The hops one uses to make a certain style of beer are important. There are some hops that must be used to achieve a certain style. During the recent hop shortage some hops have been hard to find.
If you are a homebrewer like me, you have tried to experiment with certain hop varieties when your variety of choice is not available or costs too much. Sometimes, I have stockpiled some varieties that were readily available in case I needed them.
The good news is that due to disciplined usage and rationing, more hops are now available than was anticipated back in March. There are a lot of things not available, but many more things can be found.
I finally decided to get rid of the hop remnants sitting in my freezer. I decided to use them regardless of beer style. Beer snobs will be appalled.
I brewed two batches. A Guinness clone and a style of beer that has never been seen on the face of the earth.
First the Guinness. Here are the hops I used:
1 oz Willamette (4.6% aa)
1 oz Kent Goldings (4.5% aa)- that actually fits the style!
0.5 oz Saaz (2.3% aa)
0.6 oz Hallertau (1.5% aa)
The rest of the recipe was pretty standard. Maris otter, roasted barley, Mountmellick LME etc...
The second beer is... well, I'm not sure what the style is even close to. I decided to use some of the grains I had on hand. Here's the full recipe:
Partial mash
3lb 2-row pale malt
8oz biscuit
6 oz carapils
8 oz medium crystal
Boil
2 lb DME
and here are the hops:
Bittering (60 minutes):
1 oz German Tradition
0.3 oz Tettnang
Aroma (5 minutes):
1.3 oz Tettnang
Wyeast 1056 American Ale.
Pretty weird, eh? I agree, but so what?!?! I'm not trying to win a beer competition. I'm making beer. No matter how this turns out, it will be better than Clydesdale piss. Beer styles be damned (at least for now).
Brewers, any thoughts???
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6 comments:
Thoughts from the Brewers: "Fire Ned Yost!"
I walked right into that one.
Since you brought it up... What is the deal with that? I guess Ned failed to make a fresh pot of coffee one too many times.
Here is a perfect name for the all-encompassing brew: “The Ten Dollar Whore.”
The original drink that got this name was "a mixture of root beer schnapps, peppermint schnapps, Kahlua, tequila, port wine, egg nog, and a splash of lime juice to make it curdle" and was concocted at a bar at the US South Pole Antartic station during a winter-over when the scientists manning the station were cleaning the bar and combined all the liquor they wanted to get rid of.
A friend of mine (who I didn't know was a homebrewer) has offered to give me her setup when she leaves the country for a postdoc.
You can bet that when that happens, I will be scouring your archives. :D
As for Ned leaving, apparently they were going to fire him earlier in the year, but then the Brewers came on, so they didn't want to. Also, I guess it was a direct order from the owner, despite the general manager not wanting to do it.
Apparently, Ned's good with it, though. He's all cool and laid back.
Hmmm...the recipe sounds interesting. My guess is maybe a cross between an ESB without the english yeast character. I'm interested to see how that turns out.
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