Toad Chateau Red Headed Stepchild Tasting

Toad Chateau Red Headed Stepchild

Our annual springfest always includes a Red Rye beer of some sort. This year it was Toad Chateau Red Headed Stepchild. This beer recipe was developed solely as a way to test out the Caramel Rye Malt that was noticed at our local homebrew shop.

Appearance: Photo does not do this beer justice. It had a beautiful rich red color tipped just a bit toward brown. The head was tight little bubbles of white in color. While this photo shows it rather hazy after a few days it settled nice in the keg ad tapped crystal clear.

Aroma: Very low hop aroma, followed by medium malt aromas. Slightly toasted toffee or molasses like notes, with hits of old-fashioned root beer, and dry cocoa powder. Complex and pleasing, significantly more dark roasted aromas then one would expect from the color.

Taste: A good medium mouth feel with a pleasant level of carbonation. Lots of toffee and caramel on the front of the pallet, with hints of cocoa, black pepper, and licorice on the finish. Very clean flavors.

Overall: Easy smooth and pleasant to drink. This beer struck the middle of the road during or Springfest. Hoppier the the Scotch Ale, and sweeter and smoother then the IPA. I think that this is one worth brewing again.

Ratings:

• J - 7

Brew day info is Here.

Toad Chateau Red Headed Stepchild

Sorry for the lateness of this post we have been busy brewing up a storm here at Toad Chateau. So how did our brewday go on the 15th you ask? Well, let me tell you....
The plan for this day was to brew 10 gallons of Red Rye. We were looking for a nice amber beer to serve at our Springfest on March 24th. Also, I wanted to brew an additional Flanders Red style ale for aging and blending. So the recipe can be found here. Everything went fairly well surprisingly. Ended up with a bit less then expected due to some particulate displacing wort in the boil kettle and thusly showing too high of a volume, but... otherwise pretty good.
This was the first beer we have brewed using Crystal Rye. The expectations are very high for a good spiciness with licorice hints. The grist smelled wonderful. Took a bit of work to get 23# of grain ground and into a 5gal bucket but we managed. The first rest for this beer was @ 117f for 30 minutes. The second rest @ 154f for one hour, we needed to recirculate the wort for about 30 minutes in order to achieve this temperature. I made the decision that for ease of brewing I would brew 'entire' and do three batch sparges for our beer. The first pull was 6.5Gal, this was sent to the boil kettle. My observation at the time was that the color seemed a little light for my hoped target. The Mash Tun was then refilled the temperature checked and @ 152f allowed to rest for an additional hour. The second runnings were pulled totaling an additional 5Gal. The final runnings were pulled after a 30 minute rest at 148F and totaled 3.5Gal. Total pull of 15Gal from 23# of grain.

And now we boil, and we boil, and boil.......... (Following the hop schedule on the recipe.)

As we approached our final intended volume it became clear that we were going to miss or color mark. So using quick thinking and a survey of our available malts, I grabbed 1/4oz of crushed black malt and tossed it into the boil with 40minutes left. It helped a bit but still not quite what I wanted, so I grabbed the last dark malt I had, 3oz of chocolate wheat. I added this with 5 minutes to go in the boil. After flame out I let the wort sit for 10 minutes before chilling and sending to the carboy. This was perfect as the color was a gorgeous ruby.

Chilled and ready we pitched Wyeast 1768 into one carboy, and ECY02 into the other. Tasting notes for these beers will come sooner and later, as the 1768 version will be served at the end of the month.