Roll-a-Style 18: 17A. British Strong Ale

Every year since I started homebrewing (way back in 2009), I've brewed an X-Mas Ale to have around the holidays.

The base beer was always a very similar "Winter Warmer", and I'd add various ingredients to make it more of a "Holiday" Beer.

Over the years, I added wood spirals, vanilla, cherry pomegranate, chocolate, peppermint, peanut butter, hazelnut, cherry, and many other flavorings.

Some years, I brewed the base beer without the "festive" flavorings.

When I started thinking about the 2024 X-Mas Ale, I had been doing the Roll-a-Style series of brews for over a year.

17A. British Strong Ale had been sitting on the list for quite some time, and at some point I wondered if I should just mark off that as a style that I had already brewed as one of my base-beer-only X-Mas Ales.

But ... I decided that this style wasn't exactly what I was brewing on the base beers.

I decided, though, that I would switch up the base a bit to make it match the "British Strong" a little closer, and make this new recipe the 2024 X-Mas ale.

I pretended to roll an "18" ...

 

Roll-a-Style 14 ... 16A. Sweet Stout

Learn to Homebrew Day is coming up on the first Saturday of November. At this point, I'm planning on getting together with my brewing buddies Du and Doc, but I'm not sure if this will be a travel brew day or if I'll end up hosting.

Anyway ... I was recently thinking about what I'd brew, and came across a recipe in Beer Smith that I developed at some point.

Pack o' Hooligans Stout is actually a 16A Sweet Stout. At some point I must have gone to my Roll-a-Style list and "rolled" 14 on an online 20-sided die ... 

 

Juneteenth Brew Day

I keep forgetting that Juneteenth is a holiday that I get off work.

It always comes as a pleasant surprise when I see it on my calendar. This year, it popped up on Wednesday of this week.

I've been running low on what I had on tap, and so I decided to brew Wednesday.

Summer Lovin' American Wheat (Batch 357) was also ready to keg, so I was able to clear out that fermenter as well.

If you follow along on this blog, you might have caught that I had another Roll-a-style beer coming up ... Roll-a-Style 20 ... 20A. American Porter.

I brewed a slightly modified recipe from that post:

Nargles American Porter

Roll-a-Style 20 ... 20A. American Porter

After Roll-a-Style 11 ... 14C. Scottish Export, I couldn't help myself ... I wanted to Roll-a-Style beer.

In case you are not familiar with the concept ... I made a list of BJCP Styles that I've never brewed, and assigned them to the numbers 1 - 20. When I want to brew, but am not sure what style to go after, I "roll" an online 20-sided die. Whatever number I roll is the style of beer I brew next.

I rolled a:

According to my most recent list, "20" corresponded to the BJCP Style 20A. American Porter.

A malty, bitter, and often somewhat hoppy dark beer with a balanced, roasted, and frequently chocolatey character.

Roll-a-Style 11 ... 14C. Scottish Export

After brewing McShepardSons Irish Ale (Batch 352), I thought I'd like to do another "Roll-a-Style" beer.

In case you are not familiar with the concept ... I made a list of BJCP Styles that I've never brewed, and assigned them to the numbers 1 - 20. When I want to brew, but am not sure what style to go after, I "roll" an online 20-sided die. Whatever number I roll is the style of beer I brew next.

My most recent list was on Roll-a-Style 1 ... 3A. Czech Pale Lager.

Most recently, I rolled an 11:

11 corresponds with 14C. Scottish Export.

A moderate-strength, malty beer with light caramel, toast, toffee, and fruit flavors. A slight roast dryness offsets the residual sweetness in the finish, with the bitterness perceived only to keep the beer from being cloying.

Roll-a-Style 1 ... 3A. Czech Pale Lager

Here it is 2024 already. Crazy!

As I mentioned in SheppyBrew 2023 Year End Brewing Stats (and probably other posts in late 2023), I want to continue the Roll-a-Style concept in 2024.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, the concept is fairly simple ...

I made a list of BJCP Styles that I've never brewed, and assigned them to the numbers 1 - 20. When I want to brew, but am not sure what style to go after, I "roll" an online 20-sided die. Whatever number I roll is the style of beer I brew next.

Most recently, I rolled a 1:

Right now, according to the list on Random SheppyBrew Recipes, 1 corresponds to 3A. Czech Pale Lager. 

Random SheppyBrew Recipes

After typing up SheppyBrew's Most Brewed Beers, I got to thinking ... "what am I going to do with my Roll-a-Style list once my 'Bench' has been emptied?"

Ok ... not something I have to worry about for a long time (and really ... why would I worry about it at all?) ... but in only 8 Roll-a-Style brews, my "Bench" will be empty.

As a computer geek, here is what I came up with: 

I made a change to SheppyBrew.com where my recipe page will randomly pick a previously brewed beer when the id=random.

IE ... 

http://www.sheppybrew.com/recipes/recipe.aspx?id=random

2023 Update on the 2021 BJCP Goal

If you follow this blog, you know I've renewed my old BJCP Goal.

Through a series of blog posts, I've discovered / acknowledged that I had not brewed whole categories in the 2021 Style Guidelines (see BJCP 2021 Style Guidelines, I lied, and 2021 BCJP Styles to Brew).

At some point, I decided to not only try to get every category covered, but work through all the styles (at least the ones that I'm interested in drinking)

I even came up with a "Roll-a-Style" concept to give me help deciding which style to brew.

After X-Mas Ale 2023 (Batch 347), I've now brewed at least one style in every BJCP Category. And ... I'm not planning on adding any more new styles before the end of the year.

Roll-a-Style 18 ... Wood Aged Beer

Well ... on Roll-a-Style 13 ... Wild Specialty Beer, I had 33A. Wood-Aged Beer on my "Roll-a-Style" list even though I knew for quite some time that my 2023 X-Mas Ale was going to satisfy that style.

So, I suppose this is another beer style where I am pretending to roll. For this one, I am pretending to use the online 20-sided dice to roll 18 ...

Roll-a-Style 13 ... Wild Specialty Beer

I brewed Humdinger of a Hootenanny (Batch 345) the weekend before Learn to Homebrew Day. I obviously had to have something to brew on the first Saturday of November (today if you're reading this the day it publishes)

About the time I discovered that I Lied about the 2021 BCJP Categories ... I came across some Wildbrew Philly Sour yeast in my favorite local homebrew shop.

That yeast has been sitting in my fridge since then, and I always had expected I'd use it to brew a Category 28. American Wild Ale with it.

I decided that Learn to Homebrew Day would be the day. It was on my Roll-a-Style list ... so ...

I pretended to roll the Online 20 sided die and pretended that I rolled ... 13

13 corresponds to 28C. Wild Specialty Beer, a pretty wide-open style.

An American Wild Ale with fruit, herbs, spices, or other Specialty-Type Ingredients.

I decided to go with a simple base beer with mango fruit. The "Wild" character would come from the Wildbrew Philly Sour yeast.

My recipe is 

Humdinger of a Hootenanny (Batch 345)

I brewed on a snowy Sunday this past weekend.

Due to poor planning, this was probably my worst brew day in awhile, but a bad brew day is better than a good work-day, so it was still pretty good.

I'm sure the beer will still turn out great.

If you read this blog and are able to remember, you may know what I was planning on brewing next as I mentioned it in Roll-a-Style 9 ... Historical Beer: Kentucky Common.

This was my 345th batch ever. My 20th of 2023. My 63rd batch of beer brewed in my Anvil Foundry.

It was a new recipe, my 222nd unique recipe since I started brewing beer (if I am counting correctly).

Humdinger of a Hootenanny

Roll-a-Style 9 ... Historical Beer: Kentucky Common

After pretending to Roll-a-Style 9 ... Hazy IPA ... I actually did roll the Online 20 sided die 

I rolled: 

On my Roll-a-Style list, 18 corresponded to Style 27A. Historical Beer: Kentucky Common.

A Kentucky Common is:

An American original, Kentucky Common was almost exclusively produced and sold around Louisville, Kentucky from some time after the Civil War until Prohibition. It was inexpensive and quickly produced, racked into barrels while actively fermenting, and tightly bunged to allow carbonation in the saloon cellar. Before the style died, it accounted for about 75% of sales around Louisville.

Some have speculated it was a dark variant of Cream Ale, created by immigrant Germanic brewers who added darker grains to help acidity the local carbonate water.

Shoddy IPA (Batch 343)

Well ... if you read Roll-a-Style 9 ... Hazy IPA, you already know that I brewed Sunday.

When I planned the brew day and bought the ingredients, I thought that I was hosting a brew day with my friends Du and Doc, but plans changed and it was a solo brew day.

I always thought that a Hazy IPA would be a great beer to use "Short and Shoddy" techniques to brew.

The short boil time in particular is something that I think helps keep haze in a beer, and the recipe I developed used a 15 minute boil because of that theory.

Kveik Voss is also a great IPA yeast and since you don't have to chill the wort very far to use Kveik yeast, this is also a time-saving ingredient.

Also, to save time in the morning, I decided to do an overnight mash so that I could skip that mash step on Sunday.

Shoddy IPA

Roll-a-Style 9 ... Hazy IPA

Well ... I thought I was going to have a group brew day coming up, and I have a bunch of IPA hops in my freezer.

I pretended to roll the Online 20 sided die and pretended that I rolled ...

9 Corresponds to 21C. Hazy IPA.

A Hazy IPA is

An American IPA with intense fruit flavors and aromas, a soft body, smooth mouthfeel, and often opaque with substantial haze. Less perceived bitterness than traditional IPAs but always massively hop-forward.

Helles Won't Kellerbier (Batch 340)

Well, I brewed again this past Sunday.

This is already my 15th of batch of beer this year, and my 340th batch all-time.

I'm getting to a point where I might have to stop claiming that my 2023 brewing totals will be down from 2022.

I'm not quite there, yet, though. I still think my 2023 totals will be less than last year.

Sunday's batch was a new recipe and new style for me.

If you follow this blog at all, you can probably guess what I brewed after reading Roll-a-Style 10 ... Kellerbier.

Tryna get girls from a brand? Man, you hella won't

Man, you hella won't

Helles Won't Kellerbier

Roll-a-Style 10 ... Kellerbier

After Roll-a-Style 13 ... Bière de Garde ... I thought I'd try another Roll-a-Style.

I rolled the Online 20 sided die and rolled ...

10 corresponds to Historical Beer: Kellerbier.

Gypsy Magic Bière de Garde (Batch 339)

Remember I said I am running low on beer?

Well ... because of that, I decided to brew on the 4th of July this year.

This is already my 14th batch of beer this year, and my 339th batch ever.

If I'm counting correctly, this would be my 218th unique recipe.

You'll remember I had decided to brew a "Bière de Garde" next on Roll-a-Style 13 ... Bière de Garde.

Of course, Bière de Garde isn't a style of beer I see a bunch in breweries or liquor stores, so I probably won't get a chance to compare my batch to a commercial example ... but that's ok ...

Gypsy Magic Bière de Garde

Roll-a-Style 13 ... Bière de Garde

Ok ... after having people visiting and drinking a bunch of my beer, I need to brew to get my inventory back up.

In order to determine what to brew next, I decided to start the SheppyBrew Roll-a-Style.

So ... I used my online 20 sided die and rolled ...

On my list, 13 just happened to correspond with style 24C. Bière de Garde.

SheppyBrew Roll-a-Style

So ... Remember in 2021 BCJP Styles to Brew ... I have several BJCP Styles that I have not brewed.

There are a significant number in that list that I don't really want to brew, but most of those are beer styles I'd at least like to try.

There is a homebrew podcast that I listen to "Homebrew Bound", and they do a thing every few episodes that they call "Roll-a-Style". Basically they have a set of descriptors listed. They roll a 20 sided die to come up with new (weird) styles of beer.

I thought it would be fun to (sort of) steal the idea.