Brew Day 10/18/09 1st Anniversary Ale

This past weekend I brewed The Bashore BrewHaus 1st Anniversary Ale, my last beer in preparation for New Years Eve this year. I set out to brew an Imperial Wit (Belgian Wheat) Bier. I soon realize while I was collecting ingredients and brewing the beer that this was not a beer that would adhere well to any style guidelines. This beer is somewhere between a Belgian Triple/ Imperial Wit and Christmas beer given what has gone into it. One thing is for sure it will be a beer that is between 7.5 and 8 % ABV and it will have a heavy spice profile between a Belgian Strong Ale and a Wheat Ale. Here is the photo journal of the day.



Here are a few of the ingredients that I included in the beer...honey, coriander, grains of paradise, orange zest, beet sugar for dryness and head retention and brown cane sugar for a rum like sweetness.

This is a look at a yeast starter that I made for the beer....this is a very important step especially when brewing higher alcohol beers to first ensure that your yeast is working and secondly to create enough yeast cells to hopefully convert all the fermentable sugars in the beer to alcohol.

The Anniversary Ale will not be a hoppy beer as I only used a few ounces of hops to balance out the sugary sweetness.

Here's a look a the spent grains after all the sugars have been soaked out of them.....the grain bill is one of the main reasons that this is not a wit beer. It ended up being to dark for that classification.


Here's a look after the 1st and only hop addition to the beer. I used a nice mellow British hop so that it would balance the beer out without enforcing its will too much to drown out all the subtle flavors of the beer.

Here's a look at some of the spices and the brown cane sugar going into the beer. Along with the honey the cane sugar should give the beer a sweetness similar to a Christmas Triple, Sweet and Rummy....MMMMMM!

Here's a last look into the brew pot as the wort was being cool before it goes into the fermentor and has yeast pitched into it. If you look close at the picture you can see the orange zest along with the grains of paradise. One note here, this is the first time I have ever used fresh orange zest in a beer. Normally, I buy dried orange peel to use, lets hope it make a good difference.

Cheers!