O.K., I know you serious homebrewers will scoff, but I believe that with a little creativity, you can turn out a pretty decent half-batch (2.5 gallons) of beer with one of those beginner's kits from Mr. Beer. Yes, yes, Mr. Beer is the brewing equivalent of paint-by-numbers, but you can put together a pretty good wort by mixing their pre-hopped, condensed beer mixes with their unhopped malt extracts for added fermentables, and then adding your own favorite flavorings and additional hops. They even offer liquid yeasts. The benefits include a quick brew time, a smaller amount of wort to cool (which cuts down on contamination), and smaller batches mean you can try out more varieties--a big plus when you're the only beer-drinker in the household as I am.I've come out with some very serviceable ales from Mr. Beer ingredients, including a tasty Honey Maibock that included some orange zest for flavor, and my personal favorite, a hoppy Barleywine-style ale (pictured here). My main caveat is to avoid the "Booster" packs they sell to add fermentable sugars to their beer mixes. It makes for a very cidery flavor. The unhopped malt extracts they sell, or just plain honey or brown sugar, make for a better beer.
RECIPE
To make the Barleywine, I used two cans of Mr. Beer's "Cowboy Lager" beer mix (which already has some hops in it), one can of their "West Coast Pale Ale" unhopped malt extract, then added 1 ounce of Cascade hops pellets and 1/4 ounce of Hallertau. I pitched it with a liquid ale yeast (also from Mr. Beer), and fermented it for not quite 3 weeks. My very lazy hydrometer measurements indicate that it turned out to be around 8% ABV. I have no idea about the IBU's, but it's definitely hoppy. I batch primed it and bottled it in some old Grolsch swingtop bottles (I hate capping), and left those at room temp for another 2 weeks. The longer they lager in the fridge, the better they'll be, but they're already pretty good.
So if you're ever in a big hurry and want to go from start to fermenter in about half an hour, keep some Mr. Beer ingredients on hand and use your imagination...and your honey, and orange zest, and pureed raspberries...
2 comments:
This barley wine is indeed quite tasty (thanks for sharing!), and I look forward to seeing how it develops (shameless plug for another taste). I really liked the barley wine you made last year, and this one seems on track to live up to that standard.
I've done the Big Ben's Barleywine recipe before. A very slow sipping beer it is. I've also done some experiments with fermentables and the available recipes (didn't have much luck with the pumpkin porter though).
My next project is to create a braggot out of the west coast pale ale and a lot of honey. If I do some creative research, I'm sure I'll come up with a good recipe for this. The only thing that will hold me back is the tolerance of the yeast.
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