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Sunday, November 13, 2011

Burly Fire

The Vermont Pub & Brewery has been having these small batch/experimental beers every Monday, and with all of my BJCP exam studying, I have been getting really sick of looking and analyzing styles, so I came up with a few really bizarre beers.  I had met one of the guys from VPB this summer at the VT Brewers Festival, so I threw the idea out to him about collaborating for one of these small batches, and they seemed to like an idea I had about a hot wing beer, which is basically a smoked beer with an ancho pepper in 2nd, along with a healthy dose of fruity american hops.  We met recently and hashed out a recipe, I decided to push to make it more of a fire beer than hot wing since no smoke will taste like chicken.  They also had smoked chipotle peppers that were really nice so we're going with those.  When discussing a base beer, I thought their Burly, an Irish Red, would be good.  It has a nice malty backbone that smoke and heat could pair well with, and Irish Reds sometimes have a diacetyl which could aid in a buttery character that is a major component in wing sauce.  Planning on brewing in December with a January release, should be interesting!

RECIPE:
I think we're shooting for a 10 gallon batch (12 brewed, 10 into kegs), and this is what we have so far:
Batch #42
60% Pale Malt
30% Beechwood smoked malt
8% Crystal (not sure what L yet)
2% Roasted Barley
3 oz Citra pellets (60)
4 oz Amarillo (0)
X oz Citra/Amarillo (dry hop)
2 Yeasts: 1) Wyeast Denny's Fav & 2) VPB House yeast
Smoked/dried chipotle peppers in 2nd (not sure how much yet)

12/10 - BREWDAY
Brewday set for Sat. 12/10.
More later!




3 comments:

  1. I did a great Chilli Ale myself with Birds-eye chilli's which were added in the boil with the aroma hop addition.

    I WAS going to add Raunch malt for that Aussie bushfire experience - but chickened out in the end.

    I had trouble trying to convert chipotle and haberino peppers to Birds-eye (which is what we have here in Australia) - Worked out that whatever chilli you are using should *total* about 900,000 on the scoville scale for a nice gentle after burn.

    Let us know how yours goes when the results are in.

    Nice blog - Have you done your Dunkelweizen again?

    - Jeremy Chilvers (Sydney Australia)

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    1. Jeremy... just now seeing this. Thanks for the comment. This turned out way way better than expected. With room to improve. The dry-hopped citra added a huge wafting aroma of mango & pineapple, as that faded away the smoke slowly came out. The pepper was not noticeable until half-way through the beer, when you got a warming feeling in your chest and throat. Never was too hot, too smoky, or anything. It always left me wanting more. It panned out around 5%, so it was a nice really easy drinker. I will definitely do this one again! I haven't done the dunkelweizen again, I want to really tweek the recipe to get what I want. If I do, it will be here. Thanks again.

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