100 Bottles of Beer - Scotch and Irish and German, Oh My!

Happy New Year Brewers! I hope your holidays were everything you expected and were properly quenched with a home brew or two. We still have 43 beers on the shelf so let's take a few more down and pass 'em around.

Our next three come from Charlie Papazian's Home Brewer's Gold which, you will recall, provides Charlie's recipes for making home brew clones of the Gold Medal winners from the 1996 World Beer Cup competition.

The first of these is the Gold Medal Winner in Category 6: Scottish Style Ale.

Samuel Adams Scotch Ale

3 lbs M&F Amber DME

1 ½ lbs M&F Light DME

3 lbs British pale malt

½ lb American Victory malt

2 oz British Peat smoked malt

1 oz British Chocolate malt

½ lb British 50L Crystal malt

2 oz Fuggles hop pellets (75 min.)

1 oz Kent Goldings hop pellets (30 min.)

¼ tsp Irish Moss (10 min.)

Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale yeast

Priming: ¾ cup corn sugar & ¼ cup DME

Charlie gave both an all-grain recipe and a mash-extract recipe. I chose to use the mash-extract recipe using slightly less amber DME and slightly more light DME than Charlie called for because I did not want to buy another 3 lb bag of amber for just a ¼ lb. The malts were changed slightly as well due to availability. The use of the peat smoked malt is what makes this specifically Scotch ale instead of the more generic Scottish ale.

Mash the milled grains using a single step infusion mash. Heat 4.15 quarts (4 liters) cold water to 172F and add to grains, stir and stabilize temperature at 156F. Remove from heat, cover, and let mash for 60 minutes. Raise temperature to 167F and pour mash into lauter-tun. Sparge with 3 gallons 170F water and collect a little over 3 gallons of wort.

Add the DME, stir until fully dissolved, and bring the wort to a boil. Add hops and Irish Moss at times indicated for a total 75 minute boil.

Pour the wort into carboy with 2 gallons cold water and top to 5 ½ gallons with more cold water. Pitch the yeast when wort has cooled.

Bottle the beer after 6 days in primary and 12 days in secondary. I did not take any gravity readings but Charlie's targets were OG 1.060, FG 1.022 for 5.5% ABV. I believe mine came out a bit lighter than that. It had very minimal chill haze and the body was a bit thin. It was also hoppier and less malty than it should have been. Still, it was very good and drinkable.

For our next brew, we are staying within the British Isles (sort of) for the Gold Medal Winner in Category 4: English Style Best Bitter. This is an Irish Ale brewed by, believe it or not, South China Brewing Co. in Hong Kong; technically, still a part of the British Empire in 1996.

Delaney's Irish Ale

8 ½ lbs English 2-row pale malt

¼ lb American cara-pils malt

½ lb English 70L crystal malt

1 oz Chinook hop pellets (75 min.)

1 oz Fuggles hop pellets (20 min.)

½ oz Fuggles hop pellets (5 min. steep)

1 ½ tsp gypsum

¼ tsp Irish Moss (10 min.)

Wyeast 1098 British Ale yeast

Priming: ¾ cup corn sugar & ¼ cup DME

I chose to go with Charlie's all-grain recipe for this one making a couple changes to the malts due to availability.

Mash the milled grains using a single step infusion mash. Heat 9 quarts cold water treated with ½ tsp gypsum to 170F and add to grains. Stir the mash well and stabilize temp at 155F, cover and mash for 60 minutes. Increase temperature to 167F and pour mash into lauter-tun. Sparge with 4 ½ gallons 170F water treated with 1 tsp gypsum. Collect 6 gallons of wort.

Bring wort to boil and make first two hop additions and add Irish Moss at times indicated for a total 75 minute boil. Remove from heat and add final ½ oz Fuggles, cover and let steep for 5 minutes. Immediately begin cooling with an immersion chiller. Pour cooled wort into carboy and top to 5 ½ gallons with cold water, pitch yeast.

Bottle the beer after four days in primary and 18 days (too long) in secondary. The beer turned out very nice. It had lots of hop bitterness, like an IPA; light but adequate carbonation and very minimal chill haze. It was very good, very drinkable, even better after 8 weeks of bottle conditioning. Again, I did not take gravity readings. Charlie's targets were OG 1.050 and FG 1.013 for 5% ABV. I believe mine was close to that.

For our third Gold Medal winner we will jump across the English Channel to Germany for Category 27: South German Style Weizenbock. Aventinus had long been one of my favorite import beers making the decision to brew this one a no-brainer.

Aventinus

7 ¼ lbs German wheat malt

6 lbs German 2-row Pilsen malt

5 oz British chocolate malt

1 ¾ oz German Hallertau whole cone hops (90 min.)

¼ oz German Hallertau whole cone hops (steep 5 min.)

¼ tsp Irish Moss (10 min.)

Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Wheat ale yeast

Priming: ¾ cup corn sugar & ¼ cup DME

Mash the milled grains using a step infusion mash. Heat 13 ½ quarts water to 138F and add to grains, stir well, cover and mash for 30 minutes. Add 7 quarts boiling water and stabilize temperature at 152F, remove from heat, cover and mash for 60 minutes. Pour mash into lauter-tun and sparge with 4 gallons 170F water. I was supposed to heat the mash to 167F before sparging but neglected to do so.

Collect 7 gallons wort and bring to boil. Add 1 ¾ oz hops and Irish Moss at times indicated for a total 90 minute boil. Remove from heat, add final ¼ oz hops and cover for 5 minutes. Remove hop bags and sparge with 1 pint boiling water. Cool the wort with an immersion chiller, pour into carboy, and pitch yeast.

Bottle the beer after 7 days in primary and 29 days (too long) in secondary. This was good from the beginning but after about 3 months of bottle conditioning it was wonderful. It was quite a bit darker and hoppier than the real thing and it was very clear with no chill haze. The wheat esters were restrained which made for a very nice balance with the hops. The head danced around in large bubbles which subsided to a lacy star on the surface.

Charlie's target gravities for this one were OG 1.072, FG 1.014, and ABV 8%. I think I finished a little lighter than that.

You may recall back in part 13 I mentioned I had tried to culture yeast from a bottle of Aventinus which did not work. The intent was to add the culture to the secondary on this brew but, alas, to no avail, so I had to let the Weihenstephan go it alone. It likely would have resulted in more esters which may have upset the balance with the hops. Perhaps was for the best...

Well, we still have a little more time and space to fill here; so, let's jump from Gold Medal winners to a somewhat bastardized original Hefeweizen recipe gone slightly awry.

Maple Hefeweizen (aka Maple Wheat Barleywine)

6.6 lbs Ireks wheat LME

3 lbs M&F Extra Light DME

½ gallon Medium Amber maple syrup

4 oz Dextrin malt

1 oz Hallertau Hersbrucker plug hops (60 min)

1 oz Hallertau Hersbrucker whole cone hops (10 min)

White Labs WLP300 Hefeweizen yeast

Priming: 8 oz Dark Amber maple syrup

10 g (2 pkg) Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast

½ tsp yeast nutrient

Priming: 7/8 cup corn sugar

This brew came about because of a friend giving me a ½ gallon of maple syrup from her father's maple tree/Christmas tree farm in upstate New York. I just knew I had to make beer with it.

Bring the milled Dextrin malt to a boil in 1 gallon cold water. Remove from heat and strain into brew kettle containing one gallon boiling water. Sparge with one pint boiling water.

Add maple syrup, LME, and DME and return to boil. Add hops in hop bags at times indicated for a total 60 minute boil. Syrup and extracts scorched a little bit on bottom of kettle but not enough to be of any concern.

Remove from heat and remove hop bags, sparging with one pint boiling water. Pour the wort into carboy with 2 gallons cold water and top to 5 ½ gallons with more cold water. Pitch yeast when cooled.

It took about 24 hours for activity to begin and was very strong for four days before it slowed down. Three days later the activity increased again. After another two days it slowed down again so I racked it to the secondary. It continued to ferment for another three or four days and after 26 days it had cleared and was ready to bottle.

I bottled it with 8 oz dark amber maple syrup for priming. It was very clear and smelled very much like beer. However, even after all the fermentation activity; it was still very sweet, like unfermented wort.

I tried a bottle after a little over two weeks, it was flat and sweet. I tried another after six weeks, still flat and sweet. I apparently had more fermentable content than the yeast could deal with and the alcohol level went too high and killed off the yeast. So, I had two options, dump the beer or add some champagne yeast and make barleywine. Of course, you know which I chose.

Sanitize the top of each bottle before opening and pour into carboy with Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast and yeast nutrient re-hydrated in one pint warm water.

After eight weeks of slow but steady continued fermentation the beer had finally cleared and was ready for re-bottling, priming with corn sugar this time.

I let this bottle condition for at least three months. For some reason, I neglected to record any tasting notes on the final product. I remember it was very clear amber color but developed heavy chill haze. It was still sweet but no longer syrupy, tasting very much like a barleywine. I know it was drinkable and good because it is all gone and I never dumped any of it. The ABV had to have been quite high but since I took no gravity readings it was unknown.

That about wraps it up for this edition; we have taken four more down, passed 'em around, 39 bottles of beer on the wall.

Where shall we start next time? How about stouts? A very original and unusual stout which I am very proud of...

Keep on Brewin'...

To be continued...

References:

Charlie Papazian, Home Brewer's Gold, First Edition, December 1997