Last weekend, two beers that Hugh and I brewed - one of the biggest beers we brew and one of the smallest - won medals at the 2019 Chicago Winterbrew competition. 

In the strong ales category, our Heavy Lifting American Barleywine won a bronze medal.  This is the first time we brewed this beer.  It is strong (11% abv) and malty, but with a firm and bracing bitterness from a half pound of hops, leading to an estimated 61 IBUs.  The hops featured are Citra, Amarillo and Centennial, and they give a pleasant, American hop flavor profile, both citrus and pine.  With a final gravity of 1.020, it has a pleasantly full-bodied mouthfeel.  

In the Irish beer category, our Heart of Darkeness Irish Stout (pictured above) won the silver medal.  Unlike the barleywine, this beer is small (4% abv), dry and easy-to-drink by the pint.  Flavorful, with roasted grain flavors that remind me of coffee and chocolate, we brew this beer often, tweeking the recipe from time-to-time.  It also has a firm bitter backbone, from 3 ounces of English Challenger hops. leading to a predicted 41 IBUs of bitterness.  Keeping the roasted character in this beer from being overwhelming is one of the challenges, and we used a de-bittered roasted malt from Breiss called Black Prinz. Another challenge is keeping this small and dry beer from feeling thin in the mouth - we bolstered the body with prodigous amounts of flaked barley in the mash.  

I've updated the recipes section with the recipes for these beers - Heavy Lifting American Barleywine and Heart of Darkness Irish Stout.