Thirsty Mallard Brewing Blog

I know I’ve been neglecting to update my blog and my site as much as I should.  Shame on me. 

 Ok, so the update on a few things…

The wedding beers were a pretty good success.  The German Amber Lager from the CIA Club brew-in was a BIG hit.  I think I will definitely be doing that one again.  The Cream Ale was good, but a little grassier than most BMC drinkers would like.  My cousin loved it.  The English Ale was waaaaay to English to be enjoyable for most (even me).  I think it needs a month or so to age some of the esters out.  It’s not bad, it’s just really young.

Next, I entered 4 beers into the Lunar Rendezbrew.  Among them was my Wee Heavy which I am pretty proud of.  I swear to everything I hold holy, if I get low scores in this competition, I’m done with competitions for a while.  After my weizenbock scored low at the Big Batch Brew Bash, I got pretty distraught. 

On the brew front, I have the ingredients for 2.5 gallons of a nice Belgian/American Pale (a Belgian Pale made with American hops).  And this weekend I need to brew some Scottish 70/- for a competition I am in.

Ok, that’s all for now.  I’m swear I’m going to update my What’s On Tap page of my website any day now.  I have to do it from work and I just keep forgetting.  If you really want to know, feel free to drop me a line and ask!

Oh, one last thing… a few local people that have found my website have been contacting me, which is awesome!  Hopefully one day I will have a few more local brewers to spend a brew day with!

Cheers!

My brewing has taken a hiatus over this summer (to my dismay).  Due to increased work load, family vacations, and the lovely Texas summer heat, I have postponed my brewdays (for shame).

On a plus side, this time off of brewing has given me time to try to start depleting supplies.  Honestly if I did brew I would have nowhere to put it… I have 4 full kegs in the kegerator and the shelf in there is filled with bottles.

 I have decided that my next brew will be a Scottish Ale.  I have had a few lately and grown quite fond of them. 

Hopefully I will have time to brew next week… although with Texans football season upon (guess who’s got season tickets!) my Sundays could get booked rather quickly. 

Still… must make time for brewing!

Looks like I will be entering my first local competition, the Lunar Rendezbrew in Clear Lake!  Since I don’t have to worry about the cost of shipping I am planning on entering more entries (whatever I have left). 

So, I am going to try to submit my Vanilla Porter, Duck Days of Summer Kolsch, American Amber, Not An Amber Blonde (if I have any left), and maybe a Cranberry Cider.

Wish me luck!

That’s right… I won my first award!

I won third place for my Bavarian Weizen at the Carolina Brewmasters U.S. Open with a score of 39! 

I am pretty stoked about my first ribbon and it has really lit a fire under me to brew more and compete more.  I will be framing this ribbon in a shadow box and displaying it proudly as my first recognition…

Hopefully more ribbons will come later! 

I sent off my Bavarian Weizen to two competitions.

The U.S. Open Homebrew Competition in Mooresville, North Carolina.

and

Spirit of Free Beer XV in Ashburn, Virginia

Both competitions go down on May 12th, so I hope to have results about a week or so after that.  We drank the weizen at the draft party and it was great!  Nice banana and clove character and a clean flavor from the pilsner malt.  I think the bitterness may have been just a touch too high, but nothing that took away from it.

I have 15 weizens in bottles that I have promised to give away to friends.  If you are a loyal blog reader, drop me a line and I will try to save one for you!

Wish me luck in my competitions!  Cheers!

I decided to take a step to make my homemade beer even more homemade… I’m going to grow some hops!

 Hop rhizome (root cuttings) just came in to the stores, so I bought one for Cascade hops.  Cascade is supposed to be very durable and love tons of sunlight (great for Texas summers).  Also, Cascade is one of my favorite hops to use in pale ales and IPAs… so I can’t wait for my first harvest!

 I will probably build the trellace this weekend.  I will post photos soon…

I was finally able to get the website functional and working!  Now I have more than just a brew blog!

 www.thirstymallard.net

In regards to my recently brewed batch of Scottish Export…

At the end of the boil, my immersion chiller broke, so I put the wort in the fridge to cool it while I ate some dinner. I got it cooled down, but far too low, I would say high 40’s to low 50’s.

I decide to pitch (Wyeast Scottish Ale) and put the carboy in my fermentation temp control rig (Igloo Ice Cube cooler) and plugged in the heater unit inside of it. Then I merrily went to clean up… then got tired and fell asleep.

Lo and behold, I forgot I plugged that bastard in. Two days later I walked to check it hoping to god that the cool garage may have kept it low… 93.6 F.

Needless to say, I think this beer is a goner. I did unplug the heater and for the sake of science I am going to let it sit for a few days… then give it a try. I doubt I will keep it… but at least I will have hands on experience on what flavor components are a result of high fermentation temperatures.

Who knows, maybe it will even be drinkable… but I doubt it.

You will recall that last week I brewed a “Robust Vanilla Porter” that turned out a little low on gravity…

Well I was checking my log and re-checking the numbers and I made a mistake… after some calibration and re-calculation, I found that my gravity was 1.060!  Much more respectable… so I was happy.

Maybe it won’t be a “Robust” porter… I am just dubbing it a Vanilla Porter.  I took a sample from the conical and it is tasty.  It has a way to go, but I love the subtle vanilla undertones I get from it already!

This past Sunday was the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) Annual Membership Rally at Saint Arnold Brewery. I signed up and paid my AHA dues and renewed my membership for 2 years.

The event was nice, but the only complaint I have is that these kinds of events tend to be a bit akward for me. I am a naturally shy person at first, so I don’t do well with meeting people or joining a homebrew club unless I am with someone I know. My good friend Mike used to go with me to these events, but he is currently over the pond for an internship. So in the meantime I am forced to find alternatives. I took my little brother from my fraterity with me. It was good to have a friend there, but it would be good to have brewing friends.

With no date (so to speak) I would have written the whole thing off and just paid my AHA fees online, however the great Charlie Papazian, the Brewfather, was going to be there and I will be damned if I wasn’t going to meet him and get his autograph!

“Jeff, Relax, don’t worry. Have a homebrew.”

Even if I had to go alone and be socially akward, I still would have gone just for that! He was a nice guy too. Very friendly and personable.