Beer Casserole: What happens when you brew with whatever’s lying around
Casserole is to food as Monday’s ale is to beer. And that’s not necessarily bad. Some casseroles are quite scrumptious.
Essentially, after bottling 150 beers on Saturday, we realized that we had not performed our usual “beer ingredients run” to buy grain, hops, yeast, etc. for next week’s brew. We also realized that we desperately needed to try our new sparging setup again to get all of the kinks out. We did what any decent brewers would have done. We made ale.
We looked at whatever (fresh) ingredients we had lying around from previous weeks – most notably about 10 pounds of two-row grain – and ended up with a concoction similar to our Roundhouse Pale Ale. Similar, albeit not identical.
To sum up, we ended up with 7 pounds of two-row grain, 1 pound of Carapils and 1 pound and change of Munich. Oh – and at the last minute Joel found some wheat and dumped it in, without consulting anyone. Thanks Joel.
Instead of using a standard yeast, we also thought we’d reuse the yeast strain from our Base Jumper Double IPA. If we’re going to experiment, why not go all out, right? Just so you know that WE know, this is not a good way to experiment. We did not control variables as in other beer experiments. But we did get the sparging system to work, which was the primary goal.
A friend and Monday Night Brews attendee, Marisa, ended up naming this mystery brew “Casserole Ale.” No, there will not be a label to follow. Unless the Casserole totally kicks ass.
Jonathan, Joel & Jeff
April 24th, 2007 at 7:59 am
[...] We used the first of these kegs last night to do the secondary fermentation for our casserole ale. While we are going to try to do some secondary fermentation in these bad boys, the main purpose will be to power our man-sized kegerators. We are so badass. [...]
April 30th, 2007 at 10:09 am
[...] Brewing (starting this week)- 10 gal. batch of the Weiss Guy Hefeweizen Transferring (from primary to secondary fermentation) - 15 gal. Lumberjack (wedding) Stout Bottling - 5 Gal Roundhouse Pale Ale Consuming - Bog Monster, Swashchuckler, CowTipper, Base Jumper On Tap - Casserole Ale [...]