The Hop Shortage Strikes Again

While we've had to deal with a general shortage of hops and an increase in hop prices, tonight was the first time they have actually prevented us from brewing exactly as intended. We haven't had an IPA in a while, so we were going to make a new batch. I decided to try to re-brew the Fool In The Rain; recipe below.

The Fool In the Rain (this shit is delicious)

8 lbs LME
1.5 lbs Domestic 2-Row
.75 lbs 40L Crystal
.5 lbs Victory
.5 lbs Barley Flakes
3 ounces Simcoe Hops (~16% AAU)
1 ounce Amarillo Hops (~6-8% AAU)
White Labs CA Ale Yeast

50 minute mash at ~155F, ounce Simcoe at 60, half ounce Simcoe at 30, ounce Amarillo at 15, ounce and a half Simcoe dry hopped. Turns out nice a balanced, with a decent bite to it, but not harsh. A lot of Hop flavor and aroma, smells delicious, an IPA with general appeal. That said, it's fairly bitter too, on account of those ounces of Simcoe, a real high alpha acid hop.

Tonight though, because Simcoe was unavailable, hops as follows: 1 ounce Summit at 60, 1 ounce Summit at 30, 1 ounce Amarillo at 15, 1 ounce Amarillo dry hopped.

While it's a bummer we couldn't do as we intended, at least we've been forced to experiment a little more. I know I like the first FR, so it'll be good to see if this version is better, worse, or just different. Summit should be a little more harsh, but since it's just for bittering, I'm not too concerned. Sticking to Amarillo for flavor and aroma should provide a citrus/apricot sort of flavor, while the Simcoe is just straight oranges. And the grist will make a moderately dark pale ale, but still definitely a pale.

In other news, we royally fucked up paying attention and let that shit boil over repeatedly. Im not looking forward to cleaning up. But that's a problem for another day. Like tomorrow.

I was gonna add some pictures, but on further review, they're all really shitty.

See Below

Not to steal Allan's thunder, but its time we get the site back up and running. Everyone should post; doesn't have to be about brewing, just beer in general, thoughts, random shit. Make it happen!

127 Bottles of Beer on the wall.

Last night Joe and I undertook the seedy underbelly of home brewing, bottling. And this was bottling to the extreme by the end of the night we had bottled 127 beers and also filled half a pony keg. The three brews in question were the Orange Honey Wheat, Chamomile Beer and a very thick Stout. We are very excited to see how they turn out, we pre-tasted each beer all seem delicious and different from what we have done before.

At the end of the night as a reward with our neighbors we opened another Barley Wine, everyone seemed to enjoy the sampling they had. This was my first time trying the Barley Wine in its current state, I must say the sweetness combined with the thickfreakness make it one of the best beers we have ever made.

Pictures to follow.

Recipes

Let's start posting recipes on here... I will post the Ruination clone I just did when I get home, and as we go I'll put all up that I've done. You guys should do the same. Besides being able to share recipes that way, we'll have an archive of them as well as reactions to them.

NOW POST!

Ok Joe did a cool fact of the day so I can't be outdone:

Fact: Joe Strauss used to give us endless shit for drinking. Look at him now!

We suck at this.

Someone needed to post but I don't feel like writing, so i'll keep this short. I'm mere weeks away from convincing bob and allan to split the cost of an all-grain brewing rig with me. Except I need a weekend or so in which to actually do it. More to follow.

Beer fact: On Led Zeppelin 4, the symbol chosen by John Bonham was a near replica of the logo for Ballantine Beer. *The More You Know*

Where my bitches is at?

So... whats goin on here? Down in SD its been slow but we just did an Oatmeal stout that should be delicious. I know you guys up there have been brewing up a storm, lets see recipes or something. Pictures? I don't care, post anything. I need something else to do at work!

Dresden Ale

The southern half of CCB has been busy, and we're subsequently broke. We do have a stand up refrigerator and three corny kegs ready to go now, and we got to pop the system's cherry with the Dresden Ale.

So titled for the late Kurt Vonnegut, the Dresden Ale is a double red that earns its name due to its fiery assault on your palate, and sobriety. We calculated it out to 11.8%, by far our highest content to date (and it makes the 8% IPA taste like Coors light). We also force carbonated this one, due to our extreme impatience at an installed kegerator with nothing to drink. We pumped the system to 30psi and shook the crap out of the keg, by the next day it was carbonated. We will probably continue to force carbonate, but with a slower less violent method.

Kegging beer is like learning to walk, it makes much more possible (including CCB's first lager, suck it nor cal!), and takes other worries away (like saving/cleaning/storing bottles in mass quantities). In the end this refrigerator should house three tapped beers and three fermenting lagers. I should be unemployed by then...

Long live CCB!