Everyone deserves a day off, and on mine, I will combine a recipe for imperial stout with the yeast strain Double Mountain uses. Since they tend to think of it as the yeast strain of the brothers at the Abbaye Notre-Dame de Saint Remy, I shall call it, perhaps not too originally, Black Monk. It's already a little late in the game for this bad boy to be ready by the time the cold rains fall, but then again, "ready" is such a bourgeois term, isn't it?
In any case, we finally have a bit of traditional September weather--sunny and mild--and I'm going to skip a day of painting. Yay!
On a related note, Golden Dragon was a mixed success. While I have enjoyed it greatly, both my lovely and talented wife and the beeronomist say those Sorachi Ace hops (used without aid from other strains) taste distinctly of dill. And they are therefore not so hot on the Dragon. To me, it's a pretty straightforward lemon note and I can find no dill. I long ago realized that human tongues are varied and able only to pick up a fraction of the flavor compounds present in hops, so this isn't surprising. But I'll through it out to you: Sorachi Ace--dill note? Perhaps they're in the minority.
Sounds like a nice brew Jeff. You won't find much in the way of spiciness from that yeast, so calling it monk will be head-scratching for people trying it, but it's a great strain, fruity and good attenuating. I think Rochefort adds a bit of coriander to their beers to get some spicy quality. I brewed up a 11% smoked barleywine with that yeast and it's really tasty, but I wouldn't call it Belgianie in any way.
ReplyDeleteToday for me was a rather unexciting Wit brew day, simple recipe, some coriander and lemon balm with the De Dolle yeast.
True, not Belgiany--though I wasn't really going for that. I just use the source as an excuse for the name. And it doesn't do Double Mountain any harm...
ReplyDeleteI gave the Golden Dragon to my step-father and he immediately said what is that taste, and then came up with "dill." He found it off-putting as well. But another friend loved it. So this seems like a flavor note that people either really notice or not at all. Weird.
ReplyDeleteI was going to use Soraci Ace as a aroma hop a the end of my Kolsch, but aborted at the last minute, afraid of the dill. Now it is single hopped with Perle.