2015 Q1 SheppyBrew Stats

As you may know, the Brewery likes to post quarterly updates on how much we have brewed. You can see all these updates (including the one you are reading right now) by following this link:http://blog.ericshepard.com/search/label/Brew%20Stats .

Q1 of 2015 was actually pretty busy at the SheppyBrew Brewery. I  brewed six batches.

• Arctic Vortex Winter Saison
• Snowball's Chance (in) Helles
• Gruntled Berry Weiße
• One Hundred Hoppy Brown Ale
• Ale to the Chief: Honey Ale
• Sasquatch Hunter German Altbier

A couple of those batches were half-sized, so the total volume of the quarter is 25 gallons, putting me on target for 100 gallons by the end of the year. You may remember that last year I only brewed 20 gallons in quarter 1, so I am beating that pace.

Of these 6 batches, 3 of them were new recipes (Gruntled Berry Weiße, One Hundred Hoppy Brown Ale, and Ale to the Chief: Honey Ale). That puts me on pace for 12 new recipes this year, but who knows how that will go as the year progresses. I brewed 10 new recipes last year down from 14 the year before.

Snowball's Chance (in) Helles is, of course, a lager. I expect to get about the same number of lagers this year as I typically get. Around 3 or so.

All my batches so far this year have been "all-grain". All my batches last year were all-grain as well. I was actually thinking that it would be fun to do another extract batch sometime just to see how it goes. I guess you'll have to stay-tuned to know if I do that.

I've actually done a fair amount of bottling lately. Those two half-sized batches are obviously bottled. I also bottled up some extra beer I fermented of the Sasquatch Hunter German Altbier. But, as usual, most of the big batches are served from a keg.

I finally decided to brew one of the "Obama Beers". Ale to the Chief: Honey Ale was one of the recipes that the White House released back in 2012. I converted them to all-grain later in the same year. I was never sure if I would ever actually brew one of them, but I finally decided to do a small batch. I have not tried any of the beer, but I'll be sure to let you know how it tastes.

And, of course, the last beer of the quarter was Sasquatch Hunter German Altbier, which as you may or may not know won me a blue ribbon back in the 2013 Denver Regional of the National Homebrew Competition. It is odd that I have not brewed this recipe again until this year. I am looking forward to trying it out again.

I don't really have much planned for quarter 2. Of course, I will have to brew my Spring Saison, which will be the last season to fill out my Seasonal Saison series of brews. Other than that, though, I'll be playing it "by ear".

I expect I'll do a few more half-size batches to experiment a little, but I don't have something specifically planned for that. I do have a couple of beers I know that I want to brew at some point, but who knows which ones I'll actually get to?

So, I'll just keep on keeping on. Keep watching the blog, and you'll know exactly what I'm brewing.

Go Blackhawks!