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Last night, my Brew Crew (plus a friend who was randomly at our Secret Lab to watch movies...mwa ha ha ha!) and I halved and pitted twelve pounds each of Elephant Heart plums and sugarplums for to add to our six gallon batch of melomel (that's "mead with fruit in").

Honey is twenty-four pounds Berkeley/Oakland wildflower from Bee Healthy Honey, water five gallons from Crystal Geyser's springhouse at the foot of Mount Shasta, yeast is Lalvin 71B-1122, plums from Full Belly Farm--today was decreed Plum Day because theirs were $2.00 a pound when everyone else's at the farmers' market was $3.25-$4.00.

I fear it may be summat oxidized--there's some "off" flavors that I can't quite write off as "young mead", and some reason to suspect I made a couple "cocky sophomore" mistakes. Still...time will tell, and if there were ever a time to trust in patient cultivation, it would be with a brew in Frigg's honor.

Next up in my vague Brewing Plans are:
braggot
Another simple braggot from Jim Smith's recipe, for Lo, it is Tasty.

Honey porter for Thor
We have some tanbark "oak"* honey, and while it's enough to make a mead, the consensus 'round these parts is that Thor is more a dark beer kind of guy--so honey porter it shall be, although we shall oak up the beer a bit. As local UPG also suggests that Thor is fond of "chocolate chip cookies with nuts in", and that's a porter-compatible kind of thing, it'll probably have a handful of cocoa nibs and maybe some walnuts or summat.

Metheglin for Odin.
We also have some sage honey on hand, and Odin is definitely a Mead Guy. Part of [livejournal.com profile] bearfairie's homework, as an herbalist and fledgling Odin Pom-Pom Girl, is to come up with an ingredient list...with nothing necessarily off the table and a vague handwave toward the more inspirational and ecstatic parts of Himself.

Yule Mead
Also in the collection is toyon honey, also known as California Holly. I suspect we'll get to brewing with this around Yule (duh). In Hrafnar, we like to honor Thor, Odin, and Freyr as Yulefather, so this should speak some to each of them. Why, look! I've already got work underway for two outta three!

Note to Self: Work out something Freyrish for the Yule Mead. Bacon? (Caput apri defero // Reddens laudes Domino!) Resist the urge to add yohimbe, what are you, twelve?

Further Note to Self: Consider bacon hefeweizen for Freyr. IT COULD HAPPEN.

*Note to Readers: Tanbark oak is not a true oak. It makes acorn-looking nuts and has leaves that look like other oak leaves, even though they are arranged improperly on the stem. It's that old-timey free-associative medieval-style logic at work. That Is My Story and I'm Sticking To It.

Date: 2009-09-21 07:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dfreybur.livejournal.com
Because of the grain harvest association for Frey I'd rather go with ale than mead.

Because Thor likes darker beers more than lighter beers I'd think in terms of a dark beer.

Going with The Wander theme for Odin I'd want an ale made from more than one grain.

Being wheat intolerant myself I don't recommend wheat beers so give an ancestral objection - That wheat stuff is a sorthron conspiracy by the monotheists. They bring their monks, their missionaires, their armies. They even bring their grain. The stuff makes wimpy fluffy puffy sothron breads so no way it should be added to beer. If it makes pasty light bread why should it be added to beer? Barley makes thick heavy beer and wonderful beer and see what that says about adding wheat to beer. So what other grain makes thick heavy substantial northern bread? Rye!

Thing is I've had rye beer on exactly one occasion in the past. Sweet to the point of offensive. But wine is often described as sweet and many folks think mead is supposed to be sweet because it's made from honey (Sorta like salt is supposed to be poisonous because it's made from toxic chlorine gas, so clearly I don't get it). Anyways, adding a tad of rye might make sense for a Yule beer.

That's the line of reasoning I went through at mention of a single brew for the 3. I'd rather have a big booming stout beer for The Thunderer, a dry mead made from honey of several regions for The Wanderer, a stand up and take notice highly hopped top fermenting porter ale for Antler Guy.

But what's in the Mr Beer right now is a nut brown ale. Nice stuff not not all that carefully planned.

Date: 2009-09-24 10:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lwood.livejournal.com
Starting from whole grains means sparging, which is a beer-geek thing that I have yet to indulge in--and it wouldn't be far along that road before I would start hearing the call of my Ozark ancestors and consider makin' a bit of moonshine, I tell you whut.

-- Lorrie

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February 2011

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