Category: Homebrew

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Homebrew

The “P” word

Fall is here and Marjorie has requested a pumpkin beer. A very polarizing ingredient in the beer world but I’ve been known to pimp some pumpkin beers in the Fall. I have enjoyed Southern Tier’s Pumpking in the past but always liked Cambridge Brewing’s version, too. Horseheads in upstate New York has a pretty good take on the style, as well. There are definitely a lot more bad ones out there than good ones. Overly spiced or worse yet, sickly sweet. Pumpking at least has some high-ABV heat to take the edge off the sweetness.

I started by considering the question, “which Belgian style might match up with some real pumpkin added?”

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Homebrew Sours & Brettanomyces Wild Munjoy Project

All systems go for the Observatory yeast project!

Spoke with the friendly woman at Greater Portland Landmarks and once the weather cools down later in September, I’ll be leaving little bowls of wort around the Portland Observatory! Stoked about this project. In the meantime, I’m going to read up on yeast banking and finish Jeff Sparrow’s great book, “Wild Brews.”

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Homebrew Sours & Brettanomyces

Brewing On The Hill: East End Sour, batch 1

The humble beginnings of great sour beer.
The humble beginnings of great sour beer.

The first brew I made was a simple one. My intention was to start the pipeline of funk anew. After trying to resuscitate a 7-month old batch of East Coast Yeast ECY20 Bug Farm, I ultimately had to pitch some fresh Wyeast Lambic Blend 3278. After an overly enthusiastic churn session with the wine degasser, fermentation quickly took off.

I have started with an easy formula, one very close to my first sour brew from almost 3 years ago. 50% light and 50% wheat DME with an addition of maltodextrin near the end of the boil. The fruits of these labors will not be known for a while. I’ve made arrangements for longer-term storage for aging in a friend’s basement, but I’ll check in and update things here from time to time. I plan to do this with all the batch entries I publish online.