Saturday, I went to Autumn Brew Review. It was a great day for it, about 60-65, sunny and calm. A lot of good beers, and a few surprises. The biggest surprise to me was Town Hall's booth. It was all experimental beers! Usually, Town Hall doesn't do very many of these, usually one off-the-wall tap at the pub. That's understandable, since their standards are world-class, with their IPA and Scotch ale garnering well-deserved national awards.
Other worthwhile repeats from previous years include White Winter Winery's booth, serving one of only two braggots/bracketts at the festival. Viking Brewing brought the other, a lighter more mead-like interpretation, as well as a number of other interesting beers, for instance the festival's only smoked beer. Lastly, Summit brought a cask version of their flagship extra pale ale, a real treat.
Saturday ended with an impromptu party at my house, with a few college friends and their husbands I ran into at the beer festival, complete with pleasant conversation, homebrew, and barbecue from Ted Cook's (my current favorite hole-in-the-wall place, near the house we all met up at). Alas, the party was called around 9:00 on account of cat allergies. That's why it works better for me to bring beer elsewhere.
On Sunday, I brewed. Five gallons of Historical IPA and 10 gallons of a lightly-hopped American Wheat, five gallons of which will be racked onto cranberry relish, and five gallons of which may get doctored at some point. Yes, this means my recipe finalization record is currently being shattered. Previous: 15 minutes before end of boil, current: 33 hours past end of boil and counting :-)
The undetermined batch is fermenting with a somewhat spicy, fruity, earthy Belgian strain, so that limits me to something Belgian in style. Which is to say, sarcastically, "that narrows it down." The simplest option is doing a Gin or Vodka extract of the traditional Wit spices (coriander, orange peel) and doping the beer to make it another Wit. I'm also entertaining adding more fermentables and perhaps some dark malts to make something completely different out of it.