Your best brew -ever-

[Argyll Gargoyle]

What was your all time, best brew ever?

Rules: must be something that could conceivably be brewed again — no shaggy dog stories about that one time you found some mystery hops in the back of the freezer and it turned out to be incredible

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

Stupid rules...my best brew can't be repeated. It was dubbed the 'Bob Ross Brown' because it was a happy little accident long story short I was nearly wasted while heating my strike water, took my notes with a slur and messed up every imaginable boil addition. It was delicious!

Anyway, my all time best repeatable brew would probably have to be a Nelson dry hopped honey Saison fermented with The Mad Fermentationists Saison blend...I might have to do that this weekend..SO good..

 

[khannon]

I did a batch with the wife a while back, split the batch(it was a low hopped pale ale, pretty standard recipe) between S05 and some wild yeast dregs from a bottle of...(I think it was Cantillon?). Anyways, the wild yeast variant was amazing (after ~3 years even better), won several local homebrew comp awards, and I have the whole thing documented somewhere so it should be repeatable..

It's a little late in the night following some commercial and some homebrew.

 

[day_trippr]

All of my brews are repeatable because I have the BeerSmith recipes archived on my Google Drive. Of my current lineup (which is neipa and ipa heavy) my true love is my triple chocolate imperial honey stout. I've kept this beer on a nitro tap continuously for many years now. A short pour before bed time and a nuke won't wake me

The most memorable of my best: in 2008 I used a brand new hop with Golden Promise for a SMaSH that totally blew me and everyone that tried it away.
That hop was Citra. And it's still my favorite taste bud blaster hop

Cheers!

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

triple chocolate imperial honey stout.

Any chance you would be willing to share the recipe? My wife might finally approve of my brewing if I could have that on tap for her after a long day!

 

[Gnomebrewer]

My all time best (favourite) is a 'frambois' flanders red ale - aged 10 months with a blend of different Flanders red blends and some bottle dregs from sours, then three months on 1lb/gallon of raspberries, then blended 60/40 with a brett saison to help balance the acidity and increase the funk. Semi-repeatable!

 

[wepeeler]

A Kolsch. A simple Kolsch with no temp control. It came out amazing, and I've been brewing it ever since. With temp control. And mystery hops from the back of the freezer

 

[day_trippr]

Any chance you would be willing to share the recipe? My wife might finally approve of my brewing if I could have that on tap for her after a long day!

Soitenly! It's evolved over the years but this is a five gallon version of what I last brewed.

16 lb 2 row pale malt (I like GP or MO for this but pretty much anything will work)
1 lb flaked barley
1 lb chocolate malt (Crisp)
1/4 lb black barley malt
1/4 lb black patent malt (could combine both black malts into either one really)
1/4 lb roasted barley
1 lb crystal/caramel malt 40-60L
1/4 lb Gambrinus Honey Malt

2 oz Chinook pellets, 60 minutes
2 oz Cascade pellets, 15-20 minutes
2 lb honey, end of boil (TURN OFF THE BURNER BEFORE STIRRING IN!)
1/2 lb low fat cocoa powder, end of boil
Fermentis S04, 2 packs
1/2 lb cacao nibs and a scraped and smushed vanilla bean, soaked in dark rum for a week, then add the whole thing at secondary
1 oz pure chocolate extract, add at kegging

I have been mashing this at 148°F to get the FG down in the mid-upper 20s.
Serve on nitro if possible!

OG 1.107 FG 1.027
IBU 62 SRM 53

Cheers!

 

[Chuckbergman]

I probably have 2-3 "best brews" but if I had to pick, it would be my chipotle smoked porter. Solid porter recipe based on Bell's Porter, but I add 4 lbs. of smoked malt for a 7Gal batch (3lbs for 5Gal). I've tried different smoked malts but rauchmalt is probably the best. I add 3 chipotle's in secondary for 4-5 days - tasting until I get just the right amount of smooth heat.

Great on a cold winter night!

 

[balrog]

My dry Altbier, originally from Alaskan Amber clone but altered over the years to be much drier with way less C malts.

 

[xandersaml]

A fantastic Brown Ale, reminiscent of Moose Drool!

 

[Gozie Boy]

Soitenly! It's evolved over the years but this is a five gallon version of what I last brewed.

16 lb 2 row pale malt (I like GP or MO for this but pretty much anything will work)
1 lb flaked barley
1 lb chocolate malt (Crisp)
1/4 lb black barley malt
1/4 lb black patent malt (could combine both black malts into either one really)
1/4 lb roasted barley
1 lb crystal/caramel malt 40-60L
1/4 lb Gambrinus Honey Malt

2 oz Chinook pellets, 60 minutes
2 oz Cascade pellets, 15-20 minutes
2 lb honey, end of boil (TURN OFF THE BURNER BEFORE STIRRING IN!)
1/2 lb low fat cocoa powder, end of boil
Fermentis S04, 2 packs
1/2 lb cacao nibs and a scraped and smushed vanilla bean, soaked in dark rum for a week, then add the whole thing at secondary
1 oz pure chocolate extract, add at kegging

I have been mashing this at 148°F to get the FG down in the mid-upper 20s.
Serve on nitro if possible!

OG 1.107 FG 1.027
IBU 62 SRM 53

Cheers!

Looks awesome, thx! Any special fermentation profile and conditioning?

 

[Steveruch]

The best score I ever got was for a British Barleywine called "Olde Sloppyknickers". If I ever get back to a living situation where I can brew all-grain again I will rebrew it.

 

[grampamark]

A fantastic Brown Ale, reminiscent of Moose Drool!

Yeah. I brew a Brown which I call Bullwinkle Brown. It’s not really a Moose Drool clone, but it pretty much checks all the same boxes. I brought a couple of growlers of it to a friend’s birthday party recently. Several of the Lite beer drinkers tried some and each came back for another. Their comments were all along the lines of “I didn’t think I liked dark beer until I tried this”.

 

[BrewMan13]

Got to be my american porter. Fits the style to a "T" and is exactly what I like in a dark beer: good bit of roast, but not stout territory, with a good balance of body, making it very drinkable considering appearance. Brew it once a year, which for me is a lot.

 

[Spartan1979]

It would have to be the German Pils that took 2nd at NHC last year.

Although the beer that sticks out most in my mind is an American Amber I brewed after a several year hiatus. I think it was a Denny Conn recipe but it could have been from Jamil. It was fantastic and got me back into brewing.

 

[Immocles]

.

 

[Immocles]

My dry Altbier, originally from Alaskan Amber clone but altered over the years to be much drier with way less C malts.

I’m taking a stab at a clone later this fall. Any tips?

 

[day_trippr]

Looks awesome, thx! Any special fermentation profile and conditioning?

I've used different yeast strains but have settled on S04. I run it at 65°F wort temperature for the first four days then slowly ramp up to 69°F over the next 10 days. At that point it's always hit its FG, and that's when I quietly rack into fresh carboys and add the nibs/vanilla/rum/extract. Another 3-4 days and it goes into the kegs.

As I dispense this via a stout faucet I force-carb the kegs to hit just 1.2 volumes of CO2 - which pretty much requires room temperature carbonation to get that low. A couple weeks of that and they're ready for the keezer, though most likely they'll sit around in cold storage for quite awhile, which doesn't hurt

Cheers!

 

[balrog]

I’m taking a stab at a clone later this fall. Any tips?

I started with the BYO article from long ago I think. It is pretty close, but I can't get any fresh samples as Juneau is too far from Massachusetts.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/alaskan-amber-recipe-help.96195/post-1045178My kids got me a couple 6packs for a recent birthday from one of those online places (of questionable storage age, handling etc) and it seemed very malty, almost too sweet, but could have been some travel/storage induced sherry notes.

I found my tastes have "dried" a bit, and the orig is a pretty heavy crystal recipe.
The one I currently use (#26) is this, and it is light, 5%, and dry, and roast without sweet, and to me and the tennis crowd, very nice.
6.5 # Bairds Maris Otter - 2.5-3.5L
1.0 # Bairds Medium Crystal Malt - 70-80L
1.0 # Briess Dark Munich Malt - 30L
3.0 oz Weyermann CARAFA II Special - 413-450L
Magnum 0.6 oz 30m 12.40%
Saaz 1.5 oz 15m 2.80%
Whirlfloc 1ea 5m 0%
Saaz 2.5 oz 0m 2.80%

Mash 152/60 boil 30
1.048 32ibu 19srm 5.0gal into fermenter

WY1007 - ferm 60F

 

[Immocles]

I started with the BYO article from long ago I think. It is pretty close, but I can't get any fresh samples as Juneau is too far from Massachusetts.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/alaskan-amber-recipe-help.96195/post-1045178My kids got me a couple 6packs for a recent birthday from one of those online places (of questionable storage age, handling etc) and it seemed very malty, almost too sweet, but could have been some travel/storage induced sherry notes.

I found my tastes have "dried" a bit, and the orig is a pretty heavy crystal recipe.
The one I currently use (#26) is this, and it is light, 5%, and dry, and roast without sweet, and to me and the tennis crowd, very nice.
6.5 # Bairds Maris Otter - 2.5-3.5L
1.0 # Bairds Medium Crystal Malt - 70-80L
1.0 # Briess Dark Munich Malt - 30L
3.0 oz Weyermann CARAFA II Special - 413-450L
Magnum 0.6 oz 30m 12.40%
Saaz 1.5 oz 15m 2.80%
Whirlfloc 1ea 5m 0%
Saaz 2.5 oz 0m 2.80%

Mash 152/60 boil 30
1.048 32ibu 19srm 5.0gal into fermenter

WY1007 - ferm 60F

Sounds delicious!

I admit, the clone I found and tweaked on (have yet to brew, on the list, but I need my basement to cool down first) does seem to be quite heavy on the crystal IMO as well. I still plan on brewing it, but I might have to steal that recipe for a future date

I have yet to have a bad brew with that WY1007 yeast!

On topic:
I've only been brewing about two years but one of my more recent brews was a dry hopped lager and it is just outstanding. I'm sure my seat of the pants process can be fixed to even improve it further, but that beer is going to be a staple in this house. The one that my wife thought was my absolute best was a simple SMaSH of golden promise and mosaic hops

 

[MensBrewha]

My all time favorite/best brew is my strong sweet red ale coming in at 7.01%. Very clear from keg conditioning and have repeated it just to prove to myself I could make it over and over without it being a fluke.

 

[Argyll Gargoyle]

My all time favorite/best brew is my strong sweet red ale coming in at 7.01%. Very clear from keg conditioning and have repeated it just to prove to myself I could make it over and over without it being a fluke.

Sounds fantastic- would you be willing to share the recipe?

 

[seatazzz]

Best one I've ever done, and repeated many times, is my American Strong based on Stone's Arrogant Bastard. I've tweaked the recipe a bit by adding some home-roasted crystal for a bit more roastiness than the original, and will occasionally do a reduction of some first runnings to bump the gravity and flavor a bit. Stone uses Columbus, I use Chinook or more recently CTZ (yes technically the same as Columbus but it seems danker to me). Usually comes in about 7% but I've done a version at 9.1% that knocked me (and several friends) on their kiesters, with no fusels to warn you that it's rocket fuel. Only competition it's ever been in was the WA State Fair two years ago where it got a decent 39 for a score and a pretty 2nd place ribbon. Got some in the kegerator right now, matter of fact...now I want some.

 

[Gozie Boy]

I've used different yeast strains but have settled on S04. I run it at 65°F wort temperature for the first four days then slowly ramp up to 69°F over the next 10 days. At that point it's always hit its FG, and that's when I quietly rack into fresh carboys and add the nibs/vanilla/rum/extract. Another 3-4 days and it goes into the kegs.

As I dispense this via a stout faucet I force-carb the kegs to hit just 1.2 volumes of CO2 - which pretty much requires room temperature carbonation to get that low. A couple weeks of that and they're ready for the keezer, though most likely they'll sit around in cold storage for quite awhile, which doesn't hurt

Cheers!

Thanks. Sorry, didn't mean to divert the thread, but this looked just too good -- especially when you have a wife who loves beer and chocolate. I just won't tell her about the 2000 calories per pint since she's on a diet...

 

[riceral]

I recently brewed a Czech pils that, to date, was my best brew ever.

 

[Kee]

Favorite batch would be a Westvleteren 12 clone. I brew a version of the CSI recipe on a regular basis.

Close second would be a saison with dregs from a couple of Orvals added to the bottling bucket

 

[MensBrewha]

Sounds fantastic- would you be willing to share the recipe?

8lb 12oz Pilsen malt
1lb 11.2oz caramel 60
11.2oz cara-pils
9.6oz caramel 80

mash 60min @ 152
.81oz US Golding 60min
.58oz Crystal 5 min

yeast US-05

5.5 gallon Into fermenter
I pressure ferment this as well

 

[Sammy86]

Best Brew of All Time:

Kolsch. Did research,order ingredients and brewed it with my best friend since I was 5 (we're 34). Even named it after him. Everything went well that day, fermentation was great and I even lagered it for 4 weeks before my friend could come back and try it.

It was crystal clear, malty with that noble hop aroma and flavor from the Tettnang hops. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Then tragedy struck, I had just changed lines it was the time of year to do so and I lost 3 gallons of the 5. Best damn beer I ever made. Scored a 40 at the Hudson Valley Home Brew Competition but didn't place

 

[HB2 HughBHomeBrew]

Black Lager. I took a porter recipe I used many times and did it as a lager with Wyeast Bohemian Lager. Have done it twice - definitely repeatable. Yum. Just found 2 bottles I didn’t know I had so they had an extra 3 months of lagering and it was even better than remembered. Time to make another batch!

 

[Noob_Brewer]

Did research,order ingredients and brewed it with my best friend since I was 5 (we're 34)

funny I originally read/interpreted this as you and your best friend have been brewing this beer since you were 5 lmfao!

 

[Sammy86]

funny I originally read/interpreted this as you and your best friend have been brewing this beer since you were 5 lmfao!

LoL

 

[Mutant]

Light American Lager - perfect session beer. Difficult for most people to pull off as it is fundamentally impossible to hide flaws.

 

[monkeymath]

My best brew ever is always the one I am currently planning or that is currently fermenting.

 

[jdauria]

My best beer ever? To drink...a simple German Pilsner. It was so good my friends and I emptied the keg in 7 days.
Best competition wise, my Czech Dark lager, scored a 44 which is the highest score I have gotten in a comp.

 

[Kharnynb]

My favourite beer ever is a german/belgian wheat hybrid with 1 week honey addition...I've just got a batch ready and already planning the next batch

 

[Argyll Gargoyle]

My best beer ever? To drink...a simple German Pilsner. It was so good my friends and I emptied the keg in 7 days.
Best competition wise, my Czech Dark lager, scored a 44 which is the highest score I have gotten in a comp.

Could you tell us more about the Czech Dark?

 

[jdauria]

Could you tell us more about the Czech Dark?

Czech Dark is like a German Schwarzbier, but with more roast and a complex malty profile. Here's the recipe for that version. It was BIAB full mash. I added some Sinamar because I wanted the color a little darker and the Eldeweiss hop blend is a blend of Saaz and other American grown noble hops sold by a BJCP Grand Master on ebay, his page is Hop Heaven. Edit: I do the beer with just all Czech Saaz hop now.
Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7.18 gal
Post Boil Volume: 6.18 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 21.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 27.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 80.9 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU Volume
7.00 lb Floor Malted Bohemian Pilsner Malt (Weyermann) ( Grain 1 61.0 % 0.55 gal
3.25 lb Munich II (Weyermann) (8.5 SRM) Grain 2 28.3 % 0.25 gal
0.75 lb Caramunich II (Weyermann) (63.0 SRM) Grain 3 6.5 % 0.06 gal
0.22 lb Carafa Special II (Weyermann) (488.0 SRM) Grain 4 1.9 % 0.02 gal
0.75 oz Perle [7.00 %] - Boil 50.0 min Hop 5 16.4 IBUs -
0.50 oz Eldeweiss Blend [5.70 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 6 7.2 IBUs -
2.75 g Yeast Nutrient (Boil 15.0 mins) Other 7 - -
0.50 oz Eldeweiss Blend [5.70 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 8 3.4 IBUs -
0.50 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 5.0 mins) Fining 9 - -
0.26 lb Sinamar (Wyermann) [Primary] (384.0 SRM) Extract 10 2.3 % 0.03 gal
2.0 pkg German Lager (White Labs #WLP830) [35.49 ml] Yeast 11 - -


Mash Schedule: 03 - BIAB (152F) Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 11.48 lb
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 8.04 gal of water at 157.1 F 152.0 F 60 min
Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 7 min 168.0 F 15 min

Sparge: If steeping, remove grains, and prepare to boil wort
Notes:
------
Grain ordered from Keystone
116 grams Sinamar to 28 srm

19-003 Czech Dark

Profiles (ppm) Exist Mash Finished
Ca 0 52 52
Mg 0 3 3
Na 0 18 18
SO4 0 55 55
Cl 0 59 59
HCO3 0 41 NA
SO4/Cl Ratio 0.9

Batch Volume 6.3 Gallons
Total Mash 8.0 Gallons
Mash Dilution 8.0 Gallons
Total Sparge 0.0 Gallons
Sparge Dilution 0.0 Gallons
Estimated Mash pH 5.55 SU

Mineral Additions (gm) Mash Sparge
Gypsum 2.4 0.0
Calcium Chloride 2.8 0.0
Epsom Salt 0.8 0.0
Mag Chloride 0.0 0.0
Canning Salt 0.0 0.0
Baking Soda 2.0 Not Recommended

 

[3 Dawg Night]

Czech Dark is like a German Schwarzbier, but with more roast and a complex malty profile.

That sounds tasty!

 

[jdauria]

That sounds tasty!

Definitely! Hard to find many pro breweries making the style here in US, but a local brewery here in Mass that focuses on German & Czech lagers made the traditional ways, makes one that is out of this world. Mine is good, but their's if a million times better.