Aroma: No esters, no hops, no caramel. Just straight up Munich and Vienna malt aroma.
Appearance: A deep, orangish red hue with a slightly off white head. Head retention could be better but nice clarity and color.
Flavor: A bit of a malt bomb upfront with the combo of triple decocted Pilsner, Munich and Vienna but finishes fairly dry. There are some hints of alcoholic warmth which are mostly hidden with heavy malt flavor and the spiciness from the hops.
Mouthfeel: Medium bodied, well carbonated and smooth. Could have a little more body but due to decoction mashing the wort was extremely fermentable leaving little residue sugar behind.
Overall impression: Good! I like it quite a bit but that may just be the work I put into the decoction mash talking. I don’t drink a ton of German beer so this is far from my specialty but this is going down pretty easily for a 6.5% brew. Definitely smooth and rich but with more spiciness than I would have thought from just the one flavor addition I did. Next time I will have to make sure to figure in the added efficiency for the decoction because I clearly overshot my target leading to the Imperial Festivus naming of the beer. I don’t know, I may bottle this one up just for fun and send off a couple for competition.
One last thing. It should be mentioned that this beer was fermented warm using a giant Bohemian Lager yeast starter. As seen in the Brewing TV episode Lager Workarounds studies at Wyeast have shown that this strand can ferment well at 60-65*F while maintaining lager characteristics. While I have access to a fermentation chamber now, I did not when this was brewed so this was my test run of this yeast and I think it turned out pretty well. No obvious flaws so give it a try.
Decoction Posting: http://inhousebrew.weebly.com/1/post/2012/08/thoughts-on-decoction-mashing.html
Recipe: http://inhousebrew.weebly.com/imperialist-festivalist.html
Appearance: A deep, orangish red hue with a slightly off white head. Head retention could be better but nice clarity and color.
Flavor: A bit of a malt bomb upfront with the combo of triple decocted Pilsner, Munich and Vienna but finishes fairly dry. There are some hints of alcoholic warmth which are mostly hidden with heavy malt flavor and the spiciness from the hops.
Mouthfeel: Medium bodied, well carbonated and smooth. Could have a little more body but due to decoction mashing the wort was extremely fermentable leaving little residue sugar behind.
Overall impression: Good! I like it quite a bit but that may just be the work I put into the decoction mash talking. I don’t drink a ton of German beer so this is far from my specialty but this is going down pretty easily for a 6.5% brew. Definitely smooth and rich but with more spiciness than I would have thought from just the one flavor addition I did. Next time I will have to make sure to figure in the added efficiency for the decoction because I clearly overshot my target leading to the Imperial Festivus naming of the beer. I don’t know, I may bottle this one up just for fun and send off a couple for competition.
One last thing. It should be mentioned that this beer was fermented warm using a giant Bohemian Lager yeast starter. As seen in the Brewing TV episode Lager Workarounds studies at Wyeast have shown that this strand can ferment well at 60-65*F while maintaining lager characteristics. While I have access to a fermentation chamber now, I did not when this was brewed so this was my test run of this yeast and I think it turned out pretty well. No obvious flaws so give it a try.
Decoction Posting: http://inhousebrew.weebly.com/1/post/2012/08/thoughts-on-decoction-mashing.html
Recipe: http://inhousebrew.weebly.com/imperialist-festivalist.html
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