New Beer Tastings

Good morning campers. I wanted to share a few beers that I've tried recently. I've been on another IPA kick again. I also wanted to try a Rauchbier. Thankfully, my local package store has plenty to choose from and their beer man, Ray, is happy to suggest some new beers to me to try out this weekend.

After months of forgetting to try it, I finally bought Torpedo Extra IPA from Sierra Nevada.  Torpedo Extra IPA is another fantastic beer from Sierra Nevada. Great hop flavor with a 7.2% ABV. This beer is the reason that Sierra Nevadas invented the Hop Torpedo. It's a crazy contraptioon made to super size the dry hopping. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo. I guess I'll have to force myself to have another one tonight and take a pic then.

Sierra Nevada Torpedo

Next up is Outburst Imperial IPA from Pyramid Brewing. Another great IPA. 8.5% ABV and a nice hoppy punch. I'm glad that Pyramid is now available on the East Coast.
Of course, another beer I forgot to photograph. I'll add it to my list.
Pyramid Brewing Outburst IPA

Another fine IPA is Hop Wallop from Victory Brewing in PA. This is a great IPA with a nice balance between the West Coast hoppiness with a East Coast style IPA bitterness.
The beer also comes in at 8.5% ABV.
Victory Brewing Hop Wallop

Hop Wallop by Victory Brewing

The last beer today is not an IPA. I picked up Cinder Bock from Sam Adams. I'm interested in the taste of smoked malts because I'm planning on using them in a Cascadian Dark Ale recipe. My friend Ray suggested this beer as an example of the smoked malts. I have to say that I was not a fan of this beer. It tasted like liquid campfire to me. There are people that love the Rauchbier style, but I am not sure if I'm one of them yet. But at 9.4% ABV, definitely a nice end to the evening.

Sam Adams Cinder Bock

 

Sam Adams' Cinder Bock

Friends in the news

A good friend and fellow beer lover and homebrewer, Aron Daniels, was recently in the news. He also has a great Facebook page call CraftBrewGuy. The article and link to his page are listed below. Please feel free to take a look at both and remember to Support Local Beer.

"Drinking craft beer is NOT a trend, it's a REVOLUTION"

CraftBrewGuy

http://www.ct.com/entertainment/leisure/nm-ht20beerblogger-20120510,0,7449353.story

CraftBrewGuy's Blog

CraftBrewGuy on Facebook

Black IPA First Taste

Hello kids. The Northern Brewer Black IPA kit that I brewed in March is ready. I've been dreaming of this day for over 2 months. Well today is the day. The beer went into the fridge at 0700 this morning. It has been a long day waiting to crack open the first bottle. I decided to be a good spouse and mow the yard today. What a perfect time to have a beer. Oh, did I mention it's almost a half acre with a push mower?

So the moment of truth. The bottle was nice and cold. Popped the top with the bottle opener. Pssssst! Yes, we have carbonation. Always a bonus. Nothing worse than flat beer. My beer is bottle conditioned, so it carbonates in the bottle. The pour was OK. Not much of a head. Not a huge deal. It looks and smells fantastic. Nice hop aroma. The taste is outstanding. Hoppy up front. Nice malt backbone. Hoppy finish. No off alcohol or off flavors. I am so pleased with the results. Only one drawback....... my glass is empty. Thank God I have more in the fridge. Until next time, be safe and drink well.

The first bottle. I was so excited, I took a swig before I took the photo.

The Brew Menu

Fridge is all stocked up

Son of a .......

Quick Black IPA update

The Black IPA is almost ready. I stirred the yeast today. This is done by inverting the bottles gently and swirling the bottles gently. This will help to stimulate the yeast and help them consume the priming sugar. That's what helps to carbonate the beer. The gentle part it to reduce aeration and shaking the beer. Fermented beer + oxygen = crappy beer. The oxygen will cause off flavors and make the beer taste funny. On Sunday, I'll put a six-pack in the fridge and get it cold. Maybe a test sample Sunday night. Once I verify that the carbonation is at an acceptable level, I'll put the rest in the fridge. If not, it will sit in the beer closet to age longer. Until later, be safe and drink well.



The Black IPA bottle cap label





Almost 2 cases of Black IPA conditioning in the Beer Closet



Black IPA is bottled baby!

That's right kids. The Black IPA is bottled. Two more weeks and I get to pop them into the fridge and enjoy. We were 2 beers short of two full cases. Pretty damn good. Mom and Dad stopped by and Dad helped me with capping the bottles. My daughter, Sabina, even pitched in to dry the bottle caps so we could apply the labels.  This is the second batch that we applied the labels to the bottle cap. Less cleaning to remove the label from the bottle. I might try and make up better labels for the next batch. The bottle cap labels are fairly simple once I remembered how I printed them last time. After cleaning up, we sat back and enjoyed a glass of beer Dad picked up. Widmer Brothers Barrel Aged Brrrbon. Outstanding beer. It has the mouthfeel and body of a beer with great vanilla and caramel notes and boubon flavor. I think he is on a mission to find some more. Thanks for stopping by ad feel free to poke around.

Two cases of sanitized bottles, ready to go.

The tedious task of bottling. Good Lord, I need a haircut.

5 gallons of yummy

Black IPA Label



Our reward for all of our hard work.
Widmer Brothers Brrrbon



Bottling Day soon approaches.

One thing I dislike about homebrewing is bottling. It's a pain in the ass. You have to buy or collect enough for each batch. Then you have to aoak them to get the labels off. And now you have to clean them and run the bottle brush into each one. Then one bottling day you have to sanitize them. I'm lucky because I have a sanitize setting on my dishwasher. Throw in a scoop of Oxiclean Free and let it go. I really need to start investing in kegging equipment. Today I cleaned over 3.5 cases of bottles. That's about 90 bottles. Ugh. Now I have dishpan hands. Crap! That's all for now. I'll update this Sunday when I bottle the Black IPA.

Soaking the bottles in Oxiclean Free and hot water

My bottling tree. Letting the bottles dry before we put them away. 

New Brewing Equipment

So this is my second attempt to post this info. I some how deleted the first one this morning. Not enough coffee I guess.

Easter Sunday, I bought a Backyard Classic 30 quart turkey fryer from a local Walmart. My Dad had mentioned it before and I finally got over there to grab it. I have been thinking about buying a propane burner set-up anyway, so this is a great find. This will decrease my time stuck on the stove top and also make my brewing setup more portable. The 7.5 gallon pot is also a bonus.

The only drawback of the purchase was the 15 minute timer on the burner. Any home brewer out there knows that a 15 minute timer will not work when most beers are a 60 minute boil minimum. So off to the Internet I went to search the Brewing forums for a fix. I was able to find that this is an easy fix and a few minutes later I was able to remove the timer completely and the burner works perfectly.

I decided a few days later to run the burner thru a test run. After marking the 7.5 gallon pot in one gallon increments, I put 3 gallons of cold tap water into it and checked the temp which was 50°. I hooked up the propane tank and lit the burner. 18.4 minutes later I had a full rolling boil. This will definitely work for me.

Now I can't wait for my next brew. I'm thinking about a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA clone. Stay tuned.