Our First Offering

So as most of you know, my brother Mike and I brew. Both of us are pretty obsessive about it and are attempting to take it very seriously. Our first release is simply named Prijs ('Price' in dutch - no we aren't dutch nor do we have any affliations or affinities towards the dutch people. This is our pathetic attempt to be cool and creative). This beer really doesn't fit into any style which is why we are calling it a Belgian Style Barleywine. Of course, there is no such thing as a Belgian Style Barleywine, but I feel it's a pretty fair description. We used a Belgian Abbey Ale yeast strain so the brew definitely gives off some of the estery spiciness of an abbey ale. But, it registers anywhere between 15-20% ABV and is fairly balanced at the front with a pronounced hoppy bitterness at the back, thus a Barleywine.

Either way, it proved to be a very difficult beer to make. Total fermentation took almost 2 months and it has bottle conditioned for 5 weeks so far (I think 8-12 weeks will be perfect). Here's a picture of the bottle (click for bigger image):

So a couple of explanations. First, we are calling our venture De Broers - dutch for Brothers. The shield you see is part of the Price Family Crest. How cute. Pascal's portrait graces the label for two reasons: 1) Christina is obsessed with him, 2) I think he's as important a figure in church history as he is in the history of science. So whatever.

I'll be bringing at least 6 to Maarten's wedding in a couple weeks.

Our second and third brews are coming along ok. The Abbey Ale is a bit too hoppy at this point and I fear we overestimated how long to include the hops in the boil. We'll see. It needs to condition for at least one more month. The Christmas Ale has been racked to secondary fermentation. We'll bottle in another two weeks and then allow it to sit until late summer/early fall. I'm hoping for the best.

Up next on the slate is a summer wheat. I'm thinking it'll be a cross between american wheat and belgian wit - using belgian yeast and orange peel with american barley and wheat. So basically we're taking a shot in the dark that it'll work.

We plan on making test batches the rest of this year. This way we can brew a ton of different beers and come up with 3-5 that can be replicated next year. I'll keep you posted.