Banshee's Wail

Good morning malt fans! I have a wonderful brew day to share with you, as a result of some friends that wanted to see how brew is done. There is a bit of back story here, so I will start with that.

Kelly & Debbie, two wonderful ladies, have been in the housecleaning game for a while, and that includes my folks place. Well, I have made it a point to make sure they get to try any new offerings I have when they are available, and they are proving to be very capable and fun tasters. This lead to the questions of whether or not I'd be willing to brew with them some time, especially since Kelly's husband Jim was interested in the process ever since he tried Awesome Sauce IPA (I guess he liked it enough to want to do it on his own some time).

That lead me to a wonderful Saturday where we got to make something Coren asked for, and imperial Irish Red. I had to scratch my head on this one for a recipe, and I think we have either arrived at a bigger version of it in every category or more of an amber ale. I'm more than happy to keep playing with this recipe, but in the end, this should still be a fine sipper as the weather starts to get warmer.

The stats on this one are as follows:

• OG 1.074
• FG 1.020
• ABV 7.09%
• IBU 34.04

So, it will be bigger in every way possible, but next time I may scale the hops down just a bit, especially since this may end up being a bit higher than the 34 IBUs that I originally calculated. Age will always smooth that out if need be, but I think the extra malt I added in primary (he he) will help to balance this out a bit more.

As for the day itself, to call it anything short of a total blast would be an understatement. We started our day with getting things set up in their kitchen (holy cow, what an amazing kitchen), and then got the specialty grains steeping. I was able to keep the temp right around 158 for the entire 30 minutes, which I think was mostly due to a pretty strong burner on that stove. While we waited, Coren and I were treated to some of Jim's world-famous Bloody Mary's (yum).

As the day rolled on, Debbie and her husband Frank showed up, and I was able to provide some background to the type of beer we were making, and also allow them each to take turns with various steps, like hop additions and sparging the grains. They all seemed to really enjoy it, mostly because they really didn't believe it was all that easy.

The day wrapped up and we returned with the carboy fully loaded, aerated, and pitched with a full starter (.5 gal growler) and an extra smack pack of Wyeast Irish Ale.

The sample looked, smelled, and tasted great, and I am anxious to see the results of this bad boy!

As always, drink well and be merry. Slainte! 

UPDATE 1: The fermentation on this took off like a bandit! I sent a picture over to Kelly so Jim could see the result of our efforts, and I'm really looking forward to bringing a bottle of this over for us to try in a few weeks.

UPDATE 2: This has been bottled and is now in conditioning! I am happy to say I ended up with a fun beer, beyond what I had planned. The nose is AMAZING and the taste has a hint of the hops so as to give bitterness without being overt. The malt flavors mingled really nicely with the extra ABV we put into this, and she finishes nice and dry. I am pumped to try this in a couple of weeks.

UPDATE 3: Here is a fantastic view of the Banshee being enjoyed by Jim and Jake Thiel. Cheers gents!