How much honey did you use? What kind of yeast?

I have 3 liters of maple syrup to try, which has been sitting for many years. Not sure how much water to add. I don't want to make it too weak.

1.5 gal of honey for a 5gal batch of mead. Yeast was champagne yeast in the little dry packets. There was also some yeast nutrient added at the beginning, and a couple weeks into the fermentation.

Any of these listed breweries from the Midwest have some "must try" beers?

That's a pretty hefty batch (11.75#). It's going to take a little aging to smooth out the sharp bite. As you stated, a couple of months should do it.

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I expected a lot more out of this beer after years of hype.

Its good, but not zomgamazeballs :dunno:

My wife pulled one of these out of the fridge yesterday (sorry for the google photo, but that's what it looked like). I asked where she got it, and said a coworker gave it to her with no explanation. She had no idea what it was. It's as good as I had imagined, but I only got a few sips. Now I have to try to find it for myself. Very hoppy aroma, but not overwhelmingly hoppy when you drink it. Smooth and delicious all the way.

I was a little skeptical about a Caramalized Chocolate Coffee Churro Porter, but this one is pretty good. It pours with surprisingly little head, and a thin, fizzy one at that. And while it's not mind-blowing by any stretch, it's got a decent flavor and mouthfeel.

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Just picked up some of Stone's new Coffee Milk Stout. I'm expecting good things from that one- Stone has a history of doing particularly amazing special stouts.

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Just popped my last westie but having family in Belgium comes with perks...

Raisin quad. About as exciting as a prune at first, not bad just a little boring other than a strong alcohol flavor even for a quad, but it grew on me so now I wish I had another in the fridge.

^^ (from the label) The clove would kill me. I have just never been able to appreciate even a hint of clove in a beer. :dunno:

I recently had a golden draak (belgian quad) that was amazing.

Incidentally, I have drifted a bit away from imperial/quad type heavy beers and for the past couple of months I've been brewing fruit beers, which have been amazingly successful.

So far:
apricot hefe- good, strong apricot flavor and smell at first, faded fast after the first couple of weeks, was a nice orange color
raspberry hefe- basically tasted like a traditional barvarian hefe but with a strong raspberry nose/flavor. Was a deep reddish/pink hazy color.
blackberry hefe- went up to nearly 4 lbs of blackberries on top of my base hefe recipe. Still fermenting.

Next will be... whatever is on sale at the farmers market or costco.

Pic related, raspberry hefe:
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...77145ac651.jpg

That looks just like my raspberry kolsch. It's been my favorite beer that I have brewed so far and I am not normally a kolsch kind of guy. It was just so refreshing to drink and wasn't sweet. Just a little tart since the yeast ferments out all the sugars.

I actually go a bit sweeter (ie, higher mash temp by a degree or two) on my fruit beers because it makes the fruit more recognizable. I did a whole bunch of ciders that incorporated various flavors and were incredibly dry. Mostly they just tasted interesting rather than fruity. Once I tasted a cider a few days early when it still had a bunch of unfermented sugars and it tasted amazing- like you could really taste the fresh apples. That's when I realized a lot of the fruit brewing process came down to getting the sweetness right. I think most ciders are way too sugary btw and I still prefer dry ciders, but doing a fruit beer and going completely dry is a mistake most of the time IMO.

I just finished carbonating it and I'm not really blown away by the blackberry hefe to be honest. Blackberries don't really have a strong aroma or flavor that is distinctively "blackberry" versus some other generic berry. It's not bad tasting or anything, it's just not "oh wow this tastes like raspberries/blueberries/strawberries" type reaction. Knowing that it's blackberries, I can recognize it in the beer, but again, it doesn't really announce itself unless you know to look for it.

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I can't quite believe I'm saying this, but the above does not suck.

HOWEVER

La Fin du Monde.

I am having that same blue moon stout right now. As a big fan of coffee stouts and porters I thinks it's pretty terrible. I can barely even taste the coffee. If you gave it to me blind I'm not even sure I would say there is coffee in it. I'm not the pickiest beer drinker and often enjoy some of the specialty or seasonal brews from the macro brewers but I honestly would never want to drink this again. It does nothing for me. Two thumbs down.

Almost always a good decision, but gotta be in the mood for it. Usually it's a little heavy handed with the spices for me to kill a whole bottle in one sitting.

But remember, its from Blue Moon. I'm shocked that they even tried and stunned that it's even drinkable! Its like the retarded kid getting a ribbon for not poopin his pants this week.
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And no pants were pooped.

There are two kinds. There's the daytime kind, which is bright and welcoming and there is the nighttime kind which should never be confused with the daytime. Nighttime is dark deep and may take you to unexpected places places that the daytime cannot. But then the night-time is not suited for ordinary life and ordinary tasks, in fact the nighttime may be the answer for that sort of thing, meaning that those sorts of things may never get done. Things that take time in the night-time things that slow down and you can pause (you have to actually) and investigate carefully to find that level of objective Detachment that is only possible under the spell of the night time period seek the day but fear not the night time call us sometime.... - the bottle

I'd call it an excellent hoppy stoutly porter.