The second Bière de Garde in our exploration of the variety, Minos. Using the same grain bill and essentially the same hop schedule, this beer differs only by the yeast strain, American ale yeast. Farmhouse ales are generally distinguished by their yeast strains. It will be a real treat to taste three Bière de Garde's in spring, all with different yeasts. Of course the alcohol content will be slightly different in all these brews as well since my efficiency is all over the board. And, for the second beer in the series, the second guardian of the cold dark underworld, Minos.
Minos was the king of Crete in his mortal life. He was viscous and cruel. In an effort to prove he was the rightful king he asked Poseidon for a sign. Poseidon gave him a great white bull to sacrifice, but Minos switched the bull for a normal one. When Poseidon found out, he cursed Minos' wife with zoophillia. She had Daedalus build her a wooden bull to hide in, so she could trick the white bull to mate with her. She gave birth to the Minotaur. Well, Minos had Daedalus build a labyrinth to hide the minotaur in because he didn't want anyone to know about his wife's monster son. But, Daedalus did know both how to exit the labyrinth and who the Minotaur was. So him and his son, Icarus were imprisoned. Daedalus build Icarus wings for them to escape, but as we all know, Icarus flew too close to the sun, fell into the sea and drowned.
Minos went on a hunt to find Daedalus. He came up with a riddle that only Daedalus could solve. How do thread a string through a spiral seashell? When he got to the court of Cocalus in Sicily, Cocalus brought the riddle to Daedalus, who tied the string to an ant and had the ant walk through the shell. Minos now knew Daedalus was in Cocalus' court and demanded he be handed over. Cocalus agreed but said he Minos should take a bath first. While Minos was in the bath, Cocalus' daughters and Daedaus trapped him and scalded him to death with boiling water.
He then became one of the three judges of the underworld. While his brother and Aeacus judge men from Asia and Europe, Minos is the final judge. And now, some pictures.
We really wanted to up our efficiency with this mash so he decided to do a double batch sparge. Washing the sugar from the grains twice. Additionally, we stirred the grains every fifteen minutes and stirred directly before vourlauf. It must have worked because we got a 76% efficiency. Above is Reva adding the hops. We also decided to do a 110 minute boil.
We ended up getting 4.75 gallons of beer at 1.071 OG. Meaning this beer will be closer to 7.5% ABV while the previous brew was 6.4%. Also, we tried some Stawman by Angry Orchard and Tier de Garde by Southern Tier. Angry Orchard aged their cider in oak barrels and with 10% alcohol by volume it was a very strong, dry, intense and tasty cider. The Tier de Garde is an IPA brewed with grapefruit peels and largered. It was super interesting. Citrus, obviously, and extremely mellowed and smoothed.
The yeast has been pitched and is currently fermenting. And me and Reva decided to kick back with a good Harrison Ford movie, Clear and Present Danger. One of us got a little more tired during the 8+ hours of brewing than the other... In three months this Bière de Garde will be ready for sampling.
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