbier game on this latest version of the recipe. Again, a very memorable beer!
Least Favorite Batch
- Mow the Damn Lawn, Farke. I have done this one before and really enjoyed it, but the batch this year had some issues–specifically, a serious acetaldehyde problem. It cleared over time, but the batch never advanced much beyond “drinkable.”
Experimental Recipe with Most Potential
- Winter Dream Ale. High-alcohol beers are not the sort of thing I do all the time, but this particular recipe was really enjoyable in the Christmas to New Year’s stretch. It had a nice mix of flavor and body, making an interesting beer without addition of spices or strange adjuncts.
Most Fun New Style/Recipe to Try
- I had fun putting together an amber kellerbier, in Dimorphos Kellerbier. I really freestyled it in the recipe, and achieved a tasty result.
Upcoming Beer With Most Potential
- I have another Pliny the Elder clone fermenting right now, and I’m crossing my fingers that it turns out well!
Best Technique Added to Repertoire
- I’ve been using a Hochkurz mash semi-regularly, and like the results in terms of extract yield as well as fermentability and flavor.
Best Ingredient Added to Repertoire
- The HOPBOX was a lot of fun to play with, and gave me a nice IPA as a result. I’ll be enjoying the next iterations as they arrive this year.
Favorite Book(s)
- For Christmas, I received a copy of Dark Lagers: History, Mystery, Brewing Techniques, Recipes (by Thomas Kraus-Weyermann and Horst Dornbusch)…it has been a fun one to browse! The historical information is interesting, the recipes seem solid, and the food recipes are also something I’ll look forward to trying.
Other Milestones
- I had some fun with other fermentables this year, including creation of miso paste as well as injera bread. I’ve continued with sauerkraut and homemade mustard, all of which are fantastic accompaniments for beer and sausage.
Overall Stats
- I brewed 31 batches of beer this past year, totalling around 150 gallons of beer produced.
- No particular beer style dominated 2021, although I had three batches of German pils and two batches of American IPA as the most frequently brewed styles. Expanding into IPAs as a general category, I brewed seven recipes in the IPA world (including American, English, white, and double IPAs).

Winter Dream Ale

Posted on December 26, 2021 by Andy Farke

I often make a special, small-batch beer for Christmas, something that’s rich and high alcohol and perfect for cold (southern California) evenings next to the fire. For the 2021 edition, I threw together a Belgian-style winter warmer. I wanted a rich, sumptuous malt backbone, and to let the fermentation add any spice, rather than using actual species. I used up a few ingredients on-hand, which just happened to be perfect for my vision of the beer.

Winter Dream Ale

8 lb. Vienna malt (Weyermann)
1.25 lb. Munich light malt (Chateau)
11 oz. Special B malt (Dingemans)
4 oz. Crystal 120 malt (Great Western)
0.75 oz. Magnum hop pellets (10.1% alpha), 60 minute boil
1 Whirlfloc tablet, 5 minute boil
1.5 g yeast nutrient (WLN1000, White Labs)
8 oz. honey, add to flameout
2 pkg. Abbay Belgian ale yeast (Lallemand)

Target Parameters

1.086 o.g., 1.018 f.g., 9.2% abv, 22 IBU, 22 SRM
Mash held at 150° for 60 minutes, and 10 minute mash-out at 168°, with ~0.75 gallon sparge
Claremont tap water

Procedure

I heated 4.5 gallons of water to 159°, and added the grains to hit a mash temperature of 150°. I held here (with recirculation) for 60 minutes, before raising the temperature to 168° and holding there for 10 minutes. Then, I removed the grain basket and sparged with 0.75 gallons of hot water.
I collected 4.5 gallons of runnings with a gravity of 1.060, for 71% mash efficiency.This was a good efficiency but too high of a volume. So, I boiled for an extra 30 minutes before adding hops.
After 30 minutes of boiling, I added the hops, honey, and finings per the recipe, boiling for an addition 60 minutes.
Starting gravity was 1.076; this was a bit short of the recipe, but I didn’t worry about it too much.
I chilled to 80°, transferred to the fermenter, and let the wort chill overnight before pitching the yeast.
I brewed the beer on 12 October 2021, and pitched the yeast on 13 October 2021.
I fermented at 65°, and raised the beer to 70° (free rise) on 20 October 2021, to help the yeast ferment out.
I kegged the beer on 5 November 2021. Final gravity was 1.020, for 7.5% abv.

Tasting

Appearance
- Deep reddish amber and very clear; there is a persistent and creamy ivory head.
Aroma
- Spicy aroma, with a bit of caramel and dried dark fruit.
Flavor
- Wonderfully rich! There is a caramel and toffee malt character with a bit of dried fruit and sweet candy. A bready malt quality sneaks up behind that. Bitterness is moderate, and the yeast character has a slightly spicy quality. Fermentation quality is really nice, and I dodged any hot alcohol character.
Mouthfeel
- Medium body, with medium-high carbonation and a smooth finish. The body is maybe a little thinner than I had envisioned.
Would I brew this again?
- I am really, really happy with the results in this recipe. It absolutely hit the rich, complex qualities I wanted, and is highly drinkable. The fermentation quality is perfect too! The only minor ding is that starting gravity was a touch low, which decreases the body a little, but I think that worked out okay in the end. I would rather the body be somewhat thin, than the beer be too sweet and cloying.
Overall
- 8/10

Dimorphos Kellerbier

Posted on December 24, 2021 by Andy Farke

I’m still working my way through the world of German beer, and there is no shortage of varieties to try. Although kellerbier isn’t necessarily a discrete style (just being vaguely young lager), I wanted to give it a go. I also wanted to use up some ingredients. How convenient!

I aimed for an amber kellerbier, with a rich and malty character. I had some Munich malt to finish, as well as Vienna malt. A little bit of melanoidin (Great Western’s Mela malt, in this case) went in to raise the maltiness bar, and I used some Carafa Special II for color adjustment. Spalt hops are apparently somewhat traditional; I had a little bit to use up, so in they went too.

The name of “Dimorphos Kellerbier” is after the smaller member of the 65803 Didymos asteroid system. Coincidentally, it’s also part of the root for the pterosaur Dimorphodon, which appealed to my paleontological side. In any case, Dimorphos is the planned target for the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission, in which the orbit of the asteroid will be changed very slightly through impact by a satellite. It’s testing technology that may be used to save Earth from an asteroid impact someday, which I can definitely support as a paleontologist. The mission launched on November 24, and I was just a few miles from the launchpad to see the satellite head into the great beyond. It was a pretty incredible experience, and one worth commemorating with a beer batch!

The DART mission on its way to its rendevous with Dimorphos and Didymos, during its launch with a Falcon 9 rocket on November 24, 2022. The ring represents clouds pushed aside by the shock wave of the rocket’s passage; the rocket itself is the bright object in the middle of the photo, with the exhaust plume to the left of the image.

For many of my beers, I write up the tasting notes after a few weeks on tap. This gives the beer chance to mature, and allows me to figure out the character of the beer. This time, I wrote up the tasting on my very first glass out of the keg. Because the style is supposed to be served young, I figured I didn’t gain anything by waiting. It also gave me a chance to provide first impressions, before I’ve had a chance to talk myself into a particular opinion about the beer.

Dimorphos Kellerbier

5 lb. 1 oz. Vienna malt (Weyermann)
3 lb. 12 oz. pilsner malt (Viking)
15 oz. Munich I malt (Weyermann)
4 oz. Mela malt (Great Western)
2 oz. Carafa Special II malt (Weyermann)
0.5 oz. Magnum hop pellets (10.1% alpha), first wort hop and 60 minute boil
1 oz. Spalt hop pellets (3.0% alpha), 20 minute boil
1 Whirlfloc tablet, 5 minute boil
1 oz. Spalt hop pellets (3.0% alpha), 5 minute boil
2 pkg. Diamond lager dry yeast (Lallemand)