Out on the Tiles Scotch Ale, my new homebrew!

I'm a bit of a Zeppelin nut, and have decided all my beers from now own will have Zeppelin songs as the names. Previously, it was the Night Flight Vanilla Porter. Somewhere down the road, Misty Mountain Hops IPA. Today, Out on the Tiles Scotch Ale. So here's a little look at today's process

First: The ingredients. 9 pounds of light malt extract. The specialty grains are 12 oz of 90L Crystal Malt, 2 oz of roasted barley, and 2 oz of smoked cherry malt. I had originally wanted peated malt, but that wasn't available. As far as the hops, 1 oz of Fuggles and 1 oz of East Kent Goldings. Scotch Ales typically don't have much in the way of hop presence since hops don't grow well in Scotland and they didn't want to pay the English for theirs!

Now, steeping all the specialty grains at or close to 150° for 30 minutes. You really need to watch the temps here, because if you get too close to 170° you will get some nasty flavors!







These grains are steeped! (That is meant to be read as a Cabin Boy reference)

Yuri the Yeast here making sure everything is copacetic.



Hard to get a good shot of the aggressive boil here. But I added all the Fuggles and half the Goldings at the beginning of the boil. The rest of the Goldings went in with 5 minutes left.

And here it is! Just need the temp to come down to pitch the yeast. Bottle in two weeks, then I think I'll give it a month before I try it. Very excited about this one!

Beginning Homebrew DVD

Along with drinking craft beers, I also do a little bit of a home brewing. I'm rather pleased with my current Night Flight Vanilla Porter. Next will be Out on the Tiles Scotch Ale. (You may notice a theme in the titles...)

Homebrewing is a lot of fun and it's really rewarding. It's not as intimidating as you might think, either. It's a little complex, you need to do your research, there is some cost, but the very basics of homebrewing are quite simple.

I was sent a DVD called Beginning Homebrewing to review. If you have never brewed before, or maybe have only done 1 or 2 batches, I think this DVD would really help. It goes through every step of the process and it is well explained. It does a great job of showing just how easy homebrewing can be! If you're on the fence about if you want to get involved in homebrewing, check this out, and I bet you will be converted.

The word "beginning" in the title is key, though. If you have brewed at least 5 times, you probably wouldn't get much out of this. However, it's not called Intermediate Homebrewing.

There may have been a few places where I thought some explanations could have been more in depth, but it really does give good information and you will be surprised how easy homebrewing really is!

Want your own copy? I have one to give away! Email me mcnealc31@gmail.com or leave a comment with your email address in the comments section by March 31.

Cheers!