Eric's Red Ale

For my first birthday after beginning SheppyBrew, my beer model got me the Bewitched Red Ale w/Mellow Amber brew pack from Mr. Beer.  On the next Presidents' day, I used it to make Eric's Red Ale.

The beer has evolved over several batches, but has always been deep-redish amber in color with a heavenly malty flavor.  I have been moving it from almost no bitterness to a bit higher on the BU / GU ratio, but it is still more on the malty side of the ratio.  It has always run about 5.5 % Alcohol (by volume).

This was one of my favorite beers, and I had planned to make sure I had this "on tap" at all times.  Unfortunately, I let myself go quite a long time without brewing it.

Malty goodness.  Yummy beer.

I decided to retire Eric's Red with Mr. Beer ingredients, and make myself an all-grain recipe for this beer.  I already had Quarter Life Crisis, but Eric's Red AG is less hoppy.  This AG version is more of an Irish Red, although probably a bit more hop flavor and bitterness than you would usually associate with an Irish red (not by much).

Batch 7 was my first all-grain batch. It used Maris Otter, Carared , Chocolate Rye Malt, and Crystal and Columbus hops. Its yeast was US05.

Batch 8, was the same as 7 except is used London Ale Yeast.

Batch 9, I threw in Citra hops at the 5-minute flavor / aroma addition. Not very Irish, but pretty yummy nonetheless. I tried White Labs' WLP004 Irish Ale yeast for the first time. I also decided to add a bit of chalk to bring the water calcium up to help with clarity of the beer.

Batch 11 was brewed in my Anvil Foundry.

You can read about Eric's Red on my blog: http://blog.ericshepard.com/search/label/Eric%27s%20Red