SleepySamSlim
Grandmaster Brewer
I think this is one of those things you either like it (or are interested) or you hate it.
Well we are smack in the middle of a 4 day Summer Brew Fest in Portland Oregon
http://www.oregonbrewfest.com/
We went in on the first day - Thursday and had a good round of samples. Before I knew it I had a decent buzz going and it was past lunch so we had a bite to eat (spicy South African). We hear word of some brewery with a couple of open kegs of beer dosed with bourbon -- free samples !
So here is my mistake --- I sent the wife instead of going myself. To be fair she likes beer and is into the brewing we're doing - but not as tuned in as I am. She brings back a full mug of some seriously dosed brew - which is actually pretty tasty. Actually very good - and I'm surprised to hear they used Makers Mark Bourbon ... because thats what I used in a recent batch of a basic brown ale. However its not clear which brewery did it ... she forgot - DOH.
So I was going for a hint of bourbon / oak taste on the this first round. I added 1 ounce of toasted French Oak cubes soaked in bourbon during the last week in the secondary. Then I added 2/3 a cup of bourbon to the final 5Gal of brew in the bottling bucket. It smelled strong during bottling. Its now been 2 weeks - so after our experience at the Brew Fest I sampled one tonight. You cannot smell the bourbon (as you could at the brew fest) but its presence is there - just a little extra layer of taste / complexity. It needs one more week to mellow a bit.
Will be fun to hand out some samples to my tasters (with no warning) and see what comments I get. I'm thinking a between 1.5 to 2 cups should be about right.
Brew On
Well we are smack in the middle of a 4 day Summer Brew Fest in Portland Oregon
http://www.oregonbrewfest.com/
We went in on the first day - Thursday and had a good round of samples. Before I knew it I had a decent buzz going and it was past lunch so we had a bite to eat (spicy South African). We hear word of some brewery with a couple of open kegs of beer dosed with bourbon -- free samples !
So here is my mistake --- I sent the wife instead of going myself. To be fair she likes beer and is into the brewing we're doing - but not as tuned in as I am. She brings back a full mug of some seriously dosed brew - which is actually pretty tasty. Actually very good - and I'm surprised to hear they used Makers Mark Bourbon ... because thats what I used in a recent batch of a basic brown ale. However its not clear which brewery did it ... she forgot - DOH.
So I was going for a hint of bourbon / oak taste on the this first round. I added 1 ounce of toasted French Oak cubes soaked in bourbon during the last week in the secondary. Then I added 2/3 a cup of bourbon to the final 5Gal of brew in the bottling bucket. It smelled strong during bottling. Its now been 2 weeks - so after our experience at the Brew Fest I sampled one tonight. You cannot smell the bourbon (as you could at the brew fest) but its presence is there - just a little extra layer of taste / complexity. It needs one more week to mellow a bit.
Will be fun to hand out some samples to my tasters (with no warning) and see what comments I get. I'm thinking a between 1.5 to 2 cups should be about right.
Brew On