Part 3 West Coast IPA's and some other stuff...

First off.. 'Delta' wheat, aka Jess's Mean 40th, is officially kicked. Damn, that was quick! Just over a month. This beer, tapped just a week before last month came to a close, lasted just over 5 weeks.. and then BLAM! Foam. 

Thankfully, there's a beer meaner than that 40th to take it's place. The Mighty 109! Yep, my big IPA with 109 calculated IBU's is now in the fridge. Here, introduce yourselves:

It's a standard orange colored thing, yep. It's only partially carb'ed right now, and still fairly warm.. but first impression leaves me thinking about grapefruit and oranges and ..Dogfish 90 Minute? It's got a little residual sweetness and a lot of resiny-hops in this glass to give me hints of the 90 Minute, but not nearly as sticky, and of course, Dogfish don't got no grapefruit in it. That's what, Amarillo? I think Amarillo does that.. fair enough. There's plenty of Amarillo in here. BTW, this one checks in at 7.8% abv. Keep an eye on that one, eh?

Other than that, there's news on the chile front. The what? Check it:

Chile's. Six plants total, starting out small. Three jalapeno's and three habanero's. Hope I can get some garden space! I also called around for some horseradish, my newest love, and found a place in Torrington that'll be getting them, but not for a week or three. They'll call hen they're in. Stay tuned. Apparently, horseradish is a perennial. that's what grows year after year, right? Well, that's what horseradish is. Supposedly grows like, 5 feet tall and is a nice looking plant, and then in te fall when the leaves die off, you dig the plant up and pull the roots up and grind 'em up for pickling to make horseradish sause. You keep one and replant that one in the ground and it winters there and then re-sprouts in the spring. Nice.

Now go click my google links, you jerks!

Hop stringing and Part 2 of West Coast IPAs..

Part Two of West Coast IPA's half-assed notes:

Ninkasi brewing 'Triceratops' Double IPA 8.8

Color gold, just like the rest.  Orange on the nose. LOTS of orange. Bitter background is strong, nearly stinging, but flavor hops starts to destroy that fiarly quick as they wash in.  Faint malt flavor in the finish, but hard to tell after just a few sips.  1/3rd into the pint starting to feel a little cloying.. But not sticky. Really massive hop resin flavor in the middle here.. Still not cloying, but really steps up and toes the line. Remains just on this side of drinkability from abusive.

(*Note: In retrospect, this was probably one of the best of the IPA's I had on this trip... It was truly massive!)

Port Brewing 'Wipeout' IPA 7.0

Post Stone brewing visit w/taste buds blown totally out .. Clear orange in color. Orange in aroma. Orange in flavor! Bitter backbone, but gets mostly overrun by the flavor of orange fruit hops. Very dry finish on this one compared to the rest, invites another sip almost immediatlely. Not sticky at all despite big hop presence. Starting to get just a hint of pineapple now??? Really quite drinkable and delicious ! Love this one! Great to the last drop there.. Highly recommended!

(*Note: this one probably was my favorite of the bunch, but I think it depends on your mood for the day. Do you want big hop flavor, or big hop BITE.. in which case you'd go for the Ninkasi beer. Incredible interpretation of this style, though.)

In other news, me and Frank strung up his hops and mine yesterday afternoon. Check his setup out for the one hop variety he grows. They're still kinda small and hard to see in this far away pic, but they're there at the base just in front of the trellis, on the close side here towards the camera:

Here Frank and I are back over in my yard, stringing up the twine onto the poles I built last week..

Here's a shot of the whole thing, with the spiral'd twine running up from the bottom to the top. I plan to hand guide them onto the twine and get 'em running around till they get to the top, then let them run wild up there. It'll take some work for about a month or so, but then should be pretty hands free. It appears by a rough estimate that there's in the neighborhood of about 20-30 feet of string going al the way around, so.. hopefully we'll get some good length out of the hops overall, even though the overall height will be fairly low.

This is Frank, being a total tard. He cannot resist this behavior.. way to go, Frank!

'tis all for now.. stand by the the final crappy installment of the IPA saga in a bit...