Our Tastes-- The Incredible Hop

Fort Collins Brewery released a series of 4 high gravity, high hopped brews with Imperial India Style Wheat Ale being one of them. Pours an amazing light blonde color and soft white head. The aroma jumps out of the bottle with the explosion of citrus from the hop additions. With the taste comes a nice bitterness that envelopes the tongue only to have what almost appears as the wheat protein taste down the center of it. Any drinker of wheat beers will recognize this characteristic because of the almost universal occurrence of this particular flavor in the overall wheat profile. I've noticed an inclination to hop all things/recipes which is fine because I've spent a lot of years "in the dark" and have started enjoying more hopped-up brews in an effort to identify different hop varieties. This one is especially interesting with it's wheat grain base and piney, chewy hop profile. Not sure what they used,  but some Big Cs had to play a part. Maybe Centennial. I'll give due notice to the 9.5% abv and though it's a great beer, I'd buy it again but won't be hoarding it.

Brew Batch #47 Baltic Porter

Well the last of the dark beers for me for a while hit the keg tonight with a FG 1.014+0.002@ 77F to yield 6.9%abv using my same method or using the 7.5 division that Red told me about for 6.4%. Honestly, they are both fine for what I am doing, using Plato is what is universally used in large scale brewing anyway. It had a great swig to it and the only other dark beer I'd like to do right now is a CDA or Black IPA. Ever since tasting Stone Self Righteous (see Junk's Junk tasters) and having some in CO at GABF, I've started to gravitate fairly easy to this official class of beer. If I'm not mistaken it was just recognized in 2011? I'm going to try my hand at my new Blichmann beer gun on this one and hope I don't blow too much of it all over the ceiling while trying to bottle some 12s or 22s.

Our Tastes-- BlackStone BlackJack

Blackjack is a Texas brown ale made at BlackStone BrewPub. I was granted a growler of this after brewing with Red, (so what! this is how we ended up with Manhattan). I got to share this one at the local cigar shop with my bro-in-law and the consensus was about the same. A great med to dark brown with a nice tan thick marshmallow head. Nose of heavy hop. The taste is an even light malt bill with an even bitterness across the tongue. 7.5%abv. For trivia it was named for the brewer's brothers' army squad in Texas, Red really out did himself on this one. The guys at the stogie shop are thinking about bartering smokes for samplers and feedback, that's when you know you've made it. People willing to not only pay for your brew but trade things they too appreciate to have more of what you've created.

Our Tastes-- Adam Bomb

This is version 1.1 or edition 2 of this awesome hop bomb Red has created at BlackStone Color is a great light brown plus sweet red highlights with nice frothy head that quickly dissipates. The nose alone is enough to make me sneeze my head off. Zythos and huge coffee filters used in this one. Not sure about abv but I'm guessing around the 7 mark or so. I got to share this one with some of the guys at the cigar shop. Oddly, I thought this would be the crowd favorite, but almost all if them preferred Blackjack. For me though this beer is beyond description and I can't wait for the next offering.

SB294 Passes

Gov. Bentley, against my personal surprise, has signed SB294 into law! Aka The Alabama GBB, Gourmet Beer Bill. So bring on the bombers. At last check that puts our state abv at 13.9% and the allowing of the entire bomber line from Rogue and Stone.

TnDC Field Trip #21 Brew Day at BlackStone

>0500hrs came early this morning, finally arrived at BS at 0600hrs to brew with Red. Today's batch is Nut Brown Ale and the teacher has officially become the student! Mashing in (aka Getting our Mash on) has become my new favorite upper body workout and the steam has done wonders for my pores. May refer to it as getting a brewer's facial from here on out:) To go with brewer's jacuzzi.
>Mashed for an hour now we recirculate, through a grant to aid in clarifying the wort and pack the grain bed. The "tea" tastes great already. I've also been subjected to cleaning the yeast/perlite cake off of the filter. It's like scraping gooey talcum powder. Wonder if that's a newbie task?
> Let the sparging begin, Red's adding about 100 gallons to our 800lb grain concoction to pull the last tasty remnants out of the malt.
>And the boil begins, with just over 2000 grams of Willamette jumping in the kettle, followed by some super moss and zinc sulfate
>Just tried the Rye IPA and after only the slightest sip 2 sneezes came violently. It's a great piney nose with an evenly distributed bitterness across the sides of the tongue
>1305hrs And a trip through the heat exchanger on the way to the fermenter will complete the process
>Now the Texas Brown Ale to finish our day, pours a great dark brown from the use of molasses and brown sugar, the nose is appreciable different from RIPA above in that it is more grapefruit and citrus from the Centennial/Cascade combo

TnDC Field Trip #21 Day 2

After a deathly 5k on the never ending hill with a little cardio at the end of the cardio to finish (thanks for buying a house on a 1/4mile 40degree incline, Junk) we headed on to the depot for some quick home improvements. After tightening up the energy efficiency of the house and treating ourselves to matching Lunarfly+3s, we started our run into NashVegas with a Midtown Wine & Spirits browsing. Then we bellied up at Jackalope Brewery for Ts and a brew or 2. First up, Spruce beersteen (named by Bailey Spaulding because she is a big Springsteen fan) a black ipa with 6 hop additions almost akin to a hoppy stout with all of the roasted taste not so much a "dark grain" ipa. After a couple it grows on you, just have an open mind if your previous BIPA experiences have come with less roasted malt bills. Thunder Ann APA has a great medium brown color and slight nose, but oh what a disappointment! More cereal forward, light hop nose, should have stayed with the black ipa! And to round out the night, Boscos.  Ice Age pale ale made within Glacier hops a relatively new variety yielding OG 1.066 and 80 IBUs with a minty and a good pale ale backbone... can't comment on color it's in MY MUG! Isle of Skye Scottish ale is up next (as my compnay and I listen to hand-shake etiquette from the woman behind us?) eight malt types with 2 hops. A nose of light cereal with a nice bite from the hop addition. OG 1.066 30 IBUs. And to quench the night,
Boscos Bombay IPA, OG 1.062 54 IBUs, a great fresh clean IPA of standard expectation good clean crisp bite. Brew day 715 mash in!

TnDC Field Trip #21 Arrival

I landed in Franklin, TN in 3:40, which allowed Junk and I a little time to grab some grub and brews at Cool Springs Brewery. A couple of Pecker Wrecker IPAs led to a late night/early morning with foolish speak of a 5K at around 300am.