You just had a party, some friends came over and you shared your latest batch of homebrew with them. Suddenly someone lets you know the keg's been kicked. You realize how busy your schedule is but you're going to have to brew another batch of beer and soon. It's happened to all of us at some point in our brewing career, you brewed a perfect batch of beer and everyone including yourself drank the @%*! out of it and now it's all gone.
Beautiful Golden Wheat
What to brew, what to brew, what to brew next? This latest IPA came out perfect, you even gave it a name as you entered it into your recipe program so that it stands out. Hiphopapocalpse IPA, it has a certain entertaining quality to it although it may not quite roll off your tongue when pronouncing it quickly.
A quick mental scan of your pending commitment schedule suggests a few possible times you'll be able to brew in the coming weeks. Preferring to brew on the weekends, Saturdays in particular so there's time the following day to finish any residual cleanup left from the day before. As the seemingly endless number of what-if scenarios play out in your head eventually a plan takes shape that will work, you hope.
Lovely Clear Wort
By now you've probably already decided if you'll have time to make a large starter from liquid yeast or simply use dry yeast. As brewday approaches details like rehydrating dry yeast or decanting a starter prior to pitching will be left to finalize. Ingredient availability is the more immediate concern, based on the type of yeast and hops that you can get, some additional scrambling to choose your recipe may be in order.
** Disclaimer: Consulting with your significant other(s), on your current brewing plans before committing to them, is highly recommended before inviting people over to brew with you. Failure to take such precautions may cause any future brewing schedule communications to increase by ten fold. **
Assuming that the upcoming brew date has been confirmed and accepted by everyone involved it's on to deciding what style of beer to brew. It's Spring here in the Northeastern United States and we've already experienced hot enough days to think about cooling off with a nice swim. I'm going to rule out Hazy Daze Stout and Bottoms Up Brown Ale too simply because most people think of dark beers as being too heavy for warm weather drinking.
Keep Your Summertime Kegs Full
My top contenders for a light refreshing summertime ale are a 420 Special Wheat Beer, a nice refreshing Lost Witz Belgian Wheat or a citrusy Clock Strukker IPA. This is the fun part of brewday, when friends weigh in on what style of beer you should brew, based on their own personal preferences of course. Ultimately on brewday you're going to put as much love and care into brewing the best batch of beer possible. It's really up to you to figure out which style is more challenging, interesting or to your own liking.
Golden Summertime Refresher
The 420 Special Wheat is an American Style Wheat Beer with lots of hop aroma, a beautiful color and at just under 5.5% alcohol it makes for a nice summertime refresher. In upcoming articles I'll be providing the ingredients that go into brewing this style of beer, along with some tricks I've learned over the years that have made this beer one of my all time favorites.
Beautiful Golden Wheat
What to brew, what to brew, what to brew next? This latest IPA came out perfect, you even gave it a name as you entered it into your recipe program so that it stands out. Hiphopapocalpse IPA, it has a certain entertaining quality to it although it may not quite roll off your tongue when pronouncing it quickly.
A quick mental scan of your pending commitment schedule suggests a few possible times you'll be able to brew in the coming weeks. Preferring to brew on the weekends, Saturdays in particular so there's time the following day to finish any residual cleanup left from the day before. As the seemingly endless number of what-if scenarios play out in your head eventually a plan takes shape that will work, you hope.
Lovely Clear Wort
By now you've probably already decided if you'll have time to make a large starter from liquid yeast or simply use dry yeast. As brewday approaches details like rehydrating dry yeast or decanting a starter prior to pitching will be left to finalize. Ingredient availability is the more immediate concern, based on the type of yeast and hops that you can get, some additional scrambling to choose your recipe may be in order.
** Disclaimer: Consulting with your significant other(s), on your current brewing plans before committing to them, is highly recommended before inviting people over to brew with you. Failure to take such precautions may cause any future brewing schedule communications to increase by ten fold. **
Assuming that the upcoming brew date has been confirmed and accepted by everyone involved it's on to deciding what style of beer to brew. It's Spring here in the Northeastern United States and we've already experienced hot enough days to think about cooling off with a nice swim. I'm going to rule out Hazy Daze Stout and Bottoms Up Brown Ale too simply because most people think of dark beers as being too heavy for warm weather drinking.
Keep Your Summertime Kegs Full
My top contenders for a light refreshing summertime ale are a 420 Special Wheat Beer, a nice refreshing Lost Witz Belgian Wheat or a citrusy Clock Strukker IPA. This is the fun part of brewday, when friends weigh in on what style of beer you should brew, based on their own personal preferences of course. Ultimately on brewday you're going to put as much love and care into brewing the best batch of beer possible. It's really up to you to figure out which style is more challenging, interesting or to your own liking.
Golden Summertime Refresher
The 420 Special Wheat is an American Style Wheat Beer with lots of hop aroma, a beautiful color and at just under 5.5% alcohol it makes for a nice summertime refresher. In upcoming articles I'll be providing the ingredients that go into brewing this style of beer, along with some tricks I've learned over the years that have made this beer one of my all time favorites.
