Our Tastes-- Latitude 48 Deconstructed

Almost done with the sampler we embark upon Ahtanum. When I say it, I think Native American horse riding tribe. Head, color as expected, which means for someone who wishes to truly test their hop palate this is a great experiment. Not a lot of nose picked up on this one grown in the "Yakimaw" Valley (see Dirty Jobs Vellum Maker episode), but the bitter is intensely up front. Not too much lingers on the backside and it smacks of citrus grapefruit pine! Much more intense than the 2 prior hop varieties we've tried and aggressive on it's bitter character. (And oh yes, we taste in the rain)

Our Tastes-- Latitude 48 Deconstructed

Continuing with our "Deconstruction" sampler we swig away at Hallertau Mittelfrueh. The color remains the same as we have found out that the same malt base is used for this IPA sampler, only the bittering, aroma and dry hops vary with each brew. Head is maintained but the nose is more subtle and not as "cereal" as the East Kent Goldings taster. The taste is more well balanced and not quite as bitter as the East Kent hop. This isn't my favorite IPA so far, I guess because it is more bland than anything else. I understand Hallertau is somewhat of the grandaddy of most hops but the newer versions tend to par better with my palate. The Beer Tasting and Hop Appreciation Kit really helped narrow this subtle hop variety down.

Our Tastes-- Latitude 48 Deconstructed

The Enabler was kind enough to have Bootleg Bonnie grab us a 12er of this stuff so we've finally gotten around to breaking one down. Latitude 48 East Kent Goldings IPA is what we're starting with to better appreciate how the overall "full" version comes into complexity. Color is a marmalade with an off white, slightly yellow head of nice tight fluff. The aroma seems to be of cereal and slightly over powered by the malt bill. Very interesting taste profile, it's slightly bitter intially and comes forward much more as it lingers and warms on the palate. East Kent Goldings seem to have a hint of mint to their profile. Using our Beer Tasting and Hop Appreciation Kit really brings the hop forward! I love referencing myself, means I don't have to have to use quotation marks! 6.0%abv I think throughout this collection.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

This year for the 1st time in a LONG time I took a hiatus from the debauchery of wonderful dark beer, the stout mouth hasn't really reared it's head since winter started, perhaps due to the mild conditions and apparently we're going to skip spring weather all together since it was 85F today. All of my crew had to work and I had but one beer, boy oh what a brew! Tried RR on the gas and had forgotten what a stupendous brew it is fresh, very heavy roasted bill with well balanced bitter. But by the looks of things outside though, I know what I'll be doing next week when I'm off.

Brew Batch #46 REINKE'S REVENGE 2011

Bottled/kegged up Reinke's for the year. The 1st pre-keg swill was amazing. I guess I've altered the original so much that I had lost sight of what the real recipe and feel was like. The roasted coffee is straight forward, there's no beating around the bush with this one. This is the nerdy kid in high school that says, "The hell with it, I'm asking the popular girl to prom" kind of straight forward. I can't wait to see what this one is like after being on gas for a while or in the bombers. Speaking of which this year's crown is something special. In school I couldn't ever afford the labels I wanted so I settled for doing customized crowns. (See post below) FG ended up at 1.016+ 0.001 @69F to yield about an even 9%abv.

BottleMark

Now I don't always endorse product or sites. I'll drink your beer, review it, put a link to your stuff on my sidebar, visit your brewery and blog the experience good or bad, but a few encounters are worth permanence. For example, The Grill N' Ice, Thermacell, Sam Adams original pint glass, stickers for the 72hour cooler but this year I wanted something special for Reinke's, so The Enabler turned me on to BottleMark.com. I played with some ideas and finally saw where I could get a free digital sample and voila! These are the 1st ever customized crowns for Reinke's Revenge. They turned out awesome! I got a little help from Haley at the site and can't speak enough about them, so I thought I would blog the actual results. This is the 7th time I've done this recipe and had to have something to set the original recipe apart from previous year's divergences. The image is that of a deadly virus obviously linked to Dr. Reinke at AUHSOP. Can you name it? Nothing says Bugs n Drugs like Ebola:) Please visit BottleMark, create a profile and start making your own homebrew crowns. The rate of 12cents each and shipping can't be beat!