Failed Experiment

That Irish Red ale I have spoken of is a failure. I gave it time to mature, and it did. The color cleared up nicely and turned into a nice rusty red. But the flavor was just never there. In an attempt to dress it up I decided to add some oak cubes in hopes that they would add something to it, giving the beer some character. I added 1 oz for one week, removed the oak, upped the carbonation levels a twinge, and waited a few more weeks. And still it is unpleasant. Now the oak character is overwhelming. It's too sweet still and lacking any hop balance whatsoever. I'm very disappointed and will most likely end up tossing this batch as soon as I need the keg space.

On a more positive note, the 3 gal batch of Crop Circle came out nicely. Ron, who I was brewing it for, came over two weeks ago to help bottle it, then took it home. It's now sitting in his basement as he and his family are in Australia for three weeks (perfect timing). I then brewed up a 5.5 gal batch of the same for me and my wife, which is now ready to bottle as well. Speaking of bottling, we also bottled up the Wee Heavy and it's just sitting in y basement, staring at me. I'm finding it very hard walking past it and not trying one. I know they're extremely young and won't be too pleasant yet, so I shall control myself and wait until fall to try the first one.

In an attempt to conserve costs, I reused the batch of yeast from the first crop circle batch in ferment the second one. Soon I will be pitching a third batch on the yeast (well, only a portion of it). A Roggenbier. It's a German style rye beer. Just as wheat beers are made with 50% wheat, Roggenbier is made with 50% rye (yummy!). I'm very interested to see how this will turn out. The recipe looks delicious, and I am a big fan of rye flavor. Using a hefe yeast for a beer like this make peaks my interest even more. This will be a 3 gal batch, at about 60% efficiency:

3.5 lb Rye Malt
1 lb 2 oz. Pilsner Malt
1 lb 2 oz. Vienna Malt
0.75 lb Munich Malt
6 oz Caravienna Malt
1.5 oz Carafa I
1.5 oz Chocolate Malt

0.25 oz Tettnang hops - first wort hop for about 3 IBU
0.25 oz Hallertauer hops @ 60 min for 7 IBU
0.25 oz Saaz hops @ 5 min for 1.5 IBU

Mash at 150 for 75 min, or until conversion.