Johnny McClure Rainier Lager (Batch 380)

So ... if you've been following along on this blog, you know that this year I've been concentrating on my BJCP Goal and the Roll-a-Style list when it comes to brewing beers.

I've brewed 87 of the 108 styles in the 2021 BJCP Guidelines.

This year, I've brewed 9 new BJCP styles.

I recently decided I wanted to brew a non-Roll-a-Style batch.

As I mentioned in the Seattle Trip posts, my wife and I recently visited Washing State.

I used to live in Washington, and while I never drank as a child, I remember Rainier Beer being around.

2025 Q2 SheppyBrew Stats

It's July, which means that we've made it through the second quarter of 2025. It is time to "report" on the 2025 Q2 SheppyBrew Stats.

Q1 was pretty busy, and I was on track for 120 gallons of beer in 2025.

Q2, on the other hand wasn't nearly as busy. I only brewed 4 batches of beer totaling 20 gallons, putting my projected 2025 volume right at 100 gallons.

The Q2 batches were:

• Melting Stream Spring Saison
• Halfway to Helles Leichtbier
• Summer Lovin' American Wheat
• Gob Stopper Grape Ale

At the time that I'm typing this, I have Melting Stream, Halfway to Helles, and Summer Lovin' on tap. Gob Stopper is fermenting.

Melting Stream Spring Saison

  

Summer Lovin' American Wheat (Batch 376)

I brewed beer Sunday. My 9th batch of the year and 376th batch all-time.

It has actually been awhile since I've brewed. Before Sunday, the last beer I brewed was Big Brew Day ... Halfway to Helles (Batch 375) the very first weekend of May.

If you've been following along and paying attention, you likely know that most of my recipes this year have been new recipes generated from the Roll-a-Style list.

As a result, I've been basically ignoring the "Seasonals".

However, recently the Beer Model requested one of her favorites, which just happens to be the June Seasonal. Happy Wife Happy Life (nothing rhymes with "husband").

Summer Lovin' American Wheat

 

2024 Seasonals

Early in 2022, I spent some time identifying "SheppyBrew Seasonals". I tied a specific SheppyBrew beer to every month in the year.

For whatever reason, after the year was done I shared 2022 Seasonals I had brewed during the year. I had brewed all but 3 of the "Seasonals".

I reported on the 2023 Seasonals as well, missing 4 months. Now that I've established the pattern, I feel like I have to share my brewed "Seasonals" for 2024.

I actually made it a brewing goal in 2024 to brew all my "SheppyBrew Seasonals". Around July or August, I got tired of the idea, but I had hit all the months so far, so I forced myself to finish them up.

2024 Mardi Bock

2024 Q2 SheppyBrew Stats

It is already July, which means the 2nd Quarter of 2024 is done. We can report on the Q2 SheppyBrew Brewing Stats. 

When it comes right down to it, I'm sure no one besides myself really cares, but I like to look back on these posts to see how much I've brewed and what I was planning on brewing at certain points of the year.

As I've been saying, I expect that I'll brew less beer this year than I have for the past several years, and so far it does look like I'm tracking for a lower volume than 2023.

In this quarter, I've brewed 5 batches of beer:

• Melting Stream Spring Saison 
• Helles in a Hand Bock-sket 
• Clan DunBroch Scottish Ale 
• Summer Lovin' American Wheat 
• Nargles American Porter 

This 5 batches of beer resulted in 25 gallons, putting me right at a total of 50 gallons half way through the year.

Summer Lovin' American Wheat

Step into a world where fantasy and flavor intertwine with Summer Lovin' American Wheat, a beer that's as enchanting as the meadow it's brewed in. This American Wheat beer, with its **5.5% ABV** and **22 IBU**, is a testament to the art of brewing, crafted by the gorgeous SheppyBrew Beer Model whose passion for beer is as deep as the mountain roots.

In this idyllic setting, surrounded by the majesty of towering peaks, she works alongside a troupe of helpful gnomes, each adding a touch of magic to the brew. The gnomes, known for their brewing prowess, carefully select the finest **Pale and Wheat malts**, blending them to perfection.

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

Summer Lovin' American Wheat (Batch 357)

I don't know about where you live, but here it is starting to feel quite a bit like summer. I've had to fire up the air conditioning a few times already.

Although I drink just about any beer style at any time of year, there are a few beers that I would consider summer beers.

One of these beers is my "June Seasonal": Summer Lovin' American Wheat.

It honestly doesn't have to be consumed in summer, but it certainly doesn't suck in beautiful warm weather.

This is one of the SheppyBrew Beer Model's favorite beers, and therefore, it is one of my most brewed beers.

I like it too, but she really really really likes it. I think that when we brewed Alex's GPT, what she really wanted was 

Summer Lovin' American Wheat

2023 Seasonals

So ... a couple of years ago, I spent some time identifying "SheppyBrew Seasonals".

I didn't really pay much attention to "Seasonals" in 2023, but a couple weeks ago, looking through my blog, I came across 2022 SheppyBrew Seasonals. That made me want to check out which of these seasonals I did brew in the past year.

I figured that I had not done nearly as many as I had in 2022, but as it turned out ... I was actually pretty close.

The fact that I always brew the Seasonal Saisons every year gives me a little of a head-start.

Arctic Vortex 

 

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.

2023 Q2 Brewing Stats

As I type this, there are still a few days left in Q2 of 2023, but I am not going to brew again this month, so I can actually get my SheppyBrew Brewing Stats for the quarter in.

You may remember that Q1 was a busy brewing quarter, and this quarter was basically just as busy.

I keep saying I'll slow down to get a more reasonable total in 2023, but so far I have not managed to slow down very much at all.

My excuse this quarter was that my youngest son graduated high school and I needed beer for various family members to consume for our celebrations.

Regardless of the reason, I brewed another 6 batches of beer in Q2, matching my Q1 total and bring my total for the year up to 12 batches of beer.

Melting Stream Spring Saison brew day

2023 Big Brew Day ... Summer Lovin

So ... this past Saturday was the AHA's Big Brew Day.

This is one of those days that my brewing buddies and I try to get together to brew.

This time, my friend "Doc" wanted to host, so I headed over to "Doc's Brewery".

Travel Brewing is always a different experience than my typical brew day. I have to keep my recipe as simple as possible and always accept that I might be distracted enough that the beer might not turn out as planned.

A big part of it is that I don't typically drink while brewing unless the Beer Model makes me.

But, on these Travel Brewing I have to try the beers from both the host and the others who always bring growlers.

One of the things I typically do ... at least if I'm brewing all-grain ... is start my mash at home and let it go through the drive over to whoever is hosting.

2022 SheppyBrew Seasonals

Earlier in the year, I published a blog post in which I talked about beers that could be considered  SheppyBrew Seasonals, attaching them to each month of the year.

As I was working my way through brewing over the year, I kept this list in mind. I didn't hit every month, but I brewed most of the beers close to their month this year.

2022 Q3 (and 2) SheppyBrew Stats

Well ... crap ... here it is the end of Q3 ... and I just realized I never reported on SheppyBrew's 2nd Quarter.

Oh well.

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.

You just will not see one for 2022 Q2. I think this is the first quarter I missed since I started doing these updates.

Must be getting old.

So ... just a quick update on the 2nd quarter ... I brewed 5 batches of beer for 26 gallons. There were 2 new recipes during that time, and I brewed 2 lagers.

Colorado Vienna Lager

 

Summer Lovin' American Wheat (Batch 314)

I wasn't able to brew Sunday, but luckily Monday was a holiday.

I brewed Summer Lovin' American Wheat on the 4th.

This is the 6th time I've brewed this recipe. Already the 2nd time I've brewed it in the Anvil Foundry.

It was my 11th batch of the year. I'm already at 61 gallons for the year.

If I'm keeping track accurately, this is the 314th batch of beer I've brewed in my homebrewing "career".

I actually started later in the evening on the 3rd by getting the water ready and then starting the mash right before I went to bed.

Then, I was up early in the morning to drain the basket and get the boil started.

SheppyBrew Seasonals

While out for a walk earlier in the week, I was thinking about homebrewing (surprise surprise).

One of the things that popped into my mind was beers that I always brew about the same time of year.

I was wondering if I had seasonal beers for every month of the year.

An obvious example is my Seasonal Saison series of beers. January is almost always when I brew Arctic Vortex Winter Saison. I usually brew Melting Stream Spring Saison in March or April, Hail Storm Summer Saison in June or July, and Falling Leaves Autumn Saison in September or October.

May is easy. The tag line for Helles in a Hand Bock-sket is "Will Drink in May". 

Will-o'-Wisp Pumpkin Ale makes the most sense for October.

Decemberfest Lager has "December" right in the name. 

2021 Q3 SheppyBrew Stats

Q3 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.

Summer Lovin' American Wheat

Summer Lovin' American Wheat (Batch 291)

I brewed Sunday. My 15th batch of the year. My 291st batch in my brewing "career". This was also my 20th batch brewed on the Anvil Foundry.

The beer I brewed was the original Summer Lovin' American Wheat, 

Summer Lovin' is the base recipe of a bunch of beers that I brew. Lots of my fruit wheats use this as a base. But, it's been almost 4 years since I brewed this as a stand-alone beer.

Both my wife (aka the SheppyBrew Beer Model) and myself were shocked when I looked up when the last brew day was.

And ... as I am spending 2021 exploring older recipes, I thought I had to brew this one up.

Summer Lovin' American Wheat

Big Brew Day ... Lithuanian Lovin' Wheat

Saturday, May 1st was another Big Brew Day. First Saturday in May.

The Beer Model and I traveled up North to brew a with my buddy "Du". We decided to brew a Lithuanian Lovin' Wheat.

Friday, I made a yeast starter that had been harvested last time I brewed with the Lithuanian Farmhouse yeast ... about 6 months ago. That is a longer time than is generally suggested to re-use yeast (by a bunch), but I was pretty sure it would be ok with a starter.

I also packed up brewing equipment based on the list I made last time I traveled with my brewing equipment (see Traveling Brew Checklist). If I'm honest, it was nice to have the checklist. (Don't tell the Beer Model )

Lithuanian Farmhouse Yeast

So ... if you've been following along on this blog, or SheppyBrew's Facebook Page or SheppyBrew's Instagram Page, you know that the brewer / owner of one of my local breweries, Great Frontier, pulled some  Lithuanian Farmhouse Yeast off his fermentor and gave me a quart of slurry.

That was certainly nice of him. I really appreciate that he did that for me.

So far, I've brewed 3 batches of beer using this yeast.

• Sveikas Lithuanian Farmhouse (262)
• Lithuanian Lovin' Wheat (263)
• Lithuanian Strong Pale Ale (265)

The radical thing about the Lithuanian Farmhouse Yeast is that it ferments hot and fast with a fairly clean flavor. I fermented all three between 80 and 90 degrees for basically 2 days. 

For reference, most of the ales I brew at between 60 and 66 degrees, and are ready to keg in about 2 weeks. Most yeasts would kick out off-flavors if fermented in the 80's.

The yeast-derived flavors that I'm getting from these Lithuanian Farmhouse beers are real subtle. There is a little saison-like peppery flavor, and some citrusy lemony esters in these beers, but not overpowering at all, and in fact, I probably wouldn't notice these flavors if not "looking" for them.