Its coming up to another busy part of the brewing season. The fall

brewing of the winter supply. I need two kegs of an “everyday” beer on

hand, plus my usual October brewing of the Black Feather stout. And

because we have not brewed much this summer, we will need to get on

some TitleTown Open entries.

As far as my on hand, over winter beer, I think we are going to go a

bit bigger than last years Scottish 60's. While all tasty and such, at

a mere 3% they were too weak for the cold basement of winter. I wanna

keep it in the 4-5% range. I was hoping to do a 10 gallon batch, but I

miss the actuall brewing part, so will do two seperate ones. Have been

chasing recipes, but I think I have settled on DrWhovian (British

Bitter) and Eversong Ale (cream ale). Both ultra basic recipes that

really show off what thier respective style really is about. And both

are beers I have have been wanting to remake.

The annual brewing of the Black Feather stout is something I look

forward to. Especially this year. This beer is the first beer that I

created just for the TitleTown open. The recipe is as it is to play

specificly to the judges. As we all know that these contests are more

about giving the judges what “they” consider style, rather than what

“you” consider style. Its a game. no more no less. But enough of that.

My Black Feather is an American Stout, and what makes this year stick

out is that Titletown gave out gallons and gallons and gallons of

stout wort this year, and I got the feeling that the stout category is

going to be huge this year, and will take a beer that really stands

out to do good this year. So far I have two seconds with this beer.

Last years version took a ribbon as well, but I was not happy with it

what so ever. I had changed up the recipe a bit, and it was no where

near as good as the previous batches. So we will be back to the

original and see who she fares against a full field.

I have been pondering doing more of the mini batches this fall and

winter. I like doing the minis 'cause I can still use my every day

equipment with out any change in procedure, yet experiment a bit more

on flavors with out wasting a ton of money. And now that I have my

mill ordered I can drop that price even further.