No stout for St. Patrick's day....

It's my Sunday brewday, and today's homebrew is an oatmeal stout. I'm doing pretty good on my efficiency so instead of a regular dry stout, I've got a foreign export stout. With oats. But not a lot so I don't think that will change the beer and cause me to label it that way. Got a little crazy with the grain & hops, so for better or worse, here's the recipe:

Munton's 2 row, chocolate, black, roasted barley, crystal 60, dark wheat, US 6 row, oats, Munich, Target, UK Goldings, Challenger, Northdown and W. Yorkshire ale yeast. Whew....not my usual recipe, but I had a odd assortment of grain and hops to use up, so there it is. Too bad it won't be ready for St. Patty's but a nice stout in April will still be just fine.

Headslapper of the day (so far, but it's still early): Russert talking to Doris Kearns Goodwin and Maureen Dowd: "so who could have predicted 9-11?" And NOBODY corrects him!!!!!!!!!! WTF? Yo, Punkin' Head, have you ever heard of the August 6 pdb, Osama Bin Laden determined to attack the US? Maybe Rudy Giuliani, since the World Trade Towers had already been attacked, maybe he had a guess about that. Why don't you ask him? Although, since he had his emergency ops in the WTC, maybe not..............

I bottled my witbier this week. Did a little bottling day tinkering with it. It's very good, but maybe too clear. Very low final gravity, had to check it twice: 1.008 Nice delicate orange nose, very crisp and dry. I liked it quite a bit.

Now for something I haven't done here before. A beer tasting. A good friend was in Long Island and brought me back some Uerige Altbier. Just the regular, not the sticke or dubbelsticke. Which I've had and didn't really think much of. I like to brew/drink Dusseldorf style altbier and I've won a lot of ribbons for it, but other than a Diebels once, I've never had the real thing. So I'll think I'll open one up and taste it with an eye towards brewing one....

It's 4.5% alc/vol and a light/medium copper color. So, don't think you'd want to go over 1.048 OG. The color suggests a fair amount of Munich malt. The bottle says: wasser, Gerstenmalz, Caramelmalz, Rostmalz, Dolenhopfen, Uerige-hefe. So looks a little translation is necessary. I think that a blend of Munich/Pilsner malt, a fair bit of cara-red, maybe an ounce of carafa (the rostmalz) would get you there. It smells a bit long in the tooth, somewhat oxidized, but there is no hop aroma to speak of. Maltiness dominates the nose. There is just a bit of residual bitterness, more hop flavor in the mouth while I drink. So don't think I'd want to go over 40-45 IBU's. Of course, the color will be darkened by a decoction so I might instead go with a light Munich/pilsner/cara-hell/pinch of carafa blend and then do a 20 minute decoction for the extra intensity of maltiness/copper color. This is a tasty beer and I bet it goes down amazingly smooth in Dusseldorf. Gotta get there.......................