SheppyBrew's Most Brewed Beers

Last week (from when I am typing this ... not when it was posted), there were technical issues with SheppyBrew.com where the web server could not connect to it's database.

I was a bit annoyed that my hosting company needed me to point out the problem, and that it took them several hours to fix it after I pointed it out.

But, in the grand scheme of things ... it's a first world problem.

For some reason ... once the issue was fixed, and I was looking through the database I decided to figure out what beers I've brewed the most.

I went down a rabbit-hole of sql queries and since I had gone through that effort ... I thought I might as well share what I found.

3 Redheads and a Blonde

I feel like I've brewed a lot of Amber / Red beers lately. Currently, I have 4 homebrews on tap, and they are all in that color range.

• Falling Leaves Autumn Saison ... my Autumn "Seasonal Saison". Sort of an Oktoberfest with a French Saison character.
  
  
• Steamacularly Common ... a "California Common" brewed in tribute of Anchor Steam upon closing of the brewery.
  
  
• Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale ... SheppyBrew classic BPA. Favorite of the Beer Model. Currently the lightest in color, but still in that amber range. 

• Humdinger of a Hootenanny ... Kentucky Common. currently the darkest of the beers I have on tap. Almost a "brunette", but still in the red range.

 

2023 Q3 Brewing Stats

The summer just flew by. We are now into October and therefore it is time to report my Brewing Stats for the 3rd Quarter.

I brewed 6 batches in each of Q1 and Q2. I keep saying that I'll start to slow down ... but again ... I brewed 6 batches in Q3.

For what it is worth, in July I brewed 3 batches. 2 batches in August. I only brewed 1 batch in September. So, I am sort of slowing down I guess.

The recipes I brewed in Q3 were:

• Hail Storm Summer Saison
• Gypsy Magic Bière de Garde
• Helles Won't Kellerbier
• Steamacularly Common
• Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale
• Shoddy IPA

Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale (Batch 342)

If you follow along on this blog, you might have caught that I try to have the Beer Model (aka my wife) brew from time to time.

In the United States, an individual homebrewer is allowed to brew 100 gallons of beer a year. A household with two or more adults over 21 years of age is allowed a maximum of 200 gallons.

The SheppyBrew "Brewery" brews significantly over 100 gallons most years, and we're on track to get over 100 again this year. 

So ... mostly jokingly, I say that the Beer Model has to brew in order to keep me out of jail.

I'm honestly not sure who is supposed to enforce this 100 (or 200) gallon limit. I suspect that no one actually does, so I don't think I'm in any real danger of going to jail for brewing too much beer.

2020 Q1 SheppyBrew Stats

I know it is difficult to believe ... but the first quarter of 2020 is done.

Wow.

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.

Arctic Vortex Winter Saison

The SheppyBrew Brewery had a huge Q1, brewing 7 batches and a whopping 35 gallons. I'm almost positive that this is the most volume of beer I've ever brewed in in a quarter. I'm on pace to brew 140 gallons of beer in 2020!

Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale (Batch 250)

According to my records, I have brewed Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale 13 times. It is SheppyBrew's most brewed beer.

It started out in 2010 as an extract recipe based mostly on a recipe from Jamil Zainasheff's and John Palmer's book Brewing Classic Styles called "Antwerp Afternoon".

The SheppyBrew Beer Model (aka my wife) picked the recipe out from the book as something she would like to try.

She ended up really liking it. In fact for a long time, she called it her favorite beer.

So, I made a lot of it.

It was the first recipe I converted and brewed as all grain.

I also did quite a bit of experimentation on yeasts with the beer to find out what my wife preferred.

The recipe today is all grain and a bit more hoppy than the original, but I think the base is very similar.

SheppyBrew 2018 Year-End Brewing Stats

The 2018 is over.

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.

The forth quarter was light. We only brewed 3 beers.

• X-Mas Ale 2018
• Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale
• Resilience IPA Clone(ish)

Those 3 batches totaled 16 gallons of beer, bringing my 2018 total to 18 batches and 93 gallons brewed. Hooray ... I'm a legal homebrewer this year!

2018 X-Mas Ale

Learning to Homebrew

So ... Saturday, November 3 was the AHA's Learn to Homebrew Day.

My homebrewing friend, "Doc" invited me to his house to brew. You may remember that earlier in the year, I went to house for Big Brew Day (see Cinco de Bealtaine Irish Stout).

In addition to the two experienced homebrewers, there were a couple of people there to watch us, and a new homebrewer doing his first "real" homebrew batch.

Again, I packed up my brewing equipment and brought it "on the road". Again, it is a little awkward for me to do this.

I need a checklist.

But I was able to get enough of the stuff to Doc's house that I wasn't missing anything. The only thing I had to borrow from him was his wort chiller.

2014 Q2 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 .

2014 continues to be slow going at the brewery. You may remember that in Q1, I brewed only 4 times.  Well, in Q2, I brewed only 3 times, and didn't brew at all in June. Pathetic.

Brewing Buckwheat's BPA (again)

Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale, the beer I brewed Sunday, is the recipe that SheppyBrew Brewery has brewed the most. Sunday's batch was #11, and the second most brewed beer has only been done 7 times. Buckwheat's BPA actually started out an extract recipe brewed in one of my Mr. Beer fermentors. Part of the reason that I've brewed so many batches is that early on I did some experimenting to figure out what yeast was best for this beer.

The first time I brewed it was because, the SheppyBrew Beer Model picked out a Belgium Pale Ale recipe from Jamil Zainasheff's and John Palmer's book Brewing Classic Styles. I took that recipe, modified it a little and when it was done, she told me that this was her favorite beer. She said it was not just her favorite of the beers that I made ... but her favorite of all beers.

Personally, I think it is weird to have a favorite beer, but that is just me.

Brewing Some Buckwheat BPA

I don't have a favorite beer. I drink way too promiscuously to profess one beer to be my preferred. My wife, on the other hand, does say that she has a favorite, and it just happens to be a SheppyBrew creation. As it is my wife's official favorite beer, it is the one beer recipe that I have brewed the most. It is also the beer I have experimented with the most.

The beer is called Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale , and I brewed it again on Saturday.

The recipe is pretty close to how it started. The recipe has gone from a partial mash to the old 2.5 gallon single infusion mash to BIAB to my bigger all-grain batches. I've experimented with different yeasts, picking based on my wife's blind taste test. But, basically, the recipe is still pretty close to where it started.

Buckwheat BPA Brew Day

So, I brewed Buckwheat's BPA today. I got started before church by printing out the brew sheet from Beer Smith. Then, I heated up 8 gallons of water and put it in my 10 gallon cooler. I let it sit in there until I got home from church.

Beer Model Brew Day

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, this past Saturday was National Home-Brew Day , and my wife decided to help brew a wheat beer that she called Summer Lovin' American Wheat. This was the Beer Model's second brew day, and SheppyBrew's first all-grain wheat beer (BIAB).

The brew day gets started a little later when I have to wait for the Beer Model to wake up.  But, it is ok, because she is so pleasant to look at.  We pretty much shared the brewing workload, although somehow I got stuck with the clean-up.

Here are some pictures of the Beer Model and her brew day:

Filling the brew pot

Removing / draining the BIAB bag

Adding Hops

Orange Zest

Siphoning wort into carboy

The Brewing day went pretty well.  We got a bit over 5 gallons into the carboy, and it was bubbling away nicely on Sunday and Monday.  I would have preferred to get a bit more wort with a little less of the cold-break material.  I think I need to start designing my recipes to leave a bit more of the wort behind in the brew kettle.  I'm also thinking I may want to get a pre-chiller for cooling down my wort in the summer.  The wort went into the carboy at around 70, which is ok, but I prefer to get it down closer to 60.  Plus, the weather was nice and warm, but not as hot as it will get later in the summer, so cooling will just be getting more difficult as the weather gets warmer.


Another thing we did was compare beers from the newest version of Buckwheat's BPA.  This batch was an experiment where I brewed up 5 gallons of wort and split the it into 2 Mr. Beer fermentors.  In one fermentor, I pitched SafeAle US05 yeast and in the other I pitched Safbrew S33 yeast.  The idea, of course, was to see which beer the Beer Model preferred.  Personally, I tasted a little more of a subtle fruity "Belgium" character in the S33, but not enough of a difference to declare one my favorite over the other.  The Beer Model decided that she did prefer the S33, which was a bit of a surprise to me.  I am pleased with this result, though, because it means I probably picked the right yeast in the original recipe.  The fact that I picked up a little of the Belgium funk in the S33 makes me feel a bit better about calling this beer a Belgium Pale Ale as well.  I think we are done experimenting with Buckwheat's BPA.  S33 is the winner!

Newest BPA comparison

The boys built a fort in the living room during the brew day.

Fort in our living room

Summer Lovin' American Wheat looks like it will be a beautiful pale-gold color.  It should be light and refreshing with a subtle orange zest and coriander flavor.  It should be on the malty-sweet side with just a touch of honey flavor.  It will be pretty dry and relatively low in alcohol.  We are going to keg this beer, and if it lasts, share it with the Beer Model's family when they come to visit this summer.  If it does last until then, I don't expect it will last much longer.  We might have to brew it up again before the summer is over.

2011 Calendar Photos: RETRACTION

When I wrote my blog post:  2011 Calendar Photos , I did not realize that my wife thought I was not going to do a calendar this year and so took it upon herself to do one.  Apparently, she thought she would surprise me with it, and put it all together and even got it all sent out.

So ... if you are one of those getting the calendar, the pictures posted on FaceBook will not match what you will see in the hard copy.  I'm sure some will be the same, but certainly not all.

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In SheppyBrew news ...

The Beer Model on the taste panel

You probably know that the SheppyBrew Beer Model's favorite beer is Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale.  What you may or may not know about the beer is that it really isn't a Belgium pale ale.  The yeast I generally use just doesn't produce those funky Belgium flavors.  This is actually "by design" because I know from experience that Tracy doesn't usually care for those flavors.  To be honest, I'm not a big fan unless the "Belgium" flavor is pretty subtle.

The last time I brewed Buckwheat, I did a double batch and split it into two fermenters.  In one fermenter, I used the "standard" Fermentis S33 ale yeast.  In the other, I used a more "Belgiumy" strain, T58.  Yesterday, we had a two person tasting panel at the brewery.  No surprise, the S33 batch was the favorite.  I did do a good job keeping the "Belgium" flavor pretty restrained, so the T58 was still enjoyable for both of us, just not as awesome as the original recipe.

Visually, they were exactly the same.  S33 had a much thicker, nicer, longer lasting head and a fuller mouthfeel.  The beer did not attenuate as fully as the T58, so that makes sense.  Of course, the S33 aroma was more malty, and the T58 had that Belgium funk to it.  As the beers warmed up, the Beer Model made the comment that the difference was becoming more pronounced.  Obviously, I agreed, because it was a true statement.

One thing that I thought was very interesting was that the nice biscuity / grainy flavor that I think really makes Buckwheat awesome came through much more in the S33.  It blended into the background of the T58.  The T58 actually seemed a bit more balanced toward the hoppy / bitter side than the malty goodness of the S33.  That is interesting that simply a difference in yeast made such a huge difference above the flavors that came specifically from the yeast.

This is actually the first time I did a head-to-head comparison between the exact same beer with two different yeasts.  Of course, I knew "theoretically" and anecdotally that there would be differences, and generally speaking sort of had an idea what they would be.  But, this was the first time I actually got to experience the difference like this.  I might have to try more experiments like this.

Very cool.

AG Brew day

Well ...yesterday, on the way home, I stopped by my LHBS and purchased ingredients for my first all grain batch.  I decided to go with Buckwheat's BPA as my first attempt.

Today I brewed it up using my new mash tun and Bayou Classic propane burner.

The first step was to preheat the mash tun. I used about 3 gallons of boiling water to accomplish this.

Next, I heated up about 6.5 quarts of mash water to a little over 160F. I put this in the tun (after emptying the preheat water). Then, I poured all the grain on top of the water, and mixed it all together. My target temp was 150, and my thermometer said 150. Not bad.

Then, I let the mash sit for about 75 minutes. During that time, I poured myself and drank a Buckwheat BPA (from the last time I made it). Really enjoyed it. I also hydrated my yeast and started getting Rutt ready for fermenting (yes, I named my fermentors ... You have a problem with that?).

About an hour into it, I heated up my sparge water to around 170. I also checked the temp again. Still right at 150. I am happy about that.

Once the 75 minutes was up, I sparged and collected the wort. I eyeballed the water amounts on two sparges. Seems to have worked out.

After the second sparge, I started my boil. Even though I used fermcap, I got a little boil-over. Think maybe I need a bigger pot. The propane burner sure puts out more heat than the stove top.

The rest of the boil went pretty much as planned. Hops at 60. Irish moss at 15. Yeast nuitrient at 10. More hops at 5. Had a 90 minute IPA and read a little while waiting.

After the boil, I did my ice bath outside as well.

Filled Rutt. Put downstairs. Now I just have to wait for the yeasties to do their thing.

One thing I should note:  my mashing efficiency was horrible.  I was hoping for 70% (which is not that great) and only got about 61%.  I overfilled my fermenter a little, and the boil-over didn't help, so I figure the efficiency was not quite as bad as I saw, but still not great.

I will need to get that number up quite a bit to make this process "worth it".  One thing I forgot to do was stir in the sparge water and let it soak for a few minutes before draining.  So, I should be able to increase my efficiency next time just because I'll have a better process.  BUT ... I also think maybe I can improve the equipment a bit.  I won't go into details on that right now.

All-in-all I am pretty pleased with the way things went.  I do enjoy brewing outside.  I think my wife probably likes it as well as some of my later stages would have been during the time she was making dinner (tacos ... yum).  So, we were not getting into each others' way.

Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale

Recently (well .. relatively recently) I brewed Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale.  My wife picked out a recipe from Jamil Zainasheff's and John Palmer's book Brewing Classic Styles called "Antwerp Afternoon", and I scaled it down and modified it a bit based on some ingredient / process preferences I have developed.

In my humble opinion, the beer turned out great.  My wife says it is her favorite beer, so apparently she thinks it is pretty good as well.  It is a nicely balanced, clean tasting beer with a nice biscuit malt background.  I call it a little brother of my Phat & Tyred Ale.  It is very tasty.

I never had a Belgium Pale Ale before I tried mine.  But, since then, I have tried two beers that call themselves Belgium Pale Ales.  One is made by the Blue Moon Brewing company called Pale Moon.  The other was a seasonal brew at a local brew pub called C.B. & Potts.  Neither of these beers taste like mine.  They do not really taste like each other, either.  The Pale Moon tastes like maybe they included coriander and/or orange peel like a regular Blue Moon does.  The BPA at C.B. & Potts tasted like it had a similar grain bill and hop flavoring to mine, but it also had the funky yeasty flavor that I associate with Belgium wheat beers and / or Rye beers.  I think this is called a "Phenolic" taste.  If you have ever had a Mothership Wit from New Belgium Brewery, you probably know the taste I am talking about.  It is a taste I do not care for.  Apparently some people like it, because it comes through in lots of commercial beers I've had.  The BPA at C.B. & Potts had just a touch of it, not nearly as bad as many I've had, but I could detect it.  My wife's cousin (who was the one who actually ordered the beer) could detect it too (and liked it even less than I do).


So, I'm wondering ... since my Belgium Pale Ale tastes nothing like either of the commercial BPA's that I have had, is my BPA not really a BPA?  Of course, the two commercial examples I have had taste nothing like each other either. 

I suppose it doesn't really matter since I like the beer, and my wife likes the beer.  It is a beer that will not last very long.  I think what I am going to do is brew a double batch of Buckwheat's Belgium Pale Ale.  I'll split it into two fermenters.  In one, I'll use the same yeast I used for my first batch.  For the other, I'll use a more traditional Belgium-like yeast.  The key will be to make sure I keep the fermentation cold over the first couple days so that the phenolics don't come through too strong.

Not sure when I'll get a chance to try this.  My next batch will be a Whisky Wife Wheat II and then I need to brew up Quarter Life Crisis and Stone Soup IDA again.  Maybe after those three brews I'll have an opening for the great BPA experiment.