Vital Statistics:
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Recipe: 16 lb 2-row pale malt 2 lb flaked barley 2 lb chocolate malt 12 oz black patent malt 8 oz black barley 16 AAU (34g @ 13% AA) Nugget @ 60 Wyeast 1028 - London Ale | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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General Notes: Used a yeast starter. There were several disasters with this beer, including breaking the mash tun and shattering a hydrometer at an inopportune moment. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Tasting Notes: Tasting notes taken 18 January 2011. Dispensed from keg into a pint glass. Appearance: unequivocal, inscrutable black with a thick finger of creamy dark brown foam which dissipated over a couple of minutes. Getting these black beers to look good is simply no challenge at all, but I admit I would have liked a bit more head retention. (4) Smell: deep mocha-chocolate aroma which is neither especially complex nor particularly flawed. The smell is positively creamy and extremely enticing; a sweet finish complements the fact that there are no harsh edges here. If all my porters and stouts smelled this good, I would be exceedingly happy. (4.5) Taste: rich coffee flavor comes through a lightly fruity foretaste and finishes with a strong roasty bitterness. Some chocolate remains, and toward the end a vegetabley hop bitterness comes through. While some imperfections remain (hops could be more on the bitter side and less on the flavor side, and brash roast could be toned down a little), this might be the best-tasting beer I've ever concocted. (4) Mouthfeel: texture is silky-smooth with a nicely well-integrated carbonation filling out a medium-rich body. This beer could use a little bit more body, and with my next RIS I might try boiling down some first runnings as I did with Backbreaker Wee Heavy; still, the texture of this is really nice. This may be my best-textured kegged beer. (4) Drinkability: strong and smooth, with some rough patches at the end. These imperfections just make me want to take another sip so I can sample that heavenly introduction -- a serious boon to drinkability. I think with just a few tweaks in recipe and process (and fewer brewing disasters), this could become a downright fantastic recipe. (4) Overall score 4.1 (A-). By rating, this is the best beer I've made, and that is held down to the aroma. I could seriously wax rhapsodic about this aroma. Overall, though, the beer is excellent, and I look forward to tweaking this recipe and implementing another five-year plan. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hops Table
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Competitions Entered
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