BeerBorg

I need to be done with these contest ingredients. Help me on what to brew next...

Here are the options.




I also have .5 lb smoked malt, a couple 0.5oz packets of hops (N. Brewer, Mt. Hood), harvested conan yeast, and a mess of dry yeast (fromunda: 10 gold, 2 silver, 1 wheat; 1 34/70; 1 s-23; 1 s-04 (all 10/2013 exp)).

Go!

The winter dark and the porter jump out at me right now. Maybe a smoked porter using the smoked malt?

That's where I was leaning initially. I should add that I'm not opposed to a LHBS stop to buy an ingredient or three...

The winter dark + some malt + some bitter orange and mulling spices made good beer for me last year. Like a dark chocolate bitter orange thing in my stocking, except I could drink it. I think I used Wyeast American Ale in it, but the downunda gold would likely be fine.

I usually dislike smoked beer so I'd burn the smoked malt LOL. But maybe in the porter and toss in some bourbon. Maybe I could drink that.

If I had to use the Pilsner, I'd use it as a bittering component in a 4+ gallon batch. I find it to be too pride of ringwoody to be pleasant in a small batch, and the saaz just gets buried by the POR to my tastes. If you went that route you could probably add some crystal malt, dme, and use a bunch of the Northern Brewer for extra bittering, flavor/aroma and make a California common like beer out of it. Northern Brewer does a good job covering up the pride of Ringwood when used copiously. You can use the 34/70 in that... you could try to use it for an LBK sized California common with just some steeped crystal and forgoe any extra bittering hops, just use the NB for flavor/aroma, but I think you would not bury the pride of Ringwood enough for my tastes. Mr beer uses that pilsner in all their blonde Belgian recipes, but I think it makes horrible Belgians due to the POR.

The American Ale + 1# of DME + 1oz of hops in the last 15 minutes or as a hop stand will give you a decent APA. The gold fromunda would work there.

I hate the patriot lager, so I dunno what to do with that. Maybe mix it with the northwest, bury it in flavoring and aroma hops and make some kind of IPA out of the two. I'm not a fan of the Northwest as is, so no matter what I do with my extra can it's going to involve a lot of hops..

Gotta go with Phil here. A smoked porter would be what I would go for.

For the Patriot Lager you could try this malty recipe mod: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=973

For the NWPA I would do some big flavor and aroma additions with some C hops and pale UME and make an IPA.

I turned some Czech into a Punkin ale, but haven't tasted it yet: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=56