Brew Session Suggestion

Hello HBT! I need some assistance here folks. Three years ago Saturday I had a tumor removed (pheochromocytoma) and I would like to commemorate the event with a brew session. One problem though, not sure what I want to brew. Any suggestions?

Do you want something that will age well that you can drink every year on the anniversary, or something to celebrate with now?

Oldsock said:

Do you want something that will age well that you can drink every year on the anniversary, or something to celebrate with now?

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I think that's a good place to start.

Typically when I'm trying to think of a name for a brew I think about something that happened that day or something that is going on in my life like a feeling or something I'm working towards. Perhaps you could take the same approach to try to think of what type of beer would best fit for how you feel about this whole situation. For instance I just graduated Physician Assistant school and as a new PA I thought Im-PA would be a fitting brew name for an IPA. That's the approach I take..... maybe that will give you a thought process to work with.

Congrats on 3 years out!

Thanks for the congrats! Interesting suggestions, I guess i never really thought about it like that. I am leaning towards something I can age and drink on the anniversary. I have never "aged" much longer than a couple of months, only been brewing for about a year now. I have some MO, 2 row, vienna, and wheat malt at the house with a few pounds of hops (to many varieties to name).

You could do a barleywine, ~20 lbs of mostly MO, plus some wheat and vienna (and maybe some caramel or a touch of chocolate). Give it ~65 IBUs of hops for bittering (no need for aroma hops as it will be long gone by the time you drink it). Ferment with the American or British yeast strain of your choice (pitch loads of yeast and try to keep fermentation temps down in the 60s.)

Other good aging candidates are big stouts, wee heavies, sour beers, doppel/eisbocks, old ales, quads etc… (big, dark, sour all help aging).

Should be tasty for many healthy years to come.

I am thinking the barleywine is appropriate for this. I have everything i need at the house, no need to go to the LHBS (might go anyway). What do you think about this? (5.5 gallon batch)

18# MO
1# vienna
1# white wheat
1# crystal 120
0.5# aromatic

2 oz warrior 15.4 @ 60 min
1 oz centennial @ 30 min

That sounds like a winner keep us posted and congrats on the new life

thanks! the more i think about it, what about doing a parti-gyle? something i can enjoy relatively soon and something i can age, probably a pale ale along with the barleywine. anyone have advise on this?

man, what a beautiful saturday! it was perfect outside for an all day brew session! got 4.5 gallons of barleywine(used some homegrown hops, had some clogging issues) and 5.5 gallons of a pale ale with 1lb of honey. what an exhausting day but worth every minute!

alright, the 5 gallons of pale ale was slurped down about 2 months after brew day. even my mom (heineken drinker) kept pullin pints from the tap. throwin the barley wine in the keezer tonight for a few days. hope it didn't oxidize, lol. i almost forgot about this until i went to bottle a batch esb and saw the keg next to the bottle stash in the cellar!!!