KitBashing a Midwest Oatmeal Stout

Whether you’re a new brewer or an experienced brewer, “kitbashing” can be a fun and easy way to get wild and creative while brewing.

But first, let’s get this out of the way: For many, I’m using the term “kitbashing” incorrectly. Kitbashing is model aficionado lingo for taking pieces of existing models – tanks, planes, etc. – and building something new with them. To me, though, taking a beer kit and mixing and matching to create something new is in the same spirit, so let me coin it now for homebrewers.

The idea is simple. You take a beer kit from your local homebrew shop or a retailer like Midwest Supplies, you tweak it with other ingredients, adjustments, and your own creativity, and the end result is a new beer.

This is homebrew kitbashing! And this is a kit:

I LOVE to kitbash. I’ve done it since my earliest homebrew batches, and feel like it’s a big part of the fun of brewing. The great thing about it is, it’s EASY. You just have to be willing to have fun, take inspiration from beers you like, and to think outside the box.

Most recently, I tweaked two intro kits from Midwest. I generally find that basic, stripped down recipe kits make for great kitbashing fodder, because the recipes tend to be simple, clean, easy-to-brew, and wide open for creative possibilities. That means you have a great canvas to paint upon.

The first Midwest kit I played with was their oatmeal stout. Bashing up this kit into something new was easy. I’ve played with oatmeal stout kits in the past, using them as a base for my Old Kicker, a beer I look at as a session version of Founder’s Breakfast Stout. I took inspiration from a favorite beer, and it's what I suggest you do, too

For their oatmeal stout, my adjustments were easy. At flameout (the time when you stop the heat on your boil), add two packets of Swiss Miss milk chocolate mix.

Yep, that’s it. I’ve used baker’s chocolate powder and other variations on the theme in previous versions, but simple hot chocolate mix will do. The basic idea is, add enough chocolate mix, no matter the source, to make yourself 2-5 cups of hot cocoa, depending on strong you want the chocolate to be.

When you are ready to bottle – no less than three weeks later, in my opinion – brew roughly one cup (8 oz) of coffee. I have done the brewing many ways, from simply making a cup in our Keurig to cold-brewing a robust cup over the course of a few days. Results WILL vary depending on how you do it and your taste for coffee, so feel free to experiment (I’ll offer coffee advice in another post), but however you do it, make the coffee and add it at the same time you add your priming sugar or, if you keg, right to the keg.

And that’s it. That’s all you do. It's simple!

The result is a low-gravity, i.e. low alcohol, beer with rich, complex taste you won't expect from a simple, run-of-the-mill extract kit. I’ve done many variations on this over the years (including one with bourbon and oak chips, another with orange peel, and others), but the end result is almost always a pleasant, drinkable beer that emulates many of the flavors I want at a low, manageable ABV.

Consider doing this at home – and it works with almost ANY standard oatmeal stout. I first did it with my local homebrew shop’s recipes, and here applied it to Midwest’s. The results are similar.

The great thing is, kitbashing is fun and easy and CHEAP. I could make a list a mile long of kits I’ve “bashed” into something else. I took Midwest Supples’ Boundary Waters Wheat and added lemon peel, coriander, and sea salt to create a refreshing summer beer. I added some of my favorite hops to their Amber Ale and did it Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA style (additions staged over an hour) to make a hoppy amber. I’ve racked my local homebrew shop’s witbier onto cherries and raspberries and blackberries to create fruit beers. And so on

The ideas are endless. I have “bashed” countless kits and come up with many great beers. Some duds, sure, but that is part of experimenting. It’s part of the fun. So DO it!

For ideas and inspiration, I recommend Extreme Brewing by Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head fame, Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher, and your own creativity. These things + a disregard for the rules will result in awesome beers you have never tasted before!

Sierra Nevada takes us to BEER CAMP

For some years now, Sierra Nevada has been holding Beer Camp, an opportunity for industry people, contest winners, and others to visit their Chico, CA facility and brew some beer (on Sierra's equipment!) that would only ever be seen in the immediate Chico area. Over the years they brewed dozens of Sierra Nevada brews, often quirky, interesting beers that were never seen by 99.9% of Sierra Nevada drinkers.

In 2011, the brewery finally decided to make some of these beers available, releasing a Beer Camp mix pack that was, in my view, the very best mixer of the year. Every single beer was good, and several were phenomenal. Even something like the seemingly ordinary California Common, a style best known thanks to Anchor Steam, was amazing.

So needless to say, I was excited when it was announced that the Beer Camp pack would be back in 2012, this time with four totally new beers.

Here are my impressions of the four brews in this pack:

Floral IPA - This one is made with rose petals and rose hips, giving it a soft floral quality that parts ways with the pine-laden scents of Sierra Nevada's usual IPAs. This was my least favorite of the bunch, but not for the reason you may expect. The floral elements were actually well integrated. Where it fell short was in the overall balance. An uninteresting malt profile did little to intermingle with sharp hop bitterness. Though do keep in mind, unlike many American beer lovers, IPAs are not a favorite of mine.

Imperial Pilsner - I'm not sure why they went with the "imperial" tag, as this one comes in at 5.6% ABV, stronger than your average pilsner but not that much stronger. Regardless, for this this was the standout of the pack, and I say that as a guy who traditionally doesn't care for pilsners. This beer was bright, crisp, and refreshing, with a nice hop bite that gave it an edge over most pilsners. Utterly delicious and stupidly drinakable, if this came in six packs I'd be buying more of it.

Imperial Red Ale - Not a big fan of red ales. I can think of very, very few I've liked. Sierra Nevada almost gets me to like one here, with a great bouquet of hops and a robust malt backbone giving this puppy a solid 8.1% ABV, but yeah, this style continues to not be for me. If you like red ales, though, this will probably be a standout beer for you. It has bold hops coupled with rich malts and surprising chocolate notes. It's a big, big red that will please fans of the style.

Oatmeal Stout - A pretty modest name for a hefty 9% stout that is black as midnight and richer than a double chocolate cheesecake. WOWZA is this ever a desert beer. It SMELLS like desert! Huge, rich chocolate notes with the pure velvet of a great oatmeal stout. You'll taste the alcohol, making this one a decent candidate for laying down for six months to a year, but even now it's tasting pretty fantastic. Calling it a plain old oatmeal stout doesn't do it justice. This beer is huge and delicious.

All in call, Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp 2012 isn't quite as good as 2011's -- I liked all four of last year's and loved three of them, while this year I like three of four and love two of four -- but it's still a worthwhile mix pack that will expand your taste buds in good ways. Check it out while it's still available, because this will be off the shelves soon.