Hey everyone, time for the monthly post.
What’s everyone been up to? Any special spring/easter/your local flavour of holiday brews?
Cheers!
I have fermenting a split batch of wild “tripel” both with the same wild yeast culture that is very belgiany, instead of candi sugar, one batch has a kilo of honey from my bee hive and the other has a kilo of palm sugar I got at the asian grocery store. Additionally I also have (from the same mash as the tripel) a split batch of saison to test out two new wild yeast cultures, one harvested from my bee hive (comb, honey and worker bees in the starter), and the other from Juniper berries my wife collected on Granddad’s Bluff near LaCrosse, WI when she was there visiting relatives earlier this year. They’re all fermenting away together at 75F/24C, initially it was quite sulfury smelling but that has tapered off in the last day or so. Hopefully they turn out well.
I still need to rack off another batch that’s taking up a good chunk of my brewing corner. But, the next batch planned for hopefully this weekend is a hoochy melomel concoction involving some frozen strawberries that need cleared out and compatible fruity-flavored black tea. (Kobbs Sörgårdste) It may also get some blackcurrant drink concentrate if that seems like a good idea flavorwise.
I was wanting to get a test batch of some Thai black rice and blueberry Franken-doburoku going, but the pressure cooker I’ve been using for glutinous rice has decided not to seal properly even after a gasket replacement. I don’t feel like messing around with steaming wholegrain rice on the stove, so that’ll just have to wait until I can troubleshoot and fix that/snag a second cooker. May need to wait for next month on that one.
Making some hooch with black grapes
“Peach’s Revenge” lambic just started her year long aging process in a 5 gallon glass carboy. She turned into a multi fruit blend when I ran out of peaches, shhh, don’t tell her.
that is a lot of patience. I applaud you. my beers always get tested during the aging process enough so that by the time they get to the 6 month mark I maybe have 6/34 left. and the conclusion on the final ones is always ‘should have let them all age until now’. I never make lambics though
For me obviously nothing much in the brewing sense but I will be in the next few days in Belgium so at least some good beer after these few months.
Didn’t like that much Spanish beer, but the craft beer scene here starts to pick up and they have some nice refreshing IPAs and other ale styles (the commercial beer was nearly undrinkable). Similar in Portugal, but the craft scene isn’t that big.
I didn’t had single beer that I would consider talking that much about in France, the blonde just isn’t for me.
thanks for the travel beer log! I was always curious about the craft beer scene in Spain and Portugal, but never had the chance to go out and see for myself. seems like I’m not missing much, though.
if you’re headed to the Netherlands afterwards by any chance, I can recommend Uiltje and Jopenkerk in Haarlem, they have pretty good stuff. Jopenkerk also had a gruit at one point, not sure if they still make it.
Yeah, I changed my plans again few weeks ago.
I met someone that I promised to show her the beer culture in CZ, so I am taking train from Brussels to Czech to meet her there in few weeks. I will skip the German/Netherlands part.
But the craft beer scene is, according to people I talked to, biggest around Barcelona. Sometimes you just randomly find some place like NASA brewery in Pontevedra (I liked it, really nice place).
Do you like Belgian lambics? I’m a bit obsessed with brewing them, since they are hard to find for purchase where I live. Very limited selection when you do find them.
I live in CZ and beer is mostly water so it doesn’t make much sense to ship it that far and we have lot of small brewerys. They usually experiment somehow but not much of them got to Belgian styles.
I had few Belgian beers, one pub have sometimes few bottles, but not that much. That’s why I am going to Belgium…
Nice! Hope you have a wonderful time with all the beer they have to offer.
Yesterday I crossed the border, tooted on mastodon and someone told me about local craft beer fest…
I think that the first day in Belgium was really great.
Was the craft beer fest good? What did they have?
Really nice experience - 9 completely different beers, it was more local so I was bit of curiosity but I had really good chat with few people there.
Yes some stout with bourbon, beer brewed with spruce, tripels and more. Every beer just tasted completely different.
