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!

Thirsty Dog Twisted Kilt Scotch Ale

Thirsty Dog is a brewery in the not-too-far-away Akron. Still kind of small, but big enough to distribute a bit. Hadn't been able to find anything of theirs around here in a while, but I did come across their Twisted Kilt.

Twisted Kilt had a lot of promise. I do really enjoy everything I've had from them, and Scotch Ales are rising on my list of favorite styles. The color was like iced tea, maybe a bit more orange. Some moderate malty flavors with some light hop bitterness and some fruit notes. There's an unexpected sour finish, but once I knew to expect it, I liked it.

Overall, I thought it was alright. I might get it again, but there are other Scotch Ales I much prefer

Grade: C

Founders Dirty Bastard

This beer is a Scotch style ale, it is called Dirty Bastard, and it has a tartan on the label. Impossible for me to pass it up, and I was not disappointed! It pours a light brown color, almost like the darkest iced tea you've ever had. The flavor is very complex with a ton of different malt flavors going on. There is roastedness, piney, hoppy, a little bit of not very sweet maple, even a hint of scotch. It's very bold and has a long bitter, but not acrid, finish. I like this a whole bunch and will be looking for more! I feel like about 6 of these would, in fact, make me a Dirty Bastard.

Grade : A