#BEERSATURDAY Beer Review: Dry Irish Holiday Stout, Aged on Oak With Dark Rum and Rubidoux Fig Leaves
Spiced beers are standard holiday fair. The market Trader Joe's does an interesting holiday ale, Sierra Nevada does something similar. These beers are different every year, with a new mix of spices, pine needles, hops and other adjuncts to create a unique flavor. This beer is no different.
This beer is the first of three I made of a split batch of dry Irish stout (5 gallons/1 keg/50 beers each batch). The grain bill is simple: 20 lbs of Maris Otter, 3 lbs roasted barley, 2 lbs oats. That's it!
For the hops, I eyeball a larger handful than normal of CTZ because stouts require more bitterness than many of the session beers I make.
At 4.5% before accounting for the rum, this is a very drinkable beer. The dark rum brings a deep, heavy flavor of molasses that makes you want to sip it even though it drinks very dry.
The vanilla from the oak is subdued and you wouldn't know it was there unless I told you. It is that kind of thing that really brings polish to a beer like this.
The fig leaves meld in a sublime way with the rum and roasted malt. I picked up the idea of using fig leaves from a foraging mentor here in Los Angeles who does wildcrafted cuisine. Learning about foraging and native ingredients opens up a whole new world of possibilities to a brewer like myself.
The verdict? I would absolutely do this beer again next Christmas. It isn't something you want to drink multiple glasses of, so the keg is going to be around for at least another month as I rotate through my other more sessionable beers.
A very well known variety of Irish dry stout is Guiness, which is often served on nitrogen instead of CO2. I chose to use CO2 for this keg because I didn't want to flatten the flavors of the adjuncts. This recipe is a better version of Guiness and comes from Josiah Bloomquist, formerly of Macleod Ale Brewing Company here in Van Nuys, CA. The title of his beer, which you can still get on cask, CO2, and nitro over there is called "Cut and Dry".
If you like this post, please consider upvoting my comment on the #beersaturday post: https://steemit.com/beersaturday/@detlev/let-s-celebrate-the-30th-steemit-beersaturday-challenge-with-you-as-an-attendee-join-and-win-from-15-sbd-prizes
Mate, great post. I'm impressed with your creation. I've only recently started to brew my own beer and I really love the creativity that it encourages. Using fig leaves is genius.
I'm going to follow your posts very closely for ideas for future brews. I hope you don't mind me stealing inspiration from you.
Hey, thank you for the love! I'll start putting some posts together about brewing and I would be honored if you used some of my ideas. FYI, I think I didn't get onto the last beer saturday contest somehow. Not really sure what I did wrong...
That’s fantastic. I bought another kit to practice with today. I’ll be doing a post about it for Beer Saturday this week. I’m pretty sure your entry went in however you mustn’t have received a winning ticket.
I’m going to try and create my own recipe after this kit brew that I do this week. I think I’ll tire of these kits pretty quick and will want my own unique beers instead.
I somehow pulled the winning ticket this week for my insane cocktail post. :)
Congrats on the win! You can do a single pot all grain brew with a filter bag for super cheap. I usually look at a few grain bills from some brewers I like such as the mad fermentationist Michael Tonsmere and pick/choose my ingredients based on their input. They key is usually simplicity. Trying to learn what flavors a malt imparts to the beer and relative sweetness/bitterness of each style is a great place to focus. Actually eat the malts before and after you mash with them and taste the wort before boiling, after, and multiple times during the fermentation to understand what is happening along the way. I would also recommend focusing on only a few yeasts to get comfortable with. Some of my favorites are US04 for English styles, the Dupont Saison yeast, and Hef 4 for my hefeweizens.
Thanks. :) That’s incredibly helpful. It sounds like cooking. Try everything during the process so you know what you’re doing.
Yes, it is a LOT like cooking except your actions reverberate over weeks and years and it is tough to gain the context needed to understand what effect they have. Do everyting you can to understand how the process affects what you are tasting along the way. For instance: carbonation. Opening bottles as they are conditioning is OK, but being able to taste things in a keg is superior because it happens so much faster and without yeast activity. FYI, I've found that using those premeasured tablets for conditioning bottles is way easier than measuring out sugar. I used to just eyeball white sugar with a teaspoon but opening a bottle that is flat is such a waste of time and effort (though you can just recondition it).
Great post and good looking beer, impressive that you brew it yourself.
Thank you! This post has gotten the most positive response by far versus everything else I've been writing about so you can expect more on the subject from me.