XMas Ales and Ribeye Roast

For various reasons, the "SheppyBrew Christmas Dinner" was on the 23rd this year.

If you've been following along for awhile, you may have figured out that one of my favorite things to make on holidays is Ribeye Roast.

I only really get it when there are holiday sales for them at our local grocery stores. This often happens around Christmas, and I picked up one on sale this year to make.

Another thing you probably know if you've been following this blog for awhile is that every year (since I started brewing way back in 2009) I brew an "X-Mas Ale".

Back when I bottled most of my beers, I always saved 6 or so bottles to do vertical tastings in future years. Now that I keg, I have pretty much gotten away from that, but I still have some older "X-Mas Ale" bottles in my fridge.

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

Butt and Biking

If you look at this blog, you'll see that I smoked Port Butt quite often.

Out of all the meat I BBQ, I have probably posted more about Port Butt than anything else ... although I suspect that I've actually cooked chicken thighs more on my various grills.

My kids are home on Christmas break from their colleges, so with more mouths to feed, I thought I'd make a big piece of meat this past weekend.

Port Butt is what I ended up making. 

One of the nice things about Port Butt is that it is something that doesn't require constant attention to make.

I tend to use a modified snake method, which if set up correctly means that I can just let the kettle cook for several hours.

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.

F is for Fiction Beer Company Chapter Two

It seems likes it's been quite awhile since we've done anything with our A to Z Breweries Series of Posts.

I posted E is for El Rancho Colorado over a month ago, which isn't THAT long ago, but for whatever reason, it seemed like longer ago than I guess it was.

Anyway ... this past weekend, the SheppyBrew Beer Model and I decided to hit another brewery for lunch.

Time for an "F" brewery.

Once we eliminate the "F" breweries we've been to already (see A to Z Denver Breweries Round 4) ...

I thought there was one obvious choice on the Colorado Brewery Map & List.

F is for Fiction Beer Company Chapter Two

Decemberfest Lager (Batch 348)

December already? Where did 2023 go?

Seems like I just submitted the first 2023 post recently.

I suppose I'm just getting old enough that time flies by faster and faster.

Anyway ... 

I brewed my 23rd batch of beer of the year Sunday. I believe this will be my last batch of beer for the year.

It was the 348th batch of beer I've ever brewed.

I have brewed this beer (with minor recipe modifications) 3 times now.

It is a nice December Seasonal lager.

Decemberfest Lager

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.

X-Mas Ale 2023 (Batch 347)

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

They have all been similar base beers ... a malty winter warmer ... with various flavorings.

I've done everything from Almond Vanilla Cinnamon Cloves (2009) to just the base beer (2015).

I've used Smoked malt, Peppermint, Peanut Butter, Cherry Pomegranate, and other flavorings.

If you're interested, there are links to every single recipe on X-Mas Ales 2009 - 2023.

Towards the beginning of 2023, I realized that I had not brewed beers in every category of the 2021 BJCP Guidelines (see Sheppy's Blog: I lied), and I thought that Category 33 - Wood Beer would make a good X-Mas Ale.

X-Mas Ale 2023

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 ...

2023 Thanksgiving Turkey

If you've been following along on my blog, you already knew that ...

1) I was going to smoke a turkey for Thanksgiving. 

2) I was planning on Spatchcocking and halving it on my weber kettle. 

3) I was going to use Crack as my spicing.

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving, and I did indeed smoke a spatchcocked turkey on my Weber kettle and spiced it with Crack.

Since 2018, which was the year I started becoming obsessed with BBQ, I've been in charge of making the Thanksgiving turkey outside on my smoker.

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.

 

Chicken Crack

You might remember in Humdinger of a Brisket, that I went down a little rabbit hole that included hitting my 2020 Thanksgiving Turkey post.

I had used Crack Seasoning on that Turkey, and I remember liking it quite a bit.

I decided to track some down and grabbed some for this year's Thanksgiving Turkey.

As I was ordering the spice, I saw they now have "Spicy Crack Seasoning", and I picked some of that up along with the "Original Crack Seasoning".

I had to try it out, and I had planned to cook a chicken, so I used the Spicy Crack Seasoning on my chicken last Sunday.

Humdinger of a Brisket

Soooo ... As I am typing this post, I just went through a weird rabbit trail to realize I had not posted my latest Brisket cook ...

I just picked up "Crack" because I remembered that I really enjoyed it on my 2020 Thanksgiving Turkey.

As I was looking through Turkey posts on this blog, I started looking through Smoked posts.

At some point ... I started looking through Brisket posts, and saw that my last one was my Easter Brisket from earlier this year.

I thought that was weird ... because I knew I had cooked a brisket much more recently than that. 

In fact, I cooked one just on the 29th, which as I type this, was Sunday of last week.

I cooked one on my Humdinger of a Hootenanny (Batch 345) brew day. I'm absolutely sure I intended to blog about it. But, I have not. Yet. Until now.

Smoked Chicken Bombs

I subscribe to and watch various BBQ Youtube channels. One of my favorites is Hey Grill Hey.

Recently, Susie had a video called Amazing Smoked Chicken Bombs with a cheesy jalapeno center! So easy anyone can can do it!.

 

Golly Jeepers Wild Mango Ale (Batch 346)

If you read Roll-a-Style 13 ... Wild Specialty Beer, you know that Saturday was Learn to Homebrew Day, and that I brewed Golly Jeepers Wild Mango Ale.

My friend "Doc" wanted to host another brew day, so I headed over to his "brewery".

Generally, when I "Travel Brew", I like to start my mash at home and let it convert during the drive over. Then, when I arrive I can just transfer to a boil kettle and therefore have a head-start.

I do this in my old-style gott cooler / propane burner system.

But, my friend "Du" also was heading over, and he asked to use a propane burner and boil kettle.

E is for El Rancho Colorado

We're well on our way through round 5 of A to Z Breweries Series of Posts.

A is for AC Golden Tank Room

B is for Black Shirt Brewing Company

C is for Cannonball Creek Brewing Company

D is for Diebolt Brewing Company

So far, so good. No issues at all filling out the alphabet.

As you probably can figure out, it is time to get to something that starts with the letter "E". Unlike the past couple of letters, we only really had one choice ....

E is for El Rancho Colorado

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

Another Chicken Spatchcocked and Halved

Well ... in Chicken Spatchcocked and Halved, I mentioned that I wanted to try the technique again.

Just as a reminder ... the "new" chicken technique was to Spatchcock the bird, cut it in half and cook it as two halves of a chicken.

It turned out nicely the first time I did it, and I had another bird to cook this past weekend, so I tried it again.

Last time, the only change I thought I needed to make was to give myself a little more time.

So ... last Saturday, I got the Weber Kettle fired up in time to cook a little less than 2 hours.

I started earlier in the day by cutting out the backbone and dry brining the chicken. I then let it sit in the fridge for a few hours.

D is for Diebolt Brewing Company

As you know if you've been following along with the A to Z Breweries Series of Posts ... the Beer Model and I have started a 5th round through the alphabet.

We started our 5th round a couple months ago with A is for AC Golden Tank Room.

We continued earlier this month with B is for Black Shirt Brewing Company, and then followed up with C is for Cannonball Creek Brewing Company.

D is another letter that has still has a few choices.

As it turns out, the SheppyBrew Beer Model (aka my wife) and I had the same brewery in mind for our "D" brewery ...

D is for Diebolt Brewing Company