Beantown Brews: A Boston Beer Blog

Homebrewing Hubbub - True to my word in the last post, I’ve moved right along from my success with the farm-day hefeweizen to another batch of homebrew. I wanted to get right back to the kettle as soon as possible and use up the rest of my wheat malt extract before moving along to all-grain brewing as planned.

So what am I brewing this time around? With all this wheat malt around I figured it was time to make a white ale.

Here is my recipe: All Ingredients were purchased from BarleyCorn’s

1/2 ounce of Hallertauer boiling hops

1/2 ounce of orange peel
1 ounce of freshly ground coriander (which is some expensive shit)
1 packet of WYeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen™yeast

The yeast isn’t really made for the Belgian Whit style, but it is a great hefeweizen yeast so I figured it would work well. My only real concern is keeping the brew at a steady and appropriate temp. My basement is holding steady at around 73 degrees and the tank is reading at 76. Fermentation started strong but has seemingly slowed way down in only a day – a far cry from my last two hefe batches that pumped away for days at break-neck speed.

Other Awesome News – In other awesome news, my Birthday is coming up!

Now – I am turning thirty, which is a bit of a downer. To make me feel better about the death-throws of my young-adulthood, my fantastic fiancee is throwing me a “Last day of your 20′s” Party. Better still – it is a beer tasting party!

She has also given me my presents prematurely. I got:

One Stationary bottle opener with cap-catcher
One Homebrewing Slide ruler
A membership to the American Homebrewer’s Association
One bumper sticker that reads “Support Your Local Brewer”
One bumper sticker that reads “Relax. Don’t Worry. Have a Homebrew“
And one Copy of Andy Crouch’s “The Good Beer Guide to New England“

Julia has been unbelievable and I really couldn’t ask for a more supportive partner. Words of encouragement, books, news clippings – even rolling up her sleeves and helping brew the beer. Julia spent a good deal of time grinding the coriander for this batch by hand. With a make shift mortar and pestle.

Thanks Jules – I love you more than words can express.

It will always go -

You
Beer
Coconut
Everything else in the world

Yesterday was Farm day and that means I got to roll out the farm-day hefeweizen made especially for the occasion. If you’ve been following my blog, and why wouldn’t you, you may have heard me mention the project.

If you haven’t been following, which you should start doing, here is the reader digest condensed version. I was asked to brew some beer for an annual farm-day celebration in central Mass. I decided to go with a hefeweizen because it fit the summer outdoors event style and, well – I had never made wheat beer before so I was curious.

I made two 5-gallon batches and brought the better batch to the party.

Now you are all caught up! To be honest, I was really nervous about showcasing my beer. I’ve brought beer to smaller gatherings before, but never a venue with this number of people. People who really have no reason to humor me if the beer was sub-par.

But the hefeweizen was a huge success – everyone seemed to love it! I am going to take the fact that the guests drank all five gallons as a huge win. And on top of that, there was a full cooler of commercial beer left untouched when I left.

I got a lot of thank-yous and good jobs; I was particularly happy with the praise of a native German party goer who gave the brew a big thumbs-up and the Hasselhoff seal of approval.

I know; it is creepy isn’t it. But I will tell you this – Germans love two things: David Hasselhoff and good beer. We are apparently on the same page with one of those things, so I am willing to go on a little faith with the other…

Anywho- I really want to thank everbody who stopped by and everyone who gave it a try. I love brewing and the kudos make it that much easier to keep going back to the kettle. So thank you. Thank you drinkers and well-wishers. Thank you Kristin for the opportunity to brew. Thank you Robin for the use of your farm. And Finally, Thank you Julia, my fantastic fiancee, without whom I wouldn’t be able to keep my shit together long enough to get anything done.

This success has given me the confidence to step up my brewing efforts. In addition to brewing more often, I think I am going to begin all-grain brewing instead of extract brewing. I’ve successfully brewed a good number of batches now, and I think I am ready to give it a go.

Wish me luck. Thanks for reading!

and stop starring at Hasselhoff!