David and Walker are drinking a different beer each day* for an entire year, 365 beers in all, starting August 5th, 2010. We're writing about our daily regime to share the experiences and delicious discoveries with our friends and mild acquaintances to inspire YOU to bring previously unknown beers to your lips. (*limit one new beer per day consumed before midnight, no catch up days allowed)
Showing posts with label belgian style ipa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label belgian style ipa. Show all posts
What happens when we travel down to San Diego for a wedding but there's terrible traffic and I'm late to pick up my tux? Well before anyone gets married we have to stop at a brewery, duh.
I love it when dad's bring their kids to breweries. It inspires future Walker
Iron Fist is a favorite of David and I's and yours truly especially wants to fill up our growler with their potent Oatmeal Stout, Velvet Glove. Our college friend Gordon is with us and this is his first time to any SoCal breweries.
Iron Fist has a new blend that's cold off the fermenter, a big bad, belgian triple/ipa called UPRISING. This has motherloving 12% alcohol packed into a 10oz snifter. With the clock reading 4pm, I am only
now getting over the atomic hangover I incurred last night, and this
thing might send me right back to the stone age.
The Uprising has a Paul Bunyon body, big and bold. A sweet yeasty and grainy aroma is followed by a sweet caramel and sharply bittered body. Initially the alcohol doesn't seem very present, merely peeking around the corner, but as the beer warms the glass becomes the perfect storm of sweetness, bitterness and alcohol that threatens to implode my mouth. It's an impressive beer that gets a little ahead of itself.
"Please," the Groom said, "Growler me."
I'm enjoying this but it's a tenacious beer, an 'in your face supporter' of all things intense. David is driving and this put him back on his heels a bit. For me, one glass is all it takes to slay the Goliath...of my hangovers. Back to the water bottle. Still, worth the experience. TRANSFORMERS rating
Following my first homebrew, the Christmas themed King Moonracer's Revenge, the Belgian IPA was my my second foray into homebrewing (Belgian IPA brewing day)
All those monkeys celebrating like idiots in front of the White House reminds me to never send my children to college at Georgetown
After learning the basics of homebrewing, I wanted to make the beer style I like the most. Belgian IPA's are rare in Belgium (purists detest, Le Chouffe is the exception) and Americans have made the style their own. My particular favorites are the Green Flash Le Freak and several hoppy Breury beers. They're big bodied, sweet and extra hoppy. I love me some rich food and rich beer. It was to Frankenstein my own.
At 80+ IBU it's an incredibly hoppy beer. If the alcohol was higher, it would qualify as an Belgian Double IPA. Unfortunately, I still don't have a name for it (Double Dutch Rudder wasn't exactly PG), so for right now I'm going with BIPA.
The crowning remark I received after people first tasted it, was that it didn't taste like a homebrew. Best compliment I could receive for my second beer. There's still great carbonation and lace with the pour and the hops haven't mellowed with age either. The Simcoe, Centennial and Cascade hops provide a BIG hop bite that's incredibly distinct thanks to the super hop Simcoe. It's a hop combination that's unique and I'm quite partial too. The sweet malt body is compliments of a Belgian Pale Ale recipe from the Culver City Home Brew Shop.
What I learned from this beer and what I will correct in the next batch, which will be partial-mash, is that the body of the beer isn't big enough to handle the amount of IBU's. At under 5% alcohol, the beer is simply too light. I need to beef up the body so that the ratio between the Bitterness Units (BU) and the Gravity Units (GU) is 1. In this recipe, the BU/GU is at 1.81. I'd like to give this a Rock rating, but in reality it's not quite there yet. TRANSFORMERS rating. Still, I honestly feel it could be in the top 50-75 beers I've had this year.
So not only was I able to revisit a homebrew for a beer of the day, but they caught the most notorious terrorist in the world --
BUT, I was also to watch the most ridiculous infomercial I've seen for quite some time, the Pajama Jeans.
Ma and Pa Davis are in town and took Karl, David and I out to Enterprise Fish Co for some good seafood and one bomb-ass bread puff lobster bisque.
This deliciousness marks the beginning of a food filled weekend with the 'rents
It developed into an amusing dinner because I've never had a waiter who was so sardonic and disgruntled about the restaurant which he'd worked at for the past two years. He didn't take any crap and I loved it. He began the meal informing us the special Dine-LA menu was 'really stupid' unless you got the lobster (which no one did). Then he took one look at David's ginger sauce and said that it was 'god awful.' He apparently returned to the kitchen and argued with the chef until she made new sauce and the forced her to bring it out herself (he really relished winning that power struggle). He then ended the meal by regaling us about the biggest tumbleweeds he'd ever seen in Texas/Arizona. You know, normal stories waiters animatedly tell customers. After thoroughly stuffing ourselves, the group headed back to the marina to celebrate beer number 183 and our halfway mark through the year.
Glorious, glorious nectar
Duvel is David's all time favorite beer and we'd been eying the Duvel Tripel Hop for quite some time. David finally bought it a couple weeks ago. Friday morning I made an executive decision and 'discretely' placed the beer in the fridge and the tag on David's wallet letting him know the time has come for us to drink the nectar.
Beer nerds celebrate
Wow, HOPS! They weren't messing around when they made this with tripel hops. Take a Duvel and add Saaz (which you can taste upfront), Syrian Goldings and Amarillo hops and you can imagine what the Tripel Hop tastes like. They kept it simple and didn't change much. Sadly, Karl doesn't like Duvel but even he is warming up to thanks to this bottle's crispness. I love the bottle design too. It's fitting that Karl is here and personally happy I'm happy because he's been a major part of the last 6 months.
Very fortunate to have Platt and Carolyn in town for the occasion!
Duvel is in the hall of Mt. Olympus as one of the greatest beers in the world. The original Duvel is hard to beat, but the tripel hop is an interesting and ultimately satisfying twist on the original. BAD BOYS rating.
Fantastic way to celebrate the halfway milestone. As I went to sleep, I didn't count sheep and instead counted beer -- 182 beers left on the wall, 182 two beers left. Take one down, pass it around, 181 beers on the wall...
So Karl came over and after a nourishing Chipotle run, we stopped by the beer store on our way to the home brew store in order to stock up on the intoxicating alcohol that we would need in order to make our own intoxicating beer, duh. I bought two beers of the style we were making (Belgian Style IPA), Le Freak and Le Chouffe. Karl bought a few Ommegang's. David went a little crazy and bought the Infinium and Tripel Hop Duvel among several others. Party.
Here is the recipe for David and Walker's yet to be named Belgian Style IPA (and a big thank you to Karl who had a large hand in cooking this).
Malt Extract: Pale 6 lbs
Sugar: Wildflower Honey .5 lbs
Grain Bill: Caravienne Malt 4 oz
Carafoam Malt 4 oz
Aromatic Malt 4 oz
Biscuit Malt 4 oz
Hop Schedule: Simcoe (12.7%) 1oz at 60 mins
Cascade (4.5%) 1oz at 45 mins
Centennial (10.5) 1oz at 30 mins
Cascade (4.5) 1oz at 15 mins
Simcoe (12.7%) 1oz DRY HOP
Cascade (4.5%) 1oz DRY HOP
Yeast: Wyeast 1214 Belgian Trappist Ale
*(may add a second Belgian Strong Ale or Northwest Ale
during 2nd fermentation)
Potential Alcohol 5.5% (although we're hoping that will change
Gravity 1.041
Balling Scale is at 10%
*This was our first time using the newly purchased wort cooler and if you're ever thinking about getting one, DO IT. It takes at least 45 - 60 mins to cool the wort down to 70 degrees using ice, but with the chiller it took about 15 minutes. Totally worth what I dropped on it.
Karl is standing in my kitchen swiping honey like he was Yogi Bear (Karl K) and since I wholeheartedly agree with him about the beer but seeing how he is more articulate, I'm going to quote him here as my review:
Karl, "It doesn't have the definite characteristics of either a Belgian or IPA. It's lost in the woods between the two, but being lost in these woods is still a nice place to be." David describes it as being a 'Light IPA or Hoppy Pilsner - Two sides of the same coin.' I'll add that it's smooth and easy to drink. THE ROCK rating.
This beer combines what has apparently become my two Texas traditions, brewery collaborations and smaller than normal beers (between 7 and 11 ounces). This collaboration is between Stone Brewery in San Diego and Brewdog in Scotland (where the Bashah is bottled) and clocks in at 8.6% alcohol.
Get this though, this is a BLACK BELGIAN STYLE DOUBLE INDIA PALE ALE. Grande Pelotas de Fuego! This is an outrageous beer.
Darth Stewie rules, bitches
Wow, they couldn't have made a crazier beer (as the title may suggest). This smells like the Tootsie Roll from Heaven, sweet and not crappy. It has a rich roasted coffee malt profile that is sweet and rounds out with a touch of hops. This is a big, bold and complex beer that is a subtle blending of its various elements. Only once in a blue moon will you find a beer this extravagant, daring and equally tasty, so keep your eyes peeled for it. THE ROCK rating.
Also, I like how they don't attempt attempt to explain or define the name they gave this, and I'm glad they didn't because confining this ridiculous blend with a derivative name wouldn't be justifying it.
And how cool is this label? If I was a hell-spawned Demon, I'd like that as my family crest.
Once upon a time, a sweet Belgian from the wrong side of the pond meet a charming hoppy California IPA and when sparks flew, they put on Josh Groban and made some babies. Delicious Belgian-style IPA kids. And boy do I love to drink their babies. It's like a delicious fairy tale, similar to the fable of when oatmeal met the chocolate chip cookie.
About to kill Nazi Zombies, just like the old days
So how does this fairy tale turn out? A ton of hops upfront. Grassy, bitter and tasty. They hit me like a wave and then it's over. There's a little belgian flavor left but but overall there is more Cali hops than Belgie. However, I wouldn't expect any less from Stoner.
I wanted more Belgian but you're still delicious and I can't stay mad for long. This is still a tasty, well rounded beer. THE ROCK rating. I'll have you any day.
