I decided not to brew my dry stout, but instead made a big starter and made a lager beer with a 50:50 blend of Vienna malt and Pilsner malt. No specialty malts.

I got a whole sack of Weyermann Vienna malt on my last trip to Austin Homebrew and I still have about a third of a sack of Briess Vienna left. I'm curious to see how much different they are. (My " Vienna malt liquor," by the way, is aging quite nicely. I should probably be letting it condition more, but I've been snagging a pint every day or so. It had a bit more diacetyl early on than I would have liked, but that is mellowing slightly. The level was never high enough to suggest a butterscotch flavor, but there was a certain "fullness" to the beer that can come at levels right on the edge of detection (for me, at least).)

For my Vienna/Pilsner lager, I step mashed with rests at 133 °F (56 °C), 140 °F (60 °C) and 154 °F (68 °C), then mashed out to 168 °F (76 °C). I collected enough wort for a 90-minute boil and went with a single addition of Tettnang hops, shooting for an IBU level of just below 20.

My brewing water was mostly distilled, with about 20% being my local water (charcoal filtered). I added a Campden tablet to the tap water the night before. The numbers were roughly 50 ppm carbonates and slightly more calcium. I also added some calcium chloride during the boil (1/4 tsp for this 6-gallon batch.)

I fermented the "V/P" lager at 50 °F (10 °C) -- the lowest I've ever gone on a lager; I usually shoot for mid 50's, sometimes higher, depending on the yeast strain. (I used Wyeast 2124 for this beer.) Right now, it's undergoing a diacetyl rest at 60 °F (16 °C). Once that’s done, I'll dump the "junk" out the bottom of the cone a couple times over a couple days and let it lager.

My porter turned out well. The FG was fairly high (around 1.020), but then, I expected it to be high given my mash schedule -- a single infusion for 30 minutes at 162 °F (72 °C) -- and the fact that I got a little higher OG (1.068) than I was shooting for.

My Cranberry Zinger turned out well. This year, I also added the zest from an orange - along with the two whole oranges already in the recipe - a couple days after racking the beer onto the fruit. Took the keg to Thanksgiving dinner and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I really like the nose on this beer - the orange came out very nicely.

In addition to brewing, drinking, writing about and editing manuscripts on the topic of beer, I've also been talking about beer. I've done a couple of podcasts interviews recently and have a couple planned for the near future. I'm going to be on the Brewing Network this Sunday night, discussing sour beers. I'm also going to be on an installment of Johnny Max's Brew CrAzY podcast fairly soon. We recorded the interview, on brewing very big beers, a week or so ago, I think the show comes out Dec 15^th. And of course, I've been a guest on James Spencer's Basic Brewing Radio podcast many times over the past year or so. In my latest interview, we talked about decoction mashing.

Finally, the Austin ZEALOTS Christmas party (and chili cook-off) is coming up. That's always a good time. We usually have a bunch of kegs and I'll probably bring a couple of mine, depending on what has conditioned (and I haven't sampled nearly to death).