El Oso Brown Ale Round 2

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from a friend forwarding me an ad on craigslist for local organic hops. It turned out to be a local farmer who started growing organic hops because his sons are homebrewers. He planted Cascade hops and his first year yielded 10 pounds. I emailed right away and was lucky to snag the last pound (the other 9 lbs were snatched up by Superior Brewing Company). I'll be interviewing George for the blog, he and his wife are just starting out and excited about how fun it was to grow hops. I'm curious about the process and what they did to grow the hops organically. Next year they are looking to get certified organic and possibly a pelletizer. Seeing that I've only been able to get organic hops from California, a local option is aweome! More to come on Hippity Hops Farms in the future.
Anyway, with these new hops I wanted to brew a beer for the fall, and was trying to decide between an amber ale and an American brown ale. Now that might wife is drinking again, she voted for the brown ale. Seeing that I've been brewing IPAs, Double IPAs, and a bunch of beers the past year that I knew she wouldn't drink, I thought she should get the final vote. When I brewed the Oso last year, I was happy with the end result, but felt like it was missing something. It was almost closer to a mild than a brown ale and I felt that it could have used more hops, more chocolate malt, and maybe even some honey. Something to take it from a decent session ale, to a heartier, more memorable brown ale. I'm hoping that two ounces of Cascade will help with this, and I have yet to decide if I'm going to put some honey in the secondary.
I changed the recipe from the original partial mash to an extract. My ability to find time to brew has been cut significantly with an infant added to the household, so my brewing schedule at the moment consists of starting the process with my infant son while my wife puts my 2 year old down. This starts around 8:30 or so, and I don't finish until around midnight as it is. An extra hour or two for the mashing, heating the sparge water, etc. is something I can't afford at the moment. So, I'm back to brewing extract and readjusting my recipes. I'm excited to see how this turn out.

Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Russian River Blind Pig Review

Over labor day at a family reunion, my cousin's husband and I traded some beers, both homebrew and local commerical beers. Mike lives in Denver and among the beers he brought me was Russian River's Blind Pig. When I was in Denver in March, I tried both Pliny the Younger and Pliny the Elder from Russian River and both were excellent, so I was excited to see this among the beers he brought.
I was thinking lately about the hype surrounding beer. I think the grass is only greener mentality applies to beer a lot. I think its only natural to believe that the rare beer for me is better than the beer that I can get on tap all the time. However, I think that sometimes beers that I take for granted or sometimes don't even like are beers heavily coveted by beer fans in other parts of the country.
That being said, Blind Pig is not a beer that falls into that category. Whatever hype surrounding this beer, or brewery for that matter, is well deserved.
Blind Pig pours a cloudy gold with a foamy white head. Wonderful grapefruity aromas along with some pineness. Citrusy flavors right away, mostly grapefruit with some puckering bite. Very litter bitterneness with some great sweetness, seemingly from the hops more than the malt. Perfect mouthfeel. It's creamy and soft up front wiht some great bite in the finish that gives it just enough crispness to leave you wanting another sip. Wonderfully complex, this beer is piney and grapefruity and just extremely well balanced. An excellent IPA.

Slowly, I'm working through the reviews I want to get to...coming up is either one of my own beers, or another of the great beers Mike either made or brought me.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Luther Public House Review- Triple

A couple weeks ago I posted about a couple of beers I exchanged with Derek from the Beer This!Blog. The name of his homebrewery is the Luther Public House, and his beers follow the theme of Martin Luther. In addition to the mild and the porter he gave me, he also included a triple, named Kate and Care Triple for Luther's wife Katherine and his wife Carolyn. He felt that this beer was the best of the three he gave me, and I was excited since I'm a big fan of Belgian triples.
It's been a busy couple of weeks with a long road trip to a family reunion during Labor Day weekend, and the start of a new school year. I've felt bad that I have not been able to open up the triple, but at 10% alc and a full 22 oz bottle, it wasn't something I could just pop open whenever. So this past Saturday I was very happy to finally find the time to sit down and enjoy this triple while I watched my beloved Iowa Hawks destroy the Iowa State Cyclones.
Onto the beer: The Kate and Care pours a cloudy gold with a foamy two finger white head. Great aromas of tangerine, orange and some slight spiceness. It smells like a great Belgian right away. The key in my mind to a great triple is the mouthfeel, and this one doesn't dissapoint. It has the perfect combination of creaminess and a crispness that I associate with the triple. There's very little alchohol heat present up front, instead a nice sweetness with some citrusy flavors and a spiceness that seems kind of like corriander to me. Throughout the beer there's a nice sticky fruitiness, but highly drinkable and almost refreshing.
In the finish there's some lingering sweetness along with some alcohol heat that isn't overpowering. Derek had told me that there seemed to be a lot of alcohol when the beer was young, but that has gone away with time, as it was barely noticeable and defintley didn't take away from the beer. Of the beers he gave me, this was clearly the best, and I'd put it up there with about any commercial triple. Nice work Derek!

I plan to eventually get to some reviews. I exchanged some beers with my cousin's husband, including a saison we brewed together. He makes great beer and I look forward to diving into the homebrews he gave me. He also hooked me up with some beers he picked up for me in Colorado, including the coveted Blind Pig from Russian River, Alaskan Smoked Porter and a Great Divide Saison. I'd also like to get to a review of my milk stout, La Vaca and Steelhead Slammer Imperial IPA. I will do my best to review all those beers soon.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer