Citra IPA

I have been wanting to mess around with Citra hops for a while here since I heard a description of what they tasted like. The aroma gives off this grapefruit/passion fruit smell that filled the room up once I opened everything up. Very very fruity which should equal very very tasty in a nice IPA recipe. I had 5oz of hops that I wanted to get the most out of as well, so I went for a kind of "hop bursting" method of putting them into the beer. This is normally done by adding in the majority of the hops as late into the boil as you can. So I went with 1oz at 15 minutes left, 2oz at 10 minutes and 2oz at flame out hoping to maximize flavor while also adding bitterness to the beer. For the base beer I went with a very well known recipe out of Brewing Classic Styles. I re-pitched the yeast I used with my Peach Wheat beer since I am lazy and hate making starters.

Citra IPA

Malt:

12.75 lbs: Pale Ale Malt

1 lb: Crystal 10

.75 lbs: Munich

.25 lbs: Crystal 40

Hops:

.50 oz: Columbus 14.0aa @60min

1 oz: Citra 11.1aa @15min

2 oz: Citra 11.1aa @10min

2 oz: Citra 11.1aa @Flame Out

2 oz: Cascade 5.4aa Dry Hops

Misc:

1 Whirlfloc Tablet

Target OG: 1.067

Target FG: 1.014

IBU: ~55 (Rager)

Actual OG: 1.068

Actual FG: 1.008

Apparent Attenuation: 87.6%

ABV: 8%

ABW: 6.3%

Yeast:

White Labs California Ale (WLP001) (Repitched from Peach Wheat)

Hopville Recipe

Update 7.9.2010: Brew day went well, I missed my pre-boil gravity by a few points and had to add in 12oz of DME to bring it up. Beer is fermenting at 66 degrees.

Update 7.15.2010: Beer finished fermenting yesterday. I ran out of Citra on the brew day and my LHBS is out for the time being. I wanted to go ahead and get some dry hops on this beer so I went with some Type90 Cascade I had in the freezer. I will let that sit for a few days then keg everything up next week.

Update 7.20.2010: Kegged beer and set co2 regulator to 11psi to carbonate beer to 2.4 levels of co2. Beer dried out a bit more that I was hoping, but that was due to the 2nd gen yeast that was used. You can taste the hops up front. Not a ton of malt backbone but some is there. Hopefully this can get carbed up asap cause I can't wait to taste it.

Update 7.26.2010: This beer seemed to be a big hit yesterday at my brew club meeting. Beer is actually quite wonderful, tons of tropical fruit aromas and taste. I can't wait to do this one again. Tasting this before carbing, I was a little scared that something was wrong. Carbonation seems to add the missing link for this beer. At 1st i thought it had dried out a bit much, but if it was any sweeter the hops wouldn't pop as much. I like a dryer IPA anyway. Review to come later.

Flanders Red

This beer has been in the barrel for 6+ months now and it is looking and smelling beautiful.  Here are some pictures of the pellicle.

NHC Score Results

So I received my NHC score results in the mail on Thursday and I am really happy with my score.  The beer was far better than the original one I sent in.  It has more smoke and malt backbone that I really thought it would do good and it did.  I received a score of 38.5 which is only 1/2 point more than the regional round but personally I think it's a much better beer.  On another note I feel pissed about the fact that there are no comments on the score sheets for this beer.  The regional round was littered with comments and it really made me rethink a bit on how to make the re-brew beer better.  This is exactly my problem with competitions.  A lot of judges who judge these competitions are not BJCP certified and you get no real feedback on your beer.  If I am paying $7, $8, $9+ to enter plus $15+ to ship them off, I better get some damned comments back.  Thats what I am paying for.  I honestly could give a crap about placing 1st, 2nd or 3rd in anything.  The comments are worth their weight in gold if you get that.  Now both judges who judged my Smoked Porter were BJCP certified, I guess that's what makes me more angry about it.  These people should know better, they should know how to judge and what they would expect from a judge who is drinking their beer.  So I sent an email to the organizer in hopes to get some answers and maybe help make the NHC better next year. We will see what happens.  Anyway it's an on going rant for me.  Some competitions I send off to are just awesome, some aren't.  It's already hard enough to convince someone to send their beers off, adding in shitty judging will ruin that forever.

Anyway here are my scoresheets:

Smoked Porter 2nd Round NHC 2010

Summer Peach Wheat

Not really a beer I would normally drink, but the summer months and the local peach crop in full bloom I thought I would give this beer a shot. I bought 6 lbs. of Chilton County peaches, which are in the process of ripening up right now. Once they reach full maturity I will then skin and de-pit them, "pasteurize" them and add it to secondary for about 7 days. I plan on heating the puree'd peaches in a double boiler to about 170. There hopefully I can let it sit at 170 for about 10-15 minutes just to make sure I kill anything nasty that might be in the peaches. Though if I ended up with a sour peach beer, I might be happy. I am trying to keep this simple as I can. I am using a clean neutral yeast too cause I don't want any clovey/banana flavor in this beer. I want the peaches to shine in the end.

Summer Peach Wheat

Malt:
5 lbs: Malted Wheat
5 lbs: German Pilsner

Hops:
1 oz: Willamette 4.5aa @ 60min

Misc:
.25 lbs: Rice Hulls
6 lbs: Chilton County (AL) Peaches

Target OG: 1.043
Target FG: 1.010
IBU: ~ 15

Actual OG: 1.042
Actual FG: 1.006
Apparent Attenuation: 85.3%

ABV: 4.8%
ABW: 3.8%

Yeast:
White Labs California Ale (WLP001)

Hopville Recipe

Update 6.27.2010: Beer finished way lower than I thought it would at 1.006. I went ahead and added 6 lbs of pureed Peaches. Beer might start fermenting again. Hopefully the peaches will add a bit of sweetness back into the beer. Time will tell.

Update 6.28.2010: Added 6lbs of peaches in secondary. I will let it sit for a week and then taste it to see when it will need to be kegged.

Update 7.9.2010: Racked over beer to a keg, straining out as much peach junk as I could. Forced Carbed at 28 psi hoping to get a 4.0 co2 level.

Summer Saison

It's that time of year again where I want to make low alcohol/high drinkability beers to drink during the summer. All I have right now are dark extremely malty beers that really don't go with the hot sweaty summer months. So I have a few new beers in mind and this is the 1st. A nice summer saison, a redux of one I made last year in hops to lower the alcohol a bit and add a more funky earthy taste and aroma to it. From the one I made last year I upped the Vienna malt in hops to bring out a more orange hue and I changed out the 2-Row for the Pilsner malt in hopes to add some grainy taste to the beer. I went with all Styrian Goldings as I just love the flavor of these hops. I added more honey at the end of the boil and went with no spices except for about 1/4 oz of cracked black pepper. I am wanting the yeast to do all the work as far as adding phenols and esters to the beer. The honey was sourced locally through my grandfather. He has "a guy" who keeps bee's on his farm and I asked him for a few pounds of honey a few months ago. I plan on remaking my DIPA at the end of summer so that will use up the rest of it, but for this I only used a pound, which hopefully will help dry things out a bit and darken the beer up some.

Summer Saison

Malt:
5 lbs: German Pilsner
2.5 lbs: Vienna Malt
1 lb: Munich Malt
.5 lb: Flaked Wheat

Hops:
1.0 oz: Styrian Goldings 3.4aa @ 60min
1.0 oz: Styrian Goldings 3.4aa @ 30min
1.0 oz: Styrian Goldings 3.4aa @15 min
1.25 oz: Styrian Goldings 3.4aa @5 min

Misc:
1 lb: Local Wildflower Honey (added @ 1min)
.25 oz: Cracked Pepper (@ Flameout)
1 Whirlfloc Tablet @15 min

Target OG: 1.043
Target FG: 1.009
IBU: ~24

Actual OG: 1.050
Actual FG: 1.010
Apparent Attenuation: 79.3%

ABV: 5.3%
ABW: 4.2%

Yeast:
White Labs Belgian Style Saison Blend (WLP568)

Hopville Recipe

Update 6.14.2010: Brewday was typical got excellent efficiency due to the low malt/grain bill. Yeast was rocking in the starter and it didn't take long for fermentation to start (3-4 hours). Right now I am letting the beer warm up to help attenuate the beer a bit. Took a gravity reading and it was at 1.010 and I would like it a bit dryer if I can get it down there. I am already around 80% attenuation so it should only drop a few more points I would say. Hopefully I can get it around 1.008. I am thinking of racking a gallon of the beer off to secondary and adding some sour yeast. We will see.

Update 6.17.2010: Racked over to a keg with no difference in gravity. Beer tastes a bit thin, but I kind of expected that. Hopefully after it's carbonated up it will even out everything.

Update 7.9.2010: Beer was just great. Lots of spicy fruity aromas with a nice farmhouse taste. Too bad this beer is no more, but I will be making it again!

"Traditional" Barrel Aged English IPA

I say traditional cause if you read the stories about how the original IPA's were shipped to India they were heavily hopped so they wouldn't spoil, not because of the bitterness.  The hops would drop out which then would turn into a nice British ale once it made the long journey in a wooden oak barrel.  Along with that barrel there is no way it didn't pick up some kind of Brett infection.  So with this one just like my last ones a group of us are switching out our Oaked American Strong (non sour) and replacing it with this beer.  Of course this inoculates the barrel so we are now 100% sour on both barrels.  One person is fermenting his 5 gallon batch with Brett B and Brett L 100% while the rest of use used either WLP001 or WLP002 to ferment.  I think we are looking for a 6 month maturation then will rack out and dry hop with 2lbs of Willamette and 2lbs of EKG hops to give the aroma a kick before either being kegged or bottled by each of us.  Also I say it's "English" cause IPA's are now so American that people really don't know where they came from or why it's even called India Pale Ale.  The recipe is based off a recipe in Randy Mosher's book Radical Brewing.  His recipe calls for 5oz of EKG hops at the 5min mark, but the hops will drop out anyway over 6 months, so we adjusted it with 2 and decided to dry hop it to reach the anticipated aroma.

Barrel Aged English IPA

Malt:
14 lbs: Marris Otter
2lbs: Amber Malt (Cara amber)

Hops:
3 oz: EKG 5.0aa @ 60 min
1.5 oz: EKG 5.0aa @ 15min
2 oz: EKG 5.0aa @ 5min

2 lbs: EKG ??aa Dry Hop in Barrel
2 lbs: Willamette ??aa Dry Hop in Barrel

Misc:
Water adjustments (I didn't write them down)

Target OG: 1.070
Target FG: 1.023
IBU: ~ 61 rager

Actual OG: 1.064
Actual FG: 1.021
Apparent Attenuation: 66%

ABV: 5.7% (before barrel)
ABW: 4.4% (before barrel)

Yeast:
White Labs English Ale Yeast (WLP002) (Pitched from Smoked Porter)

Hopville Recipe

Update 6.7.2010:  Brewed this beer back before the beginning of the month.  Brew day was typical and had no issues.  I got 65% eff, which is normal I think for me now especially getting my grains crushed at my LHBS.  Beer finished out in a few days and I let it settle out for about a week more before racking to secondary last night.  I fermented the beer as a nice cool 68 degrees.

Update 6.27.2010:  Racked beer into the Jack Daniels barrel today.

BMO Shoresheets

Finally got my scoresheets back from the Brewmasters Open in Alpharetta GA.  In what I got with the package was a bottle of C-Brite and a Newcastle pint glass.  Too bad I wont use the C-Brite but the Newcastle glass I will use.

Weizenbock - 34.6 3rd place 15c - Placed a lot better than I thought it would.  Notes on the beer are exactly what I think.  I have no idea why the yeast didn't produce enough of a "wheat" character, but I will know better next time.  I'm going to let the keg sit for a few months and drink it this fall/winter once it gets colder outside.

Funky BSD - 39.5 3rd place 23a - Put this in speciality cause it really doesn't fit anywhere.  Did very well and this beer is amazing.  Not overly sour even though that's what the judges were expecting, it's not at all what I was trying to do.  I wanted a beer that showcased everything.  Funk, Cherries, Oak, the base beer and I did just that.  One of the better beers I have brewed.

Belgian Pale Ale - 30 Did not place 16b - Yeah this beer kind of sucks.  It had some very alcoholic phenolics when it was fresh and with age it dropped out to nothing great.  I had a bottle that I bottled early on and it was awesome.  Too bad the keged version didn't turn out so well.  I think the notes are pretty spot on.

Overall for the 2nd year in a row I have been impresses with the BMO and will continue to sned them to them.  I have had my issues with competitions  in the past but this one seems to be top notch in the south east.