O'Leary's Barn Burner - The Recipe

In our last installment I talked about what inspired me behind naming my first beer recipe  This time around I want to talk about the recipe itself.

Why Irish Red?

Two reasons:

1. I love everything Irish. No seriously, ask anyone who has ever heard my ipod playing and they will say that there is always at least one Irish song in the mix. My number one bucket list dream is an Irish pub crawl.

2. I love the style of Irish Red Ale. It's a great everyday, year-round beer for me.

I always wanted to brew an Irish Red Ale. For me I like to look at a beer and try to imagine what it would have tasted like when it was first developed. In my mind I see Irish Red Ales having a smoked peet flavor due  to the malt drying process and I love smoked beers. They remind me of campfires and smores and great nights on the deck with friends. I'm not big on the flavor of peet smoked malt so I went with German smoked malt.

Here is the alpha version of the recipe - I will admit this is a riff off of a recipe by Brooklyn Brew Shop. I needed a place to start. This is NOT going to be the final version.

For 1 Gallon (U.S.)

1.5 lb Maris Otter (UK)
.5 lb Caramel 60 (UK)
.25 lb Aromatic (UK)
.5 lb Smoked Malt (GER)
.25 lb Roasted Barley  (UK)

Mashed in at 89 F
Rested at 152 F
Mashed out at 170 F

.5 oz East Kent Golding Hops (UK)
.3 oz Cascade Hops (US) (I really want an English hop here)

60 minute boil
Half the hops at 5 minutes into the boil
Rest of the hops at 50 minutes

Windsor British Style Beer Yeast (dry)

3 Tbsp Honey (Bottling)

This was the plan. Get enough of the ingredients to make several 1 gallon test batches. This way we could have more smoked malt in one and less in another or make one batch hoppier than another.

The reality was completely different. I went through a local homebrew supply shop. Now, in their defense  it was the first time I got grains from them and I made an assumption on how I would get my order. I expected  to get all of my ingredients in separate bags so I could measure out my supplies...but I didn't.

Instead I got a bag with all of the grain mixed together.

When life gives you grain...make beer. So I did just that. I took the bag of grains and made do...more on that in my next post.