Goose Island's Pere Jacques (2011)

Pere Jacques is a Belgian Dubble from Goose Island Beer Co. out of Chicago. It pours a beautiful coppery red and smells very fruity. The mouth feel is slightly syrupy but not overwhelming. This is to be expected as this beer clocks in at 8% and is supposed to develop more complex character over 5 years (it was bottled June of 2011). The smell and taste are immensely fruity and with hints of dark stone fruit. Over all this is an excellent beer that I would seek out again.

Mikkeller's I Hard Core You

An Imperial IPA that is a collaboration brew blending Mikkeller's I Beat You and BrewDog's Hardcore that yields an extraordinarily well balanced full flavored beer with blasts of floral hop aroma. Surprisingly smooth for 9.5% ABV a HIGHLY recommended beer if you can find it.

Brouwerij Drie Fonteinen's Schaerbeek Kriek

Very fruity, very very dry, effervescent, very sour and smells like a farmyard with lots of funk. Served in a champagne bottle it pours a beautiful red color. This is a great beer and is highly recommended but be prepared to pay a lot for it.

Mikkeller 10

 

An IPA that pours golden bright in color with a large floral aroma. Very hoppy and appeared to be a very well constructed beer. Exquisite and highly recommended.

Brewing a Dubbel

This was my second attempt at brewing a Belgian Dubbel and was unique mostly due to the sugar that I used. I decided to try piloncillo which is a latin sugar made by boiling and evaporating sugarcane juice.

This also was my first brew at my new house which draws its water from a different aquifer than my previous house so the water will be different from all my previous beers.

Ingredients 

12 lb Pilsner Malt

5 lb Munich Malt 

1 lb Vienna Malt 

2 lb Caramel 60˚L
1 lb Aromatic Malt 

2 lb 10 oz piloncillo sugar

6 oz Czech Saaz pellet hops (3%AA)~> 90 min

Spices

1.5 tsp Coriander

1.5 tsp Black Peppercorns

2 Star Anise 

Coriander and peppercorns were coarsely ground. All spices were added at flame out.

                                                                                                        WLP500 Trappist Ale Yeast

This brew also allowed me to utilize a lot of new equipment thanks to a brand new gigantic garage with power outlets. I was able to fly sparge directly from the hot liquor tank while draining off into my new kettle as well as trying out my new fermenting vessel.

O.G. 1.060 and a nice dark brown color appropriate to a Dubbel

Red Rock Ale

Ingredients
6.6 lb Light LME
1 lb. Light DME
0.75 lb. Crisp crystal malt (80° Lovibond)
1.0 lb. Maris Otter pale malt
1.0 oz Columbus whole hops 13% AAU
1 oz Cascade pellet hops 6.2% AAU
American Ale yeast (Wyeast 1056)
¾ cup corn sugar
Full recipe found here.


On my first go round of the Red Rock Ale I managed to add an entire pound of corn sugar to the batch and the finished product was... well... you get the idea. This time my main goals were to match the flavor of the original brew and have the mouth feel wind up less like yeasty soda and more like, ya know, beer.

This is an extremely easy and straight forward recipe that's great for a new homebrewer, or just a quick and easy brew day. Recently I spent an entire day cutting, cleaning, and roasting a pumpkin to add to a batch, so a nice and easy follow up seemed in order. Though the original recipe calls for strictly Cascade hops, I wanted to change the bitterness a little and wound up going with some Columbus whole leaf hops. Here's what their reduction looked like for this batch:

  

And because I'm kind of lazy and don't like syphoning my beer into the fermenter I use a colander to catch all of the whole leaves. I've yet to have any issues doing things this way and it saves me a ton of time, not only by cutting out the syphoning, but also with less equipment to sterilize after.