Do you plan brews for next year?

[AmandaK]

I was thinking yesterday that I really didn't have much rhyme or reason to my brew schedule this year (my first year), I just kind of brewed whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.

This year I'm going to try and knock out some Belgians according to the season. Anyone else do this?

I'm thinking of this:
January: Funky Belgian Dubbel/Belgian Single
February:? Maybe a Flander's Red?
March: French Saison
April: Watermelon Wheat
May: ?
June: Smoked Porter for later
July: Maybe start a funky winter warmer? Like Jolly Pumkpin's Noel?
August: Pumpkin Beer(s)
September: Start another lambic
October: Start Christmas gifts
November: ?
December: Maybe a month off

So what's your brewing look like for 2011?


Amanda

 

[smakudwn]

All I got planned so far is a Munich Hells for 1-3-11.

 

[McGarnigle]

I plan, but then I change my plans. I have more plans than capacity to brew.

 

[waldoar15]

Not really. Although I am brewing some lagers right now for summer consumption.

 

[oteixeira]

Too many things affect my choices to actually have a plan. If I did this, I would have a bunch of scratch outs for each month.

Orlando

 

[speter]

I plan for the next month or so in order to have ingredients on hand, but beyond that my mood changes.

 

[steinsato]

I don't plan out beer recipes for anything over 2 months in advance. My main goal for this coming year is to get my 10 gallon setup functioning. I have 2 burners and 2 keggles right now. Trying to figure out if I want to spend the money on a brewstand or just rig something up to get the job done. I may even take a welding course because brew stands are so damn expensive.

 

[rjwhite41]

I do this to a certain degree. It's hard to follow though. Also, why does it say month off in December? I never plan on taking time off from my hobbies. WTF?

 

[AmandaK]

I plan for the next month or so in order to have ingredients on hand, but beyond that my mood changes.

This is what I did this year. So now I don't have a winter beer and my pumpkin beer barely made it in season.

That's why I'm trying to plan a bit. I'm pretty ADD at times, so I'm sure my mood will change a lot throughout the year.

Just wonderin' if anyone actually planned out a year. That's all.

 

[bennyd]

I really wanted to have a pumpkin ale and a good holiday brew ready for fall and winter this year. I broke my foot in late August, had surgery, and didn't walk again until late October. Needless to say, that schedule went out the window. For 2011 I want to do a hoppy pale ale in time for spring, a blueberry beer for summer, and the pumpkin and holiday brews at the end of the summer so that they are ready in time. Other than that, whatever else gets brewed is just going to be kind of random.

 

[coypoo]

I really only brew for the winter season- a winter warmer and a spiced xmas ale. We never drink all of our spiced ale, so next year I wont brew one and we will drink the one from this year, so basically I have have planned is to brew a winter warmer in the summer. Other than that I just kind of brew eratically with things I want on hand all the time.

 

[Rowdy]

i plan one brew at a time. i'm sure this will change as i start ordering more bulk grains.

 

[scottland]

I usually only plan 1-2 brews out. I'm brewing a Scottish export next, and another IPA after that. but that's about it.

 

[Guidry]

Plan? Plan? We don't need no stinkin' plan!

Seriously though.....I can't plan what I'm doing tomorrow!

Now, if by "plan" you mean a "want to do list"....Well, I got one of those. It's a few pages long. And it is stored right behind my "to-do" list which is maintained by SWMBO.

 

[TheGeek]

I expect that I will start to plan a little better this year to hit seasonals like octoberfest. Though when I say "a little better" that improvement is from absolutely no planning. hehe. We'll see how it goes.

 

[jfr1111]

I plan on brewing a Barleywine and a RIS for next year to give out as gifts and drink over the Christmas season. Barring that, I do have plans for a couple of things, namely Bitters and Milds and other session beers to have on hand for the remainder of Winter/Spring.

I'm thinking about brewing a Bière de Garde or a Saison for Summer enjoyment, but I'm not so sure I want to buy half a sack of pils and liquid yeast just for that.

 

[GoldMiner]

I usually plan about 3/4 recipes ahead to minimize shipping costs.

 

[AmandaK]

I do this to a certain degree. It's hard to follow though. Also, why does it say month off in December? I never plan on taking time off from my hobbies. WTF?

Haha. This year I spent December not so much brewing, but working on labels and bottling the beer gifts i made for Christmas. By the time December rolled around, I had 5 fermenting! The rest of my time I spent working and traveling for the holidays.

 

[wonderbread23]

I have a spreadsheet that has me planned out through next summer. I like to drink seasonally, and it keeps me on track with things. I also want to send some beers in for NHC 2011, so it takes a bit of planning to have the beers packaged and optimally aged for the competition.

 

[crammer]

Typically I follow this rule of thumb;
Jan-Mar - Lagers & UK Ales
April -May - APAs, IPAs, Hefes, Summer Ales
Jun-Sept - not a lot since it's hot as hell in the south
Oct -Dec - Heavy dark ales

 

[rico567]

I've got a LOT of drinking to do before I even think about brewing. As far as plans go, I'm backed up with about 4-5 new recipes I'd like to try, and a couple of standbys. There's so much beer in the basement, though, that it's questionable if I'll be able to get a good pipeline going before May.....and, depending on the year, the hot weather may come early and shut me off.

I just do not brew when the temperatures are at the extremes. Yeah, I love beer. Yeah I enjoy homebrewing. But not in frigid weather, and not in a sauna. And, no, I don't find any "wacky manliness" in the YT videos of guys brewing awash in snow, or chilling their pots in snowbanks. Just......NO.

 

[jfr1111]

I just do not brew when the temperatures are at the extremes. Yeah, I love beer. Yeah I enjoy homebrewing. But not in frigid weather, and not in a sauna. And, no, I don't find any "wacky manliness" in the YT videos of guys brewing awash in snow, or chilling their pots in snowbanks. Just......NO.

Cue chicken noises

 

[ksbrain]

I'm planning on planning my whole year of brewing this year. Of course, so far all I've planned is my next brew day! My goal is to have three on tap at any given time and one conditioning. I want the three on tap to be different from each other, and seasonally appropriate.

I don't want to end up having an IPA sit around for months before tapping, and I don't want to end up with three stouts in a row, and I don't want three experiments on tap at the same time, and I don't want to kick three kegs in the same weekend.

For me, planning it out will improve my overall experience, but YMMV.

 

[biochemedic]

I plan, but then I change my plans. I have more plans than capacity to brew.

+1!!! I also have more plans than I have *time* to brew!

 

[Zamial]

All batches are 12 gallon and 7 gallons will get kegged, the other 5 will be bottled after being force carbed.

The batches with an * are only 6 gallon and will get force carbed and bottled.


BREW IT!

January: SWMBO orange wheat –
February: peppermint baltic chocolate porter*
March: Pliney IIPA -
April: cream ale - pilsner -
May: lemon wheat - chocolate stout
June: scotch ale -
July: pumpkin ale -
August: brown - black IPA
September: 90min whiskey barrel IIPA
October: oatmeal stout - heather pale ale
November: Irish red - Irish stout
December: baltic coffee double chocolate milk breakfast porter*



Below is the general times I will be drinking said brews on tap. The $$$ represents some overlap, a store bought keg, or an empty line.

DRINK IT!

January/February:
scotch ale - June
oatmeal stout - oct
$$$

March/April:
Irish red - nov
Irish stout - nov
heather pale ale - oct

May/ June:
Pliney IIPA - mar
SWMBO orange wheat - jan
cream ale - april

July/August:
brown - aug
pilsner - april
lemon wheat - may


September/October:
black IPA - aug
pumpkin ale - jul
$$$

November/December:
chocolate stout - may
90min whiskey barrel IIPA - sep
$$$

Special occasions / camping
baltic coffee double chocolate milk breakfast porter* - dec

St. Nick's day/Christmas + as gifts
chocolate peppermint baltic porter* – feb

 

[Randar]

I plan the next 3-5 brews to align ingredients, hops, yeast, etc and make sure I have the pipeline. I usually try to pick similar styles and keep things semi-seasonal, but often dabble in things "out of season".

There are a few "brew calendars" out there that are good reference points.

 

[shoestealer17]

Got a scottish ale and a irish stout ageing right now, probably going to try a Chimay clone for the spring and some kind of blonde for the summer, Rhar Blonde is awesome if anyone can get ahold of it.
Does anyone have an extract recipe for a Chimay clone?

 

[optimatored]

all ferms are empty... but brewing two AG on Saturday for my 1st annual Brewing, BBQ, Bourbon, and Beers!!

Coffee Stout and an IPA are on deck.

 

[utah_scott]

I brew what ever looks good at the time. How ever I'm going to brew 10 gals of Happy Holiday Ale from midwestsupplies.com. I couldn't keep enough in the fridge this year and I want to brew it in June so it has plenty of time to age.

 

[MikeRoBrew1]

Zamail your schedule freakin rocks! Can you link to any of your recipes please?

 

[electric_beer]

I have Beer Alchemy on my ipod so I have all sorts of beers planned out. Basically I could go into the homebrew store and russian roulette my choice as my mood changes so frequently. But as far as executing plans? Mostly I change my mind the moment I hit the homebrew store, which is why its so awesome to have multiple choices at the palm of my hand.

I have a festbier planned for this weekend, I'd like to do a oktoberfest after just to make sure how it will go for next year (only one lager under my belt)...other than that? NO CLUE. Maybe another ale, but I'm in the laggering mood lately.

 

[Zamial]

Zamail your schedule freakin rocks! Can you link to any of your recipes please?

Yes and at the same time no. I have brewed very few of these yet. St.Pat's will be my 1 year anniversary for brewing snowflake beer. I have done wines longer but mostly apfel stuff.

As such, I do not believe in a "secret recipe" but I have HUGE issues with posting up untested/perfected brews. I am compiling a few that have been tested and plan to share those once I am satisfied with the end result...Which I have a few that I really need to get posted...
/adds to "the list"...

As for how I made the list, well that is SUPER easy. I have 3 taps. I wanted to keep them full. I have to keep 1 tap for SWMBO brews. I listed out the months and thought about what I think she and I will WANT to be drinking at that time. I then guessed-a-mated a brew time of 3-4 weeks in primary, then any secondary that needed done, plus aging based on ABV%. Then see what I had. I tried my best to keep brew days when it is cold outside to 1 a month, same for most HOT months.