Beer Around Town

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, even longer since I’ve posted on homebrewing. But that doesn’t indicate a lack of actual brewing, just my blogging side hasn’t held up it’s end of the bargain. The last few months has been a great stretch of homebrewing, at least for my standards, around 12 batches brewed since October. So I’m planning a big homebrew tasting of all that are ready for consumption. I hope to have a couple people sit around and walk through the list of beers and give their thoughts. I think the lineup will include: Scottish ale and cabernet aged Scottish, pale, smoked stout, sour blend, dark saison, fruit saison, Belgian dark spiced, 80 schilling, Flanders, Woodsman and Port Woodsman, smoked barleywine and port aged smoked barleywine, Tripel, and maybe a few others if they are ready. So look for that soon.

But while writing this and getting excited for Zwickelmania this weekend I thought to crack open a homebrew and give it some words. I’ve been a big smoked beer fan since my first experience with Orkney Skullsplitter and Alaskan Smoked Porter. Hooked upon first sip, the smoke, the malt, remind me why are hops so popular again? I continued on to seek out more, enthralled by the jerky like flavors of Schlenkerla Urbock or the softer cigar like spicy smoked notes of Spezial Marzen. Whether it be alder, peat, or beachwood smoked I was in it’s trance. When Briess cherry smoked malt arrived in the homebrew stores I had to try it. Overall this malt is much more rich and potent then rauch maltz, but not sharp like the peat.

A barleywine was settled on, Maris Otter based, cherry smoked malt, a touch of Munich and dextrine malts and away we go. The hopping was kept lower as I prefer a sweeter beer and for the yeast I elected to use the Rochefort strain. As Belgian as the Rochefort strain sounds it doesn’t put off many Belgian-esk esters, just a vigorous attenuator with a nice earthy and fruity ale backing. The smoked barleywine finished out around 11%, half of which was aged on port soaked cubes, half left standard. Still a bit young in it’s age (one month in the bottle), the carbonation has come around, a soft thin beige head sits atop a deep rust/mahogany body, excellent clarity and head retention.  The smokiness is prominent in both the nose and flavor. The port version seems to have a lesser degree of smoked character, but both feature it upfront. For 11% I’m very pleased with this beer in it’s youth, the alcohol is very mellow and the beer is rather well rounded in it’s flavors at such an early point. Soft notes of carob and toffee up front, faint raisin and delicious charred wood from the smoked malt. The port version seems to emphasize a raisin character more, the wood adds a subtle dryness while you exhale. The plain version sides more towards caramel and standard barleywine flavors. I think I’m a bit more fond of the standard version over the port version at this point, but only time will tell. I’m very pleased at the results of this beer, I’d probably change very little about the malt bill on this. For one of the first times I feel the beer turned out exactly as I hoped it would. I’m sure a BJCP judge would have a field day with this beer in categories, but isn’t that a good feeling, brewing the beers you like?