Double IPA?

I don't really think I can count this last IPA as a regular IPA. It's dark enough to convince me we made a hoppy porter...

Here's the ingredient list:

2 oz Columbus 14.4 AAU (60 min)
1 oz Columbus 14.4 AAU (20 min)
1 oz Columbus 14.4 AAU (5 min)
8 oz crystal malt 120°L
1 oz chocolate malt
12.5# Northwestern Northwest Gold Liquid Light Malt Extract
Wyeast 1056 American Ale
2 oz Loose leafe Chinook hops for dry-hopping.

OG 1.091
FG 1.034

Estimated IBUs- 100+
ABV- 8%

This was the first time we had tried dry-hopping, and I'm pleased with the result. The only negative for this beer would be a slight ester flavor that we think it picked up from being too warm during fermentation. Other than a slight banana flavor though, this beer has a powerful and complex hop flavor that systematically debilitates anyone who prefers Blue Moon.

I do believe that the next time we try to make an IPA we will use a different hop at the 5 minute mark to try and develop a little more complexity. Also, I would like to try a little less malt extract for this. I think that is contributing quite a bit to both the color and the issues with fruit/sweet flavor trying to overwhelm the hops.

Also, we are fermenting an Oktoberfest and when the sister-in-law comes up from Arizona we are making a Nut-Brown for her. She seems excited.

Hefe Round 2

So, the first ten gallon batch of hefe went rather quickly. Apparently it was popular. So, we decided to brew up another batch. And it was hot and humid and gross in my kitchen for about six hours, but it was worth it.

First, we went to a different supply shop. I know, Beer Crazy is still my favorite but we wanted to branch out. This new shop is in Valley Junction and it's a pretty sweet little setup. The guy has been running it for around ten years, and it is called Heartland Homebrew Supplies. The only drawback is that he quit carrying Wyeast because it didn't sell as well as the dry stuff, and it's a bit pricier. Understandable. The upside is he gave me some free bumper stickers, including one that says, "Save the Ales." HA!

Second, we used some coriander in this batch. Only in half to see if we get the "fishy" flavor that my sister-in-law doesn't like. I'm pretty sure it's not the coriander that gives it that flavor, but you never know I guess. We only put it in half of the brew so if it does wonk it up, James and I can drink that bit.

The dry yeast worked out though and the bubbles came on pretty quick.



Freakin' Sweet! It's almost too much for me when I'm at the computer.

The scotch ale has been sampled, and I think it needs a little more time in the bottle. The IPA has gotten even better with a little time, as has the red. So, following this line, I'm going to give the Scotch maybe a month more before I try it again. I think that it will have a smoother finish by that point. We'll see.

This whole post was basically an excuse to post the bubbles video.

Oh, and my brother has planted some hops! Look forward to pictures of those as they come about. I'm really excited to use them in a recipe. Call it Pipewrangler Ale or something.

Peace.

I like Scotch....ales

My brother and I brewed up a scotch ale the other night. We tried a few different techniques and modified what we thought we did wrong with the hefe. Our changes worked. The brew started bubbling much sooner, developing a healthy fermentation earlier than expected.

We also, just for kicks, bottled some of the wort to ferment. The hardcore stuff. OG of 1.14. With enough yeast and sugars to produce upwards of 13 percent abv. Wooo! Hopefully it turns out well. The rest of the batch is going to fall between 6-8 percent abv. Which is still high, but not as high as the little growler will be.

We used five different types of grains, dry and wet malts, and three types of hops. I will divulge the recipe later if I feel it turned out well. No point letting anyone in on our failed secret recipe, right?

The scotch ale is going to be a success though. I can feel it. The IPA turned out great, the red is delicious, if not quite carbonated enough, and the hefe should be ready any day now.

I have also developed a love affair with Olde Main's Off-KILTer Scottish Ale, which has something to do with our recent brew. I will try to scribble out some notes to explain why this is easily in my top five brews. It's not even that hoppy.

More later. Too tired to write much now. The new job is killing me Smalls.

It's Hefe-time

My brother and I used a recipe I gleaned from online sources to brew a hefeweizen last week. It was our first attempt at using a recipe (not a kit) and our first attempt at a double batch. Needless to say, it was intense.

The guys at Beer Crazy were absolutely awesome in their help with the ingredients. They didn't have the exact hop variety the recipe called for, but it was a pretty common strain and they had a variety that would work. Other than that, they had it all.

After assembling all of the ingredients, my brother and I began to boil the water. An hour later, when it was finally hot enough to add the grains, we started brewing. We had never used hop tablets before so that was a neat experience. Next time I think we are going to use a hop bag... the aftermath of the little hop petals was pretty disturbing. I think the bag would make clean-up a lot easier. We also used ten pounds of dried wheat extract (which seemed like a lot, not gonna lie.)

We used a wort-chiller (homemade of course) to aid in the cooling process. This cut down the wait from about three-four hours to about one hour. The wort chiller just consists of a length of copper tubing wound into a coil which, after sanitizing, we dunked in the brewpot. We ran cold tap water through it to produce the cooling effect. Soon after turning on the tap we realized that oven mitts might be nice for holding on to the outgoing end of the tube. Yeah, it got hot pretty fast.

After it had cooled, we sloshed the wort back and forth between two fermenter buckets to properly aerate it. Then we divided the ten gallons up into three fermenters, five gallons into a bucket, four into the carboy and the last gallon or so into a party pig. Into the party pig we put some orange zest, just to experiment a little. I think the zest should do well to spice up the hefe, I just hope it doesn't have any really adverse side-effects. Then I added the yeast. It was a liquid yeast, which was new to us, and I didn't make a yeast starter. Next time I think I will definitely try that.

The original gravity was a little low, but I think that has something to do with when we took the reading. My brother pointed out that the sample we took didn't appear near as dense as the rest of the brew. Plus, after ten pounds of extract, I imagine the OG should be a bit higher than what we got. So far we have been pretty good about nailing the OG and FG, and this is the first time it wasn't exactly what we were expecting.

Then we played the waiting game...

A day later nothing had really happened. Normally the carboy will have exploded into action within about eight hours of adding the yeast, so I was a little apprehensive. I went to Beer Crazy to see if they could lend any insight. They told me to wait a little while longer because sometimes the wet yeast takes a little longer to get going. So, I went home with a bottle from Ommegang to wait.

And wait...

The party pig was the first to start bubbling. Then the bucket. Still no action from the carboy. I began to rethink how much yeast I had added to the carboy. Did I add enough? Should I pitch more? But, I continued to wait, and not be too hasty.

Lo and behold, it finally started to bubble yesterday. Now it has a layer of foam on top that resembles an angel-food cake. As I write this there is a symphony of pops and gurgles assuring me that everything will be okay.

This weekend we are going to try the red we bottled several weeks ago. That was the first time we had used the carboy, also the first time we tried the two-fermentations. Hopefully we get a little more clarity with it this time. Next weekend the IPA will be ready to sample. I am really excited to try it and see how the toasted oak chips worked out.

Wish us luck!

Peace.

Boulevard Single-Wide IPA

Having recently brewed a batch of my own IPA, I was pretty excited to find Boulevard's Single-Wide IPA in the store. This came as a double surprise because they had recently revamped the entire beer and liquor section of my local grocery store. Then, laying atop a case of Sierra Nevada, a lone six-pack of this delightful little IPA.

It stood our because it was out of place. I had never seen it in a bottle (having only sampled it at the Iowa City Brewfest) so I searched for it on the shelf. And could not find it anywhere. Not in the refrigerated section, not in the mix-and-match area, not even hiding on an end-cap. So, the beer-fairy left me a little surprise, and I took it at that.

While Boulevard recommends this ale with a curry, I went with a spicy dish from elsewhere- Pad Thai. And it was a great combination (even though the fiancee thought it was a bit too hot.) It's been quite a while since I've had a good IPA, not just a pale ale, not a double IPA, just a good old-fashioned IPA. And this little devil hit the spot.

The single-wide poured wonderfully, with just about a half-inch of delightful head topping a slightly cloudy amber-colored body. Given that I know Boulevard pretty well, their beers tend to be cloudy, due to the yeast added for secondary bottle fermentation. So when I say slightly cloudy, it's like recognizing an aspect of an old favorite and taking comfort in it. A cool, crisp bite of hops, lightly carbonated, and my desire was sated.

Brewer's Info:

STYLE: India Pale Ale

AVAILABILITY: Year-around; draught only in select markets until March 2009

INGREDIENTS: Pale malt, caramel malt & malted wheat. Magnum, Columbus, Summit, Cascade, Centennial & Pallisade hops.

STARTING GRAVITY: 13.7 degrees Plato

ALCOHOL: 4.6% by weight, 5.7% by volume

BITTERNESS UNITS: 59 IBUs

AVERAGE EBC COLOR: 17

Maybe it's just my love-affair with Boulevard, but this is a great IPA. When I first started with craft-beers, basically as soon as I turned 21, Boulevard was there for me. I sampled their stout, their porter (still one of my favorites), their pale ale and their wheat. These were the beers that gave me examples of what each beer style should be. Later, I learned that sometimes their beer was not the best in its class. It was, however, always a favorite.

Then Boulevard started making some other beers, and these started making their way to Iowa City. Specifically, the bar Quinton's, which had a similar love-affair with Boulevard. Then, when we went to the most recent brewfest, my favorite tent was theirs. Why? First, they had their Smokestack Series. Second, they were refusing tickets from us. We had made some pretty awesome friends. That or we just looked like the kind of guys who drink their weight in Bully!

One of my favorites from Brewfest? Their Double-Wide IPA of course. This is rarely found around my neck of the woods, so I went a little crazy when I got my hands on it. My brother greatly enjoys The Sixth Glass, as do I. However, when it comes to guilty pleasures, hops, hops and more hops always top my list.

Thanks Boulevard! And thank you magical beer fairy, for leaving me a six-pack...

Peace.

IPA Time, and free stuff!!!

I finally broke down and got everything I need for my IPA. This one is for me, as I think I'm the only one who really wants hoppy beer. My bro likes hops, but I'm painfully addicted to the stuff.

So, we bottled the red. We used several different bottle types, but the main difference is the sanitizer we tried out. Prior to this batch, I was just using a small amount of bleach in dilution to sanitize the bottles. This time I used a no-rinse cleanser which harnesses the awesome power of oxygen to clean. Hopefully this will diminish some of the strange flavors we got in our first couple of batches.

I've also developed a better note-taking system. Thanks to my previous job, I have a stock of crappy notebooks, one of which I now actually use. Anyway, we're keeping track of the ingredients we use, how long we boil, etc. This way we can modify our recipes in the future. For example, with the IPA we used Pilgrim and First Gold hops. So, if I like the way it turns out, I might use these hops again. Tada!

We are also experimenting with oak chips in this batch. We steamed them and threw them in the fermentation bucket (carboy I guess.) The theory is that this will add a little oak-barrel kind of taste, which is good for an IPA. The original India Pale Ales would have a heavy oak taste from the barrels they were stored in for the long trek to India from Great Britain. So authenticity is a goal. Or something. Also, for those who care, its OG: 1.051

Anyway, we are pretty excited about this new batch. We have several changes with this one, and I am pretty stoked to see how it goes.

On a completely different note, I received my prize from MidWestMicroBrews in the mail. Well, I had to drive the old FireChicken down to the Post Office, but that's beside the point. The prize included an awesome hat and polo shirt from Liberty Street Brewing. There was also a fine compliment of goodies from MidWestMicroBrews. Like a magnet for the beer fridge! Sadly, the package did not contain any brews from Liberty Street, but I'll just continue to check their website and put them on the list for our midwest brewpub crawl.

So, thanks fellas for the gear. Look forward to winning more contests in the future!

Peace.

A Big Red One

So, my brother and I have started a new batch. It's a Red Ale... or it's supposed to be anyway. It's had a few bumps in the road, but it's also a very experimental batch.

First off, this was our first time using a plastic carboy (thanks James for the supplies). So, I thought we could just use the same airlock we had been using. WRONG. It ended up overflowing... and all of the hops got stuck up in the top. Ooops. But I fixed it by running a tube into an old pitcher full of water. This worked wonderfully, other than the water smelled godawful by the end.

I am trying to get more clarity in this one and eliminate some of the cloudiness, so after the initial fermentation period, we racked it into a new bucket. Hopefully that will help clear it up a bit. We've got all of the bottles ready so, we should be able to bottle it up on Sunday or Monday...

It's starting to look red. At first it looked some kind of nasty diarrhea, but that's all better now.

It's very exciting. Especially the bubbles...

Sweet

Baby Boch!

So, it's a little late, I admit. The first batch I brewed was ready quite a while ago, but as it gets better and a little different every time I crack a new one, I was too busy exploring the realms of beer. Whatever.

I just wanted to throw some pics of the first batch up. Hope you like them. This is the boch, I didn't take any photos of the stout yet. Also, I think the next batch I'm going to try is a double batch hefeweizen. Wish me luck!

Bobo's Brew?

That's right. You read the title correctly. Bobo's Robust Porter, Limited Release from Big Sky Brewing, has made it's way to Des Moines, Iowa. Take that Ft. Collins! I spied it today as I was picking up groceries to make a chicken stew... thing. I'm pretty sure I yelped in surprise and scared the old dude next to me when I saw it.

This beer pours thick and develops a deep tan head. At first sip you get the feeling that it might just be trying to fool you. There are hops in this dark little bugger. But, that melts into a creamy deluge of chocolate, vanilla and a hint of caramel. Honestly, it left me a little stunned. This is easily one of the best porters I've ever had. It's not overly sweet, with enough bitter to counter the mingling of creamy goodness.

Sadly, this is another limited release, so hurry up and get some already!

New Beer List

Beer List that trumps most I've seen - BeerMe

Chew on that!