Thunderbolt Pale Ale: Hop Substitution Experiment - UPDATE

Thunderbolt, the pale ale

Tasting notes for my Thunderbolt Pale Ale, using a blend of hops to approximate the profile of Simcoe: 

7/11: 1.5 weeks in primary - 1.009 gravity. Hop bitterness is nearly the same as the original recipe. Centennial & Mt. Hood flavor totally unabridged. Hop aroma seems to be leaning toward pine, though at this early in fermentation it's not all that different from the aroma profile of the original recipe. Secondary transfer 7/12.

The Haphazard Brewing of Free Kick EPA

*** This blog post was recently uncovered deep from within scattered brewer's notes. It's timeliness has been lost, but its moral fortitude has not. We begin in late April 2011. ***

Let me tell you about what may be the best homebrew ever brewed. Or it may be a total disaster. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Thunderbolt Pale Ale: Hop Substitution Experiment

So far, it's been a hot summer and a short summer. And that's to say summer hasn't officially yet begun. As manic as winter had been, summer crept around the Twin Cities like a lurking radioactive monster. From windy to above average hot, that was only after the tornado season began in north Minneapolis.

Notes on a brewday: Warminster Standard

Technically, it was a brewnight.
Waxing moon over boiler.

My wife likes English bitters, her birthday is coming up, and she wants to throw a party with lots of beer. She also owns a rhinestone-encrusted switchblade with which she makes sure I understand the things she says. Fortunately I happened to have the last 10 pounds from a sack of Maris Otter laying around and a raging propagation of Wyeast's Thames Valley II with no place else to be. I also had the urge ... the urge to sparge. To the backyard!

Short on Supply, High on Concepts

I've had a couple years' run wherein my brewing has been a gently purring animal.

Tastes have become recipes. Those recipes have met practices on brewdays, and then found their way through the cell membranes of various yeasts, until the whole was poured into pint glasses. Those glasses were emptied into dozens of parched mouths; occasionally, a few of those mouths gave coherent, positive feedback. My three & some odd years of homebrewing have led me to a fine place where the only limits have been my imagination, palate & budget.

Notes on a Brew Day: Surly Pro Series

As I sat at my desk back in 2010 with the recipe files from Surly head brewer Todd Haug, scaling them to five gallons for homebrewer sized pilot batches, I felt like I was deciphering the Rosetta Stone with Led Zeppelin ca. 1971 on board the Millennium Falcon.

... deciphering it somewhat wrong, mind you (thanks for nothing, Bonham and Chewie). But that's the purpose of pilot batches: to work out the kinks before any cash is plunked down.

Beer Engine vs. CO2: Dry-hopped Death Match

The same, and yet not the same.

"Beer engines: cool as hell, but what do I get for $450? Tangibles, I mean. What does it do for my beer?"

A worthy question! Let's try the exact same beer dispensed with CO2 and "on cask" side by side and drink critically!

Soar with Sorghum!

There's a product that we carry at Northern Brewer which occasionally gets some attention from customers. Usually, this attention is a begrudging acknowledgment of anticipated frustration, and it is directed towards White Sorghum syrup. This is a high maltose, gluten-free extract syrup made from sorghum by Briess Malt in Chilton, WI.

Chip's Open/Closed Patersbier

[editor's note: this piece was originally published on the Brewing TV blog]



Hello everyone. Chip Walton, the guy behind the camera, here.

When Michael Dawson (or Jake Keeler) says JUMP - I say HOW HIGH?! In Episode 6, Dawson issued our first Brewing TV Challenge. He suggested viewers brew a five-gallon batch of Patersbier, split it into two 2.5-gallon batches, ferment one closed, ferment one open. I took this challenge to heart.

Mini-Hefe-Hydro-Melo-Mel

Problem: Meads tend to take a long time to age and are too high gravity to quaff as a refreshment. Solution: Mini-Hefe-Hydro-Melo-Mel.

Around the BJCP Style Guidelines in 365 days

Fellow telescope owners, come out of the closet and come clean: have you ever done a Messier marathon? Me neither. That's a lot of lost sleep.

But what about a homebrew equivalent?