Iron Brewer Wrap-up

I didn't win.

Two people picked my beer first overall, but not enough. It was what I wanted it to be: Dry, crisp finish, well carbonated, and refreshing. I have nothing to be ashamed of with my beer. No hard feelings about not winning. I liked the winner's beer the best, so he was a worthy champion.

Podcast reviewing the beers.

Definitely worth doing, batch 4 here I come.

Iron Brewer Saison Review

Iron Brewer Saison

Tonight somewhere there is a man reviewing my beer. Not reviewing it myself didn't seem right. So I popped the top off a bottle. Surprisingly a bit of foam peaked from the bottle to greet me. I poured the bottle into my Belgian Tulip and it was spritzy. I like the flavor and as I review it I think I have a shot.

Appearance(6/10): The head rises and falls quickly with large billowing bubbles. The beer is a thick golden yellow. Marks down because it lacks lacing.

Aroma(8/10): Rosemary & Beer; the melding of the two is nice, the rosemary comes through as a subtle aroma without punching you right in the face, a bit of leafy hops continues in my nose,

Taste(17/20): The taste is just as I intended it to be. I am met with a bready nose and a bit of spice. The lemon is there but it's not a dominant overall flavor.

Mouth-feel(9/10): Prickly with a thick and coating mouth-feel. The high carbonation lifts this beer right into your taste buds.

Overall (40/50): that means it's a B/C on the western grading scale. It's a good beer though, on a less critical day it might have been a B/A but I'm trying to be harsh in case I don't win so that I'm not let down.

Iron Brewer Brewday

I procrastinated far too long on this brew. I did what I had to do though. I have no regrets about choosing Sarah, and My Father on separate weekends over brewing beer a bit sooner. I still think a month is plenty of time for a low alcohol brew. The internet indicated 91% apparent attenuation in under two weeks. I am not too worried.

I picked up the grain and hops from Sicilianos on Friday morning. I rushed home to brew. I choose to go with fresh lemons and rosemary instead of the dried options. I used my micro plane grater to de-zest four lemons and I chopped up a sprig of rosemary. From those measures I measured out my accurate weights.

(read more after the break.)

Iron Brewer Part 2

I submitted my recipe a few days ago with a few minor tweaks. I finalized the rosemary to lemon ratio. I also affirmed my yeast choice talking to my girlfriend when she reminded me of raisin foccacia. This is a flat bread made with raisins, and rosemary. I've seen recipes in my baking books that feature some of the spices contained in apple pie spice. My hope is that the fruitiness from the hops adds the raisin like fruit notes.

To finalize the lemon and rosemary ratio I made a tea from lemon and rosemary. This was a simple feat given my purchase of a french press some time ago.
Lemon Rosemary Tea Tasting (I made 2 batches of tea)

Batch 001 - Even Mix
8 cups boiling water
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp rosemary

Batch 002 - 100% Increase in Lemon
8 cups boiling water
2 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp rosemary

Tasting Notes:
Batch 001 was very rosemary dominant; the lemon barely registered in the foreground of the flavor the aromatics of the rosemary were crazy, this is going to be a good ingredient. Batch 002 was better, the rosemary didn't dominate much, I am going to try one more batch later with fresh zest.

Recipe Tweaks:
After reading a bit about Admiral as a bittering hop I have decided that the metallic taste imparted by this hop is not what I am looking for. I'll be using Sorachi Ace with a bit blended forward into the Strusselspaltz to hopefully accent the lemon flavor. After reading the Hill Farmstead interview over at Embrace The Funk I was interested in ICU counts for consistency sake across my beers. 10g in 3gal is 833 ICU. Their Mimosa product was around 500 ICU, this allegedly provided plenty of rindy citrus flavor. I am going to reduce my grams of citrus zest by about half. The Mimosa also featured Brett which I will assume added some amount of citrus flavors. 6g of lemon and 3g of rosemary

Final Submitted Recipe:
3 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) 54.5 %
2 lbs White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) 36.4 %
4.0 oz Acid Malt (3.0 SRM) 4.5 %
4.0 oz Caramunich II (Weyermann) (63.0 SRM) 4.5 %
0.20 oz Sorachi Ace [12.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min 14.3 IBUs
0.30 oz Strisslespalt [4.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min 4.3 IBUs
0.05 oz Sorachi Ace [12.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min 2.2 IBUs
0.20 oz Strisslespalt [4.00 %] - Boil 7.0 min 1.3 IBUs
0.05 oz Sorachi Ace [12.00 %] - Boil 7.0 min 1.0 IBUs
6.00 g Lemon Zest (Boil 0.0 mins)
3.00 g Rosemary (Boil 0.0 mins)


Brew Day:
Brew day looks like it will be on or about the 29th of this month. This will give me 2 weeks to ferment the beer out and then I'll bottle it. It's a tight time table to brew, bottle, and mail a beer but it's my hope that everything works out.

Iron Brewer

Months ago I registered for IRON BREWER after reading about it at another blog. Truth be told I had totally forgotten doing it until the email came a few nights ago. I jumped at the opportunity to be part of the competition because I like being in a competitive setting. When I received the return email letting me know that I had replied soon enough and the mystery ingredients I began to get excited.

(read more after the break.)