Caddy Tan Brown Ale – Bottled

By scot in Home Brewing on Monday, February 13th, 2012

I can’t believe it has already been four weeks since I brewed Caddy Tan Brown Ale and a week since I dry hopped the beer (actually nine days).

I did a small tweak to the dry hopping this time around. I placed the hop pellets in a sanitized hop bag (the same that could be used in the boil to limit hop trub) and then into the carboy. In the past I have always thrown in the pellets, racked on top, and had a swell time racking into the bottling bucket. This was an attempt to limit the amount of hop trub that made it past my layman’s filtering capabilities (a strainer).

Good and bad news from this experiment. Bad first: the aroma of the beer wasn’t as expected from the hops. It wasn’t off, it just wasn’t as strong as anticipated and at the level I have come to expect. Upon finishing up, taking the “hop bag” out of the carboy, I squeezed out a ton of aroma. If I continue to use this method I will probably slosh the carboy around periodically during dry hopping to make more use of the aroma. I just don’t know if that will cause any issues. Any input would be appreciated. Good: the beer came out very clean with almost no hop trub even coming out of the carboy let alone making into the beer.

Of course I sneak a sample. At first I was a little leery but reread BJCP on the style and I don’t think it is that far off. I do believe the bitterness might be high as well as the roast aroma. I will be back with an update in several weeks after a taste test. Enjoy!

Useless Fact: The leaf-cutter ant sometimes makes anthills 16 feet deep and an acre wide.