does anybody mind if i vent about this latest batch?

[tbrink]

so i had one of those "get rid of what's left" brew sessions last month. i looked in the cupboard and see:

4# extra light DME
2# honey

okay, the universe is telling me to make a honey ale, so who am i to argue? i had 2 oz. of columbus hops in the freezer, so i tossed in 1 oz for 1/2 hour and the other oz. at 5 minutes, all in a 2 gallon boil.

everything's going well, until i realize that i only have a 3 gallon carboy to work with. my laziness about bottling combined with my desire to brew different batches has left me with one carboy to work with, and it's the wrong size! that means what was going to be a light session beer will now have to be a...oh, i don't know, imperial honey ale i guess. obviously i'm not going by any style guidelines here so from this point on it's fly by the seat of my pants time. i think, "okay, i can work with this", i so put the wort in and top it off with water to make 3 gallons.

wait, what did i just do? i stood there and slowly realized what i'd done. why did i put in that extra half gallon? i had maybe 5 inches of headspace down from the opening, and i knew with that little room i'd have a bomb on my hands when the yeast gets introduced. do i remove a bit of wort and waste it? ultimately i decided that it's okay, i have a blowoff tube.

that's when i realized my next problem. that packet of dry yeast that i had rehyrating in a diluted wort solution turned out to be wine yeast. of course i didn't realize that until i poured it in and was cleaning up the kitchen. "okay", i thought, "it's still S. cervisiae, just formulated for wine". but it was only 1 packet, and i've got an OG of 1.072 here. since i was not expecting to brew a big beer, that means no starter. i figure wine starts out pretty high too, so let's see where this takes us.

at any rate, the first signs of fermentation were underway after three hours, and satisfied the yeasties were doing their job, i moved the carboy downstairs to a closet where it's constantly around 60 degrees.

the next day i went into the closet to find my beer decided to blow its top and get all jackson pollack, forcefully ejecting green hoppy schmutz on the walls, the ceiling, everything. a steady flow of krausen was oozing over the top, soaking the carpet (note to self: always put primary fermenter in a tub). this yeast was going crazy, and i did not provide enough headroom for it. the tube was clogged. also the closet stunk.

flash forward 30 days, and i realize that i probably should rack that beer off of the yeast before autolysis becomes a reality. it's a beautiful reddish amber color, and upon racking i discover that the gravity has only dropped down to 1.025.

but here's where this batch is befuddling me: i tasted it, and i'll be damned if it didn't taste just like a hefeweizen. strong, fruity esters are very apparent, there's an aggressive alcohol bite that i wasn't expecting. then the hoppy bitterness (supposedly it's 49 IBU) slaps you upside the head.

i plan on bottling this weekend (again with the not being adequately prepared), and i'm curious how it'll turn out. could this estery quality have been introduced while my batch was exposed to the air? i'm doubtful, because that baby was pumping out froth like a 6th grade science fair volcano. would it still be there after a few weeks bottle conditioning? what the heck am i going to do if i ever want to replicate this recipe?

i'm thinking a good name for this batch would be "problem child".

 

[Timay3977]

How about red headed step child?

 

[tbrink]

well here is the three month update on my problem child batch (although i liked the name, i can't call it red head since the redness has all but vanished--what?):

i bottled about a month ago and had a bottle last night and i must say this is one befuddling brew. it pours a golden amber, a bit hazy, with excellent head retention, and it still has a very pronounced ester profile, fruity and bubblegummy until the columbus comes in and dries everything up and allows you to finally notice the honey maltiness and high alcohol content. complex is one way to describe it.

my wife tasted it and screwed up her face asking, "what the heck is that?", took a few more sips and poured herself a porter. after a few sips of that, she came back to the problem child and remarked that it's not a bad beer, just really weird. she asked if it was a hefewiezen, and i said no, it was just a product of circumstance...a mock hefe, if you will. the jury's still out on whether or not she approves.

i really think most of this is due to the wine yeast and the honey which made up for 1/3 of the fermentables. i also wish i had either went easier on the hops or dry hopped to bring it some balance, because that columbus just grabs you by the back of the tongue like a dog on a chew toy...which then encourages you to take another drink and get blasted by the sweetness all over again.

this will probably be on the shelf in my beer closet for some time, and i'm sure each time i taste it, it will be different. i look forward to trying it in the summer, because i find ambient temperatures have an effect my perception of beer.

so i got to thinking--are there any beer styles out there that encourage the fruity weirdness so i can just tell my friends that's what this is in order to "own" this creature? it's not sour at all, so that would eliminate a lot of belgians.
honey mock hefe?