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.

The second overhaul of the brewery has begun.

Earlier this year we brought in a new mashtun. I actually had it for a

while, but had never gotten around to setting it up. I really had no

need to. My system was perfectly fine. Decent efficiency, perfectly

designed for the breweries other equipment and very predictable in

nearly every stat.

Changing any of this never crossed my mind. Some damn fine beers have

been made with this “old” equipment.

But sometime somewhere I got persuaded (not sure persuaded is what I'm

looking for) to “upgrade”. At first I was pretty steadfast in keeping

my tried and true system. But the lure of shiney things, faster

things, automated things and popular techniques snuck up one me.

Before I knew what was going on I was changing equipment, changing

procedures, changing things that not aught to changed. And really, I

knew better.

I started brewing for speed, for quantity. No longer because it was

fun. Cheating my processes that have always worked just so I could get

in an extra batch, or so I could have more variaties on hand.

On top of that, the new eq has not proved to be reliable. Results all

over the map.

Add all of this together and we get not only a brewer that is edgy,

but beer that no longer is worth his time brewing. And I'm not sure

what make me feel worse. The fact that I put 9stripes name on shitty

beers, or that it took me so long to realise this and come to this

decision.

We are reverting back to our old set up. We are going to brew the way

I know we should brew.

More hands on again. More relying on MY carefully collected stats. My

techniques. Things that work for me and my system.

I am not saying my way is the only way, or the best way. Or that I

will not continue to learn or improve. Far from it. But I will not

shortcut quality just to follow the crowd.

Well all know its easy to make beer, but we forget its far easier to make shit

Getting ready to brew again. Just kegged up the Wiki’d ale  now starting the Brewfest Beer. A slight mod on the Vienna/Spalt Smash.