Your Year In Beer 2023.

[GFHomebrew]

Gday Brewers this year is drawing towards a close I thought hey how has your brewing year gone?

What's your favourite beer you brewed this year?

Brewed more or less?

New styles Equipment.

My year in beer was one of discovering ways to make HB GF beer also discovering how to malt the rice and buckwheat I used to make the stuff.

19 batches I've kicked out so far over 300lt of beer not one dumper near every drop of nectar down my gullet num nums!

I DIY malted over 40kg of rice malt and over 5 kg easy of buckwheat.
Perfecting the maltings has been a challenge playing with different kilning temperatures too.

Exploration into different saccrification Enzymes has been interesting too


Equipment has stayed the same nothing new here.

Looking to knock out atleast another batch or two which will take me to par as per previous years on the Homebrewing front.

Cheers how's your year in beer been homebrew or not let me know.

 

[Zambi]

I brewed more or same to last year, even though I was out of roulation for 2-3 months.
Started kegging and branched out in some different styles by brewing some of the quarterly brews.
Favourite beer for now is a toss up between my sorr of clone of a speciale Belge and Zefram's beach brew.

Still brewing simple ciders, although now waiting for the price of apple juice to come down, or go on special.
Added simple ginger brew to the simple brew mix

 

[The Brew Mentor]

It was a very interesting year for me with a lot of changes.
The biggest was hiring and training a brewer. That came with plenty of bumps in the road, but I believe the kinks are now worked out and I'm happy with what we're producing now.
Some failures have been in changing cleaning processes and relying on mainly just chemicals.
Also, after destemming my 1/2 bbl kegs, not purging enough and ended up oxidizing a full keg of IPA.
I also helped my son in law to dial in his system and get his water corrected. Now more cleaning help and guidance is still being addressed.
I picked up my retirement fermentor and used it once so far. I like it, but I need to get it into a permanent future home and eventually plumbed in.
I've gone through some grain experiments and found that I really like the Rahr Pilsen malt.
I brewed my 1st Rauch beer with stellar results!
All and all, at the end of the year I feel good about the beers I'm making at the shop and feel like I'm making good steps at home.
Cheers All!
Brian

 

[Sandy Feet]

Don't have the time to brew as much as I like, but I can make lagers as of 2023 I lacked attenuation in the last one, but they all tasted good. I think I might eliminate one of my lager steps to fix my issue. I learned about force carbonating through trial and error, mostly error, but I think I may have found something.
As soon as I run out of beer, I might try my first Dubbel assuming we don't get a massive cold front and I can still ferment in the garage refrigerator.

 

[HighVoltageMan!]

My year in beer was one of discovering ways to make HB GF beer also discovering how to malt the rice and buckwheat I used to make the stuff.

Nice! It's complicated enough to make beer, but to malt your own grain? That's a whole new level of talent. You are a busy man!

I managed to stay active in the brewing comps with some nice wins this year. My International Lager won a silver at the NHC finals in San Diego. I don't know I pulled that one off. I went back to an older German Pils recipe and won BOS with it. It's been a good year.

I have decided to redesign my brew system and I kind of like that almost as much as brewing, maybe more.

I hope everyone here had a great year or at least got some great beer out of it.

God Bless and brew on!

 

[Megary]

16 Brew Days this year and 15 different styles. If I can squeeze a planned 60/- in before the year's out, that would be 17 & 16. I'm very happy with that.

Only a few were tried and true beers, so I did a lot of experimenting and learning recipe-wise. My process, however, remains simple, as I like it.

Most used hop: Magnum
Most used hop, non-bittering category: Willamette
Most used yeast: BRY-97

Best beer was definitely the Cream Ale. That was a stunner.

Most frustrating style remains the English Porter. It's a fine beer, but I have this vision (fantasy, maybe) of what I want and I just can't seem to hit it. Not quite hitting the bullseye and it's really starting to piss me off!

American IPA	1
American Pale Ale	1
American Stout	1
American Wheat Beer	1
Blonde Ale	2
British Brown Ale	1
Cream Ale	1
English Barleywine	1
English Porter	1
Festbier	1
Fruit Beer	1
International Pale Lager	1
Ordinary Bitter	1
Saison	1
Weissbier	1

 

[Josh Hughes]

This year my biggest changes were brewing Slightly bigger batches and moving outside on propane. Heavily on German beers this year. Didn’t realize I only made 2 Bitters. Only 1 mild although a Scottish Heavy is quite similar and I brewed that once. Apparently Helles was my most brewed beer style.

 

[Josh Hughes]

apparently now I can’t post pictures. I’ll try to post my report later
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/brewingreport

 

[Craigerrr]

Little brewing show and tell, I like it!
I had 8 brew days for 40 gallons, which is 8 more brew days and 40 more gallons than 2022!
For those that aren't aware, I had a back injury which kept me from brewing for about 18 months.
As I prepared to get back to brewing, I made a lot of changes in order to A) brew indoors, and B) to lessen the impact on my back.
Enter partial mash brewing, took the first two batches to dial that in (neglected to consider diastatic power).
The first batch was the Bunyip, which I called "Bunyip Yippee", will have to brew that one again but hit the gravity this time as it ended up being Bunyip lite.
It was still, very, very enjoyable.
Changes I made other than going to partial mash.
New brewing room in basement with counter and large sink, separate cold water connection, and drain connection, and 20 amp receptacles.
Added a steam condenser, counterflow chiller, allrounder with pressure kit, new smaller fermenting fridge, and built a cart to wheel full kegs to serving fridge.
I use RO water, so the trick with my back was to get the jugs of water to the basement.
for the first few batches I wheeled the brewery to the bottom of the stairs, slid the water jug(s) across the tile for, and syphoned it to the kettle.
Now I get water in 11L jugs, instead of 18L jugs, these I can carry to the basement.
The back has improved to the point that I could probably go back to all grain, and I may cut back on the DME percentage, but for me partial mash is here to stay.
In all, for me, a very successful, and very enjoyable year!

 

[Zambi]

I just love the stories of how people work around set backs!
Craig with his back
Ben with his gluten issue
Even myself, not being allowed to lift over 5-8 kg for a couple months. Simple things for me, like a crate to sit on when milling, everything heavy not on the ground, but on whatever, about 1 mtr high

 

[Sandy Feet]

16 Brew Days this year and 15 different styles. If I can squeeze a planned 60/- in before the year's out, that would be 17 & 16. I'm very happy with that.

Only a few were tried and true beers, so I did a lot of experimenting and learning recipe-wise. My process, however, remains simple, as I like it.

Most used hop: Magnum
Most used hop, non-bittering category: Willamette
Most used yeast: BRY-97

Best beer was definitely the Cream Ale. That was a stunner.

Most frustrating style remains the English Porter. It's a fine beer, but I have this vision (fantasy, maybe) of what I want and I just can't seem to hit it. Not quite hitting the bullseye and it's really starting to piss me off!

American IPA	1
American Pale Ale	1
American Stout	1
American Wheat Beer	1
Blonde Ale	2
British Brown Ale	1
Cream Ale	1
English Barleywine	1
English Porter	1
Festbier	1
Fruit Beer	1
International Pale Lager	1
Ordinary Bitter	1
Saison	1
Weissbier	1

With mine, the biggest difference was the yeast. I have a Porter recipe that I have played with a few times, but when I used the WLP004 and some flaked oats, that put it over the top. Mine is Marris Otter, Chocolate, C120, Munich, and a small amount of white wheat. I'm not at home, but I know I used Fuggle hops. I forget if I used any EKG or not.
If you are not using a Guinness style (Irish Ale) liquid stain, try it and see what happens.

 

[Minbari]

Only pulled off 10 batches this year.(50 gallons) By far my favorite has been my bourbon barrel aged stout.

 

[Minbari]

With mine, the biggest difference was the yeast. I have a Porter recipe that I have played with a few times, but when I used the WLP004 and some flaked oats, that put it over the top. Mine is Marris Otter, Chocolate, C120, Munich, and a small amount of white wheat. I'm not at home, but I know I used Fuggle hops. I forget if I used any EKG or not.
If you are not using a Guinness style (Irish Ale) liquid stain, try it and see what happens.

1098 works really good too

 

[GFHomebrew]

Little brewing show and tell, I like it!
I had 8 brew days for 40 gallons, which is 8 more brew days and 40 more gallons than 2022!
For those that aren't aware, I had a back injury which kept me from brewing for about 18 months.
As I prepared to get back to brewing, I made a lot of changes in order to A) brew indoors, and B) to lessen the impact on my back.
Enter partial mash brewing, took the first two batches to dial that in (neglected to consider diastatic power).
The first batch was the Bunyip, which I called "Bunyip Yippee", will have to brew that one again but hit the gravity this time as it ended up being Bunyip lite.
It was still, very, very enjoyable.
Changes I made other than going to partial mash.
New brewing room in basement with counter and large sink, separate cold water connection, and drain connection, and 20 amp receptacles.
Added a steam condenser, counterflow chiller, allrounder with pressure kit, new smaller fermenting fridge, and built a cart to wheel full kegs to serving fridge.
I use RO water, so the trick with my back was to get the jugs of water to the basement.
for the first few batches I wheeled the brewery to the bottom of the stairs, slid the water jug(s) across the tile for, and syphoned it to the kettle.
Now I get water in 11L jugs, instead of 18L jugs, these I can carry to the basement.
The back has improved to the point that I could probably go back to all grain, and I may cut back on the DME percentage, but for me partial mash is here to stay.
In all, for me, a very successful, and very enjoyable year!

That is some major brewery design right there good onya Craig foe getting back on the horse.
It sounds like your really enjoying brewing again!

 

[GFHomebrew]

Only pulled off 10 batches this year.(50 gallons) By far my favorite has been my bourbon barrel aged stout.

Surely you've done some brewery electronic tweeks .

You also it seems started to explore brewing Enzymes too eh?

 

[GFHomebrew]

I just love the stories of how people work around set backs!
Craig with his back
Ben with his gluten issue
Even myself, not being allowed to lift over 5-8 kg for a couple months. Simple things for me, like a crate to sit on when milling, everything heavy not on the ground, but on whatever, about 1 mtr high

It's amazing what we humans will do to brew the beer we love.

You've brewed some amazing looking brews this year and it's great to see your confidence grow in the hobby and what you do and don't like lol

 

[Megary]

With mine, the biggest difference was the yeast. I have a Porter recipe that I have played with a few times, but when I used the WLP004 and some flaked oats, that put it over the top. Mine is Marris Otter, Chocolate, C120, Munich, and a small amount of white wheat. I'm not at home, but I know I used Fuggle hops. I forget if I used any EKG or not.
If you are not using a Guinness style (Irish Ale) liquid stain, try it and see what happens.

Thanks. Over the years I've used Notty, London, Windsor, 1968, 1450, 1275 and 1028. But I don't think the yeast is the issue. My problem is trying to land the flavor in the caramel/toffee/chocolate range without getting into obvious roast flavors, which I attribute more to Stouts and not Porters. Brewing my English Porter, I've ended up making a few wonderful Brown Ales and Stouts! But I can't get in between without leaning too far one way (not enough chocolate) or the other (too much roast). I'll get there though.

Apologies to the OP. Back to the topic at hand.

 

[GFHomebrew]

Thanks. Over the years I've used Notty, London, Windsor, 1968, 1450, 1275 and 1028. But I don't think the yeast is the issue. My problem is trying to land the flavor in the caramel/toffee/chocolate range without getting into obvious roast flavors, which I attribute more to Stouts and not Porters. Brewing my English Porter, I've ended up making a few wonderful Brown Ales and Stouts! But I can't get in between without leaning too far one way (not enough chocolate) or the other (too much roast). I'll get there though.

Apologies to the OP. Back to the topic at hand.

Not at all Megary have you tried the craffa special roasts especially Carrafa 2 it's worth a stab I get nice chocolate flavours and coffee from that maybe that coupled with midnight wheat can help...

Also it's a far fetch and crazy idea especially for a dialed in brew like you got but I found that dark candy syrup i made is quite caramelly another direction you could go...

 

[Bigbre04]

I am brewing batch number 89 today, I have 2 more brews later this week and a few more this year! was hoping to hit 100 brews this year, but ill accept low 90s for our first year.

I have learned a lot about the brewhouse that I have. Learned a lot of lessons on recipe building (so much left to learn!). Battled beetles. Gotten organized. Not a bad year all in!

 

[Megary]

Not at all Megary have you tried the craffa special roasts especially Carrafa 2 it's worth a stab I get nice chocolate flavours and coffee from that maybe that coupled with midnight wheat can help...

Also it's a far fetch and crazy idea especially for a dialed in brew like you got but I found that dark candy syrup i made is quite caramelly another direction you could go...

Duly noted. Thanks for the tips!