Apple Betty Porter (Bam-ba-lam)

About 12 years ago, I used to homebrew a beer called Apple Brown Betty.  This beer was, of course, made with fresh apples, brown sugar, & cinnamon. At the time, I never measured gravities, so I really had no idea how much the apples added to the alcohol content of the beer. All I knew was that Betty made me very, very happy. 🙂

Fast forward to this Fall, and Annette and I were discussing what beers to make for our Unafraid of the Dark series. Annette suggested that we share the happiness of Betty with all of you, so we dusted off our recipe, turned the brown ale into a brown porter, and cut back a bunch on the cinnamon.  The result – Apple Betty Porter (Bam-ba-lam)! We are very pleased with how this beer came out, and we hope you are, too!

Here are some details on how we made the beer, and what you can expect when you try it—
The first step in making the beer was to prepare the apples.  We bought a huge box of honey crisp apples from MacKenzie’s Farm in Milton, NH.  I never measured the box, but it felt like a s**t ton. 🙂 Put it this way, I spent much of a day pealing, coring, & dicing the apples.   At the end, we were left with over 20 lbs of apples – essentially about 7 two gallon bags.

On brew day, Annette added the apples and a good helping of brown sugar to the boil.  An English ale yeast was used to contribute to the fruity finish. Once the initial fermentation was complete, we then added the equivalent of 45 lbs of chopped apples in the form of apple cider from Applecrest Farms and a wee bit of cinnamon.
So what does Betty taste like? Here are our tasting notes:

– Appearance: Slightly tan, good sized head that dissipated fairly quickly. Really pretty red brown color when you hold the beer up to the light.
-Aroma : Oh wow – really apple-y and fruity!  Smells kind of like sticking your head in a big, fresh bag of just picked apples. Can’t wait to take a sip…!!
– Taste & mouthfeel: This beer is very smooth and easy to drink.  The apple comes through from the first sip to the end, and lingers on the palate in a very pleasant way.  Given this is a brown porter, the beer is light bodied, which we think makes the apples in the beer shine through. There are no discernible hop notes. The cinnamon is very subtle, giving the beer a nice bit of spice to round out the sweetness from the apples.
–Pairing: This beer would go great with pork chops.  Skip the applesauce, just take a nice sip of beer after each bite!  This beer will also pair very well with cheese – I am thinking of either a nice, creamy brie or even an aged gouda. For a special treat, make an ice cream float.  Probably not what most folks crave in the Winter, but, we tried it and basically fought over who got to take the last bite!  If you find Apple pie a la mode heavenly, then you will definitely think this is heavenly as well!
–Stats – ABV on this one is 6.8% (enough to make you happy) and IBU is 24.

 
Apple Betty Porter will be available starting this week. Cheers!