Doin' Brewin' - Raise the Roofie IPA

I've been trying to nail down a house IPA recipe for a while now and I think I'm getting close.  This last one was mighty tasty but with one drawback.... 9.8% ABV!!!

I had a small mishap with a hydrometer before brewing this batch resulting in fragments of glass all over the kitchen floor.   So I saved some samples in the fridge for testing when the new hydrometer arrived in the mail.  In the meantime we were drinking this beer and waking up in the morning with surprising hangovers and memory loss.  By the recipe estimations this beer should have been about 6.3% and I still have no idea what happened.

When I first kegged this IPA I was concerned that it had maybe fermented at too high of a temperature in the summer heat.  I thought I was smelling an estery green apple aroma but now I think it was just the alcohol, which mellowed out after a week of conditioning.  The beer was left with a slight alcohol warmth going down.  It didn't turn out as hoppy as I was going for but I will attribute that to the 1.090 OG.  This one is a keeper and work in progress.  Looking forward to doing it as a repeat to compare the results.  

Open to comments or just try to Raise the Roofie yourself!

Batch Size	5.000 gal	Boil Size	5.750 gal
Boil Time	60.000 min	Efficiency	70%
OG	1.064	FG	1.016
ABV	6.3%	Bitterness	63.9 IBU (Tinseth)
Color	10.3 srm (Morey)	Calories (per 12 oz.)	214

Fermentables

Total grain: 13.498 lb

Name	Type	Amount	Mashed	Late	Yield	Color
Pale Malt (2 Row) US	Grain	9.998 lb	Yes	No	79%	2.0 srm
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L	Grain	15.998 oz	No	No	74%	40.0 srm
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L	Grain	15.998 oz	No	No	75%	10.0 srm
Munich Malt	Grain	1.500 lb	Yes	No	80%	9.0 srm

Hops

Name	Alpha	Amount	Use	Time	Form	IBU
Simcoe	13%	0.750 oz	Boil	60.000 min	Pellet	29.7
Simcoe	13%	1.000 oz	Boil	25.000 min	Pellet	27.6
Zythos	10.9%	1.000 oz	Boil	5.000 min	Pellet	6.6

Yeast

Name	Type	Form	Amount	Stage
Safale S-05	Ale	Dry	2.232 tsp	Primary

And a "brewery" is named....

People are always asking me what my beers are called or what I call my "brewery".  Until now I haven't been inspired to come up with names for my beers or my "brewery".  I just want to brew beer, so I call them to style and creativity of naming is up for grabs.  And I've had a couple named, such as the Blonde Bitch and the Raise the Roofie IPA.  I've got the chalk board where the stats are posted for the beers in my nameless two keg kegerator system.

So the conversation goes a little something like this.  My roomate tells a friend about me and in miscommunication I am later asked how my kids are.

Kids?   No no, I have no kids.

My roommate interjects, not kids, kEgs.  I told you she has two kegs.  You know, Kelly no kids.... Kelly 2 Kegs!

Friend reply's, is she Ute?

We have a laugh and I fondly remember the days of being referred to on the Navajo reservation as "travels with growlers".  Because every knows you have to be ready with a growler in the car in case you come across a beer at a brewery that you must take home.  And the second best way to share beer, after of course having people over for a pull on the taps, is to take growlers of homebrew to gatherings. 

I've sat with the nick name Kelly 2 Kegs or just Two Kegs for about a week now and I thinks it's sticking.  So a "brewery" is named, and it shall be called...
 

Marble Red

Its been quite a long time my old friend.  

One of my New Mexico favorites and we don't get it up in these here hills.  Used to be one of my go to hoppy beers in New Mexico and I would frequent the little brewery on my outings to the big city.   I am a very hoppy girl, also because I became an aunt today.  Cheers!!!

Travels

 I've been on a writing and brewing hiatus due to travels and starting a new job, so it's catch up time.  Doin' some brewin' today and reminiscing on the fine selection of lagers I recently had in Nepal. Of course by fine, I mean that they all tasted the same.  But they came in big bottles and were cold in the heat and humidity of Pokhara, so I can't complain too much.

I'll veer from beer for a minute to mention the Raksi.  This is the "local wine" we had after trekking in the Langtang valley.  This particular raksi was made from fermented potato mash.  Sounds like vodka you say?  Well it tasted like it too, just a watered down version served hot.

Needless to say, upon my arrival back to the US after a couple weeks, I was looking for some good ales.  I was in Arizona, so I picked up this selection of mostly AZ brewed IPAs that I am so very much looking forward to sampling, comparing and reviewing.  Cheers to good beers!!

Vernal Minthe Stout

This new seasonal from Ska is an awesome after dinner beer.  Brewed with peppermint, spearmint, cocoa and vanilla.  I love the mint in stout!  And I love that it is subtle.  The last seasonal I had of theirs was the Mole Stout with chocolate and spices, which I found to be a little hard to drink a whole can and it gave me heart burn.  I think that restaurants should switch from Andes candy on the check to Minthe Stouts.  I know it would keep me coming back :)

Doin' Brewin' - Belgian Blonde

On a windy spring day, the air full of red dust sweeping in from the Ouray Valley, you may see a girl running back and forth, back and forth from her house to her garage.  Sometimes carrying a giant pot, buckets, hoses, some strange copper thing.  What is she doing?  Brewing beer of course!

Spring in the mountains equals wind.  And today was particularly windy which forced me to move my brewing operation to the garage in hopes that I don't get completely contaminated by whatever is floating in the air.  In anticipation of my mom coming for a visit I am trying to have mom-friendly beers on tap, which means minimal hops.  This is hard for me, so I decided it would be a good opportunity to try to come up with a belgian blonde and try a few things I've never used before like red wheat and Safale T-58 yeast.

In my experience the progression of introducing non-craft beer drinkers to "real" beer is to start with stouts, browns and red, which has so far been a success.  This time I am going to introduce a bit more hops with the ESB and this Belgian Blonde.  We'll see how she likes it.

Somehow I completely missed the mark on my OG coming short at 1.040.  I was hoping to hit closer to 1.052 but I may have misjudged how much sugar I would get from the red wheat and Vienna.  I have also been playing with mash volumes.  But either way I don't really mind lower ABV beers.  I can drink more beers with less headaches :)

I really like the way this beer turned out.  Very drinkable.  Nice light golden color, a little haziness from the wheat.  On the nose slight not over powering esthers from the yeast.  Finishes hop bitterness instead of belgian sweetness.   Again, another beer not brewed to style, but that's the fun of homebrewing, you can have it your way.

Batch Size	5.000 gal	Boil Size	5.750 gal
Boil Time	60.000 min	Efficiency	70%
OG	1.057	FG	1.014
ABV	5.6%	Bitterness	33.4 IBU (Tinseth)
Color	5.0 srm (Morey)	Calories (per 12 oz.)	190

Fermentables

Total grain: 12.000 lb

Name	Type	Amount	Mashed	Late	Yield	Color
Pale Malt (2 Row) US	Grain	8.000 lb	Yes	No	79%	2.0 srm
Vienna Malt	Grain	2.000 lb	Yes	No	78%	4.0 srm
Wheat, Red	Grain	2.000 lb	No	No	84%	2.5 srm

Hops

Name	Alpha	Amount	Use	Time	Form	IBU
Amarillo	8.7%	0.500 oz	Boil	5.000 min	Pellet	2.8
Cascade	6.4%	0.500 oz	Boil	20.000 min	Pellet	6.3
Cascade	6.4%	0.500 oz	Boil	60.000 min	Pellet	10.3
Amarillo	8.7%	0.500 oz	Boil	60.000 min	Pellet	14.0

Yeast

Name	Type	Form	Amount	Stage
Safbrew T-58	Ale	Liquid	0.000 tsp	Primary

Face down brown

This snowy spring day in April brings me back to winter days x-country skiing in Telluride.  Of course I didn't get out the skis because there was only about 4 inches of wet snow that started to melt as soon as it hit the ground and will probably be gone tomorrow, but I did get out a Face Down Brown.  The second of Telluride Brewing Co's beers to be canned.  Second to be canned, because it was a gold metal winner at the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup last year.  And well deserving of the awards, I'd say.  Nice and nutty malty but with a little hop kick making it not as sweet as the usual brown.  Very drinkable for this hophead.  As they say at the brewery,  "...don’t be afraid to get down with the best Brown around".