Ever heard of Patersbier? Can’t blame you, not many people have, there are no commercial versions. This beer is only brewed for the Trappist monks as a lower abv beer. Since I’d never heard of this beer, I bought an All Grain Kit from Norther Brewer, because it sounded like a great summer beer. But alas, like most kits I buy I can’t leave well enough alone, I need to make it my own…

(more…)

I don’t know why this style of beer is not made more often in the states.  This beer is a light bodied with a low bitterness, but dark in color and full of malty flavor.  The best part of this malty beer, very low ABV 4.3%.  That’s right a real flavorful session beer.

(more…)

This was one of my favorite beers I’ve brewed this year.  I know the Peanut Butter Porter and Black Cherry Stout were popular, but there is something to be said for a very simple style of beer, done well.  In German “Dunkel” means dark and “Weizen” is wheat, Dark Wheat.  What you have is a maltier and darker wheat beer.  I really love this style of beer and while it is simple to make, it is harder to do well.  I think this is a great recipe, and highly recommend using the liquid yeast, but be warned it can be extremely active.

(more…)

I was looking through my beer cellar today, not sure what I was really looking for.  Being a warm  day in Jersey I was kind of surprised when I picked out the Troegs Mad Elf Holiday ale;  this is an 11% ABV beer brewed with cherries and honey.  As I was reading the label, I thought that the cherries and honey in this beer plus the alcohol might make for a pretty good steak marinade.

(more…)

I made this beer on a whim, had the ingredients and a basic porter recipe.  I  monkeyed around with the ingredients list till I got what I think might be a good or at least interesting beer.

(more…)

I got my liter starter going around 8am or so, got 10.5 lbs of grain ground with the world’s worst and slowest grain crusher.  This thing is so bad if I go slow it makes powder it I go to fast it doesn’t crush, you have to find the optimum handle rotation to get the grain crushed right.  After what seemed like the longest 40 minutes of crushing grain, the brewing was going to have to wait, family day.

(more…)