Homebrew Session - Altbier
Most of my beer knowledge comes from my homebrewing background. I initially got interested in homebrewing after reading about it in my college newspaper. It seemed like a cool thing to do and I have always been interested in making my own things. Eventually I’ll get to the point where I’m roasting my own coffee beans and making my own soap.
I finally had time this weekend to brew. Usually I set up my canopy and brew in the backyard but because of the rainy weather, I was forced to do so in my garage. Interestingly, I found brewing in the garage to be really enjoyable. This gives me reason to clear the garage out of all this crap my wife and I have managed to accumulate over the years living single.
The style of beer I decided to brew is an altbier. While there are two different styles of altbiers, based upon my ingredient list, the beer I have fermenting in my dining room is a Düsseldorf Altbier. You can read up on all the specifics of this beer on the BJCP website but as it was explained to me, it’s similar to an english pale in malt and hop flavor but without the aroma. This is an older style ale that is fermented on the cooler side of the ale spectrum and allowed to mature like a lager in order to produce a clean, crisp and smooth beer. Ironically, I used the term “lager” when describing this beer style but historically speaking, lager yeasts weren’t yet isolated so this beer predates lagers.
I decided to brew this beer as I am interested in brewing things I haven’t done before. To decide what style of beer to brew, I asked Phil over at More Flavor! what would be a good beer to brew for the upcoming season. I suggested a maibock but he countered with the altbier style. Because the weather is still cool, I could ferment this at lower temperatures. Also, it’s still a bit early to be brewing for maibocks.
Here’s the ingredient list:
Malt Extract/Additions
- 8 lbs. Ultralight Malt
Grain
- 1 lbs. Crystal 40L
- 4 oz. Chocolate (Not using real chocolate. Chocolate is just the adjective used to describe the color of the grain, not the flavor)
Hops
- 1.5 oz Northern Brewer Hops (These are my bittering hops. As the description implies, these are the hops that will give my beer it’s bitterness. Normally hops are packaged with their IBU rating but I don’t recall any rating for these. These are boiled for 60 minutes.)
- 1 oz Hallertauer Hops (Added during the last 5 minutes for flavor and aroma.)
- 1 oz Hallertauer Hops (Added during the final minute for aroma only.
Yeast
- Wyeast 1007 German Ale yeast (Some yeasts are dry, this is a liquid. Unlike other liquid yeasts that are bottled in test tube like things, these are in a “smack pack”. The advantage of a smack pack is the little package of yeast nutrient inside. You smack the nutrient packaging to release the nutrient about 3 hours before you need to add them to your wort. In essence, the smack pack is a mini-yeast starter in a bag.)
For those uninitiated with the world of homebrewing, I’m sure I am using a lot of terminology you may not be familiar with. I will be putting up a homebrew section in a couple of weeks. Homebrewing in itself is enough to base an entire blog (book, magazine, career) off of so I will be relating everything to my own homebrews. I’ll break things down into easier to understand chunks as well as explain the lingo as I go along.In any event, once this beer is finished, I’ll put it through a BJCP style review instead of my own review process. In fact, I still have a few homebrews left so I’ll put those on my list of beers to review.
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