The Mother of All Recaps

The Black Belgian Wheat turned out awesome. The color is a deep brown/ black with a dark tan head. The aroma is fruity, spicy, and slightly phenolic from the yeast. The flavor is deceptive in that you expect it to be roasty, but it's not. What you get spicy wheat beer flavor and when it warms up a little you get a lot of dark, dried fruit flavors and some licorice. The finish was nice and dry with a hint of bitterness.
It's already gone, so if you didn't get any, too bad for you. No, not really. It was so well received that we are going to brew a big batch of it in a few weeks, so you'll get your chance to try it.

Right now we're working on dressing up some of our regular beers just to make something fun and interesting for summer. We're going to be putting on the Chipotle Chocolate Porter, Blackberry Chocolate Porter, and when this batch of Golden ale is done, we'll have Raspberry Golden.

During our tasting event we brewed wheat based pale ale with wheat (obviously), pale, Ashburne, and caramel 20. Hopped and dry hopped with nothing but Amarillo, and fermented warm with Wyeast 2112 Steam yeast. Its name is Aromarillo, and it will be awesome. Look for it next week.

Black Belgian Wheat

So Craft Beer Week is coming up and I wanted to do something fun for it, so I present to you - Black Belgian Wheat. I know you're thinking "WTF is that, I never heard of that style." That would be because I made it up. I'm sure someone else has made something similar, but I never saw it or drank it so I'm calling it my own.

BBW is a small 10 gallon batch brewed with American Red Wheat, American Pale Malt, German Munich Malt, Belgian Debittered Black Malt, and Belgian Special B. Hops are exclusively Mt. Hood in two additions.
It's being fermented with Wyeast 3942. From their website - " Isolated from a small Belgian brewery, this strain produces beers with moderate esters and minimal phenolics. Apple, bubblegum and plum-like aromas blend nicely with malt and hops. This strain will finish dry with a hint of tartness."
Sound good to me.

I wanted to brew something off the wall with a lot of interesting things going on. It will be dark yet light in body. Belgian yeast character plus a prominent hop aroma. Dried fruit from the Special B with plum like aromas from the yeast. Awesome.

We'll be tapping it in the brewery sometime during Crap Craft Beer Week, most likely Wednesday evening. This will be the first of, I hope many, 'In The Brewery' events, where we feature special brews, give tours, talk beer, and have a great time.

I'll tweet the exact date and time, so follow me @rickthebrewer on Twitter.

Bonus Tasting Notes

Fresh out of the bright beer tank.

Hop Tornado IPA - Deep orange color. Slightly hazy. Huge aroma. A whirlwind of fruity esters, floral, citrus, alcohol, toffee and malt. Flavor is just more of the same with some alcohol warmth and a nice hop scraping on the finish. The body is pretty light for a beer with an OG of 1.063, hence all the alcohol. Not that I'm complaining.

3 Beers Tasted

Some quick tasting notes on the next three beers on tap.

Oatmeal Stout - Opaque black. Dark head. Roasty/ charred/ slightly acrid aroma. Clean flavor with malt and a not too intense dark roast coffee flavor. Finishes clean with restrained bitterness and no acrid aftertaste.

Chocolate Porter - Reddish black with a tan head. Aroma chocolate and dark caramel. Bittersweet chocolate flavor with caramel toffee malt background. Slight hop earthiness. Tart roasty character on the finish.

Big Muskie Pale Ale (Plan B) - Deep golden color with orange highlights. Light tan head. Complex malt/hop aroma with notes of guava and passion fruit. Fruity, herbal flavor with malt backbone. Assertive hop bittering on the finish without being overpowering.

Tomorrow I'll be brewing a 10 gallon batch of my newest creation for Craft Beer Week - Black Belgian Wheat.

Check out my twitter @rickthebrewer for live updates.