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If there was ever a time to get tipsy on the homebrew, I’m pretty sure that in the midst of a snowstorm is one of them.

Also, slightly appropriate timing, given that St. Paddy’s day was last weekend, and I doled out a healthy amount of bottles to friends and family for that occasion as well.

Every alcoholics favorite holiday (excuse to drink) was upon us, so I decided it was time to plan ahead and build my own beverage, since I’m not exactly fond of trying to guzzle as much green-dyed Miller, Irish Carbombs, and Jameson shots as every other fake Irish asshole who wants to throw up in an alleyway. This meant I had to do a little bit of research. Before I had bitten the bullet and dived head first into the world of craft beer and homebrewing, Killian’s Irish Red was one of the few beers I used to be able to actually drink. Having some semblance of a baseline for the style, I also picked up a bottle of Great Lake’s Conway for a non-shit idea of what I was shooting for.

This beer isn’t anything particularly weird, as far as styles go, and aside from a few odd-ball ingredients, I tried to actually keep it pretty traditional, all things considered with this blog.

I mean, I could have tried to make a green beer. Again.

Them Digits

Batch Size: 5.5 gallons

Mash Temp: 154F for 60 min.

Boil Time: 60 min.

Batch Efficiency: 68%

Original Gravity: 1.074 // 18.4 P

Final Gravity: 1.024 // 6.1 P

Estimated ABV: 6.6%

IBUs: 29

Color: 30.4 EBC // 15.4 SRM

Recipe

Malts

11# Pearl | 72%

1# CaraRed | 7%

1# Crystal 120 | 7%

1# Honey | 7%

1# Knock-off Lucky Charm Marshmallows

Hops

1 oz. East Kent Golding @ 60 min.

1 oz. East Kent Golding @ 30 min.

Yeast

Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale (fermented ~68F)

Water Shit

5 mL 88% Lactic Acid

1.5 tsp Calcium Chloride

Spices and Stuff

20 small grade 4-leaf Clovers

|BREW LOG|

Brewing in the basement seems to have become the new norm. Not that I’m against it, as it’s actually nice, seeing as I’m not a huge fan of carrying a fully loaded carboy down a flight of stairs. Plus, having the sink nearby makes everything more conducive for cleaning.

Of course, as we were beginning to weigh out the grist for the beer, it came to my attention that, due to a lapse on keeping the online list of supplies up to date, I had no roasted barley to use in the batch. Now, this is a grevious oversight, as that’s actually what helps give the IRA it’s distinct coloration. Well, I crunched some numbers and the handy, dandy recipe calculator said that if I just subbed in the remaining 1/2# of crystal 120L that I had, I would end up with a similar color range to what I wanted. Good enough for me. Aside from that little improvisation, we were right on track.

Some light tinkering with the water additions in the kettle while it was heating up to strike temp for the mash, and then away we go. Admittedly, this beer is one of those those styles that is incredibly outside of my traditional comfort zone of low mashing. Hitting our temp of 154F right on the nose and, checking 15 minutes later, having the pH come in just above 5.4, we were off to a good start.

Everything seemed to be coming up Milhouse. After the mash was finished, I collected the first runnings and batch sparged to mash out. Collecting the second runnings to top up the kettle, the only issue I had was, well… it wasn’t very red. It was more of an amber/brown color. Throwing caution to the wind, I told myself that it was because it was in a big ol’ pot and there was no light, so of course it looked darker than it would in a glass. Duh-doy.

Kicking off the boil, I threw in the first ounce of EKG hops, which mingled nicely with the already present malt aromas in the air. The next step was… decidedly more questionable in nature, but much more my speed for this blog. It was time for the secret ingredient to any leprechaun’s beverage after being harassed by children for multiple decades: The mallows.

The pseudo-Amish market by me has a fantastic section of bulk items, predominately non-name brand, but just as good as the original. So, having the knowledge that they absolutely had these from a different sort of haze-feuled snackie need in college, this was probably the easiest of the special ingredients to acquire. Two half pound packages of straight mashmallows, no picking them out of the nasty-ass catfood cereal required. While it might not have been hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, pots of gold, rainbows, and red balloons, I’m pretty sure there were some blue moons in there.

I believe the words that left my mouth at this moment were “This feels so wrong”.

Into the boil they go.

The marshmallows dissolved pretty well, assuaging my apprehension about using them in the boil rather than the mash. A few minutes later, it was time to add the second charge of hops, with the only other thing left to do with the beer being letting the boil ride out.

Well, that is until I needed to add in the second double secret probation ingredient: the clovers. Now, I know what you might be thinking “That’s stupid, that’s not going to do anything to the beer”, and your probably right. At most, I’d maybe expect that they’d contribute a similar grassy/floral flavor, which would be overshadowed by the EKG anyways. But the real reason it’s a late addition (5 minutes, to be exact), was that 4-leaf clovers are a very delicate ingredient, and much like late addition hops, adding them later in the boil means you actually drive off less luck from the beer. Very similar to aroma, I can’t really get into the science of it here.

Crank off the burner, fire up the water pump, and we chilled the wort down to a nice 65F. Slightly lower than the usual 68-70F range, but I know that the Irish Ale yeast like to ferment at a slightly lower temp, similar to the Scotch Ale yeast in that nature.

After making sure that everything was chilled and properly sanitized, the wort got transferred over to the carboy. From there, it received 60 seconds of pure oxygen from the fancy new rig I got, complete with a real regulator for the oxygen tank this time. Thanks, MoreBeer, although I wish it had been a little less expensive. Pretty nice build quality, regardless.

After that, all the was left to do was pitch the yeast and wait.

Two weeks later, it was bottling time. A 3 days before, I had my dad drop in 2 Tbsp of BioFine to help clarify this beer. I’m not making a milkshake, I want this jawn bright as possible.

The beer fermented pretty much as low as I’d hoped, or at least what was “acceptable” for the style. It ended up clocking at at 1.024, meaning that it’d be about 6.6% abv, which is slightly high per the style, but I also didn’t compensate for all the sugar I was adding with the marshmallows in basing it on a “traditional” recipe.

The color though… it wasn’t particularly red, if anything a ruddy hue of brown. Still, at the time, it was a little hazy, since I didn’t give it a proper cold crash to really let the BioFine do its thing. In a larger glass, the beer ended up looking more like a dark amber or a brown ale, depending on how wide the glass was, which was slihtly disappointing. Not to completely absolve myself from responsibility of making a shitty recipe, as to the color, I am curious if the colorants in the marshmallows had anything to do with it. I mean, I think if it did, it was slight, because the wort was still a bit on the rusty hue coming out of the mash tun, but it could have been.

I made a simple syrup with a cup of water and 3.62 oz (1/2 cup) of sugar for a priming solution on the stove, shooting for the traditional 2.2 vol/C02, and readied the bottling bucket. All in all, I ended up getting a full 5.5 gal out of this batch, meaning I actually came in slightly high on the volume side of things. Can’t complaint when that happens and you still hit the numbers.

Tasting Notes

As I had noted before, the color is… not quite right. The beer pours smoothly out of the bottle, and it starts off looking like an Irish red, quickly taking a turn to the darker side of the spectrum, almost more the darker color of a Flander’s Red that is fence sitting about being an Oud Bruin. That being said, I think this would actually be a great recipe for a sour red (more on that later). Holding it up to the light, though, it is very clearly a gorgeous ruby red. It pours a resilient off white/light khaki, fluffy head that laces all the way down the glass. The beer is bright, as you can clearly see the design on the other side of the glass through it, but not quite brilliant, which could possibly resolve itself given some more time.

The nose on the beer is where things start to sway back into the direction of “oh yeah, this is a fucking Irish red”. Tones of malty biscuit, toffee, and some light fruit waft up from the glass, combined with a little hint of sweetness.

After taking a sip, all the former smells translate well into the palate. The malty sweetness is a bit strong for the style, but stops shy of being a beer that’s under attenuated or cloyingly sweet. I mean, it did end up right about where it was supposed to. I think the craziest thing is that this beer ended up super cherry forward. Granted, it’s part of the idea of the yeast that it can throw fruit esters when fermented at warmer temps, but this would make a stunning sour red, especially since it has enough residual sugars for all the bacteria and wild yeast to chew on in a barrel. We might have to revisit this idea later.

And no, I cannot taste the luck.

The mouthfeel is as one would assume with a beer that has a higher FG, that it has a luscious, round mouthfeel that doesn’t end up being slick or oily. The carbonation definitely helps lighten what could otherwise be a heavier beer.

Overall… it’s a good beer. Is it a great example of an Irish red ale? Not really, if I’m going to be honest. It has a lot of the qualities one would expect in an Irish red ale, but it’s not an Irish red. I think it really has the potential to either be corrected or used in different capacities at later dates, though. If anything, this was a learning experience, especially for a style that is only popular once a year and the majority of craft breweries don’t even attempt to make one.