Homebrew Review

Sorachi Magnum Homebrew Recipe

Posted on February 18, 2018March 25, 2018 by Sam Kornstein in Beer, Homebrew Recipe, Homebrew Review

Quick update on my latest Sorachi hops homebrew (previous recipes for Soarchi Hokkaido and Soarachi El Dorado here and here). This time I went with a simpler recipe with just light malt, caramel 15 grain, half an ounce of Magnum hops for bittering, and the rest Soarchi Ace hops for aroma. I also switched from a lager yeast back to California Ale yeast. After aging in the keg for a few weeks, this is by far one of my favorite recipes. Previous iterations didn’t have quite the right bitterness profile. The Magnum hops solves this, but doesn’t get in the way of the Sorachi flavor. Also, I probably hadn’t been aging the lager versions as long as I should have

Apricot Ale Homebrew Update

Posted on August 2, 2012August 2, 2012 by Sam Kornstein in Beer, Homebrew Review

It’s been just over two months since I brewed an Apricot Ale, and it was finally ready to drink earlier this week. Overall, I think it came out well. It tastes a lot like a slightly hoppier and more bitter Magic Hat #9, which I attribute to the dry hopping. The apricot flavor is a bit stronger than I’d like, but my experience is that it’s strength will fade as the beer ages for a few weeks. It spent ten days in primary, six weeks in secondary with the dry hops, and about ten days in the bottle before I opened the first one. I had originally planned to only keep it in secondary for a week or two, but I changed

Vanilla Cream Ale Update

Posted on May 4, 2011May 4, 2011 by Sam Kornstein in Beer, Homebrew Review

I previously wrote a post about my first time experimenting with vanilla beans in a beer recipe. After about two months of aging, the Vanilla Cream Ale is ready for drinking. And the verdict? It’s delicious. There are, however, a couple things I’d change for the next batch. It has a strong vanilla aroma, but the flavor competes a bit with the hops. Rather than use a distinctive hop like Cascade in the boil, in the future I’d replace it with something a bit more mild, such as Willamette or Kent Golding to compliment the vanilla flavor. It’s also a bit darker than I anticipated, so I’d probably replace the Caramel 60 malt with a Caramel 20 or 40. I’m

Homebrew Review: Magellan’s Black Cherry Stout

Posted on December 28, 2010December 29, 2010 by Sam Kornstein in Beer, Homebrew Review

It’s a complete coincidence, but I’m happy to say that my first homebrew review is of a beer that came out particularly well. It also happens to be the first recipe I ever brewed. Back in 2006 after being inspired by a Sam Adams brewery tour, a good friend and I decided the whole “brewing thing” didn’t seem all that hard, and we went out and picked up a homebrew kit. Given that we knew absolutely nothing about the process, the store manager suggested we try out one of the pre-packaged recipe kits. The most interesting one on the shelf was a black cherry stout, so we went with it. The kit was a pretty simple extract based recipe, and we