IPA DAY & The LC goes kinda awesome

To begin, Happy IPA Day!
Internationally recognized, this day is designated as the occassion to tip back orange elixir with the oils of those resinous earth cones we love so dear.  Thanks to the mass proliferation of the style which the British made famous (for worse, I assure you - heres to trading all the beer in the world for an end to imperialism), you can enjoy an IPA from just about any brewery on the planet.
If you get a chance to share an IPA today, lets have a toast to end occupation.  Lets have a bottom's up to reclamation and cheers to better times for all.
Yeasty Boys (New Zealand): Digital IPA

The Manitoba Liquor Control Commission
Manitoban's are regulated in their beer consumption.  If you like beer, the MLCC is the mandated arm of the government which enforces what beer supply hits the shelves.  For this reason, it uses its power to disseminate particular influences over the market.  Without knowing the amount required to be sold by headquarters, I would estimate that 90% of the beer sold by the LC is produced by BudMillCoors.  The MLCC therefore can be accused of promoting brands which don't necessarily reflect the demand of beer drinkers.
Here's the tricky part.
Upon entering the LC on Ellice ave. this afternoon hoping to get my IPA on, I stumbled across 5, count em, 5 fantastically new brews that were too good to hesitate over.  If you live in the states and you read 5 as rather pathetic, this demonstrates my point above.  However, for the MLCC, 5 new beers from several different countries, and also some of the best in the world of their style, is no small feat for this regulatory arm of the steady-goes-the-course Canadian government (albeit an outdated perspective of today's conservative Canada).  In my mind, someone is doing a service to beer drinkers by allowing us to have these brand spankin new brews.  Yet, the position goes two ways, I have seen great beers come and go to never return.  With this introduction, and in keeping with the mentality that even if no-one walks out with 50 cases of Bud Light (which I have never seen leave any LC to date) or the frickin fantastic Duchesse De Bourgogne, these beers will still be provided. Who are they serving by introducing good beer? Are they trying to promote buying from them versus driving to the states for better?  Are they benevolent and hoping to gain the support of those who have ragged on them since legal drinking age?  Are they trying to promote an aficionado class of consumers?  Despite these questions, in the here and now, I have beer that I would only get abroad, and for that I am thankful.  Now, go buy some Duchesse!

L-R
Lost Coast (Eureka, CA): Indica IPA, Cervesas La Gardenia (Alcover, Espana): Blonde Ale, Brasserie de Rochefort (Rochefort, Belgium): Quadruple, Brouwerij Van Honsebrouck (Ingelmunster, Belgium): Quadruple.


Closing notes, on further inspection Rosita of Spain is an export bottle with an importers name and Shaw email address on the back! Premier Consulting...sounds nefarious.   

                 

115th Dream Hopbursted

Eventually, my addiction to hops comes back around. I went with a more hop heavy kit than I have brewed before, 115th dream hopbursted IPA from Northern Brewer. The name for the kit comes from the amount of time to boil and the use of a technique that ensures extreme Flavor/Aroma presence from your hops, known as hopbursting. For a good little explanation of why hopbursting is an effective method to imbue this quality to the wort, see this fellows blog.

Pictured above is that addition of dextrose which came with the kit and was added after the boil was complete. The additions of soluble sugars for this recipe were intended to create and Imperial style which has higher alcohol levels as well as just more of everything. The 1 pound of hops should be the dead giveaway. My major complaint, as with most homebrew supply stores and their kits, they don't always give you all the ingredients so you don't really know what it is your tasting. In this case, the massive amount of hops for bursting were called "hop blend".

Yeast starter was applied as instructed, because of the massive amount of sugars which didn't dissolve properly due to the large blanket of boiled hops that laid on the surface of the wort. For this reason, my gravity was a bit under weight, but the yeast tore right through it all. Just take a look at that bunghole! Primary is oh so messy.

On the whole, the kit was just so-so. Very heavy hitting ingredients bill, but taste and aroma wise it could have been much simpler and more effective, as well as cost efficient. But we aren't in it for that, are we.

An Attempt At Brilliance

*TASTERS UPDATE*
This is the best IPA I've made and its only a week in the bottle. Could be the best beer I have made. The hop aroma is sweet and citrusy with plenty of pine to bulk it up. The taste is a bit sweet in the nose and the middle needs more time but the rear has that mouth pocket tingle from the bitterness. Well done midwest and Surly, just about nailed the original recipe. I will definitely replicate this for years to come.

I was brought one of the newest kits on the market from Midwest after the holidays from my dad. Which is currently out of stock, Thanks Dad! Sitting on it patiently, waiting to get a shot at brewing this clone kit of what is the standard for me of American IPA, Surly Brewing Company's Furious. If you are wondering why the above picture is called Ferocious and not Furious, rights rights rights. Surly worked with Midwest to produce this recipe, but as a marketable product, they cannot lend the same name of the beer to what is sold as a kit of ingredients, enter property interests. Deciding to brew this special batch in my apartment ended up being less of a headache than expected. Primary note of importance is to make the place clean and free of dirty dishes. Cause if you have seen my kitchen, its a crawl space which cannot be cohabitated by both brewers and dish piles. I took the risk of using Winnipeg tap water, though run through the Brita filter. I figure if Half Pints can do it, why cant I? Also, after seeing two batches made by friends turn out the right way, I have no cause to fear. This kit was an extract kit with very few grains included. The bulk of the kit (which is the priciest on the shelf last time I checked) was invested in two different jugs of LME and a total of 6 bags hops! Warrior hops, 'I think I love ya'. The boil level was high due to my lack of estimate on just how much the 9.9lbs of LME would raise the water. But no boil overs to my relief. Warrior hops were employed for the full 60 minutes as bittering, and a regiment of 5 servings of a mixture of Simcoe/Amarillo hops every 5 minutes for the last 20 of the boil to add aroma. The brewhouse was smelling hot and heavy.

No major surpises with this batch thus far. The only moment worth noting was when I woke up at 5am to the sound of bubbles from the blow-off hose reverberating throughout the room as the glass it was submerged in was on the musical wood floor. Think Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, could neither sleep through it nor blame it for what it is. Normally this is a joyous sound, but it surprisingly kept me awake, so scurrying about in the dark to both not lift the hose out of the water and also attempt to not spill the full glass was a bit stressful. 12 hours later, bubbling away and hop resins crawling to the upper walls of the carboy. In 5-7 days, will transfer to the secondary and dry hop the bejesus out of it with the remaining 3ozs of hops. American IPA, All The Way!

After bottling this sweet smelling bitter, labels of course had to be made. As much as I would have loved to just print off a surly label. it just wouldn't have been right. The bottling produced fewer bottles than I would have hoped, 34 in total. Because of the dry hopping, attempting to leave out as much of the hops in the secondary is key but often you lose about a quarter of a gallon. That's a bear, for the record.

India Pale Ales

India Pale Ale, what can I say?
You are the best. Your light color yet bold aroma, your sharp yet comforting bitterness tells me you're beer, and your healthy alcohol content always sets you aside from the "other." As a practicing hophead, over two weekends, I brewed two batches of India Pale Ale. One was a simple bladder and pitch, the other my first all grain recipe:

1. In a time of need, I decided to splurge (35$) on another bladder of BrewHouse. There was company in town, including one small inquisitive earth child (literally named Gaia), which made me take the easy road by fermenting this no frill's kit. At the same time, I needed beer that I was just wanting to drink, and my favorite style being IPA led me to this easy option. My first IPA kit, the rat tail, was okay, but it was my first, and everyone has their first. This simple procedure, as explained here, was well worth it as the resulting beer only a month later was as good as any IPA i could get at my local LC. I brought a Rossi jug worth out to a friend's camp on the lake and it was a hit with all participating tasters.
At first glance (right), this could be mistaken for a scene from Alien, but upon further inspection, its the kreusening that reached the bottom of the bung in the secondary! These kits really have some strong activity, leading me to believe that it equates to the consistent finish.

2. My first all grain batch required some DIY equipment. Firstly, what I mean by all grain is simply this: all grain homebrews require no malt extract, a lot of grain (roughly 10lbs/5 gallons of beer) and the means to extract sugars from the starch so that the yeast can digest it into alcohol. Ever since running into a few snap-headaches during the Oatmeal Stout partial mash recipe, particularly regarding my smallish brew pot and no easy way to deal with sacks of scorching hot grain, I decided to invest in the process. Secondly, what I mean by DIY equipment can be seen (left) next to my brew pot ready to take on the strike water (160F water for steeping the grain in) before sparging (rinsing) into the brewpot. Inside this 5 gallon water cooler (food grade plastic good up to 140F) is a stainless steel braid (from plumbing parts) which holds back the milled barley and allows the sweet mash to pour out that copper pipe and plumbing hose. Effectively separating the sugary liquid from the raw product - resulting in bye bye extract (only saves me about 10 dollars per batch without the extract - but its more engaging this way).

This recipe was as simplistic as I could get (10lbs of 2-row malted barley from my neck of the north, and a heavy hopping schedule utilizing 2oz Palisade 2oz Cascade), my goal was to test the procedure of the all-grain and measure its results. My synthesis revealed a process that effectively beats extract brewing in my opinion. The hands on feel, the smells, the activities, the measurements really create a more precise beer. Its not easy, in fact it's hot as hell and precarious! But the result is something that speaks about imperfection and yet labor through craft in the same sip. In addition to this being my first all-grain batch, I also decided to double the pleasure by trying out "dry hopping" on this ol' boy (3oz of Palisade). Dry hopping is the process by which you apply hops to the secondary fermenter and let the young beer get even more aroma and bitterness through aging directly with the hops (in this case pellets, but whole hop flowers are recommended).

The result? The yellowest non-lemonade beverage I have ever seen. Taste? Its not the best IPA ive had (I brewed it on August 7th, and just now - September 20th- as of the two week bottle conditioning), doesnt come even close to the BrewHouse batch. But yet I didnt use potassium bicarbonate to activate it, didnt use a concentrated pre-packaged malt extract made of grains that i didnt actually run my hands through or smell as it got adjusted to the strike water. Will it get better with age? yes! Will I get better at all-grain brewing? "Its a definite maybe." Will I use something other than the one single type of bland malted barley? have done and will do!

The coup de grace, I named this hand crafted delight in the tradition of my nerdy logic: Isildur's Bane. It's Isildur's bane - the One Ring from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings - because it is as yellow as gold; its the bane of my existence because I love IPA more than any of the beer styles; lastly, perhaps beer should be done away with entirely as it prevents real action by the masses on both a political, philosophical and economic level when consumed beyond composure (said without a hint of seriousness, but with all caution). As a slogan on a future label when I sell my first born to improve the brewery, it will read "Cast me into the Fire!"

Rat Tail India Pale Ale

This was the first batch of homebrew to hit the house, and boy did it start an addiction. A "Scotty's Kit" extract recipe for an India Pale Ale. I had help, with co-brewer Chris to lend a hand.Thanks for the siphon technique chris! However, it wasnt all smooth sailing as can be expected from the first batch. Although mildy-academic approaches were used in researching this hobby before jumping right in, I failed to accomadate the poor yeasts in their sugar crazed hunger to expand in the carboy.

Luckily I had brewed on saturday, and was still there to clean up the mess sunday morning. However those few hours that the beer was exposed to the air (because the bung eventually blew out the top) the IPA had a noticeable off flavor. I have since brewed two other IPA's and will have a range for which I can judge this first batch. For a first go around, however, I was very pleased with results as it was both appropriately bitter and amber in color. And it was very drinkable!