Batch #5 What to call this one?? Something like Brown India Ale. Maybe someone more familiar with all the styles and their names can help me out with that.

I'm getting away from using the liquid extract as I get more experience with doing the mash. This time I used only one pound of light malt, which was my base for the IPAs. And the rest was half amber and half medium crystal malt. It looks pretty dark brown. For hops, i used Amarillo and Chinook. I don't know for sure how perfectly they will go with all that crystal malt. Oh yeah and since they didn't have any London 1960 or 1968 I just went with London 1928 Least so we'll see what happens there. It had a very vigorous start anyway.

Does anyone know if I could do the mash in a plastic cooler? Is the plastic safe for that? I've seen people do it on the internet, but I'm a little bit more picky about consuming chemicals than most people.

Batch #4 is finished and it came out pretty good. I'll need to do a lot more brewing before I can get a feel for which flavor combinations work best, for example, which hops go best with which malts and yeasts. But I'm not claiming to be a pro yet anyway. It's totally carbonated but it's not 100% attenuated yet, and there are probably still some sugars left which makes it taste sweeter than it will be in a few weeks but the yeast will also clean up the flavor. So its hard to say if it's better now or later. Probably later.

I wouldn't mind a little bit of feedback (Mikes!) on the beers to help out my learning curve.

Did you know that Texas has a kazillion amazing breweries?
I'm talking about little breweries that make great - sometimes mindblowing quality ales (and lagers too). I was looking to see what brewers were representing our great state at the Great American Beer Festival and here are the breweries who signed up.
Spoetzle Brewery (Shiner.. duh.)
(512) Brewing Company 512 of Austin - awesomeness!
Uncle Billy's Austin. haven't been here
Thirsty Planet Brewing Company Austin. haven't been here
The Covey Fort Worth. haven't been here
Southern Star Brewing Company Conroe. Their Pine Belt Pale Ale is killer!
Saint Arnold Brewing Company Representing Houston!
Real Ale Brewing Company Great Ales! Probably my favorite in TX
Rahr and Sons Brewing Company Fort Worth. Quality beer.
North By Northwest Restaurant and Brewery Austin. haven't been here
Live Oak Brewing Company Austin. I had Live Oak Hefeweizen at the Driskill and it was probably the best Hefeweizen I've ever had.
Jester King Brewery Austin. ??? Looks like they have good ideas at least.
Independence Brewing Company Austin. Independence rocks.
Humperdinks Dallas. haven't been here
Freetail Brewing Co. San Antonio brewpub. haven't been here. If BeerAdvocate rated it #1 brewpub in Tx it must be amazing.
Draught House Pub & Brewery Austin. haven't been here

there were 3 others that linked me to the wrong page.. so i didn't list them here. and these were just breweries and brewpubs that were competing in the festival. amazing, right. So make the pledge to never drink cheap domestic beer again.

OK... It's 1 am and I'm winding down from bottling my latest batch. I started at 11:30 or so and I'm sure I made enough noise to wake my wife up - at least I know I woke Josiah up about 4 times. There were a lot of bottle clinking sounds and a few bangs and a lot of water splashing. With all the sanitizing and siphoning and cleaning, it was a ton of noise, at least when all else was quiet.

This one is a less kick-you-in-the-teeth Pale Ale - though I don't know exactly what to call it. It's at least as hoppy as a traditional IPA, even though I used much less hops this time (maybe because the Warrior hops are so freakin acidic - but tasty), but it's not pale. I added some medium (darkness) Crystal malt which darkened it up a little compared to previous brews.

I've just had 2 pints of the pre-bottled product. I'm getting used to predicting what it will taste like when it's fully attenuated and carbonated. It feels like 5% alcohol right now, so it will probably be a little under 6% when it's ready. More than I had in mind when making the recipe. The medium-dark crystal malt brought in some brown to the light golden-reddish color of what I have been brewing. It's pretty close to Shiner Bock in color. Probably a little darker than what Shiner has recently become (seems like it's been getting closer and closer to Budweiser since it was bought out by some Chinese company - or is it just in my head?) It's got a very bright but not too bitter hop profile that really stands out and really lingers, a sweet maltiness, with a little taste of the caramelized sugars (sweet but less a less pure more tasty sweet) of the crystal malt, and the body is weird. It's like you can feel the sugars in your mouth, and there's a little bit of sediment still swirling around. The alcohol stands out on its own as well. Obviously, it's not done yet, and the week to come will totally transform it and bring all these separate characteristics together. So far, I'm very happy with the flavor.