Homebrewing - Beer, Mead, Wine, Cider

Got a few demijohns filled in my loft with experiments.

1: Sourdough starter brew, nothing fancy just a test for what brewing with sourdough starter as a yeast source might be like. 2: Inverted sugar, see if inverted sugar makes much difference 3: Honestly forgot what went into this one, it looks more active than the others though. It has some bits of fruit floating in it. Really should write this stuff down next time.

Finally while not exactly brewing, I have a large bag of sloe berries that I really want to infuse with gin at some point, but need to get enough gin. Probably fill a demijohn with it because I have them so may as well.

A Dragon's Milk clone and a Belgian Quad. Just kegged a Pale Ale.

My last brew was a pale ale-weißbeer - hybrid and it turned out fantastic. I used Magnum and Hallertau Mittelfrüh hops and weißbeer yeast, the resulting flavour has a tinge of aniseed/licorice root in it. The IBU is somewhere near 30.

I made a 23 litre batch for Christmas and New Year's celebrations, I should have made 2 batches. Guests shared my opinion of the quality and yearned for more ;)

Just made a strong winter ale and a Grand Cru. The winter ales are freaking awesome after about a year. The Grand Cru will be good this summer.

I brewed a bock and some wild yeast saison last month (combined mash, separate boils). I mashed way too hot and underpitched the lager yeast so the bock is kinda stuck with way too high a FG. The saison has been slowly plugging away as the yeast is (likely) diastaticus so it should at least eventually finish...

I've got a dark cherry melomel bulk aging. And a cider hardening up. The cider is a small batch, a friend handed me in the container. I've been feeding his interest in brewing, and so I couldn't say no when he offered me 1.5 gallon. I improvised an airlock on the container he gave it to me in. He'd been opening containers to release pressure manually. LoL. It's a wild yeast, which he was trying to control by controlling temperature. I'm a little concerned that there may be some mold/bacterial contamination from it's slow start. I tasted a small amount and it was a bit 'plasticky' tasting. I prolly should have put it in a glass or stainless fermenter when I first got it, and pitched a stronger yeast. We'll see how it goes. It's all an experiment. And I didn't get around to pressing any cider this year. In '23 it seemed like I was the cider king, and everyone was asking me to help with a batch. In '24 the apples around town didn't do as well. Brew on!

I brewed NB's Bud Light Lime clone over the holidays. Can't wait to crack that one once the weather turns.

I'm looking at west coast pilsner recipes for my next brew, gotta jump on the bandwagon. I'm on the US East Coast so I can at least be on the leading edge of the bandwagon locally.

Hard cider, using Christensen's recipe from "Brew Better Beer". Started second ferm last night, it's going great! Only 14 years to go. Smells like mead.

I did a lazy ginger beer over Christmas, but I wanted it vegan and it didn't clear in time through an extended cold crash. I put it in a plastic keg with CO2 shortly after Christmas, but I was worried about the haziness so I didn't share it for New Years either.

I used quite a lot of sugar and it fermented dry, but I didn't bother checking the OG, so I have no idea how strong it is (though I'd guess it's 6% or so).

End result: while most people I know are attempting Dry January, I'm drinking a lot of ginger beer.

Violet infused mead