Wish I would have put some bourbon in that porter

I just tried my part grain porter that's been in bottles for only a week and a half. Except for being a little over-carbonated, it was amazingly drinkable for being so young. I think it would have been better, though, if I had put a few glugs of MM in the secondary. I just hope I can wait awhile before I drink all of this stuff up. It's not bad at all. Here's the recipe:

1/3 lb. Black Patent Malt
1/3 lb. Roasted Barley
1/2 lb. Crystal 30
6 lb. Amber Malt Extract
1/2 oz. Cluster hops for bittering
1/2 oz. Cluster hops for flavoring
1 oz. Fuggles hops for aroma
Wyeast 1007 German Ale Yeast

You must have great water there. All that dark malt in a recipe using the water here, it would taste like charcoal.

I'll be up that way this weekend. I'm stopping in for a sample.

Actually our water isn't too good. I used bottled water. In Milwaukee they have Lake Michigan water, which is excellent, but in the suburb where I live it's very hard well water that has to go through a water softener.

You know, it's not too late to bourbon up that porter. Just throw a shot in your glass, then pour in the porter. Mmm mmm drunk.

Cheesefood, based on your advice I think I'll try that. Not now, though, as it's only 10:30 in the morning.

mmditter said:

Cheesefood, based on your advice I think I'll try that. Not now, though, as it's only 10:30 in the morning.

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Good call. Save the bourbon for the pm and just go for the straight porter right now.

Tempting. You know, I don't normally drink beer (or anything in the morning) but that reminds me that back when I used to go to Opening Day baseball games and also Packer games and would tailgate, it involved a fair amount of consumption of adult beverages in the morning. Although it was certainly a good time, I always thought it was a bit strange to be eating burgers and bratwurst and guzzling beer at 9:30 in the morning. It would have made more sense to have breakfast and bloody mary's (although even those are best with a chaser).

Back in the good ol' days they used to schedule the NC State/UNC football game for noon on the assumption people couldn't get too drunk by gametime. Of course, as students we would be out there tailgating with a keg and a grill by 8am.

I've always found beer tastes good in the morning at the beach, too.

Baron von BeeGee said:

Back in the good ol' days they used to schedule the NC State/UNC football game for noon on the assumption people couldn't get too drunk by gametime. Of course, as students we would be out there tailgating with a keg and a grill by 8am.

I've always found beer tastes good in the morning at the beach, too.

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and a beer pong table maybe?

The past two football seasons most of the land thief's games have been 11:00 am kickoff. This absolutely requires me to start drinking at 10:00am, just to get my game face on. Fortunately, Irish Coffee is very good for this purpose.

I learned about Irish Coffee 30 years ago in grad school. For some reason, all of our exams were scheduled for 7:30 - 9:30am. We'd all stay up all night studying, then whip up a huge thermos of Irish Coffee and take that and a quart of cool whip to the test with us. We passed the cool whip and thermos around all during the test, and generally by the time 9:30 rolled around we all felt pretty good about things...regardless of how well the test went.

So, what's the consensus here? I get home tonight, pop open another Porter (for quality testing purposes of course). Should I put some bourbon in the glass first?

mmditter said:

So, what's the consensus here? I get home tonight, pop open another Porter (for quality testing purposes of course). Should I put some bourbon in the glass first?

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You don't need our permission to drink bourbon! Adding liquor to beer seems weird to me (never did go crazy about boilermakers, either)...definitely non-Reinheitsgebot-ish, but hey, it's your beer! Seems like I would try one straight first to see where it's standing, and then add the hooch if you feel the need.

Baron von BeeGee said:

definitely non-Reinheitsgebot-ish,

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Isn't scotch (technically) adhering to das Gebot? It's barley, yeast, and water, right?

-walker

I suppose so, but I don't particularly like scotch. There must be something about bourbon and beer to have made boilermakers so popular.

Imperial Walker said:

Isn't scotch (technically) adhering to das Gebot? It's barley, yeast, and water, right?

-walker

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The Kaiser is probably cracking his knuckles and getting warmed up, but I don't have an answer. If my back's against the wall, I'll say that distillation is non-RHGB.

mmditter said:

I suppose so, but I don't particularly like scotch. There must be something about bourbon and beer to have made boilermakers so popular.

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Are they popular outside of the USA?

If not, then it's probably just due to the fact that Bourbon is the american version of whiskey, so that's what was more readily available for dumping into a beer.

america = bourbon = corn whiskey
scotland = scotch = barley whiskey
canada = ????? = rye whiskey (is there a special name for canadian whiskey, or is it just refered to as "rye"?)

Baron von BeeGee said:

The Kaiser is probably cracking his knuckles and getting warmed up, but I don't have an answer. If my back's against the wall, I'll say that distillation is non-RHGB.

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yeah, I know. I was just being a sh!thead.

Also, isn't their a difference between whisky and whiskey? All I know is they both would make me fight my grandmother so I usually stick with beer.

Bastige!

Frankly, I suppose that if the only thing available were ouzo, people would have started drinking ouzo-makers. Anything to get a buzz on between work and going home to SWMBO, eh?

Baron von BeeGee said:

Also, isn't their a difference between whisky and whiskey? All I know is they both would make me fight my grandmother so I usually stick with beer.

Bastige!

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If it's san e, it's scotch.

Here's an excellent resource:

http://www.mindspring.com/~mccarthys/whiskey/corn.htm

we have a firkin at work and i'm thinking about taking an imperial porter, adding a vanilla bean and some good bourbon (or maybe oak chips soaked in bourbon), and calling a session to see if we can finish off the 9 gallons in one day.

BTW hheres's one of my favorite signs in my cellar: 'Beer-so much more than a breakfast drink.'

a oatmeal stout in the morning is a wonderful thing, i like to double fist it with a draw and a cup of espresso.

Whisky is Irish. From anywhere else it is whiskey.

And bourbon is crap, BTW. :cross:
But I love a good scotch (though not as much as a good beer).

Shambolic said:

And bourbon is crap, BTW. :cross:

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A pox on your house! May your primary be forever infected with baddies.

Thou shalt not speak ill of Bourbon.

Curse Curse Curse. A Curse on thee!!!

Baron von BeeGee said:

You don't need our permission to drink bourbon! Adding liquor to beer seems weird to me (never did go crazy about boilermakers, either)...definitely non-Reinheitsgebot-ish, but hey, it's your beer! Seems like I would try one straight first to see where it's standing, and then add the hooch if you feel the need.

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Technically it's Reinheit-okay. Yeast, water, barley, hops in the beer; Boubon in the glass. My recipe, with the Maker's in the secondary, was the Reinheits-Nien version.