December 18th - Mohr Brewing Company The Mohr The Merrier!!

For the last 4 years I've enjoyed, reviewed, and critiqued other professional brewers creations via this blog.  This year marks the first time in over 100 reviews that I've decided to throw myself out there and critique my own creation.  I've definitely rated my beers before, but I haven't taken the time to write down notes, especially for all to see.  

Just not when it comes to making beer!

My home brewing journey started at least 5 or 6 years ago, when my wife got me a standard kit as a Christmas gift.  I remember standing out in the cold, not knowing what I was doing as I brewed my first beer, a double IPA.  I didn't really know much about the style, let alone how to brew it on that cold January weekend day.  However, I think I created something that had some alcoholic content in it.  I even got fancy and decided to rename it and create labels for it to share with my friends.

The original label from the DIPA

In the brew days to come, I brewed many a different style.  One of my first self-proclaimed good brews was a raspberry wheat beer, which with just adding some frozen raspberries to the fermentation process came out pretty good.  After that I brewed a Belgian IPA that somehow managed to get a bee in the boil.  I didn't find it until I was ready to bottle.  Don't worry, no one (to my knowledge) got sick from it.  I bet the alcohol staved off any potential infection!

Appropriately named I do believe

Zoomed in view of the label... 1/2

2/2 ...back when my writing was short and concise! 

Taking a recipe from Sam Calagione, founder of Dog Fish Head Brewing in Maryland, I found a clone of the DFH Raison D'Etre, a Belgian style beer brewed with raisins in a home brewing book that was a Christmas gift.  That beer, by far, was one of my wife's favorite beers from them which, unfortunately is no longer produced.  I don't think she enjoyed any of them since I kept them for myself.

Very sneaky indeed...

Dabbling in less than 5 batches a year, one my favorite recipes that I've tweaked from just a wheat style beer at first to an IPA that actually works for my palate is my cucumber brew.  A few summers ago, the Selinsgrove Brewfest, which brings to town local craft brewers from across the region, hosted their annual event.  Just up the street, towards the end of the fest was Voodoo Brewery out of the Pittsburgh area.  They brought a cucumber beer that I was skeptical of, but after that first sip grew very fond of.  Their name was pretty neat too, especially since they had some fun with it and made you order it by the full name before slinging you a 4 ounce sample.  Some People Say Cucumbers Taste Better Pickled was the name.  Quite a mouthful for sure.

I wasn't going to...but come on!  This is too perfect not to.

It took me another year or so to figure out, "why the heck couldn't I do that?  I mean, worst case scenario is that I'll create something with some sort of alcohol content, right?"

I searched online on some home brew forums to see if anyone else took on this task, and it turned out I was not the only one longing for a cucumber beer.  I even found a friend locally who equally enjoys this style and keeps me up to date on where he's seen the style in his travels.  Long story short, and for the sake of length and time, I really take pride in creating this beer a few times during the spring and summer seasons.  It's safe to say that they are the flagship beers for Mohr Brewing Company.  I Need Mohr Cucumber!! and One Mohr Taste of Summer are decently rated by my friends on Untappd.  More on that later.

Lately, in lieu of labelling everything because that got expensive pretty quickly, I've had some fun adding my last name into the beer names when possible.  You clearly see two above, and the name Mohr Cowbell has been thrown out there.  That one almost has to be reserved for a milk stout of some sort.

One of the challenges that I face during home brewing is that I'm only able to brew extract batches.  Albeit a choice, I don't have the time nor the equipment to scale things to all-grain batches.  Honestly, I'm OK with that in the grand scheme of things.  Someday I may get to that point, but I just don't brew that often enough to make it worth my while at the moment.  I'm sure a lot of you are wondering why that's even an issue.  The problem is that I can't get the specific flavors from the grains I want all the time, even if I knew what I was doing entirely.  The extract brewing process takes slightly shorter time because I purchase either a dry or liquid malt extract base instead of taking an additional 1-2 hours with mashing in the grains and sparging (running water through) an all-grain batch to get what you need to brew.  A typical brew day from start to finish (clean-up) is a 3-4 hour ordeal.

The second challenge is that I'm always partial to my own stuff while being overly critical at the same time.  That's a thing, right?

Without being mistaken for sounding conceited, I'll be the first one to tell you if something I brew isn't good.  However, for my own palate, there have only been a handful of my own recipes (borrowed from another source, and tweaked in most cases) that I really wasn't fond of.  I tried my hand at a tripel one time early in my "brewing career" that exploded all over my brewing kitchen during the fermentation process.  That one didn't turn out as expected, obviously. 

My friends I share with also probably don't want to be too critical of me, and I understand that too.  I can take the criticism if given.  Some of the guys that I coach with have given me borderline brutal feedback before, and I take it at face value.  My stuff was OK for me, but not their style.  If I were more of a professional brewer, I'd want to use that feedback to tweak recipes to please the masses.  For the time being, as long as they enjoy it (or even if they just pretend) that's good enough for me.

Tonight, it's time to be a tad more critical.  I'll do my best to be as biased as possible.  If you'd like to compare your notes to mine, just reach out and let me know if you'd like to try it.  I'm always up for sharing my stuff with other people who enjoy a beer.  Also, if you're a home brewer reading this, I'll put my own recipe at the bottom if you'd like to try your hand at it sometime as well.  

Poured into my custom "Bryan's Home Brew" pint glass, (not that you can see it unless you're looking for it) was a deep mahogany brown color with little to no head at the top.  I'm still not certain this is ready to drink just yet.  I did have a bottle this weekend that was pretty carbonated, but I'm not sure about this particular one.

The aroma was sweet ginger and spices.  Very pleasant indeed.  There was some sweet sticky malts and molasses notes along with some slight chocolate malt hints.

The first taste of this particular bottle was sweet, yet bitter molasses.  Unfortunately, the body for this beer isn't what I shot for.  It's not too shabby, but I wanted more of a heavier body, especially for an imperial stout at nearly 8% ABV.  Again, there wasn't too much carbonation here in the mouthfeel either.  There is a spicy ginger flavor with just a tinge of licorice in the background.  Some of the bitterness also appears to have a burnt flavor.  That was not by design, but may be due to adding it too quickly and having it become scorched during the boil.  Lastly, there is some residual sweetness from the lactose sugar I added that rounds things out along with a slight bitter molasses that lingers, just for a little bit.

Overall, it's not bad, but also not what I shot for.

Some final notes.  First, there definitely needs to be a thicker body/mouthfeel for this recipe.  Next time around, I'll be replacing the Golden Light LME with more of a stout base malt extract.  I'm not sure why I didn't do that in the first place.  Also, the hop combination may not have been the best.  Both of these hops have more of a citrusy and pine flavor/aroma to them.  Hindsight tells me that I need to do more research on my own instead of relying on someone else's recipe.  I'd rather a bitterness from either chocolate malts or coffee.  Maybe a small coffee addition or more roasted malts next time will help out with that aspect.  Lastly, and especially if the remainder of the bottles turn out like this one, I may need to reconsider the priming sugar option in the future and add slightly more.  The recipe below is what I should have added at that point, but not in reality what I did add.  I got gun shy right at bottling time and was afraid I'd over-carbonate it and create some bottle bombs that would go to waste.

Now that I've successfully talked you out of trying my beer, feel free to let me know if you'd like a try!  I'm being overly critical here, but still going with 3.25 stars out of 5.  If this thing carbs up a little better, I'll bump it up to a 3.5.

Lastly, if you made it to the end of this blog tonight, know that it's been written over the span of a few days.  Also, if you made it to the end, you're a trooper.  I probably would have stopped a few times to refill my own beer if I were reading this!

Cheers!!!

The Mohr The Merrier Recipe (Extract):

Grain Tea (Steep between 150-160F for 30 min)

1.5 lbs Crystal 60L

0.5 lbs Chocolate Malt

0.5 lbs Flaked Oats
Remove grains

Bring to boil, remove from heat and add 9.9 lbs Golden Light LME

60 min boil:

@ 60' - 0.5 oz Warrior Hops

@40' 0.75 oz Columbus Hops

@15' 1 lb Molasses

@5' 4 small cinnamon sticks, 1/2 TBSP fresh grated ginger, 1.5 tsp All Spice, 0.5 tsp Nutmeg

Lallemand - Windsor Yeast (British Style) - 2 packages

Bottled with 4 oz. Dark Brown Sugar to prime