IPA Taste Off

Last Friday night I had three friends over for an IPA tasting. I feel that I am always looking for new beers, but wanted to see what would come out of a night tasting a bunch of personal "fall back" IPAs. The idea was simply to put a bunch of our "fall back" IPAs next to one another and see what the end results were. Everybody brought two IPAs each, and then we did a single beer all at the same time. I should start by saying that we weren't necessarily looking for a winner, just wanted to see our impressions of each beer. It turns out that most of us had similar thoughts on the beers, but it was interesting to drink 10 different IPAs next to one another.
Here's what was brought:
Lagunitas IPA, Great Lakes Commodore Perry, Bell's Two Hearted, Odell's IPA, Surly Furious, Deschutes Inversion,Town Hall's Masala Mama, Dark Horse Crooked Tree

Results? Well I should start by saying that none of these beers are bad, in fact they are all very good IPAs. What was interesting was how different from one another they were.
Overall the least impressive was the Deschutes Inversion. Very well balanced, and good, but didn't have an extra something that really separated some of the others, a solid B by most accounts. Laguintas was very solid, most people rated it around a B+, just clean and hoppy.

Bell's Two Hearted, my dark horse favorite, was very good, quite citrusy and lighter in body. We were surprised at how light in color it was compared to the others and how it was much crisper overall. It's not overly malty and the Centennial hops really stand out. Odell's surprised us a bit and was very well balanced and almost refreshing, clean bittering. Turned out better than I was expecting, I need to drink more of it. It's a beer I've had, but don't always turn to when wanting a good IPA, that's going to change.

As for the cream of the crop: Town Hall and Dark Horse were both outstanding, exceptionally balanced. The Dark Horse Crooked Tree really was well received, and everyone gave it an A. Malty, piney and citrusy as well, just fantastic. Masala Mama from Town Hall has a nice bite, lingering bitterness, and sweet mixture of maltiness and citrus you expect.
Great Lakes Commodore Perry was really the surprising IPA of the night. Amongst so much citrusy and piney IPAs, the Commodore Perry had a really interesting taste, almost berry like. It was very fruity in aroma and flavor.
Surly was the oddball of the night, but not in a bad way. After the first taste of the Furious everyone kind of took a step back. Stacked up next to these beers, it's more. More of everything, malt, aroma, and hop oomph. We decided that it really doesn't count in this tasting because it's just so different than the rest of the IPAs. For those who haven't drank a Furious, it's full of complex layers of malt, piney and citrusy hops, bitter and sweet, extremely aromatic. It's a great beer, but not really an IPA in comparison to the more classic American IPAs listed above.

After the eight beers listed above had been tasted, I broke out two beers I had in the fridge. One being Founder's Centennial IPA and a recently obtained bottle of Hop Art IPA from Coast Brewing in Charleston, South Carolina.

Founder's Centennial IPA is solid, dripping with citrusy sweetness. It's slightly malty but is over powered by the citrus. Centennial is as advertised, a great showcase of Centennial hops.

As for the Hop Art from Coast Brewing, I have been eager to try something from Coast for awhile. A small, husband and wife run brewery they try to brew with sustainable practices and organic ingredients as much as possible. For more information on Coast, I did an interview in 2008 with Jaime, one half of the brewery's operation.

Anyway, we cracked open the Hop Art last, and while we had all had a number of IPAs, all of us were really impressed. Perfectly balanced, the Hop Art poured Amber with aromas of citrus and slight pine, malty and sweet. Lingering sweetness with some slight bitterness. Throughout the night none of the IPAs possessed such a wonderful balance of all the qualities. So while we weren't looking for a winner, Hop Art really stood out amongst the rest. A special thanks to Brian @ Untamedbeer blog for sending me this gem.

My friend Jesse made a good point about the evening, we set out looking to just pick our "fall back" IPAs and we were able easily come up with eight that we'd be more than satisfied to walk out of a store with a six pack of. Overall, a great night. Brewing a beer with friends while drinking 10 great IPAs back to back.

More to come.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Los Muertos Imperial Amber

Next week I am back at school. This week however, my wife and kids went to Pittsburgh to visit inlaws, but due to some conflicts I couldn't go. It was a nice way to end the summer actually. Friday I am brewing up an imperial amber ale, Los Muertos. A couple friends are coming over to brew with me, as well as have an IPA tasting. More on that in another post, but basically four of us are bringing 1-2 kinds of IPAs to share and we're going to taste them side by side. Should be interesting...more on that to come.
As for the Friday brewing, I wanted to brew up something hoppy and hearty for the coming fall. I've wanted to brew an Impeial version of my El Muerto for some time. Los Muertos is based off the original version, but I've significantly changed the hop bill.
I decided to go with a big Amber ale, hopped up like a double IPA. Since I wanted to put a lot of amber/caramel malts, I decided to go for some piney notes by using Simcoe hops throughout much of the beer, also am adding 1 oz of Amarillo at the end for some citrus nose. I also picked up 2 oz of whole leaf hops to dry hop with, Simcoe and Cascade.

Mash: 3.5 lbs of Organic Munich Malt
.75 lbs Org. Crystal 60
.25 lbs Org. Crystal 12o
1 lb Org. Vienna Malt
.5 lbs Org. carapils
4 oz org. roasted barley

9.15 lbs organic light liquid malt extract (3.15 lbs @ 60, 6 @20)
Hops: 1.5 oz Org. American Summit 14% AAU @ 60
.5 oz Org. American Summit @ 30
.5 oz Simcoe @ 15
.5 oz Simcoe @ 10
.5 oz Simcoe @ 5
.5 oz Simcoe @ 2
1 oz Amarillo @ 1
Dry hop: 1 oz whole leaf Cascade, 1 oz whole leaf Simcoe
Two Wyeast packs of American Ale 2 (ran out of time for a starter)

Should be interesting. More details to come.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

OPA: Organic Pale Ale

I've been brewing for about 7 years, and over the past 4 or 5 have transferred about 95% of my brewing to using organic grains, extract and when possible hops. At this point, with the exception of wheat malt extract, my grain bills (and extract usage) are all organic. There are several reasons why I started brewing organically, one reason being inspired by the book Fermenting Revolution. I believe in local/organic agriculture, and feel that it connects me in a way to the origins of localized brewing. I wrote a post a couple years ago, my organic manifesto in a way, that gives more reasons for my organic brewing, you can check it out here if interested.
The transition hasn't really been that difficult or in many ways that much more expensive. Between my local Northern Brewer and occasional big orders from Seven Bridges in California, I am able to find a wide variety of grains. For extract brewers, you are limited to just light pale extract malt. This is one of the reasons I got into partial mashing, it allowed me to use a wider variety (and larger quantities of specialty malt) to brew with.
The one portion of my brewing that is more difficult to brew organically is when using a variety of hops. There are a number of varieties available at Seven Bridges, but often times they aren't always the kinds of hops I'm looking for and are considered good substitutes for more commonly used hops. Last fall however, I was able to buy a pound of organic Cascade hops from a local hop farm called Hippity Hops Farms. I am down to my last 4 ounces and decided to use them in a nice pale ale for the fall.
I went with a fairly basic recipe:
3.5 lbs 2-Row
.75 lbs munich
.75 lbs crystal 40
* mash @ 152 for 1 hour
4 lbs DME
1.5 oz whole leaf cascade @ 60
.5 oz whole leaf cascade @ 15
1 oz whole leaf cascade @ 3
Wyeast 1056 American Ale

My basement is a little on the warm side right now and even using some cooling methods, the OPA is fermenting on the high end, 72 degrees, so I'm a bit worried about some adverse effects.

More to come, I need to post some stuff on a couple upcoming beers and some I've brewed but have yet to write about.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer

Dream Brew Store

As I've mentioned on this blog before, I'm a high school teacher. I love my job and have no plans to change it. Like most homebrewers I've had dreams of making Bearded Brewing a full blown brewery or brewpub some day. But the more I've grown as a homebrewer, enjoyed the blogging community to share my ideas and brews, the happier I've been where I'm at. In fact watching my friend Derek @ Beer This! start his journey from working in the financial industry to the brewing world has helped me realize the reality of the brewing industry. Low wages, limited creativity (compared to homebrewing) and just a hell of a lot of risk and hard work.
But every once and awhile you come across something that makes you rethink that dream. For my wife and I that came from a very unique experience we had on vacation of the southern coast of North Carolina. Once on the island of Emerald Isle, we came across and advertisement for a Harrika's Brew Haus, Art Bar and Eclectic Gifts on the main land in nearby Swansboro. What we found was an actual house. A really amazing spot that was unique and the kind of place I'd love to own someday.
Harrika's is an actual house, packed to the gills with single bottles of beer arranged by style. Every room is jamed from floor to ceiling with metal shelving, including the closets. Where there isn't beer, there are jars of tea or unique works of art and pottery. There are four beers on tap (apparently North Carolina laws allow beers on-tap in off-sale beer stores). There was a small room that contained a tiny bar, along with bar stools along a single shelf that ran the length of the room. As you continued around back, there was a backyard complete with a patio full of tables and chairs, a small stage and picnic tables. Its hard to describe the vibe, it just was such a unique location, a place to go pick up some great craft beer, maybe have a draft while reading a book on the patio. It felt like your comfy neighborhood coffee shop, only for craft beer. Hopefully the pics can do it justice:




Now that I'm back, I intend to get to some updates on some brewing I've done and some coming up.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer