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I've just recently started brewing my own beer, after
seeing a brew sack at the Trader Joe's in Pleasanton, and succeded in making
the lager from it. I soon graduated to a kit purchased at Costco and have
made a few batches with the kit: a pale ale, a Porter, and a dry stout.
The ingrediants for the last two were obtained as kits from
HopTech,
a homebrewer's store in Pleasanton. After my brother, who has also started
homebrewing, sent me a can of pre-hopped malt extract, I wanted to try
my hand at making up my own recipe. I managed to come up with a pretty
tasty red ale, along the lines of a Scottish style, very malty. It was
also my entry into the wonderfull world of yeast culturing, and using whole
leaf hops. It turned out rather well. I am also getting the materials together to try
out an all grain brewing, with the intent of producing a Bohemian style Pilsner. One recipe with which I've had a lot of success is basic partial mash ale, which I can then modify for verious effects. For example, if I add some roasted barley of between 75 - 125 °L, depending on what yeast and hop schedule is used, it can turn out like an Irish or Scottish red. If I add chocolate and patent malt, and use an Irish Ale yeast with less hops, it turns out either a porter or stout. I also recently made a batch and added 5 lbs of raw clover honey and kept the standard yeast and hops. What resulted was a really nice honey ale with final gravity of 1007 and approximately 9% alchohol by volume. I've also added coffee, licorice extract, different spices such as cormoram, allspice, fresh ground cinnimon, etc. to make a Christmas Ale that was very popular.
A great source of information on homebrewing
is the Cat's Meow
3 collection. Also the American
Homebrewer's Association web page is full of information for anyone
interested in this ancient craft.
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© 1998 Chuck Harding
charding at iguard dot com