John Carrier

For friends familiar with my many hobbies — and the short life expectancy of those hobbies — my year-long venture into amateur brewing must appear as a paradigm shift of stick-to-it-iveness.  I’ll have to check the spreadsheet, but I believe I just brewed my 13th batch of beer yesterday, a simple porter destined for great things. 

I gave an update a couple of days ago on all my current beers in various states of fermentation.  I plan to continue writing about beer and the process of brewing, but instead of make those with thirst for cereals wait to read the serials (sorry), I’m adding a couple of features to this blog to help keep you up-to-date at all times.

First, I’ve added the page “John’s Beer” for you to bookmark and check back whenever you what to know what I’m drinking, brewing, or planning to brew.  Check out John’s Beer here.

Second, I’ve given my beer (my delicious, sentient beer) its own Twitter feed to give regular reports on its bubbles, its troubles, and its make-it-a-doubles.  Follow John’s Beer’s Twitter feed here.

Thanks again for reading, and keep those empty bottles coming.

Some people have asked what I’m brewing now. Over autumn I added additional fermenters (5-gallon buckets and carboys) to my productive capacity, which has allowed me to accelerate both production and experimentation with new recipes.

I also have a lot to celebrate soon — the holidays, my older son’s bar mitzvah, my younger son’s birthday, and a new child’s birth, God willing.

Long story short, I’ve been brewing a lot of beer lately, and it’s been hard for my friends (and me) to keep track of what will be on tap when.

Bottled and drinkable:

• Pumpkin ale
• Holiday ale
• Orange-spice hefeweizen

Conditioning in the bottle:

• Lemon-spice hefeweizen, drinkable New Year’s Eve

In the secondary fermenter:

• Ferocious — a Surly Furious clone that Midwest Supplies formulated with the help of the furious folks at Surly Brewing, drinkable early January
• Imperial stout — a thick, hoppy, high-alcohol substance to be bottled late January and best served after 1 month to 1 year in the bottle
• Mead — a kind of wine made from fermented honey, possibly the earliest known alcoholic beverage, favored by Beowulf and his chums, ready by Rosh Hashanah (next fall)

In the primary fermenter:

• Roggenbier (pronounced like bloggin’ beer, not like Seth Rogen beer) — “rye beer”, actually mostly a wheat beer with the addition of rye malt that supposedly gives it a crisp, tart finish, good on a hot day, but this batch will be drinkable mid-January

On deck:

• Another plain-Jane or possibly fruit-enhanced hefeweizen
•  Vanilla bourbon porter

…both hopefully ready for the bar mitzvah and birthdays in late January and early February.

If you’ve noticed a heavy emphasis on wheat beers, there are two reasons. First, wheat beers are easy to make and don’t take too long (4-6 weeks) from the brew pot to the glass. Second, my wheat beers to date have been wildly popular, appreciated by beer snobs and wine-preferrers alike, I think because of the dearth or absence of aromatic hops in the recipes. I like ferociously hoppy beers myself, and the imperial stout and Surly clone will fit the bill, but everyone likes a good hefeweizen, even people who usually hate the taste of beer (like my wife).

After all the high-volume celebrations are over, I plan to spend a few batches in a hoppier place — double IPA, anyone? — and experiment with more of my own recipes, including finding a good style to support the addition of garam masala to the brewpot and my first chili pepper beer.

A final note: I’m always looking for empty beer bottles. I’ll be bottling 8-12 cases of beer over the next six weeks, and even with the holidays coming, I can’t drink that much myself. If you can set aside for me any pop-top (not twist-off) beer bottles you “generate” I will be much obliged.

I’ve been brewing up a storm lately.  I’m between projects at work, giving me more time at home, and a couple of weeks ago, I tragically ran out of homebrew.  The last of it was a hefeweizen, a batch that I thought was ruined when the airlock got clogged and the CO2 buildup literally blew the lid off the fermentor, that I thought was barely par when I bottled it, but that aged well and everyone loved, including my rabbi.

So with more time on my hands, I’m back in the beer business.  (Only figuratively, Mr. ATF.  I’ve brewed far less than 200 gallons this year, all for personal consumption.)  I now have four batches in process — a pumpkin ale that will be ready on Halloween, a holiday ale (dark ale with ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon) ready a week after that (but better aged by Hanuka), a hefeweizen brewed with ginger, coriander and orange zest, ready in about 6 weeks, and an imperial stout that will be bottled in late January and drinkable sometime next spring.

The orange-spice hefeweizen, loosely based on Belgian witbier and the usual serving of hefeweizen with a slice of orange, is my first batch with a little improvisation in the recipe, and it’s already got me thinking crazy about future improvisations.  On deck (when all my fermentors aren’t full, as they are now) are a vanilla wheat beer, a chili pequin cream ale, and perhaps an India pale ale with actual curry powder or garam masala, though I’m afraid I’ll never get the turmeric stain out of the while primary fermentation bucket.

In addition to those, I’m interested in trying Midwest’s clone kits for Anchor Steam (perhaps my all-round favorite commercial brew) and Surly Furious.  I think Midwest actually worked directly with the folks at Surly to come up with the clone kit, called “Ferocious”.  Whereas my extremely hoppy imperial stout uses 4 oz. hops, the Ferocious kit uses 6 oz.

If anyone has any recipe suggestions or requests, I’m listening.  I’ll be brewing as many batches as I can while the weather’s nice (cool, but not cold) because there will be a lot for me to celebrate this winter.  Cheers!