Update - February

When I got back from my Christmas Break, I had a bunch of ideas to post about, mostly reviews, and some stuff focused on homebrewing equipment. I've sort of become uninspired by the beer review thing. I still like to try new beers, but I'm tired of buying pale ales and reviewing them. I mean there are a lot of pale ales out there that are great, and worth mentioning, but there's nothing really new going on with the style.

Part of the reason is that I think the last beer I bought was a sixer of Shiner Black to share with my friend, John, on Christmas Eve. I still have at least one of those in the fridge. Mostly, I've been focused on putting recipes into ProMash, going back and re-reading my Brew Your Own magazines and throwing the recipes that look interesting into ProMash for later inspiration.

I started out the year making a schedule of beers that I wanted to make. I haven't done a good job sticking to that list. I was going to knock out one beer a month, starting with a Smoked Porter, followed by the Rocka Rolla Amber that I cloned from Magic Hat's Roxy Rolles ale, and in March, make the Pilsner I made last fall, only with all-grain

Instead, I focused on building a Mash Tun, which I will post an article about after I brew this weekend, and I just finished building a fly-sparge arm, which will also be included in that article. Then I had to remake the Jinx.

I decided to remake the Jinx (I decided to call mine Samhain Ale - which I believe was a Pagan celebration of Fall, as well as Glen Danzig's band after the Misfits and before Danzig) because I wasn't satisfied with the more malty version I created in 2008, I had the hops to make it, and I was interested in making something with Marris Otter malt. I've tried it out of the fermenter, and it appears to be very good. By the time I post this, it will be bottled and ready in 3 weeks.

After brewing the Jinx, I decided to utilize my conical fermenter. It's got a valve at the bottom of the cone, where you empty the trub and yeast that is done fermenting. So I read a couple of articles online about re-using the yeast, after another homebrewer I talked to, named Tom, re-used his yeast on two batches of his Sierra Nevada Pale clone.

So I thought that I could use this yeast to make 2 more brews, both Magic Hat clones, the Rocka Rolla, and a version of the Magic Hat #9, which I will call 9.5 Weeks. It appears that Magic Hat uses some generic English Ale yeast for all of these beers, so I figured I would try it to see how regenerating yeast worked.

The obvious choice would have been to do the Rocka Rolla, since I already have 2/3 of the hops for it. However, I got so interested in the #9, and thought it would be nice for my wife to have some beer, AND thought that if the yeast was weak (I will make a starter), the #9 had a low enough gravity that it would probably be the better choice.

So I'm making the 9.5 Weeks on Saturday.

Then, on Sunday, Shoreline is having the Mug Club Chili Cookoff.

Rocka Rolla Woman for a Rocka Rolla Man

Here's another Magic Hat beer that was a pleasant surprise. The Roxy Rolles smells so good, I thought that maybe I mis-judged amber ales altogether. While that might be a little out of hand, this is really a good beer.

In fact, it is so good, that I thought I would like to clone this and keep some around. The ingredients from the Magic Hat page are simple: Pale malt, Caramunich, and crystal malt. With an ABV of 5.1% and the gravity of 14.5 Plato (1.059 SG), I determined that the FG would be 1.022. Is that right? I would think you could get the FG down to at least 1.016, if not 1.012. Maybe my ABV calculator spreadsheet is incorrect. If anyone has a simple method of determining ABV from OG and FG, that would be helpful. I'm using two equations to get there.

It would appear from this fellow beer blogger, that they have changed the recipe, though. Looking at the hop profile, which is 20 IBU, the same as the Jinx, I was kind of confused. They use CTZ hops in the jinx, and Brewer's Gold and Simcoe for the hop profile on the Roxy Rolles. It only takes about 0.75 oz BG hops and 0.25 oz of Simcoe (at 15 minutes) to go over 20 IBU. Then I remembered how hoppy the aroma was and thought maybe they dry-hopped the beer with Simcoe. The above article confirms this. Also, I can make more sense with the older recipe's IBUs.

Rocka Rolla Ale (a Magic Hat Roxy Rolles clone - sorta)
5 gallon boil

8.0 lbs Pale Malt
2.0 lbs Crystal Malt 90*L
1.0 lbs Caramunich

1.00 oz Brewer's Gold @ 60 min.
0.25 oz Simcoe @ 15 min.
0.50 oz Simcoe dry hop in secondary

California Ale V Yeast

O Gravity: 1.058
IBU: 35
SRM: 23

I went with the California Ale V yeast because I like the American style yeast more for hoppy beers. I will check how my Jinx clone turns out, though, and if I like the London Ale yeast, I will go with that. Oh, and the name of the beer is a play on the original as well as the title of a Judas Priest song and album.