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Saturday, April 6, 2013

Beer Updates – Apple and Pub Ales


This morning I spent some time cleaning kegs and kegging a couple of beers for the Brew-N-Que. 
The first beer I kegged was my Pub Ale.  I had brewed a second batch of this because the first batch didn’t attenuate nearly as much as I’d hoped.  I tested it again one last time today and the London Ale III yeast must have kicked back in.  The gravity had dropped 12 points from my last test and the beer is perfect at 4.6% abv.  Looks like the second batch that I brewed last weekend will be 5 extra gallons of beer to drink.
The second “beer” I kegged was my Apple Ale. This ale turned out pretty well.  My hydro sample had a week amount of apple flavor to it, which was more than I was expecting.  Usually when I use apple juice in anything the apple flavor completely ferments out.  This session ale clocks in at 3.6% abv and I added 3 cans  of Old Orchard 100% Apple Juice concentrate to the ale to boost the apple flavor.  I might only use 2 cans next time but the extra sweetness will probably go over well with the non beer drinkers in the crowd.  The beer had a very fizzy carbonation now that I hope carries into the finished beer.
I plan to give the Belgian Single another week in the fermenter and keg it next weekend.  This beer didn’t have any simple sugars added to it and I usually ferment all of my beers a minimum of 4 weeks to allow the yeast to clean up the beer and for any solids to settle out.