New Brew: British Steel Reserve

We don't make too many English styles, but here goes...

In a solid liquid tribute to Judas Priest, we dubbed this un-styled bastard ale British Steel Reserve. It features a few across-the-pond hops I won in a raffle back in December: Phoenix, Bramling Cross and First Gold. Phoenix did all the kettle bittering at 10% alpha acid, then we mixed the Bramling Cross and First Gold 50/50 for two later additions. A pound of flaked oats were also mashed with the UK 2-row and Amber malt.

Well, I think our efficiency woes are a thing of the past! We destroyed our pre-boil target by a couple Brix. I might chalk up the awesome sugar pull to the drill on the mill. We got a much finer grind with the DeWalt hooked on in comparison to the last batch's hand-cranked grist. If the Windor yeast has good attenuation, this bloke could very well put a hurtin' on your arse.

It took nearly a full boil before we were graced with "Living After Midnight" on the Sirius metal channel. During the lull, we tossed the very un-British American football around with awkward abandon. All that exercise made us peckish for some tucker. So, in a fitting homage to Mr. Rob Halford, we ate an awful lot of sausage.

OG=1.061 IBU=30 SRM=7.6

Barack on track

Pardon the lull. We've been recovering from our slashed wrists which were resultant of a few setbacks. Oh, but sometimes we can learn from our mistakes...sometimes.

First the bad...
This Monkey's gone to Heaven. Organic peanut butter has fat in it too! In hindsight, it may have not been the best idea to plop it into the primary fermenters. After a couple weeks of fairly drinkable peanutty beer in the kegs, something went very south. We ended up with 9 gallons of scrumptious vinegar.

Then the mediocre...
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think GATORALE (the beer for the drunken athlete) went over very well at the MD. Homebrewers Guild party in December. I recall some dirty looks. Yes, it was chocked full of powdered original lemon-lime Gatorade! We even dry-hopped a keg to try and Cascade-up the aroma. Some folks purportedly liked it. One thing we did learn --- yeast REALLY likes Gatorade.

And now...Change we can believe in!
We're elated to report our last two brews are resounding successes. First was a Barack Friday - a lovely little brown ale which included a cereal mash of buckwheat. At over 6% ABV, this one sneaks up on you and redistributes your underpants to the less fortunate.

Hot on the new president's tail was In-tact Hymen Chocolate Stout. Oddly, we left her unviolated by not busting up any cherries (the original plan). It turned out so well, that we could not adulterate its silken chocolateyness with the fruit. Thanks to some 86% cacao and the runner being thrown out at home, it became one of the quickest-drained kegs in Broory history.