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...

West Coast IPA's and California Trip Part 1

So.

Just got back from a trip to California. Went out to take the kids to Disney Land and hit up Stone brewing for a fresh pint. No, really. That's the point of the whole thing. See, me and Jody had a pint of Arrogant Bastard in 2007 in Denver, CO while out at GABF that was *so bitter* that it could not be finished. We were just under the impression that Arrogant Bastard was just *that* arrogant. Then, in the fall of 2009, we went back and tried that same beer again, in the same bar (Falling Rock Tap House) at the same weekend (roughly) and it was not so arrogant. We drank the whole thing. So, now the question was, will the real Bastard please stand up? To answer this question, a pint of this Bastard right at the brewery where it's made would be the only real answer, so, this trip was designed to answer that question. Oh, sure, my wife will tell you it was a family vacation to take the kids to see Disney Land and visit with some family out there, but I know better. You do too.

In either case, we'll answer this in a later posting, as this update will have to take place over several postings. A lot of pics and info was gleaned. Firstly, here's an important photo of me, sportin' my CT's favorite beer hat on one of the surfing beaches in CA. Dig it. Then, realize I was there in April and got massive sunburn. Now, be jealous. 

Here's another shot of said character, drinking beer from a screw top container. No alcohol is actually allowed on the beach, so.. improvise. Dig it.

Here's a pic of the happiest guy in the world, just leaving a warehouse of alcohol, with six 22oz bombers of the best West Coast IPA's in the US of A. He is very excited, as you can tell..

I figured I'd be able to do two of these a night, after diner, and have a little space left over. You know, we'd be there for 4 nights, 5 days. Short trip.. but that's enough time, right? Stand by on that..

Well, that above-mentioned plan worked OK the first night for sure. Here's the first beer I opened. Two pics of the same one, because I couldn't decide which photo was the better.. Adrienne stuffing her face:

..or Aaron stuffing his face! In ether case, here's the info I typed into my iPod Touch for note taking while I was there.

Both photo's are just awesome.


Moylans IPA 6.5% abv

Hops evident but sorta has a restrained aroma. Drinking with cheddar cheese and potato chips. Hop variety not listed, but first attack is high cohumulone and it finishes with an earthhy flavor. No citrus evident, seems to be a high cohumulone hop variety here. Works wonders with this cheese! Easy enough to drink from this 22 oz bomber I'm sharing. Pine coming through in flavor now in aspiration through the nose. This beer is bitter and partially arrogant!


Then there was this beer:

Firestone Walker 'Union Jack' IPA 7.5% abv

Very similar to Moylans above except a more smooth tasting beer. Lower cohumulone hops lending a more citrus midrange flavor. More drinkable as a result, though there is more alcohol in the house. Not to be confused with a citrus flavored beer, just more than the *above* mentioned beer...

As a parting shot, this is a pic of the view out of the rear slider of the house I stayed at while out there. Check that hillside view! You'll have to check it in the afternoon, cause the smog obscures it during the morning. ;-)

That's all for now. Tune in later for the rest...

2010 hop crop... comin' up!

Just a quick one today to chronicle the 2010 hop crop. I dug up and gave away two of my plants a couple weeks ago, and so I'm down to growing just two this year.. 4 was too much, and I never used 'em and the maintenance was too high. Decided to drop back to my two favorites and grow te heck out of them, hopefully. We're doing just Nugget and Cascades this time around. Check these pics of the 'power pyramid' trellis thingy (as w've started calling these triangle things I built..) they'll be growing on this year..

Here's a shot of the Cascades just popping up:

This here is the entire setup for the Nugget plant..

Sweet placards I made up for 'em, eh?

And finally, the Cascades whole pyramid  trellis.

I like the look at stability of this idea.  hope it works. In futre blogs, we'll chronicle the growth of the plants and how I'm going to string the twine for them to grow on.. I've got a couple ideas in mind, and I might try something different with each one to see how they work. Stand by on that..

Yeast washing...

Tried a little experiment with yeast washing to see what would happen.. I didn't use this yeast afterwards, because I had just done a fairly high gravity beer with it and couldn't go down gravity next.. so I did it just as an exercise to see what would happen. Check the pic:

In the photo, I'm pointing at the middle layer of good yeast that could have been re-pitched, had I wanted to. Wait, backup. Process! As I understand it, you boil about 1/2 a gallon of water or so, and then cool it, just to sterilize the stuff.. then, when you've racked a beer just out of primary and you have that big pile of junk on the bottom, you pour this cooled water into that fermenter and swirl the stuff around to loosen it up. Then, take your also just cleaned and sanitized 1/2 gallon growler, like the one in the pic, and send all that goop from the fermenter into it. Give it a swirly, and then let it sit. After a few hours, or overnight, the trub and hop matter will sink to the bottom (seen just under the white-ish later I'm pointing at here..) and stay there. The good yeast is the stuff in the middle layer, and supposedly, the dead yeast float on the top layer.. What appears to be "beer" here, is actually just the boiled and cooled water that's mixed in with some other stuff, which made it pick up some color that gives it that amber look.

This is all very interesting and you'd think "great, now I've got a good pile of clean yeast to re-pitch" but the problem came when I tried to separate it.. the stuff just all starts to flow out in a three colored stream and I couldn't get 'em to be distinct, separate piles of goop. So, what now? I dunno.. maybe a different vessel with a larger opening to pour out of would have a different result? I'll have to goof with it some more. Good experiment though.. was interesting to see the way it turned out..

Foxtrot and Black Bear update, Red beer down and Curieux..

Check it:

The Red Beer, brewed with Timmay back in the very beginning of January, is down! Good beer, that. I just stuffed the mini keg of the Irritable Bear sour stout in it's place for carb'ing up for the May 2nd Big Brew we're having here.. Irritable Bear is the one gallon sour version, fermented with the Jolly Pumpkin 'Bam Bier' strain of yeast, of the ol' #79 Black Bear Belgian stout I brewed with Jody. Probably soon, I'll take that minikeg out of there and put the Black Bear stout itself in there.. for a bit of a tasting on the May 2nd fiesta. The Foxtrot IPA (109 IBU's!) was kegged yesterday as well, and that'll go online when the next keg goes off..

Tap #4 is hosting the 100% Brett 'C' beer I did way back as well.. and that's doing fine too, and I'm getting more of an appreciation for it now as time goes by. Had a fellow over yesterday (Vincent) who is a member of a rag-tag group of brewers in the Harwinton/Torrington area not affiliated with a club at this time, who I met through a Craigslist posting when he responded looking for some hops.. anyway, he popped in and had a taste of that and mentioned that he thought it tasted like a German Riesling wine.. which I thought was pretty curious and fairly accurate, when looked at in that light. Interesting.. more on this fellow and his crew (who brew on a 20 gallon+ system!) when more intel is gathered about them. So far, they operate under the radar like brewing ninja's..

Another friend came up a couple nights ago (Hi Colin and Dawn!) and brought this thing with him, Allagash Curieux, a bourbon barrel aged thing of 11% power. The oak is pretty restrained in this pale colored beer.. it's a hot one, though.. burns just a bit on the palate, but a 12oz glass is manageable solo. Bring a friend to finish this whole bottle, though.. a well done beer of some complexity, but no sour, which I was sort of expecting being that it's from Allagash and barrel aged. One would just expect it, no? Well, no. Hmm.

In sourdough news, I brought the culture back to life after a harrowing battle of a near sourdough death experience. The problem was solved with a small application of pulverized 2 row barley. Ingenious! Fired that sad stinkin' yeast beast up right quick. In the midst of the build up of the dough as we speak...

That is all for now. Carry on..

Easter bread, some beer updates..

So, it's Easter today.. here's a shot of the bread I made for the dinner. A huge, 2.5lb sourdough boule, and a challah bread. I don't know anything about that rabbit..

Here's a bunch of shots from the Foxtrot IPA I just did solo. First,  here's a shot of the mass of hops that I 

got out of the bottom of the kettle after the transfer into the fermenter. And this wasn't even all of it.. there was more than I'd thought there would be.. that bucket is full!

After the primary had settled, but before I pitched the yeast, I racked into another carboy to try and keep some of the goop out of the primary fermentor. Check out the level of hop goop before the transfer took place:

And here's the racking process itself taking place.. 

Much cleaner looking after all was said and done. Additionally, here's a pic of the new mash paddle I used, which was fashioned from a wooden paddle I rescued from the Farmington river. Check it next to the old one:

This paddle was totally awesome. That extra foot of handle length really made stirring much, much nicer.

Here's a shot of the hydrometer pre-ferment..

In addition, here's a shot of the Black Bear Belgian stout gravity reading, the one I made with Jody a few weeks back. It finished a bit drier than his, as he said his ended up near 1.016.. this one came in at 1.012. Works out to ~7.1% abv. Looking forward to  a side by side between his and mine to see how that works out, fermented at different temps and attenuation levels. Check it:

I can tell you honestly, in the hydro jar and the pint (warm and flat) that was leftover from racking this Stout into a keg, it's totally fantastic. Easily one of the best homebrews I've ever made. Look for it here in a week or two..

Carry on.