Brewed an easy drinkin' summer ale on Friday.

14 lbs Marris Otter
4 lbs Belgian Pale
2 lbs red wheat (unmalted)
2 lbs barley (unmalted)

Mash Schedule:
20 minutes @ 120
30 minutes heating/recirculating
60 minutes @ 148

Hop Schedule
60 minutes Chinook (1oz, 13% AA)
15 minutes Amarillo( 2oz, 10% AA)
5 minutes Chinook (1oz, 13% AA), Cascade (3 oz, 3% AA)

OG measured out at 1.054, which put me at about 80% efficiency (If I have my potential extract right).

Two Wyeast 1056 smack packs later, I have what appears to be a happy beer!

I had the pleasure of visiting the Abita Brewpub in Abita Springs, LA last week. This place is about an hour outside of New Orleans, on the wrong side of an inland sea (also known as Lake Pontchartrain.)

The food was classic pub fare with a Louisiana twist. I had the po-boy loaded with deep fired gulf shrimp and oysters. It was amazing.

The beer was even better.

Purple Haze, a lightly flavored raspberry ale
Rye, a light amber colored, slightly spicy rye beer
Bock, malty, kinda toasty. My friend from Baton Rouge bought a growler of this.
Altbier, a little less malty, maybe a little more toasty than the bock. I settled on this for my pint.

All of the beers were very "clean" tasting. No house flavors here, they take good care of the equipment in this pub. All around good times...

Seems like the thing to do, recapping a year in brewing. Well, In looking at the two other brewers on this site, I realize my bookkeeping, note-taking, and overall "scientific method" seem to be, well... Lacking. So rather than a detailed recap, how about a resolution? My brewers resolution for Oh-Eight: Keep track of my stats. There it is, I said it. With that in the open, lets look at what I managed to find for Ought Seven.

The first of the year is a little fuzzy, but as I recall, there were at least 3 beers before the notes I have catch up to reality. There was a 5 gallon test batch of HavreWeizen (which was a mistake, 5 gallons all-grain takes the same time and effort that 10 gallons). A batch of the Up Town Bremerton Blond (a recipe with unmalted barley direct from a friends Montana farm). And the Club started a Bourbon Barrel Beer project, I brewed 10 gallons for that...

And then some notes begin to take over...

6/2/07 Bourbon Barrel Barley Wine - An english style barley wine for the club barrel! This was the first batch of a 30 gallon day.

6/2/07 HavreWeizen - This is a Hefeweizen made with 55% Un-malted hard red wheat, grown on my father-in-laws wheat farm near Havre, MT. The OG on this one, like most of my Ought-Seven beers, came in low. It made for a very easy drinking summer beer.

6/2/07 Up Town Bremerton Blond - This one got put on hold. Brewing 3 all-grain batches is tricky. NYC Brewing eventually brewed this beer under contract.

7/20/07 Bourbon Barrel Belgian - That club barrel has consumed another 10 gallon batch! As of this writing, it still rests there.

10/8/07 45-Minute IPA - A Dogfish Head replica gone awry. Due to a low o.g. and a miscalculation, this would be calamity turned out great!

12/28/07 Cabin Fever - Belgian Grand Cru, loosely based on Snoqualmie Falls Spring Fever. Still in secondary. o.g. 1.072

Overall, not too bad of a year I suppose. I don't remember being thirsty...

Friday I transfered 10 gallons of Belgian double to secondary. I used two different yeasts for this batch. The first carboy finished at 1.016 (Trappist High Gravity 3787). The second carboy finished at 1.022 (Belgian Strong Ale 1388).

Here's the recipe I used...

20 lbs Belgian Pils
4 lbs Belgian Biscuit
2 lbs Belgian Special B
1.5 lb Malted Wheat

6 lbs Sucanat Natural Cane Sugar
2 lbs C&H Brown Sugar

Mashed in with 1 quart/lb at 147 for an hour and a half, then up to 150 for 15 minutes. I came in low on O.G. Only 1.080. Not counting all the sugar, that works out to about 55% extraction. Liquor mash ratio off? Perhaps I'm getting channeling during the sparge? In either case, that's why there's an extra 2 lbs of random brown sugar in there. Oh well, it's a Belgian....