Barrels become gallons and pounds become ounces, and you can pretty much just adjust recipe percentages and see how it comes out. We went out of our way to cross every 'T' today with our brewhouse calculations and document every aspect. Having been out of professional brewing for many years, I'm a bit rusty but have a couple good Excel spreadsheets that I rely on. Jim on the other hand is sharp as a tack and likes to do everything longhand showing his work like my fifth grade math teacher wanted me to.
First up we brewed Cross of Gold which will be the lightest colored regular offering but it won't be no slouch. It's an American Golden Ale, sometimes called a Blonde Ale. BJCP Style 6b if you are wondering. And while I'm mentioning the Beer Judge Certification Program, here's a plug for their neat iPhone app which I just downloaded. Jim and I used to brew a Blonde at Goose Fulton, but they don't make it there anymore in the age of 312. Our recipe has some similarities to that one and is intended to be dry but with a noticeable hop aroma. Goose used the "clean with a touch of spicy" Mt. Hood hops, but were going with more of a classic American microbrew aroma with some late Cascades and a delicate dry hop to be determined. It's pretty low on the bitterness side and will be around 5.5% alcohol by volume. Today's batch came out of the kettle at 13.5 degrees Plato, a touch higher than we wanted because the basement system's efficiency was a little better than expected.
Our second batch of the day was Iron Fist Pale Ale our soon-to-be have-it-around-all-the-time standby. It clocked in at 16 Plato and Jim was real happy with the color. Here he is adding some Summit hops with a smile:
Jim also came up with the fun name for this one, which he was quick to point out is also a Motorhead song. Mickhail Burton gets credit for naming Cross of Gold and Quenchers' IPA Fest gets credit for getting us tipsy enough to decide to name a beer after a famous speech from 1896 (by a prohibitionist no less). Well with many folks suffering these days from a new economic malaise, the name makes sense to me. On many levels. Sure the speech was made in Chicago, that's just gravy. The connection he makes between cities and farms still stands out to me still today as does the way he makes monetary policy real for the working man. A few years ago I made it through reading William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis, which is all about Chicago's growth being connected with nearby farmland and natural resources. Good for a long summer vacation read for all you farmers market going policy wonks out there.
Rod's Fucking Golden Ale has a good ring to it too, but somehow it just isn't as timeless.