Beer, Beer, Beer

Recirculating the mash for our Summer Ale

We've been busy at the brewery.  Since our porter brew day, we've brewed a couple of complete opposite beers.  Our Barrel Aged RIS and our Summer Ale.

First up was our RIS.  This is the same beer that we brewed for our friends wedding a year back.  It's big, dark, carmely, chocolaty, roasty and bourbony...yum.  With a pale malt base and a mix of carmel, choclate, roast, and oats in the mash and generous hopping and over a pound of molasses in the boil, this imperial stout has an OG of 1.123.  We ferment this with a huge starter (our porter is our starter) of an english ale yeast strain, and finish it off with a higher alcohol tolerant strain.  It's been about 2 weeks since brew day and I'll be adding the second yeast today.  With the english strain we use, we're able to get an apparent attenuation of 75-76%, and while that takes us down to 1.030 and 12.5% ABV, we like this beer to finish a little dryer than that.  When all is said and done it'll finish around 13.2-13.5%.  Once fermentation is complete, we'll age it for a couple months before adding bourbon soaked french oak.  We'll then age that until we get the desired flavors, then package.  Expected drinking date will be 8-12 months from brew date. Perfect timing for next winter.

Next up was our Summer Ale.  A pre-prohibition style ale that's great for a hot day (or any day for that matter).  We were limited to how much we could brew for this one as our fermentors are pretty much all full.  Other than that, it was another smooth, easy brew day.  We'll have this one ready for our spring Beer Pairing.

Also this weekend we kegged our Oaked Porter.  We use american oak chips in this one and they tend to get harsh if left to age int he beer for too long.  I tasted it, and it was just how we wanted.  The oak/vanilla/bourbon mixture will continue to develop some great flavors after removing the oak and vanilla beans so it should be ready to go in a couple months.

On deck are our Irish Red seasonal, SD Session, Blackout, and a couple of IPA's that I'm playing with.  2013 will be a big and busy year for IMBC, stay tuned...