Your vote does count when you vote here. I don't think I have any readers, so you could just be a majority of one. We'll see. I'm going to go brew crazy when I return for a holiday in Mexico. I will make at least three beer by Feb. 1st.

You have the power to decide what I will make, by expressing your preferences in my comments. Here are the candidates:

IPA
Brown Ale
Oatmeal Stout
Amber

The IPA will be bittered with Chinook, finished with Amarillo and Cascade. Maris Otter and Crystal malts. Gravity around 63. Citrusy and piney hop character with a malt backbone that lives up to all that. Well attenuated for a dry finish--I'm tired of semi-sweet finishing IPAs.

The oatmeal stout will be maris otter, crystal, roast barley and victory malts--and of course oatmeal. Bittered with german northern brewer, Goldings, Fuggles or Challenger for finishing. Chocolate, nuts and caramel with the roasty flavor you expect from a stout, smoothed out by oatmeal.

The brown will be the most basic of the lot. Marris otter, brown malt, a couple of different crystal malts. Bittered with fuggles hops. No finishing hops. Rich malty flavors, honey, caramel and bittersweet. Balanced bitterness but without too much hops. And just a little bit of fruitiness from the yeast.

The amber will be a variation on the amber that I made and kept insisting was going to be the model for a series of beers. I think I may change the bittering hop and use maris otter as the base malt instead of the blend of american two-row and munich. Bittersweet character nicely balanced against a citrusy and earthy hops.

Votes, comments, opinions? (Yeah right... No one reads this except me.)