Jonathan Rollins

I brewed my first batch of beer in 2007, after getting back into winemaking and realizing that I wanted something that would turn around faster than a red wine would. At the time we lived in downtown Denver, not far from the Central Branch of their library system. As you can image, there were a few books on homebrewing available. I read a couple, and settled on designing a Robust Porter using the calculations in Randy Mosher's "Radical Brewing". Math isn't always my strong suit, and I ended up with a beer closer to 10% than the 6.5% I'd calculated. I also ended up overcarbonating the beer... by a lot. However, the four ounces or so I got from every 22 ounce bottle of my Imperial Smoked Porter with Green Cardamom was actually pretty good. I took some time to do a little more research and get some brewing software.

This is a hard one- among the tops are: * A pale bitter beer that started life as an ESB (BJCP 2008) and shared some elements of an American Pale Ale. I brewed this recipe over and over, changing out one or two ingredients at a time for over 10 years. * My Peach Table Beer * An American Stout I brewed a couple of years ago. The recipe was a collaboration with Joel Darbro, who has a small hop farm in SE Kansas. * My Hibiscus Table Beer. * A Black IPA made with 100% Michigan Copper hops. I am hoping to brew this again soon!

Another tough one - for local beers, I like the Haziess at Turning Point and Maple Branch's English beers. When I am in Austin I try to stop in to Batch Brewing and Jester King. Trips to Houston mean picking up mixed ferm beers from True Anomaly and hop water from St. Arnold's. When I get the chance, AZ Wilderness' "American Presidential Stout" is also a favorite.

Haha! Are you ready? Imperial Stout, aged Porter (to blend with sours for a Oud Brune-ish project), a British Strong Ale, a few iterations of my House Culture, Peach Table beer, a Sour Brown Solera (there are three pulls of this aging for the project mentioned before), a Golden Sour aging on Montmorency Cherries, a mixed culture Rye Grissette aging on foraged Chickasaw plums, two Golden Sour base beers for later blending/fruiting/etc, a Golden Sour resting on Alvarinho grape pomace, a mixed fermentation cider, a Table Beer base for later fruiting, a mixed ferm experiment aging on Honeybell Fruit and Pineapple, a Gewurztraminer and a Petit Sirah.

I love doing mixed ferm Table Beers. Think Jester King's "La Petit Prince"; they're incredibly light, refreshing and easy to brew. Most batches get split so I get half as straight beer and half with fruit or other additions of some sort.

I recently added an Anvil to the setup, and am working on learning that. Otherwise it's a pretty manual two burner propane stand with a 6- and 8- gallon pots. A giant cooler I use for mashing large amounts of grain that don't fit it the other vessels. I also do no-chill brewing, so I have several funky looking plastic buckets. Other than the Anvil, it's all very low tech.

Partially for the creative challenge, and partially because I can't afford to drink the beers I like, so I am figuring out how to make them! If anyone wants to follow along, I am fairly active on Instagram under the handle @curmudgeonaleworks