Thanksgiving Beer and Brew Day

My brother and his family were able to come down for Thanksgiving this year, which was great. In addition to being able to spend time with my lovely sister-in-law and nieces, Jeff brought down some incredible beer. He has access to a larger beer market where he lives than we do here in Virginia. Some of the beer that we were able to sample includes:

• Cantillion Gueuze (http://www.cantillon.be/br/3_101)
• De Struise Black Albert (http://struise.noordhoek.com/eng/)
  
• De Struise Pannepot (http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/struise-pannepot/37835/)
• Pretty Things Jack D'Or (http://www.prettythingsbeertoday.com/site/node/13)
• Jolly Pumpkin Luciernaga (http://www.jollypumpkin.com/beers.htm)
  
• Several beers from River Horse Brewing (http://www.riverhorse.com/our_beer/our_beer_tripel_horse.html)

Jeff also brought me down several bottles of the New Belgium Dragon's Milk clone we brewed together this summer. This beer is a complex dark ale with wood and bourbon character. Early taste tests of the beer were clearly too heavy on the bourbon, but time has definitely helped blend the rougher characteristics together. We did a side-by-side comparison of our clone and the actual Dragon's Milk (http://newhollandbrew.com/corp/beer/high_gravity) and they were amazingly close. I detected a slight coconut flavor in our clone that was missing from the real beer. Jeff suspects this is due to a difference in the wood chips we used versus the barrels used at the brewery. Otherwise, they were really close and this was the best clone I have done to date. I am going to stash the 11 remaining bottles away and see how they age.

Our loving spouses were also supportive enough to allow a brew day on Sunday, which we took full advantage of. Jeff and I have co-brewed a beer every time we have been together since he started homebrewing early this year. We have arrived at the consensus that we should brew dark big beers together because they can age well and a while often passes before we can see each other again to hand the beer off. It also allows us to build a library of beer we can sample and discuss when we visit. So, this time we elected to brew an English barleywine. Neither of us have attempted this style before, so we decided to use Jamil Zainasheff's recipe in Brewing Classic Styles as a starting point. We modified the recipe to use the hops we had on hand and ran with it.

Sunday was a beautiful day. It was sunny and there was an autumn crispness to the air. There were leaves on the ground and the sound of laughing children around the deck as we made our beer. Regardless of how the beer turns out, I must say, that it will always embody the joys of family for me. It was made in the company of multiple generations (see the picture of our youngest brewer), in the shared interest of two brothers, and at the end of a holiday that celebrates our extended family, past and present. It is a beer I will save away to bring out on special occasions. When I serve it, I will remember a small piece of the joy that my family brings to me.

Cheers, Jeff. Thanks for another wonderful brew.