This batch will be very similar to my recent Spring Kolsch 3. It was delicious, and brewing all extract was so refreshingly fast and easy.

I’ll be trying a few small changes that I thought might improve the beer

• 24 IBU for ~20% less bitterness
• Slightly warmer ferment temp
• Reverse osmosis water
• Slightly higher OG

My hoppy beers are good, but I know they could be better.

I’m pretty sure oxygen exposure is one of the last things making my homebrew IPAs not quite as good as my favorite commercial examples.

To try to improve this, I finally splurged and built a hop dropper from 2” tri-clamp fittings.

For its first test I’m going to brew a hoppy west coast pale ale.

Wit used to be my most brewed style, but I haven’t made any recently. Not many notes survive from my old wit brews, so I’m going to start from scratch with this recipe.

This brew will be a mix of recipes from Radical Brewing and Brewing Classic Styles

For one twist on tradition, I’ll be using Omega’s Jovaru Lithuanian farmhouse ale.

Another spring, another Kolsch. This is one of my favorite seasonal brewing traditions.

This time around I’m going to try a 100% extract version of this beer. For my last few brew days, I’ve done one all grain batch, and one extract. I can basically finish the extract beer while the mash is going for the all grain one.

It’s very time efficient. Brew two beers, but only really have to clean once.

This might be the simplest recipe I’ve ever made. Just light pils DME and some Hallertau hops.

Time for another solera update.

I’ll be brewing two batches to get enough volume for this year. I expect to need about seven and a half gallons to refill the barrel and the rest will go into a keg for top ups. I’m pulling about half of the barrel’s volume this year instead of a third. The barrel is still tasting good, but I’m worried it might be starting to go in a direction I don’t like, so I’m going to pull some extra now while it’s still tasting nice.

I filled a keg last year for top ups, and I really liked the process of topping up from the keg. Unfortunately the beer in the keg ended up not tasting great, so I’m going to dump the old keg and try again with fresh beer this year.

I’d like to modify the solera to be a bit less sour so half of this year’s beer will be fermented without any lactic bacteria, just Sacch and Brett. I’ll be using Omega’s C2C Saison blend for this.

I’ve used C2C in the past and I think it made a perfect blending beer. No really loud flavors, just a subtle and pleasantly funky beer that melded really well with other sours. (It’s nice on its own too, the white wine saison I made with it is one of my favoite funky beers so far).

Split Batch: Classic Dupont Inspired + French Saison with Hallertau Blanc and Nelson Sauvin

The search for my ideal Saison continues.

Previous brews: Omega Saisonstein and Saison Yeast Comparison with Bootleg Biology Saison Parfait and East Coast Yeast Saison Brasserie.

I haven’t settled on a favorite saison yeast yet. My past brews have been good, but they didn’t wow me in the yeast department. This time around I’m going to try two of the classics: WY3711 French Saison, and the commercial Dupont strains WY3724 and WL565.

It’s been a busy summer without much brewing, but I’m hoping to get back to my regularly scheduled beer making this fall.

To start, Adrienne has requested a Best Bitter, after humoring my lineup of sour and saison experiments the last 6 months. No complaints from me though, English Bitter is one of my favorite beer styles.

I brewed a Best Bitter last year that I liked a lot. This time, for some variety, I’m going to brew a batch based on the 2021 NHC winning recipe from the pale British ale category. Compared to my recipe from last year, this will be a bit darker and maltier, a lot hoppier, and should have more body from a much higher mash temperature.

Michael Tonsmeire’s Saison ‘Merican has been on my “recipes to try” list for a while. The combination of saison yeast, moderate funkiness, and IPA-like hopping sounds enticing.

I’ll be following the recipe/process pretty much as written for my first attempt at this beer.

Bootleg Biology Saison Parfait vs East Coast Yeast Saison Brasserie (ECY08)

I’m planning to brew a few traditional saisons this year, with the hope to home in on something tasty to submit to a competition this fall.

Today, I’ll be trying a couple of new-to-me saison yeasts to see which I like better. Last year I brewed a similar batch with Omega Saisonstein’s Monster. I’ll try to make some comparisons to that from memory as well.

For yeast choice, I took some inspiration from Drew Beechum’s great Guide to Saisons and Saison Yeasts. He says ECY08 is his favorite for a classic saison. Bootleg’s Saison Parfait seems less talked about, but I like Bootleg so I thought I’d give it a try.

Last year was my first serious year of brewing funky and sour beers. A lot of what I brewed was aiming for bold fruit flavors. I added fruit to my cherry wine and apricot sour very early in their fermentations, aiming for a depth of fruit flavors in the final products. The dark saison got zante currants as soon as it went into secondary.

I think I’ll still brew that way occasionally in the future, but in general I’m going to start waiting for the base beer to mature, and then decide what further additions to make, if any.

In this case I’m going for a pale sour similar to my apricot sour, but I’ll hold off on any fruit additions at first. I’m hoping the base beer will turn out complex, sour, and funky. When it’s ready, I’ll let its final character dictate where to go from there.

Some fruit options I’m considering are peaches, sour cherries, blueberries, or wine grapes. I’ll also bottle some of it straight if it’s interesting on it’s own.