Wick's Home Brew
The ole lady and I along with another couple went to the Suds of the South beer fest in Tuscaloosa, AL in March. Great! Great! event I must say. Had a handful of southeastern brewers there. Lazy Magnolia (Kiln, MS), Terrapin Beer Company (Athens, GA), Sweetwater Brewery (Atlanta, GA), Good People Brewing (Birmingham, AL), Back Forty Beer (Birmingham, AL), Highland Brewing Company (Asheville, NC), Abita (Abita Springs, LA) and Yazoo Brewing Company (Nashville TN). It was limited to 200 people. So we bought our tickets and headed on over to Bama country. I got a chance to pick the brains of the brewers there and actually talk to them about their beer. The only beer I drank that night that I did not enjoy was Yazoo’s smoked porter. I think I will limit my smokiness to only meats. It tasted like my smoker as I am smoking some ribs or a pork butt. All their other beers, GREAT! This was my first beer event and now I am itching for more. I am planning on going to the Magic City Brewfest in June. That will be a busy couple weeks for me. Ahh well, I can handle it.
So anyways, on to the home brew. The reason I chose this kit is because the ole lady really liked Yazoo’s Hefeweizen. I found a kit on Midwest Supplies and ordered it up. The target OG for this batch was suppose to be around 1.049 to 1.053. So I got my hydrometer out and measured it and it was sitting around 1.070 after I adjusted for temperature. Not that I was worried, this just means it will have higher alcohol content.
Looking at the Northern Brewer catalog I stumbled upon a sweet stout kit. Having become found of some stouts I decided this would be batch number two. It is suppose to have a creamy mouth feel, nice chocolaty body. A great after dinner beer. I was able to bottle 44 of them and have drank two of them. Not to shabby if I say so myself.
The recipe for my first batch of my very own home brew was intended to be a Fat Tire clone. Well, I do not believe that has happened. With the chocolate malts that were steeped into the beer it made for a mighty dark beer. When I first watched this process happen in July when we brewed up this recipe it sure enough smelled like a Fat Tire, but it did not look like one. Who says looks matter? Well, taste testing the two beers, the home brew was smoother and sweeter and didn’t have a tangy bite to it. So when I decided that I wanted to delve into the home brew industry I decided this would be my first batch to brew up. So I ordered all the ingredients. Well I guess I was confused on what type of chocolate malt grains to buy. So I bought two different kinds, pale chocolate and chocolate wheat. Well, they both smell outstanding. So after talking it over, it was decided to just use both grains.
