Beer by Big Nasty

Wow, it’s been a long long time. I had a series of just unfortunate things happen and I still haven’t quite recovered but I’ve been working my way back into the brewing and blogging scene lately. So, let’s dust off the….dust? and get back to it, shall we?

I brew to style. I like to be somewhere within the prescribed guidelines that the BJCP has put in place. I think everyone who knows me in the brewing community knows that this is how I prefer to brew. But I want to talk a little bit about the one word that many people seem to omit when they talk about how they brew: “guidelines.”

I was at a home brew club meeting last Sunday afternoon and a few of us got into the topic of local pubs versus chain pubs. By chain pubs, I mean those such as Rock Bottom, BJ’s, Gordon Biersch, etc. In the conversation there was definitely a tone from the other participants that there was definitely a difference between the two. Ok, I’ll acknowledge that, but I wanted to reflect a little on what those chain pubs have that coincide and differ from the locally owned pubs.

While I’m not going to do a whole lot of reviews on here, I will do some. The first review on BigNastyBrew.com is Firestone Walker 13. Yeah, there are higher ABV beers and yes, there are more expensive bottles of beer (e.g. Utopias) but this one is exceptionally unique. It boasts a blend of  various ales ranging from a couple of different Imperial Oatmeal stouts to the High ABV Double Double. I’ll let you purchase your own to get the official write up with the exact blends of the beer….I won’t take all the fun.

Ok, so right to it, I suppose.

My favorite old sign of them all. Just an old wooden sign!

My wife and I did a one week road trip of Germany back in May of 2009. Prior to our trip, I had decided that one thing I really needed to experience in Germany was a real German brewery. Everyone hears about Germans and beer and as you know, I’m REALLY into beer. There is one particular beer that I really had an interest in: Köstritzer (prounounced almost like KER-strits-a…but the “r” in “ker” is almost silent).

Homebrewed Oatmeal Stout

Welcome everyone to the first post in the Big Nasty Brew blog. I wanted to take the time in this first post to capture what it was that got me back into good beer (i.e. craft beer and certain imports) and into the hobby that I love so much: brewing.

Ordinary Bitter

Since I am a home brewer, I think it would be most appropriate that I share a recipe here and there. The following is my absolute favorite beer to brew and drink. It is a low alcohol, lowly carbonated, and very British style of beer. Ordinary Bitter. If you like malty (toast, biscuit, etc) but with decent bitterness, this is the beer for you. Unfortunately, I am in lager mode at the moment and only have half a keg of this left until Spring rolls around and I can brew ales again.

Since I’ve been brewing, I’ve been active on a couple of forums and belong to a couple others. Do I know all the forums out there? No way. There are far too many, as far as I’m concerned.

First Mash

So, after 8 Mr. Beer batches in 2 weeks and 2 extract with steeping grain batches, I had decided that I was not going to invest any more time on the extract brewing and learn all grain. I knew I would be in for some hard lessons learned but I was prepared for that and was determined to do it, anyway.

I teetered back and forth between a Scottish 70/- and a Schwarzbier for my first AG recipe and I settled on the Schwarzbier. Why did I decide to lager for my first AG? I have no clue.

I am a home brewer (queue link to cheesy video). In the short time I’ve been brewing, some of you know that I’m at a point now where I’m building water, measuring pH in my mash, adamantly controlling my fermentation temperatures, pitching appropriate volumes of healthy yeast, and of course, brewing all grain beers. But that’s not where I started.