Dick’s Danger Ale

Product of Dick's Brewing Co., Centralia, WA - a true microbrew

My First Dick’s Danger Ale

• Nice fruity aroma in the bottle, promise of good things to come
• Very even pour – Not too much carbonation, a little silt visible in the stream (real beer), quarter inch head when chilled and poured against the side of the glass
• First smell – again fruity bouquet but with a definite hoppy element
• First taste – sweet, full bodied taste turning to a dusty dry middle with a pleasant bitters towards the end
• While drinking – goes down easy. My lips are a tad sticky. I can smell the hops when I breathe out. As I swallow there almost a citrussy taste. This is definitely a dark ale and I don’t want another sip for a while after taking one. This would be great with a burger and fries or a plate of pasta and white sauce.
• The bubbles rise constantly to the surface but rarely break it, like a good cream stout, contributing to the sweet start
• This beer has a high alcohol content but is sweet without being malty
• Halfway through the sweet smell has turned nutty
• Definitely a sipping beer, acerbic without being bitter
• Last mouthful leaves me looking at a glass with a lot of sticky foam left behind. Very nice.

Stout1

Pics to be found over at my main blog:

April 15^th, Stout1

Stout1, like Porter1, and Pale Ale1 are all recipes put together for me by the guy at the brewing supply place. I told him I just wanted one of each to get my feet wet with, so to speak. I’ll start looking for other recipes and trying my own innovations after I do several more of these beginner batches.

Ingredients:

Two bags of powdered malt

8 0z. Crystal barley

8 oz Other barley

2 oz fuggle hop pellet

Steeped 30 min. Tried to bring it to boil quickly like I did with Pale Ale1 and it boiled over. I cut the heat quickly and only lost about 3-4 ounces. Added half the hops at the beginning and half about 5 minutes before the end of the sixty minute boil. I was out of ice after Pale Ale1 so I just put three gallons of super cold water in the carboy that received the boiling wort. Like with Pale Ale1 I then topped off the carboy with additional cold water to bring it up to 5 gallons. Batch was at about 55 degrees so I added the yeast immediately and sealed it off with a burp tube running into a 2 liter bottle. It has been continuously bubbling since several hours after that but no burping yet.

Pale Ale1

Pics to be found over at my main blog:

April 15^th, Pale Ale1

This was my first batch I have brewed since my rather disastrous attempts 10 years ago. All in all phase 1 went pretty well. Unfortunately I forgot to write down what cracked barley I used. Derr!

Ingredients:

6 pounds light Malt Extract

12 oz. crystal barley

2 oz. Cascade pellet hops

I steeped the barley for a little over an hour on the kitchen stove at about 160. I hadn’t planned on more than 30 minutes of steeping, but it took me longer that I had anticipated to get set up for boiling. Within the first five to ten minutes of the boil, I got it up to a fine rolling boil and kept it there for about an hour and five minutes of total boil time. Half the hops went in at the start, a quarter in the middle, and the rest about two minutes before mixing with the cold water. Kyle said you want to cool the wort as quickly as possible so I measured the three gallon mark on the side of the primary, put in about 10 trays of ice cubes and one bag of crushed commercial ice and then filled in around the ice with water I cooled to just about freezing in the reefer. When I poured in the hot water, it didn’t come anywhere near melting all the ice – maybe half of it. I wonder it what I did was overkill? I added the yeast while there was still big chunks of ice. Hopefully that won’t matter. Sealed it with a fermentation lock. Temp. holding steady in the warming bath at about 60. I may have to get a second heater. It’s a two carboy heater.