The Funky Monk and other thoughts

Last week I had a box of beer sent to me by Dave @ Muckney Brewing. I will eventually get to the reviews of his Saison and Barley Wine he sent. In addition to the homebrews, Dave sent me a number of commercial beers. Among the beers was a Stone beer I'd never had, Cali-Belgique IPA, which they describe as their Stone IPA brewed with a Belgian yeast. I was really impressed with this beer, it was fruity and hoppy, slightly bitter but also funky. A really nice blend of styles. I had been trying to decide what I wanted to brew next and this beer was so tasty I decided to brew my own interpretation.
I started with a fairly basic IPA recipe, kept the IBUs down some, opting for 1 oz of Columbus as the bittering agent. I also added some Amarillo and finished the boil with Citra as a late hop addition. I've never used Citra before, but the description of flavors of mango, pineapple and passion fruit sounded like a perfect compliment to the Belgian yeast. I went with White Labs Abbey Ale 530 yeast to give it some nice fruity,funky notes. I'm excited to see how this beer turns out. More to come on that.

On another note, I've been lucky to have a couple sessions of drinking great beer with some great people lately. Last Friday, Aaron @ Captain's Blog and Derek from Beer This came over to share some homebrew. Aaron brought along an amazing Wild Rice Brown Ale he brewed. The wild rice finished the beer off nicely, but the caramel, nutty and brown sugar flavors that dominated the beer were incredible! In addition, he brought his Hefeweizen, which was clovey with some nice banana aromas followed by great hefe-refreshment. In addition to his homebrews, he shared a bottle of the coveted Dark Lord from Three Floyds. Man oh Man! I'm not a RIS fan usually, but this beer blew me away! A really nice evening of beer geekery and excellent brews.

This past Saturday, my oldest friend El Jefe came over and brewed the Funky Monk with me. He also brought a New Glarus Unplugged Cherry Stout. I turned El Jefe onto New Glarus a couple years ago and believe I have created a monster. He turned me onto Millstream, so I guess we're even for creating a thirst for out of state beers that we can't readily get our hands on. Regardless, El Jefe recently went on a run to Wisconsin to pick up some New Glarus and saved a bottle of Cherry Stout for us. Cherry Stout was great, so unique and not what I was expecting. The "stout" of the beer is hard to pick up as the cherries dominate, similar to their award winning Belgian Red. Aaron @ Captain's blog said it perfectly, its almost Cherry Coke like. His review was spot on. I'm really hoping that there is an off chance that I can find a four pack still left on the shelves when I get to Wisconsin later this month. Its not a traditional stout, but it's something unique. As Jefe put it, still waiting to try a New Glarus beer that I didn't like.
Coming soon, I'd like to get to the review of my 2010 Gringo as well as some commerical beers I've gotten a hold of recently.

Salud!
Bearded Brewer