Batch #125 - Summer Pale Ale

I admit that I'm a fan of bicycle road racing, and this July is the 99th annual Tour de France.  I'll catch up on my sleep in August!  Last year, British rider Bradley Wiggins crashed out of the Tour, but this year he came back with a well trained Team Sky, including great British riders Chris Froome and Mark Cavendish, to not only win the overall race, but to make history as the first British team to win this prestigious Bike race.  On Saturday July 28, they will race again in the London Olympics, hoping for a 2012 sweep of the best prizes in bicycle racing. Go Team Sky!
Summer must have at least one Batch of Pale Ale, and this is the first one.  Before the Summer gets away from us, I'll have to brew another!

MT

Batch #124 - The Mudman Returns!

What's a Summer without some good Bitter Brown Ale?  For this batch, I've resurrected the "Mudman" label from Batch #95, back in 2009, as well as the recipe.  In spite of the distasteful label, the beer is very tasty!

MT

Batch #123 - Fire Roasted Pumpkin Ale

My 2011 backyard pumpkin crop, shown in Batch #119 below, had to be pretty widely given away because I ended up with 9 pumpkins,  180 pounds worth, of the two varieties I planted.  I saved 50 pounds of charcoal roasted pumpkin flesh, frozen in 5-pound bags, to use for the next couple of years before I need to think about planting another crop.
I saved the seeds from two heirloom pumpkins, a "Cinderella" variety and a "Lakota Sioux" variety (in this label), that I found in a couple different farmers markets in 2009, and grew them out last year, enough pumpkin to take care of pies, beer and soup for awhile.
Yum.

Batch #122 - Homebrewers Ball STOUT

The Roaring Fork HAMs Homebrewers Club brewed 12 batches of beer and served it at our annual Homebrewers Ball in May 2012, this year for the Sopris Barracudas Swim Club.  The Club is a non-profit made up of many parents supporting their kids to engage in competitive swimming with other Clubs around the Rocky Mountain region.  This Stout is my contribution to the Swim Team's fundraiser, and it was a success for them.

Diana Nyad is a world champion distance swimmer, whose exploits you can view at:
http://diananyad.com/
http://www.facebook.com/DianaNyad

She hopes to fulfill a longstanding fream to swim from Cuba to Florida during Summer of 2012.  I dedicate this Batch to honor Diana's dedication to her dream.

Go Diana!

Batch #121: Coriander Rye Pale Ale

With Summer right around the corner, here's a thirst-quencher, made from Rye grains raised in our Roaring Fork High School edible forest garden.  Don't worry, the high school students don't get any of the beer, but they did get some of the grains for baking bread.

The label photo shows part of the high school "Growing Dome" greenhouse in the background, which was nearly surrounded by our grain trials, all non-GMO and Organic, of course.  The Rye grain adds a subtle sweetness to the Ale, and is combined with floral tones added by ground coriander seed.

We're back into weather conducive to outdoor brewing, so this is the first 10-gallon, all grain brew of 2012.  Here's to a productive Summer!

MT

Batch #120: Habanero Red Ale

After retiring the "roller-coasting monks" from my Habanero Ale labels, I searched for a new subject to grace this popular hot pepper beer.  In a series of Google searches including the term "hot stuff" this little devil kept showing up, so I let him strut his hot stuff for this batch.  I thought it appropriate to use something of a "cartoon character" for this one, because I got a little silly when deciding to amplify the "red ale" appearance of the beer by steaming a red beet until I had a bright red broth in which to dissolve my bottling sugar.  The result is a bit surprising, to see a beer with a pink head, a red body, the flavor of a habanero pepper, and the nutritional characteristics of a 6.5% abv homebrew.

The devil's in the details!

Enjoy!

Batch #119: Pumpkin Ale

I have brewed pumpkin ales for some time now, and my fellow homebrewers at the Roaring Fork HAMs Homebrewers Club have voted this one my best to date.  I used to brew this with pumpkin pie spices in the boil, like cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg, and back in 2009, I made a batch that was half spiced, and the other half not.  The latter was the Club's overwhelming choice.  This year, using one of the large pumpkins raised in my backyard with heirloom seed harvested from 2009's crop, I roasted the pumpkin most of the way to soft in my oven, then finished roasting it on my charcoal grille, adding a bit of smoky flavor.  The flesh of the roasted pumpkin was then separated from the skin and frozen, to be used at my liesure for beer brewing and other culinary adventures, until the 2012 pumpkin crop is ready to harvest.

Cheers!