30th Brew - Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout & Scotch Ale - Oct 8 2010

I'm taking a break from the backyard project to do a double brew. This was needed since we have only had 4 brews this year (seriously lacking in brew activity). The double just gives us more bang for the buck. Also, this will be our 30th brew, which I guess is a milestone.

The first beer we decided to make is a Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout. No, it’s not going into a barrel this time, but we will be emulating this as best as possible using oak chips and cubes soaked in bourbon. We have actually wanted to make something like this for a while now so that we have an excuse to use Brett Lambicus yeast for fermentation. The current plan is to use standard ale yeast such as White Labs California Ale combined with Brett Lambicus for the primary fermentation. We were so happy with how the Old Ale finished with Lambicus turned out that I don't see how this could turn out bad. That of course may be a slight exaggeration, because I am still debating when exactly to pitch the Lambicus due to its strong flavors. Lambicus is the strongest of the available Brett strains and tends to leave hints a cherry and the strong spicy/horsey notes. I may even put some cherries in secondary to add to the complexity, but there is still plenty of time to decide on that without impacting the recipe.

The basic recipe is for a Russian Imperial Stout. I used my old Imperial Stout recipe that was partially derived from Old Rasputin and adjusted it slightly upward in gravity, approaching something the size of a Goose Island Bourbon County. The recipe shows it finishing around 9.5-10% with 70-72% attenuation, but who knows where it will be after the Brett is done doing its magic. The grain bill is up near 32lbs so it will be a full mash. In addition I will be adding a bit of additional malt sugar to the boil to get the gravity up. I don't normally do this, but I don't have enough room in my mash tun to fit 40+ lbs. of malt. The hops have changed a bit to better fit the bittering and aroma goals, but otherwise the recipe is fairly close to our original imperial stout one. Once fermenting, most of the difference in this brew will be the yeast and the additives. As I mentioned, at some point the Brettanomyces will be pitched. I'll probably at least give the regular yeast a 1 day heads tart, but it will depend on the health of the brett starter. Dormant brett takes a while to get going, so that may require earlier pitching. Once primary is complete I will be pitching oak chips and cubes, probably 3-4 oz. in total. Half of the cubes will be soaked in bourbon for two weeks (still need to select a good one), but all will be added to the fermenter for 6-8 weeks. I also have 4 different types/forms of oak: American oak chips, American medium-plus toast oak cubes, French heavy toast oak cubes, and Hungarian medium toast oak cubes. This should add some additional complexity. The oak levels will need to be adjusted as time goes on, so I may stay on the lower end and add more as needed to get the right balance.

The second beer we will be making is a Scotch Ale, also known as a Wee Heavy because of its relation to the Scottish ale styles. I guess you can think of Scotch ale as an Imperial Scottish Ale (no it doesn't have scotch in it). The style almost reminds me of a barley wine when looking at the grain used and OG desired, with the obvious difference being less hops and a different yeast strain.

Honestly, I really haven't done too much work on this one yet because I was focusing on the stout. The reason for choosing a scotch ale over some of the others that I blogged about is 2 fold. I wanted a nice malty winter ale to complement the dark strong stout, plus I have a bunch of leftover English pale malt from the old ale brew that needs to be used up before it goes bad. I don't make that many beers that use English malt, so this makes sense to me.

In my recent order to Northern Brewer I got the Scotch Ale AHA beer series book, so I will be using that as my reference for the style. The recipe will be up as soon as it’s complete.

The date of the brew and invites are forthcoming. Hope everyone can make it.