IPA - India Pale Ale

So it's been a while since I've brewed anything as hoppy as an IPA, I'd have to dig through my archives but without doing that I can safely say that it's been at least one year since I've brewed an IPA, and in all reality probably more like 3 years.

Having said that I will say that I've really been enjoying the hoppier beers lately, which is probably due to 2 factors:

1) It's summer time..and hoppy beers are awesome when it's hot.
2) It's been around 2 or 3 years since I've OD'd my taste buds on IBU's...I can remember a time when I pursued the highest IBU beers on earth (but what home brewer/American beer geek has not right?) and those taste buds just may have grown back..who knew?

Anyhow I really wanted to brew an IPA because of my recent tastes as well as an excess of Cascade hops I had to use..I kinda stocked up last year during the "hop shortage" and saved them for a rainy day...as you can see from the pictures today was in fact a rainy day...so don't flame me for hording hops eh?


Pretty straightforward recipe, mostly 2 row with some German Vienna and crystal malt (medium and dark). The greatest factor in this recipe is the 3oz's of cascade hops I used. Like I said above it's been one hell of a long time since I've used anything north of 2oz in any given beer..and by doing this brew I quickly remembered how much of my precious beer is occupied by all those hops (3oz..Christ what was I thinking?). I wanted this brew to be drinkable in time for my buddies wedding so I didn't go overboard on the bittering hops but I did push the limits with the flavor and aroma hops. Don't get me wrong..I think this will be a delicious beer but honestly you need to brew a 10 gallon batch to get any mileage out of a batch like this since it will arrive around 5.2% ABV (not meant for any great amount of time for aging) and after I rack to the secondary I'm expecting to have around 3.8 gallons of beer to put in the keg.



Having said that I'm looking forward to putting this guy on tap. During the summer there are just a handful of beers that I want to have easy access to, and here they are:

-Berliner Weiss (well stocked up on New Glarus Berliner Weiss AND have my own bottled). Drinking on now!
-Pilsner (will be brewing my first within the month of July..so it'll be a late summer brew)
-IPA and/or APA (your reading about it right now)

I'll be sure to post some tasting notes after a bit. For now here is a video (sideways video..this is the dailyikura.com..not some professional brewing website so if you have a laptop turn it on it's side..if you have a desktop...well do the same). This is a short clip of my incredibly hop infused primary and the yeast kicking chunks of hops around the carboy while they do their thing..

Cheers!

New Glarus Brewing, Capital Brewing, and the Great Dane Brewpub...oh and the "Drinking and Writing" event...all in one freakin weekend!

Ambitious..yes. Alot of beer and beer info to consume in two days..yes. Tired as hell after leaving Chicago for Wisconsin at 8am and returning at 11pm at night with around 7 hours on the road...yes. Oh and sleeping for 5 hours only to wake up and go to the "Drinking and Writing" gathering at the Hop Leaf the next day..yeah..that was pretty extreme.

So out of of the great beer geek mind that is housed in my skull I thought it would be a superb idea to to knock out the new New Glarus Brewery ( New Glarus, WI ) AND Capital Brewery (Madison, WI) in one day...the Great Dane Brewpub (Madison, WI) part didn't even come to me until we were on the road. So to answer the original question..ambitious? Yes!

In fact our poor friend Henry was pulled along for the entire experience while visiting us in Chicago via Coeur d'Alene, ID.

I really just want to primarily write about the New Glarus Brewery. Honestly..I've not seen a more beautiful brew house. Granted it is brand spanking new, and the grand opening was the following day (hows that for timing right?), but I honestly have not been in a more impressive brewery. Neither words nor pictures really do it justice. It is a testament to a love of brewing and what can be accomplished by offering a local product, to a local audience (they only distribute in WI), by a truly passionate entrepreneurial spirit with the support of a community. NGB is one of those stories that are just begging to be written and distributed to the beer geek audience out there...but so much would be lost in the text it's one of those places you simply need to visit.

If you can picture a large artisanal house planted atop a hill complete with scenic green vistas, bubbling creeks, and a fresh gentle breeze smelling of earth and freshly worked crops..well then you can picture the New Glarus Brewery. I only wish I had better pictures to support this description..but..as above..so much would is lost in the translation.

Once inside you are in a whole new world than what you just left at the door. Not that you've left the scenic vistas and atmosphere at the door but rather you've just stepped into a professional brewing establishment laid out in such a way that I'm sure the German designers who worked this project use it as their primary example when courting new clients (sorry..a little of my sales career bleeding through there..). Somehow New Glarus manages to feel small..while being large in production on the local level . After visiting their prior (expanded 1x) brewery I can say that the original brew house was no slouch..but this new establishment has not only grown in production capacity but also in functionality..and more importantly..in it's ability to engage the individuals out there who are thirsty for not only Uff-Da Bock but also for knowledge and a appreciation of how artisanal product can grow and engage those who love it as well as a new audience.

To summarize..you NEED to visit the New Glarus Brewery.

Onto Capital in Madison, WI - well..I admit I don't have much to say. You see the problem in hitting New Glarus first is like watching the MLB world series, and then driving 2 hours to go watch the college world series. I don't mean to put this in a light that makes Capital look poorly, that would be hard to do considering the number of awards they have won for their beers, but I am saying from the perspective of a beer fan..well..it would be difficult to be impressive after walking through New Glarus. We didn't even manage to hit the brewery tour here because we spent so much time in New Glarus. I did manage to get out with a new growler ( I like collecting brewery growlers ) full of their most recent offering of American Pale Ale and we did "kick it" (thats what the kids say) in their bier garten for a little bit but the crowd was much more of a college level attendance, which is a good thing for craft beer, but after being on the road for so long we didn't want to "hang" (again - the kids say that nowadays) for very long..so we headed for downtown Madison, WI.

I somehow managed to find the Great Dane Brewpub after my iphone, and more importantly, my iphone GPS died on me ( it should be noted that I thought taking the "scenic route" through rural WI to New Glarus would be a fine idea..which it was..just not in terms of mobile phone battery strength ). I was pretty excited, and impressed by this brewpub. According to the website they usually have 11 taps of their own brews flowing, and 3 casks at all times. Problem was that when we got there (around 5pm on a Friday) they had nothing on cask so I settled for their watermelon wheat brew..which was delicious and a perfect compliment to the previous brews we had consumed during the day..but I did make it a point to find them to sample some cask conditioned ales..so it was a partial wash..but not a total one. I will say that their watermelon wheat was amazing. I know some of you are reading and thinking "fruit beers are weak, unless they are lambics"..let me tell you that this was a great tasting brew and that "good" fruit beers are hard to not only turn out, but also to make consistant. Enough said.

I'll wrap this up quickly with the "Drinking and Writing" event held at the Hopleaf (Chicago, IL - Andersonville neighborhood) on the following day. This was our second D&W event within the past few months and I must say I enjoy them immensely. I've not experienced any other beer associated event that was educational not only inn craft beer terms, but also in the categories that the events are based around. We spent a few hours talking back and forth with not only fellow craft beer people but also with folks who enjoyed writing primarily. If you couple those two variables with random beer culture people (like my new friend who I purchased a 1930's Pabst can from (that had instructions on how to open the can on it mind you..) for $10 you simply cant miss. I cant wait for the next D&W event!

Well if your still reading this, and I hope you are, then you have certainly put in some time on my little beer blog..and I appreciate it. Cheers to you!

Salute!!
Brian

English Special Bitter - Stone Garden ESB

As my Facebook status said Friday afternoon - "Summer Hours = Brewing Hours"

I'm a lucky enough guy this summer to have "summer hours" for the first time in my professional career, which means I'm out of the office at 12pm on Fridays, which also means I'm heating my mash water by 1pm Fridays and am done brewing right around 6pm for the day.

I plan on doing this with at least 2 of my Fridays per month while summer hours last (up to September). Which means I'm going to do the opposite of what most homebrewers do..I'm going to be brewing most during the hot summer months.

Not surprisingly I've done another British Bitter, an ESB. Primary reason for doing this was I could keg "Butchers Breakfast" and toss this ESB right onto that yeast cake. The nice thing about brewing lighter Bitters is that at a 3.9% ABV you're basically making a really big starter, so by the time you brew a "bigger" beer you've got a millions of healthy and active yeast just waiting to start eating some fermentable sugars.

This ESB is basically a magnified version of the Butchers Breakfast, with more base malt (Maris Otter), more specialty grains (Victory, and Special Roast), and a new addition of a bit of Chocolate malt.

Recently I was reading an article on perception of flavor of beer (big surprise right?) and found an interesting tidbit "our sense of smell can pick up on a wider range of flavors than our taste buds can". This came out of the magazine "Beer Northwest" which a friends dad had hooked me up with. So I decided to go HEAVY on the flavor and aroma hops (East Kent Goldings to stay true to style), while using some Simcoe as the bittering addition, which produces a fairly clean bittering flavor which will allow the EKG flavor to come through fairly well (plus using EKG's as a bittering hops can be a tall order when shooting for a 43 IBU...and that translates into a ton of hop pellets that will take up more of the beer when it comes to transferring to the fermentor, and ultimately the keg). So when it comes to using 2 ounces of EKG's, or .5 ounce of Simcoe..well it was a no brainer.

It's been a while since I've brewed an IPA but I do imagine I've used 1 ounce of hops for flavor and an additional 1 ounce for aroma in the past; but after brewing bitters for so long this seemed like a ton of hops to use for me. "Stone Garden" is sitting in the primary now, fermenting away (and quickly due to a slightly higher temperature and that healthy yeast cake) so I should be kegging it this following weekend, drinkable in 2 weeks I imagine.

Really looking forward to this one!

Cheers,
Brian