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).

2020 was…2020. With everything that happened, from the pandemic to presidential shenanigans, this was one of the odder brewing stretches I’ve had. My homebrewing hobby was a bit of a respite from 2020, giving me a chance to disconnect and relax. Almost as importantly, homebrewing meant I had a steady supply of fresh beer even when the store shelves were bare, or when I really didn’t want to run more errands than necessary!

Here are some of this year’s highlights:

• Favorite Batch
  • It was hard to pick just one favorite, but Tremonia Lager stands out. The perfect level of maltiness in my version made it incredibly enjoyable, and it was ridiculously drinkable at just shy of 5% abv. More, please! In fact, I have another batch lagering right now.
• Least Favorite Batch
  • Nothing was a complete dumper (in sharp contrast with the dumper year of 2020), although I found that the Kveik Pale Ale was the most disappointing batch. I blame my hopping strategy, not the yeast.
• Experimental Recipe with Most Potential
  • Kveik the Keg Brown Ale was lots of fun, and turned out surprisingly well. If I have Hornindal Kveik on hand in the future, I’ll likely do more in this flavor space.
• Most Fun New Style/Recipe to Try
  • “Favorite Batch” Tremonia Lager also wins this category! It was a new-to-me style (Dortmunder Export, a.k.a., German Helles Exportbier), and I had a lot of fun figuring out the recipe.
• Upcoming Beer With Most Potential
  • I’ve got a few beers in the fermenter or keg that are still waiting to be put on tap, including a German pils, that rebrew of Tremonia Lager, a Scottish-esque ale, and a double IPA (clone of Avery Brewing’s Maharaja IPA). They’re all full of promise, but the one I’m most excited for is “Off the Rails Belgian IPA”. It’s currently in its second week of fermentation, as an attempt at a clone of Houblon Chouffe. It’s a pretty high octane beer, well on target to hit around 10% abv. The batch is going to condition for awhile before being ready to serve, probably a month or two at least. I imagine that this is going to be a beer that I’ll finish fairly slowly, and may not even put it on tap at the main keezer, but will just pull off a glass now and then using a picnic tap.
• Best Technique Added to Repertoire
  • A few months ago, I transitioned to electric brewing, which has enabled mash recirculation as well as easier step mashing. I’m still on the learning curve, but the curve is starting to flatten out a bit. The brew day rhythm is locking into place, and I’ve steadily gotten more efficient with each batch.
• Best Ingredient Added to Repertoire
  • As mentioned above, kveik was a fun yeast space to play around in. I made three batches with it–a pale ale, a brown ale, and my holiday ale. It really does live up to the hype of fermenting cleanly and quickly.
• Favorite Book(s)
  • I really enjoyed the Vienna Lager book by Andreas Krennmair, with its historical details and simple recipes. The book (and one of its recipes that I brewed) are briefly reviewed in a previous post.
• Other Milestones
  • I’ switched entirely to stainless steel fermenters, after years of glass carboy use. Safety was a big concern, as well as ease of cleaning.
  • I had a lot of fun in the fermented foods realm, playing with some sauerkraut and other lacto-based items.
  • On the commercial beverage side, I’ve been sampling a variety of non-alcoholic options. They’re not a complete substitute for alcoholic beverages, but are a bit more interesting flavor-wise.
• Overall Stats
  • I brewed 34 batches of beer this year, with around 160 gallons into kegs.
  • German Pils was my most frequently brewed style, with four batches. American pale ale followed, with three batches. American IPA, Dortmunder Export, Irish stout, and kölsch-style beers had two batches each. Lagers as a group comprised slightly more than a third of my overall brewing this year.
  • Overall beer strength was pretty middle-of-the-road, with a target starting gravity averaging 1.053 (median=1.048). My highest starting gravity was 1.105, for my homebrew club’s imperial stout barrel project. The lowest starting gravity was 1.031, for the Berliner Weisse.

2019 marked my eleventh year brewing out in California, and I feel like I’m squarely in the comfort zone of homebrewing. Yet, I didn’t let myself get too comfortable, either. This was a year to push myself with more lager recipes and some new styles. I’ve improved my packaging of oxygen-sensitive beers, and overall this has paid off handsomely. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights!

• Favorite Batch
  • This was a great year, with several batches I really loved. Favorite batch for 2019 is a hard choice, but I think I’ll give a slight edge to the Alta California Lager. It was a virtually perfect beer, and I hope I’ll be able to get something close to it again in a future incarnation!
• Least Favorite Batch
  • I didn’t have any complete disasters this year, so this is another hard choice. My recent brown ale was a bit of a disappointment, so that’s probably what I would nominate. I also haven’t gotten quite to the perfect Bohemian pilsner. Something to shoot for next year!
• Experimental Recipe with Most Potential
  • I made a Breslau-style pale schöps, and it was just plain fun. I loved the challenge of creating a recipe for a style taste-unseen, and the result was really nice. It was a treat!
• Most Fun New Style/Recipe to Try
  • Stygimoloch Bock turned out great in its inaugural run, and with a little more tweaking it’s going to be pretty darned amazing. I had fun working with the artist on the commemorative design, and had just as much fun enjoying the beer with friends.
• Best Technique Added to Repertoire
  • I’ve perfected a partially closed transfer, to reduce oxygen exposure for sensitive beers like dry hopped IPAs and light lagers. Just like a totally closed technique, I purge the keg with CO2 by filling it with StarSan solution and pushing out the liquid. Rather than pushing the beer in with CO2 also, I just siphon in via the out port. As long as I don’t disturb the surface of the fermenter’s beer too much, I figure that oxygen introduction is quite minimal. I feel this is a touch safer than even minimal pressure added to a glass carboy, and the process also involves less equipment.
• Best Ingredient Added to Repertoire
  • Comet hops! I liked how my Comet Pale Ale turned out, and will be looking to try this again for future IPAs and pale ales.
• Favorite Book(s)
  • I read the somewhat old Bavarian Helles volume by Hornbusch (from Brewers Publications), and rather enjoyed it. I picked up a few from this style-centered series when they were on sale, and have been working my way through them. The oldest date back to the early 1990s, when brewing and homebrewing were completely different worlds. Some of the recipes have value, and some I take with a bit of skepticism. Even so, the histories and background are super interesting, with more detail than the typical brewing article. The books are also a nice length to finish in one or two sittings, which is a rare sweet spot for the beer writing market.
  • On the cultural side, I think This Ain’t the Beer That You’re Used To: A Beginners Guide To Good Beer, by Dom “Doochie” Cook, stands out among books I read. It’s highly readable, and brings a fresh voice to the beer writing world. Check it out!
• Other Milestones
  • This is the year that I finally figured out lagers. Around a quarter of the beers of 2019 were lagers, including everything from Munich dunkels to German pils to Mexican-style lager to bocks. I had more hits than misses, and can foresee even more lagers next year!
• Overall Stats
  • I brewed around 25 batches this year; not as much as some years, but certainly not too shabby. There were times where I ran a little short on homebrew (mainly when I had extensive stretches of no-brewing due to work/family schedules), so next year I’ll try to plan things out a bit more.