On June 5th, I brewed the last of my Homebrew 6 Pack Project, Eric's Pale Ale.
Check out Eric's Pale Ale (batch 311), if you're interested in reading about that brew day.
Eric's Pale Ale was inspired by the Oskar Blues classic beer ... Dale's Pale Ale. Last Sunday, while smoking some ribs, I decided to compare Eric's Pale Ale with Dale's Pale Ale.
Since I happened to have on in the fridge, I also pulled out a can of Double Dale's to drink as well.
As I type this, 2021 is almost over. I'm not brewing again before 2022, so I can report on my brewing stats for the 4th quarter and for year end.
I brewed quite a bit of beer in 2021. Not nearly as much as 2020, but significantly more than any other year in my brewing "career".
In the 4th quarter this year, I only brewed 5 batches of beer.
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| Mr. Awesome Merican Lager |
Remember Caliente Fuerte Mexican Stout? It was my Homebrew 6 Pack Project beer inspired by Copper Kettle Mexican Chocolate Stout.
I brewed it on Halloween (see Caliente Fuerte Mexican Stout (Batch 300)). I kegged it around 3 weeks later.
Since then, I've carbonated and been drinking it.
The design (see Designing Caliente Fuerte Mexican Stout) was intended to be chocolatey with a bit of heat from cinnamon and Ancho and Cayenne Chile powder.
I purposely took it easy on the spices.
As it turns out, I was too easy on the spices. It is nice, rich and chocolatey, but the cinnamon barely comes through and the peppers not at all.
It has been awhile, but in Updating the Colorado 6 Pack, I mentioned that I was updating my Homebrew Colorado 6 pack, replacing 3 beers that no longer exist.
The first replacement was T.Ra.Sh. Light Mexican Lager vs Ska Mexican Logger. That really turned out well.
Next up ... I want to try to make a beer inspired by another one of my local favorites ... Copper Kettle Mexican Chocolate Stout.
"Dynamic stout with cinnamon, local organic chocolate, and habanero, ancho and guajilo peppers!"
Well ... Hell. The summer is almost over. How did this happen so quickly?
Blah.
Last time I was at my local liquor store, I didn't see any of Ska's Mexican Logger. That probably means the Mexican Logger season is about over.
Luckily, I had a can of it in my beer fridge to compare with my Sin Lima Mexican Lager (batch 293).
What the hell happened to the summer? August is almost over. My kid is back in school. WTF?
It seems like just a little while ago that I posted Updating the Homebrew Colorado 6 pack. However ... that was back in MARCH! Almost 5 months! Almost half a year ago!
WTF?
So ... at the time I had Sin Lima Mexican Lager on tap and figured I could get Ska's Mexican Logger any time. But apparently, I misjudged how quickly the seasonal Mexican Logger would be available, and by the time I found it in any stores, Sin Lima was gone.
If you've been following my 6 Pack Project posts, you know that I matched up 6 of my homebrew recipes with my Colorado 6 pack list that I put together back in 2013.
As I was brewing beers in my Homebrew Colorado 6 pack, I noted that 3 out of the 6 beers no longer existed at their commercial breweries, so I was unable to compare my beers to the beers that they were meant to represent.
2020. What a year.
One side effect of staying at home so much in 2020 was that I brewed a lot of beer.
A ridiculous amount, really.
As I type this, the year is not over, but I am done brewing for the year.
And, 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: Sheppy's Blog: Brew Stats.
In the 4th quarter of the year, I brewed 8 batches of beer:
SheppyBrew brewed 31 batches of beer in 2020.
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| Falling Leaves Autumn Saison |
Recently, I brewed Irregular Eric Double IPA ... the 5th beer in my Homebrew Colorado 6 pack.
Good stuff. If you're interested, you can read about my brew day at Irregular Eric Double IPA (Batch 273).
I designed Irregular Eric Double IPA as a tribute of Oskar Blue's Deviant Dale's IPA.
On the 1st of December, my wife brought home a Stone Brewing Company "Twelve Days of IPA's" 12 pack.
I thought this was a cool idea for a mixed 12 pack. I don't think I've ever seen one quite like this. You can have a different beer every day for 12 days.
Taking that line of thought a step farther ... \I thought it would be fun to drink a different beer a day until Christmas. Sort of an Advent calendar of drinking. I had almost half covered with Stone IPA's. I am sure I can come up with another 13 different beers to drink before Christmas.
So ...
So ... if you've been paying attention ... you know that fairly recently I brewed the 4th beer in my Homebrew Colorado 6 pack.
See One Hundred Hoppy Brown Ale (266).
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| On Your Left |
