Maui Madness -- What a cool head!

Well, the coffee stout is ready and it came out very tasty. Most surprising of all was the foam of the head -- it is the color of chocolate milk. Very cool. I have never had the foam on my beer appear anything but light tan, but this looks great. Also, surprisingly, the beer tastes of dark unsweetened chocolate. The coffee flavor is there, but very balanced. I was not expecting the chocolate and dark fruit flavor at all. I am very happy with it.

The beer was definitely worth going to Hawaii to get the raw ingredients! Now, how to get my wife to agree to go back to get more . . .

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day

Well, this past Saturday (November 3), was the American Homebrewers Association's Teach a Friend to Homebrew day. I invited a number of friends over and registered our house as Site #82 on the AHA site. The day was absolutely beautiful, a nice crisp fall day with temperatures in the mid 60s. It proved an excellent opportunity to break the deck in with its first "multi-person" brew day. As a side note, the deck is not complete yet and people had to get on it by using a chair, but it looks nice and is already very functional.

Three friends of mine were able to make it out (Sid, Bryan, and John), along with my In-laws, wife, son, and daughter. My In-laws were in town for a completely unrelated reason and my son and daughter always help out in a matter of course (or as much as a 4 year old and a 2 year old can). So, we can count the number of brewers as 8, WOOT!

We brewed a spiced winter ale as our collective brew. One of the tasks the participants were charged with was coming up with a name for the beer. I, of course, reserved the right to veto any names that were deemed unoriginal enough (such as "Bryan, Sid, and John Ale," which actually was suggested). The winning name was "Slap the Bag Ale," named after a rather amusing drinking story shared by Bryan. I shall not recite it here, so I do not embarrass Bryan further, but it was rather funny.

The brew day ended with a cook out of sausages and grilled eggplant. You can see the fixin's behind John as he pitches the yeast into the cooled wort. I hope everyone had a good time and learned something.

Now, hopefully the beer is as good as the story behind its name . . .

Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day - Nov 3

Well, it looks like I will have a couple people out to the house on Saturday for Teach a Friend to Homebrew day. The weather looks like it will be a nice crisp Fall day, perfect to make some beer with friends. I decided on a Spiced Winter Ale to make, because winter is coming fast and I just listened to a Jamil Show podcast about that style. So, here is the recipe, which was taken from Jamil's show.

Spiced Winter Ale

Ingredients:
- 13 lbs British Pale Ale Malt (original recipe calls for 19.5 lbs)
- 0.75 lbs Crystal 80 Malt
- 0.25 lbs Black Patent Malt
- 1 oz Horizon hop pellets (ended up using Progress hop pellets due to hop shortages)
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp Ginger
- 1/8 tsp Nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp All Spice
- London Ale Yeast
- Bottling Sugar

Stats:
- O.G. - Unknown (original was 1.090)
- F.G. - 1.022
- IBU - 45
- Color
- 19 SRM (approximate because I changed the amount of Pale Malt)
- Alcohol - 6.5% (original was 9%)

Instructions:
- Mash at 152 F for an hour using 1 quart per lb of grain.
- Sparge at 170 F until you have 6.5 gallons of wort.
- Boil for 90 min.
- Add hops 60 min from flame out.
- Add spices 1 min before flame out.
- Ferment at 68 F in primary and rack to secondary when mostly complete.
- Taste beer when racking from primary to secondary and adjust spice flavor if necessary with appropriate spice slurry.
- Add bottling sugar and bottle.
- Wait three weeks for bottle conditioning and enjoy.