FOOLCiRCLE

Today was the first time I brewed since Labor Day weekend and brewed a beer I haven’t brewed since 2007, the S.A.W. Pale Ale.

The S.A.W. Pale Ale is a pale ale brewed with a combination of Simcoe, Amarillo, and Warrior hops, thus the S.A.W. abbreviation. I also use the Dogfish Head continuous hopping method for this beer where the hops are added at the same rate throughout the brew. So for this beer it has a 2 to 1 ration of Amarillo to the other two hops, I then mixed the hops all together so the three hops are indistinguishable, and then measure out a consistent amount, half an ounce for this batch, and add it continuously at at a set rate, every eight minutes for this batch. Also, I suppose I should mention that I wasn’t able to find whole leaf Warrior hops so I substituted with whole leaf Zeus hops, so I suppose this is really the S.A.Z. Pale Ale, but whatever.

The brew day went well enough, I went into it already exhausted which means I am really beat right now. There was no major mishaps that went down only a couple little hiccups. Didn’t realize I was out of Whirlfloc so there is a higher potential for a not as clear beer. I forgot to oxygenate my wort until after I added my yeast, really not a big deal at all just a little out of sequence then normal. I ran out of propane while heating the mash out water, really not a big deal either since I had a back up ready to go. And I’m a little nervous about my yeast starter, 1000ml of WLP001 that was a month out of date. Theoretically it should be fine, but, I dunno, it didn’t seem “right”. Other than that I got four carboys cleaned, two kegs cleaned, two beers transferred and dry hopped, and wrapped the brew day in less than seven hours. So, though I am exhausted, and there was a couple hoops to jump through, the day went well.

I transfered the APA with Saison Yeast, which of course meant that I sampled it. It was interesting, the final gravity was nice and low (unlike the Saison itself … hmmm), the american hops stood out brightly and the Saison yeast gave it an interesting twist though I would have preferred a more peppery contribution. We’ll see, should be in kegs soon, and then who knows when it will go on tap. Speaking of which, I just put two new beers on tap, the American Brown I brewed with Heather and Robert back in August and the plain Saision. I still have the Perle American Wheat on tap too. I’ll try to write a review of the two new beers this week. Lined up to be tapped next is the Chocolate Brown and the Sage and Peppercorn Saison, both of those should be interesting!