Begin Brewing!

We have a lot of mint growing outside our house.  I always wondered if you could make a mint julep style beer with it.  I had envisioned a beer that was basically amber colored, with mint added late in the boil, and aged on some bourbon-soaked oak chips.  Then I visited the now-defunct Fate Brewing in Boulder, Colorado, and tasted their Mint Julep Ale. It was quite good, which convinced me to brew my own.  Theirs included rye malt in the grist, which worked well with the mint, but didn't feature any actual bourbon.  I decided to add rye to the recipe I'd been considering, and to soak the mint in some bourbon apart from the oak chips, then blend in the mint-soaked bourbon at bottling time. Since corn is a big part of bourbon and I happened to have 3 ounces lying around I didn't want to go bad, I added that in last-minute. Ingredients 6 pounds 2-row Pale Ale Malt 1 pound Crystal 60L Malt 4 ounces Rye Malt 3 ounces Flaked Corn 1 ounce Acid Malt 0.42 ounce...

Although I was pretty happy with my original Dark Mild recipe , it unfortunately picked up a bacterial infection and had to be dumped.  A second Dark Mild suffered the same fate. In my notes on the original version, I mentioned that I wanted a little more crystal malt and more body.  Toward that end, I've shifted the mash temp upward for most of the mash and added another ounce of Medium English Crystal malt. I've also added some flaked corn, which the BJCP notes is a common ingredient in the style. Ingredients 3 pounds Munton's Pale Ale Malt 6 ounces Medium English Crystal Malt 4 ounces Flaked Corn 4 ounces Crystal 120L Malt 2 ounces English Pale Chocolate Malt 1 ounce English Black Malt 1 ounce Acid Malt 0.35 ounces East Kent Goldings hops @ 6.1% AA (60 min.) 1 large pellet East Kent Goldings hops @ 6.1% AA (15 min.) 1/8 tsp. Brewtan B in the mash 1.5 tsp. pH 5.2 Stabilizer in the mash 1/4 tsp. Brewtan B in the boil (20 min.) 1/4 tsp. Irish Moss (15...