An Update or Zwei

Tomorrow night I will be fobbing off some of my hoppier creations to unsuspecting innocents, and I thought I'd post a couple updates.

First off, the Ardennes IPA is magnificent. Best homebrew ever. The sort of beer that you gaze at lovingly, perhaps tearing up a bit, and gasp out incredulously, "I made this?!" Yes, its that good. Only a mother's love, so to speak, or rather more accurately, only a hophead brewer's love.

Secondly, the black IPA (Centennium, IBA, whatever I ended up calling it) is still not carbed! That is frustrating. It is too good of a beer to do this to me. The last beer that crossed me like this, well we all know what happened to it! >:^0 Yes. It was consumed by a wrathful emoticon. Feel mah funky rage!

And finally, the Chipotle IPA (notice an IPA theme here?) is sitting in the fermentor and I'm a little afraid to go near it. It is going to be searingly hot. 20 dried chipotles in 5 gallons...basically a half a pepper per each pint. That's fairly reasonable I'd say. But I have this fear that it is going to make the drinker sweat (though I cannot take credit for this glorious ensuing simile) like Oprah in a donut shop. Sweet flame! In a beer...crazy, innit?

New Year Update

While I step carefully through a minefield of inane puns ("happy BREW year!! haha!") allow me to update you on some of the status of my brewing projects.

I bottled the apfelwein last night. Approximately 12% ABV, using nothing but apple juice and apple juice concentrate to provide fermentables, and aged on French oak and spices (cinnamon, allspice, vanilla). It has a surprising balance given the lack of care I gave it...quite pleasingly sweet with a perfect balance of spice, very much like a spiced hot apple cider. I was genuinely surprised how nice this turned out. I bottled it in 12oz bottles as this is better consumed in small nips (4-6oz) due to its strength and sweetness.

The Centennium Imperial Black Ale is still not carbed! I'm a bit concerned so I moved the bottles upstairs for a warmer environment...perhaps it was a bit too cold for yeast comfort. Jury is out.

The Ardennes IPA, however, is absolutely fantastic! It has carbed and is what I would call one of the best beers I have ever made. A mild Belgian yeast character paired with rich hop aroma, and picture perfect clarity. A really, really tasty beer in my opinion...I'll be making it again.

The Marston's Pedigree clone...well, I'm not sure. The yeast strain was anything but flocculent, meaning most of the yeast carried on to the secondary. I'll age it a bit before bottling.

The Challenger IPA came out nicely, a rich hoppy ale, and also has a lot of yeast sediment that carried into secondary.

The beer that I intended to be "Hopricot", a super hoppy all-Summit IPA, turned out nicely with good attenuation, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. It did end up having that curse of Summit hops, that should have prevented me from trying it...a garlic-y, green onion aroma. At first with the hydrometer sample, I thought I didn't detect it, but after chilling it a bit, pow, there it was. My alternate plan for this...a chili beer. A chili IPA, yes! Savoury, hoppy, and SPICY. I mean, apricots and onions do not mix, but chilies and onions? Not too bad! I'm thinking perhaps dried chipotles might be ideal, but I'd better get a gauge on how many to use. I'll save the remaining apricot purees and essences for another stab at "Hopricot", possibly using Amarillo hops this time.

And lastly, my blackcurrant cider is faring nicely. Haven't tried it since mixing, but its aging happily enough, and the base cider was, well, what you expect fermented apple juice to taste like. Different from my previous ciders, it was just apple juice, no funky tannic juices like cranberry or currant in the primary.