Beers

Updated 2021-01-24

You can find pages for each of my beers here. On each page I will try to share my thoughts on the inspirations for my beers, their names, some notes on their evolution as I tinker with the recipes, and any social media updates or pictures I've shared about them.

All of my beers are on Untappd, please check in if I've managed to share a bottle with you or you received or sample one through a friend of mine.

Here are some groupings of the different beers I make to understand a few ways I think about them.

Seasonal

I definitely try to observe some sense of seasonality, with lighter and more refreshing beers in the warmers months and more substantial and hearty beers in the colder months. I also do some annual one off brews, usually right at the start of the year.

Year Round

• Top of the World - a cream ale featuring locally grown and malted barley, I will make this beer whenever there are openings in my brewing schedule, to help keep my taps full since it is a simple recipe and a delicious, easy drinking beer
• Virtue Enough - a British-style golden ale

Spring

• Pirate-in-Chief - a Scottish 80 shilling export ale
• Best Interest - an English mild
• Pierian Spring - a Hefeweizen with rhubarb

Summer

• Modest Imperfection - a historic Burton ale re-creation, one of two keeping, or aged, beers I make every year
• A Sprig of Grass - an English IPA
• Undeserved Praise - an English best bitter made with rye

Autumn

• True Politeness - an English brown porter

Winter

• Rambling Digression - an English Old Ale, one of two keeping, or aged, beers I make every year

One Time

• Open Access Ninja - A special project made with and for Carl Malamud to support his work advocating for open access
• First Citizen - A variation on a Kentucky common made with locally grown barley and rye that I made early in 2017.
• For the Win - Made at the start of 2016, an English porter with cold pressed coffee
• Moderate Imperfection - Made at the start of 2015, an English barley wine based on Modest Imperfection
• Foreign Country - Made in the Summer of 2016, an English best bitter that I thought was going to go in rotation and was replaced by the rye variation I made of it almost immediately
• Majestic Simplicity - Made over the Summer and Fall of 2016, a special occasion beer that is a project unto itself
• Pirate King - Made at the start of 2017, a wee heavy aged for a year and conditioned with Scotch infused oak.
• Brimstone Hill - Made in the Summer of 2017, a tropical stout flavored with sorel, hibiscus and Scotch bonnet chili peppers, inspired by traveling the Caribbean with my dad when I was young

Dark Cloud Pilot Batches

• Top of the World - Some of the first malt I received from Danny and Jesse was their 6-row. I believe this beer does an amazing job of highlighting the malt character. This is the only batch I have re-brewed for Dark Cloud (at least as of Spring 2020.) This is the first beer I rebrewed for my own taps and is a favorite among my friends.
• First Citizen - This recipe was OK and the guys were ultimately right, that the style brought too much to the table, not really allowing the malt to shine as much as it could.
• Testimony of Few - My first lager, inspired by the conversations with the guys about how well malt forward German styles would work for their pilot batches. My personal favorite so far, the second recipe I rebrewed for my own d
• Ideal of Imagination - Another recipe owing to a great, creative discussion with Danny and Jesse. The color their malt lends to this beer is unreal.
• Positive Merit - Dark Cloud has yet to make specialty malt at scale. I have the privilege of working with some trial malts they've made, some of them lent the right color and a delicious dark toffee note to this lager.

Flavor

My current inspiration are historic British beers. Even within that realm, there are a wide variety of tastes to explore, more than I think most people realize. For those not as familiar with my beers, I thought I would also try to organize them by some sense of flavor.

Hoppy

• A Sprig of Grass - an English IPA, very heavily hopped but with a decent malt character to balance
• Foreign Country - an English best bitter, bitter but not as heavily hopped as the IPA, a bit more crystal malt sweetness in the grain bill

Malty

• Pirate-in-Chief - a Scottish 80 shilling export ale, not too dissimilar for paler English beers bit with a touch of roast barley for color and a hint of smoke and an extended boil to enhance the sweet complexity of the malt
• Best Interest - an English mild, the original session beer that is all about the malt with just a hint of hoppiness for balance
• True Politeness - an English brown porter

Light

• Top of the World - a cream ale featuring locally grown and malted barley, this is the lightest colored beer I make though I make plenty of others that are similarly low in alcohol, this beer is incredibly crisp and refreshing

Heavy

• Modest Imperfection - a historic Burton ale re-creation, I've made a barley-wine version of this beer and a table beer version but historically it seems to be somewhere in between so from 2016 it will be more of a winter warmer
• Rambling Digression - an English Old Ale, this beer is all about rich complexity with tons of dark and dried fruit notes along with plenty of alcohol and residual sweetness

Retired or On Hiatus

As my set of recipes has grown, there are some beers I have retired or taken out of rotation for the time being.

• Sun Dial in the Shade - an English oatmeal stout, one of my oldest recipes that I am re-thinking in terms of how and where it fits and what I might like to do with it should I start making it again
• Dye-cast - a Belgian dubbel, as much as I love drinking Belgians, this one, another of my oldest recipes and one of my favorites, doesn't quite fit in with the current rotation
• Friendship's Shrine - an English brown ale with cinnamon, vanilla and cocoa that I enjoyed and want to re-think before brewing again; it was good but not entirely what I had in mind when designing it
• Cursing the Darkness - a Scottish double brown stout that is made with lactose, an ingredient I am phasing out of my brewing

"Can I Buy Your Beer?"

I am flattered by how often I get this question. I am exclusively a home brewer, making batches five gallons at a time in my home. Without a license, it is illegal for me to sell my beer. There are nanobreweries, effectively licensed home brewers. Thinking is mixed on whether they are viable. Common wisdom suggests a minimum size for a going brewery is out of the reach of your typical home brewing setup. Trying to produce sufficient volume overall five or ten gallons at a time is not likely going to work. Scaling to 7 barrels or more represents a considerable gap in practical knowledge as well as capital expense for gear and operating expense for materials and space.

I may one day open a commercial brewer, though it is far from certain. I am pretty happy as a home brewer and there is still so much for me to learn.

What you can do is receive beer from me as a gift. Contact me directly if interested to learn more. I do ship beer around the US to friends though any help with the costs related to shipping is greatly appreciated. Dedicated 2 bottle shippers cost me about $7 and I have to order at least five shippers at a go. Shipping varies between $15 to $20 depending on where the "liquid yeast samples" are going.