After a nice walk with my wife down to the Town Landing and back I made the starter for tomorrow’s brew session. Then I got to thinking the Oktoberfest might have carbonated in the last few days. I ventured down to the basement, cracked the fridge and pulled a sample off the keg. It’s a deep copper color with a soft, small-bubbled head that dies down quickly. The beer is not crystal clear like the Helles was, but it’s not too bad…first few pulls will probably have some crap in them anyway from the final racking settling out.
Swirling the glass lets loose a nose heavy on caramel. The taste is a bit sweet – probably due to underattenuation – and quite bitter with a subtle floral hop flavor. I took a look at the recipe again and my hop additions came to 36 IBU. The BJCP style guidelines for Oktoberfest/Maarzen give a range of 20-28 IBU so this is by design I guess, though it was quite a surprise after the mellow maltiness of the Helles. It has almost an IPA kind of hop flavor to it. I think it’s quite out of character and not fermented fully but it’s delicious.
I did not make a starter for this beer and I did with the Helles, a mistake I will not repeat for any beer. I really think that the most significant change I have made in the past few batches has been to begin pitching proper cell counts – the benefits to flavor profile and attenuation are just huge.
The Tripel has been racked to its secondary where it will live for a week and then head into the fridge for a week of cold conditioning. I was shocked to find it had fermented all the way down to 1.008! That’s the best attenuation I’ve had yet, assuming I hit my OG which I’m not sure about, practically 90%.