Tallgrass Pro Series Kits from Northern Brewer

Northern Brewer is proud to announce our newest Pro Series line up: Tallgrass Brewing Company

A Northern Brewer Exclusive - Make These Amazing Tallgrass Beers at Home! Since 2007, Tallgrass Brewing Co. has been crafting award-winning ales at the edge of the Flint Hills in Manhattan, Kansas. In addition to the quality of their beer, they’re known for their packaging, sense of humor, and an adventurous, experimental spirit that’s true to their homebrewing roots. Tallgrass chose Northern Brewer to help bring their recipes to homebrewers everywhere through our Pro Series line of beer kits - cheers!

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brew ... ng-company

It’s so weird. I’d never heard of this brewery until about 2 months ago and now I’m seeing it EVERYWHERE! The Tallgrass episode you guys did on Brew TV is pretty critical.

Tallgrass Oasis is my 2nd favorite beer. Right behind Surly Furious.

Anyone try this yet? I just ordered the Oasis AG and have no idea what to expect. The video made me drool so I was hooked.
I’m curious if anyone has brewed it yet but I don’t know if it’s been out long enough to be ready to consume. It’ll likely be 2 weeks or so until I have time to brew it.

I picked up a Tallgrass sampler last week, to try some of these beers before brewing a whole batch.

All of them tasted very clean, perhaps too clean. I enjoyed the Velvet Rooster the most - incredibly smooth for 8.5% abv! The Oasis was also pretty good, but I’m not sure I’d want a whole batch of it. I think they’re calling it an Imperial ESB, and it does have a very nice malt character balanced by English hops. Buffalo Sweat is pretty good too, although I’ve brewed oatmeal stouts that I enjoyed more. I wasn’t able to find their wheat beer, but it sounds worth trying too.

I recommend sampling the commercial versions before you buy a kit, but overall Tallgrass seems to put out some good brews. Currently I have Patersbier on deck to brew, which will give me a nice yeast cake for the Velvet Rooster (same yeast strain).

I’ll be brewing the Velvet Rooster this Saturday. Looks like it’ll take close to two months, but I’ll report back with the results.

Would it be going too far to include the brewery’s recommended fermentation temp. and carbonation level in the instructions for the Pro Series Kits?

The kit gives the recommended chill temp in the notes. But it doesn’t specifically state to hold it at that temp. Wouldn’t it be great to split a wort and ferment it at a bunch of different temps?

That would be the ultimate test, and not a bad idea for a triple. Eh? :lol:

Update 1:
I get to (have to) use a blowoff tube for the first time.

[quote=“Beer-lord”]Anyone try this yet? I just ordered the Oasis AG and have no idea what to expect. The video made me drool so I was hooked.
I’m curious if anyone has brewed it yet but I don’t know if it’s been out long enough to be ready to consume. It’ll likely be 2 weeks or so until I have time to brew it.[/quote]

I didn’t buy the kit, but I used the recipe off NB’s site for the Oasis. Its damn good!

Velvet Rooster is easily one of my favorite Trippels! I still haven’t been able to get my hands on their 8-Bit Pale Ale…I went to mpls last week and every place I went to said they were out of it and it’s on back order. BOO! I was bummed that NB didn’t have a Pro Series Kit for the 8-Bit

[quote=“onthekeg”][quote=“Beer-lord”]Anyone try this yet? I just ordered the Oasis AG and have no idea what to expect. The video made me drool so I was hooked.
I’m curious if anyone has brewed it yet but I don’t know if it’s been out long enough to be ready to consume. It’ll likely be 2 weeks or so until I have time to brew it.[/quote]

I didn’t buy the kit, but I used the recipe off NB’s site for the Oasis. Its damn good![/quote]

Yeah, I thought of just grabbing the recipe but realized, I really wasn’t saving all that much buying it locally. I think I might have saved $4. Plus, if it’s that good, I’ll make it again as I’ll know exactly what I need.

Brewing this has been pushed back a few weeks…vacation (with no money) has taken control over my life so this will have to wait.
Thanks for letting me know how it turned out.

I’m sure I’m late to the party but saw this on Youtube the other day. Tallgrass did a video of a video game using puppets for 8-bit Pale Ale… pretty funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scmKAS_DRJg

Just got the AG kit in last night. Had to laugh at the hop schedule since it has a .12 oz (at 15 min.) addition. Gotta say, they did send 2 ozs of NB hops and I guess it’s not worth it to open up a package and repackage just .12 oz of hops. But, it’s such a small amount that there must be some reason for it.

Looking forward to this but as I said earlier, it’s going to be awhile before I get to it. Plus, I may want to wait till it gets cooler. When’s that going to happen again?

Regarding the 1/8 oz. hop addition:

Sure it looks silly to us, but at the scale they’re brewing, it’s probably a 10 oz. hop addition. When they shrunk down their recipe, I’m sure they were hesitant to take out an ingredient just because the qty. was small.

Yeah, I totally get that, just something I’m not use to seeing. Plus, this isn’t a clone recipe but the actual recipe and therefore, nothing is left out I assume.
All the better for me.

Update 1:
I get to (have to) use a blowoff tube for the first time.

Update 2:
Checked the SG ten days in: 1.011. So far so good.

Update 3:
I kegged this batch on Saturday (my first ever to keg) and it’s already very tasty. I know it’ll benefit from some aging though, so I’ll try to keep away from it for awhile. Due to the crazy hot summer, my basement temps have been pretty warm, so this fermented toward the top of the yeast’s range rather than the bottom. Unsurprisingly, the fruity flavors are a little more pronounced in my batch, although not in a bad way.

I just kegged this. I did add 2% kriek to the secondary though. And I feel it is good. Not as good as other clones I’ve made though. It just tastes light to me. Maybe with another week or two it will taste stronger. I had my OG come out at 1.068 instead of 1.080 like the recipe said though. Even when I put the ingredients into iBrewmaster it was like 1.069. So I think they messed that up. What was your OG? Also what was your ferm temp?

My OG came out at 1.077. I mashed in a 5 gal. beverage cooler which really isn’t big enough for this kind of brew, so I was quite pleased. My FG was 1.012. Fermentation temp around 75*F.