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Bottled today, with gravity stable at 1.010 so ABV of 6.6%, to about 2.7 volumes. Looking forward to trying this, but I'll try and keep hold of them (you know, the garde part of the name) for a while. Might be a nice one for the autumn.

Had a taste (because I'm impatient) and took a sample. It's down to 1.010 after five days, but it tastes sweet, presumably from the Munich (not sure if it's too sweet? But it'll probably come down some points in the next week). Barely anything from the hops, which is expected I suppose. I'll...

Great, that's a reassurance. It's still within the limits of what the rating is for this yeast to ferment clean. It's down to 20° overnight so I'm trying to keep it at that. I might try and get a bigger bucket to try and minimise temperature swings. I'd probably have to put my inkbird probe...

I think the champagne yeast is as a backup in case the yeast stalls, as it can do. I'm not sure it matters really, and if you leave it for long enough to make sure it fully attenuates you probably won't need it. If you do use it, I'd probably say lower the temperature, though check what the...

Urgh, it got warm today. I managed to keep it around 18° but it had got up to 21° by the time I got home. I'm trying to lower it down now with a damp tshirt. I do wish I had space for a brew fridge... (Or a cave)

I'm sure I read somewhere about storage in cool caves too. But that depends on the geography of the place. Also my flat doesn't have any caves either.

Nope, brewing in my pokey two bedroom flat. I'll just keep them in the warm as usual, I'm sure it'll be fine.

Most things that I've read seem to say that a long period of storage (usually at low temperatures) is part of the style. Either way, I can't do it and I'm not enormously bothered about sticking to authentic styles. I suppose I want something strong and malty, something a little bit different. I...

Misjudged my volumes (as usual) so ended up with not far off my full 20l boiling. I'm giving it a 2 hour boil to reduce it, which isn't a bad thing.

I've only tried one or two of these beers, but I've been wanting to try brewing one for a while. My homebrew shop got some WLP072 French Ale yeast in, so I thought this was a good time! I've got no cold storage, so I'm perhaps stretching the name. Perhaps I should add inverted commas around the...

Bottled this today. Made it down to 1002 so my "session" saison is 6.3%. I tried, okay! And clearly my mashing too high didn't affect it. I dry hopped with the last of my tettnang hops, and it smells and tastes pretty good. Couldn't give a toss of it's "to style" or anything. There's a banana...

Tastes pretty nice so far. It's down to 1002 so it's probably done. I've got 15g of tettnang left so I'm probably going to dry hop with it (12 litre batch), just to do something slightly different.

I've used Tettnang in a dubbel, and it's in a saison that's fermenting right now.

I made his Extra IPA, which was beautiful. I've done his saison, which I added brett to and bottled in champagne bottles a few months ago. I'm waiting for a nice hot evening to crack one open. I've done his belgian dubbel too, which I think got infected :( But I'm going to make his tripel at...

Was the 1060 gravity taken after you added the water? If not then you'll have boiled off more water than expected, leaving a higher gravity, lower volume brew. And by watering it down you'll have corrected that. As for the timing, you'll maybe be able to knock an hour or so off it, but a lot...

Today's brew was a saison. I was aiming to brew something a bit more easy drinking than the 7.7% bretted saison that I've got ageing at the moment, but beersmith still expects it to be 5.9%. I have limited restraint. Also I'm trying to use up my tettnang hops that I've had in the freezer for...

I'd probably go for the IPA first. There's more scope for things to go wrong with a Tripel, and IPAs can be more forgiving.

If you like Brewdog beers, go out and buy a few, and while you're drinking them read over the DIYDog recipe. It's perhaps less useful at identifying individual flavours, but pretty useful at seeing how ingredients work together.

Jut to be a bit of an awkward bugger, if you're buying custom amounts of hops, there's a greater risk that they're not going to be stored as well as when you buy vacuum packed standard weights of hops. At least in theory when you buy 100g, it's been vacuum sealed since soon after it was...

A biere de garde is definitely on my list to brew. I'm tempted to get hold of that WLP072 when it comes out. Though I'm slightly more tempted by using Kolsch yeast, as it seems like it'd be more versatile for reuse in other brews. What temperature did you ferment at? Apologies if you've...