History:
After many years of drinking beer, I thought that I had accumulated enough knowledge to try and brew my own. Was I ever wrong. I've learned alot over the years but my skill level is somewhere between novice and intermediate.

Batch #17 (January 2008) was an attempt to improve upon #15. It was successful in that effort. Although the recipe was heavily modified, I feel that the biggest change in the taste was the result of using a second fermentation (2F).

Normally, I run the 2F in bottles for four weeks then drink it. This time, I ran the 2F in the carboy for two weeks and then bottled. This step is recommended to cut down on the "yeast bite" that some homebrews suffer from. Yeast bite isn't harsh, but it is a negative flavor that makes a beer stand out as homebrewed. The 2F successfully eliminated it from my porter so I'm really motivated to do that from here out.

As for the recipe itself, I doubled the bittering hops, changed the flavoring hops, added 25% more baseline malt, doubled the vanilla extract, added 4 cinnamon sticks to the wort, and switched yeast strains.

As for taste, the vanilla was finally noticeable. The cinnamon sticks I'm not sure about. More tasting is necessary. ;) The extra bittering hops helped to balance out the malt. I think it's my best brew ever. I haven't been this proud of a batch since the very first one.

The recipe: DED of Winter Porter O.G. 1.062

• 4 lbs unhopped Mountmellick Irish Amber Ale Malt Extract
• 4 lbs Munton's Extra Dark Dry Malt Extract
• 1 lb 40L Crystal Malt
• 1/2 lb 350L Chocolate Malt
• 3.0 oz Black Treacle
• 2 oz Fuggles Hops (5.0 a/a) - bittering
• 1 oz Kent Goldings Hops (5.5 a/a) - flavoring
• Brewer's Choice Wyeast London Ale
• 2 oz Vanilla Extract
• 4 Cinnamon Sticks

Batch #16 (September 2007) was a repeat of #14. Oddly enough, my OG came in lower than expected. The final product was good but I don't feel that it was as good as #14.

Batch #15 (January 2007) is my attempt at a porter, however, I'm about a pound of malt short. So maybe it'll be a light porter. A new category perhaps. Anyway, since I had luck with the porter clone on batch 13, I thought that I'd give it a shot. It's supposed to be a vanilla porter, but I don't know if I've got enough vanilla extract. As I write this, the batch is conditioning in bottles. When I taste it, I'll find out. The recipe:

• 4 lbs unhopped Mountmellick Irish Amber Ale Malt Extract
• 2 lbs Munton's Dark Dry Malt Extract
• 1 lb 40L Crystal Malt
• 1/2 lb 350L Chocolate Malt
• 2.6 oz Black Treacle
• 1 oz Fuggles Hops (5.0 a/a) - bittering
• 1 oz Cascade Hops (5.5 a/a) - flavoring
• Brewer's Choice Wyeast Irish Ale
• 1 oz Vanilla Extract

Results: Good! Vanilla extract was non-existent to the taste buds. I can either double it or forget it altogether.

Batch #14 (September 2006) was partly an accident. I intended to make a hoppier version of my Raspberry Red Death but picked up cherry flavoring instead of raspberry. So, it became Rebecca's Red Ale in honor of my daughter's first birthday. It came out great! Even relatives of mine who don't like beer liked it. Unless, of course, they were just being polite. The recipe:

• 4 lbs unhopped Mountmellick Irish Amber Ale Malt Extract
• 2 lbs Munton's Amber Dry Malt Extract
• 0.9 oz Challenger Hops (7.5 a/a) - bittering
• 1 oz Kent Golding Hops (5.5 a/a) - flavoring
• Brewer's Choice Wyeast Irish Ale
• Crosby + Baker Cherry Beer Flavoring

Batch #13 (January 2006) was something new. I followed a proprietary recipe for a certain English porter, which I obviously can't divulge here. I've been wanting to make a porter for some time as many of my favorite beers are porters. If this comes out right, I can consider myself a full-fledged intermediate brewer. Rather than use liquid malt extract, I steeped and sparged cracked malt grains. It was alot of work but the end result made it all seem worthwhile. I feel that there a difference between my clone and the original but either way it was a yummy porter.

Batch #12 (April 2005) was a continuation of tweaking my Raspberry Red Death. I used Amber DME this time. It tastes better as I use darker and darker DME.

Batch #11 (Oct 2004) repeated the success of #10. I did tweak the recipe a bit. I used Light DME instead of Extra Light. The fermentation temp was a bit low (60-64°) but I gave it some extra time. Apparently, no ill effects resulted as people continued to drink it in mass quantities at our annual Beer & Cheese party.

Batch #10 (May 2004) was something new. I was brown aled out so I found a formula for a raspberry ale. I also wanted to move to the intermediate home brewer level so I used unhopped malt extract and put actual hop pellets into the wort (inside a hop sack of course). While the wort cooked just fine, the fermentation process was different. It started slow and persisted for almost 2 weeks. I was worried that the batch had become contaminated, but tasting it proved it was ok. In fact, it was excellent (if I do says so myself)! Others thought so too. I named it Raspberry Red Death. The recipe:

• 4 lbs unhopped Mountmellick Irish Amber Ale Malt Extract
• 2 lbs Dutch Extra Light Dry Malt Extract
• 1 oz Kent Golding Hops (5.5)
• Brewer's Choice Wyeast Irish Ale
• Crosby + Baker Raspberry Beer Flavoring

Batch #9 (Nov 2003) was a success. Fermentation started right away and the taste was, according to my tasters, just that much better than #8. My water softener apparently didn't cause any harm, though later tests proved than it wasn't quite working up to snuff. Anyway, the winning recipe was:

• 4 lbs Mountmellick Malt Extract Brown Ale
• 1 lb "M+F" Dark Dry Malt Extract
• 1 cup Domino Old Fashioned Dark Brown Sugar
• 1 pkg of dry yeast (came with Mountmellick can)

Batch #8 (Oct 2002) was very much like #7. I discovered that the pH of my well water tends to run low (5-6). I sweetened up the wort a bit with a cup of dark brown sugar but I didn't notice much difference.

Batch #7 (Oct 2001) was the best batch since #2! I continued to work out the kinks to my brewing process, in particular, cooking the wort. Fermentation was vigorous, a veritable volcano for the first 48 hours.

Batch #6 (Dec 2000) saw a marked improvement from #5 but it still had a ways to go. Boilovers were held in check this time as mastery of cooking a wort on an electric stove came to me. I also switched from a wooden spoon to a plastic spoon to stir the wort.

Batch #5 (Feb 2000) was the first batch I made here in Bethel. Water came from a well instead of the city of Norwalk. I also had to cook the wort on an electric stove instead of a gas one. I struggled with boilovers. Fermentation was slow. The end result was better than batches 3 and 4 but still far short of 1 and 2.

Batch #4 (Feb 99) was an attempt to brew a blueberry ale using all-natural blueberry syrup for flavor. It didn't work. Although better than batch 3, it was still a disappointment. Maybe there was too much sugar and I created a high alcohol ale by mistake. The 98-99 brewing season was a bitter disappointment when compared to the 97-98 season.

Batch #3 began 10/25/98. Fermentation got off to a slow start but eventually picked up the pace. I finally bottled on November 6th with a hydrometer reading of 1.011. Disaster struck shortly thereafter. Outdoor temperatures climbed into the mid-60's! My bottling room was great in the winter as it had no insulation. When things got warm though, since it faced west, it baked. The beer went flat. The yeast must've died. The beer was drinkable but not by much. I muddled through it.

Batch #2 (Feb 98) proved that I could repeat my work.

Batch #1: In the Fall of 1997, after several weeks of foam, fermentation, and bottling, the result was a nut brown ale born as:

I had a bunch of my friends try it out. They take their beer very seriously so I knew I could count on them to critique my work beyond, "Cool! Free beer!" Everyone really liked it and I was encouraged to continue! Though it would later turn out to be beginner's luck.

Oh yeah, the very cool logo was designed by . If anyone knows of an amateur brewfest that I can enter my beer, please !