This Hop Was a Flop, Maybe.

The Pale Ale I made with Cashmere hops disappoints me.
I'm not shy about bragging regarding my Pale but this substitution completely changed the character of the beer into a flavor profile I don't really like.  The beer reminds me of one of those really tart east coast IPAs.
I'm more of a traditionalist Pale dude.  Sierra Nevada Pale, Mirror Pond, etc.  So I'm not really digging this one.
But I think somebody might.

I'm going to draw a few growlers off the keg and give them to a couple of brewers and beer peeps I know to see what they think.
This beer might be a bust for me but could be something I make again for somebody else.
My palate is the end all, be all, but only for me.
Others might find this beer delicious.

In other news, I was on vacation for a week and managed to make beer twice and head down to Star Wars Land at Disney for a couple of days.

Today I packaged my 2nd and 3rd beers in as many weeks.  One of them is an Amber in the keg on the left, above.  The other two are an IPA I made on vacation and the Raspberry Porter I made a couple of weeks ago.

I'm trying to improve the IPA with a bit of Acidulated Malt.  I think the bitterness might be more defined and present.
The Porter was a try at something I had years ago.  I checked it last night.
Not bad but not great.  Drinkable.
I think more porter and less raspberry next time.
I'll let my Cursillo brothers sample this one for some feedback.

Happy Holidays! And, of course,...  Good Beer To You.

Raspberry Porter

Yeah.

A fruit beer,... sort of.

My wife and I went to a beer dinner at Bosco's in Memphis with some members of the beer club about 10 years ago.

Great food was served in courses and paired mostly with Bosco's beer.  But the dessert was paired with a Raspberry Porter made by my friend Jody Kane.

Maybe it was the food pairing, the other beers I'd had,...I don't know.  But I remember that beer to this day.

So I'm trying to make one.

A little chocolate malt, an ounce or two of black malt and some roast barley are the backbone of my attempt.

I'm using a raspberry puree split between the end of the boil and the bottling process to attain the fruit character.

I briefly thought about using real fruit in a secondary fermentation but I'm not all that confident handling it to be certain that no bacteria get in there and ruin the ferm.

My trusty stainless fermenter and a good pitch of California Ale yeast should do the job well.

Good Beer To You.

Cashmere!

Today I'm trying a new hop. 

Cashmere.  

It was on sale so I decided to try it out in my very successful Pale Ale.

The grist remains the same but the hop schedule is as follows.

I'm still throwing a little Amarillo in there for aroma but I'm excited to see how the flavor profile changes.  The 30 and 15 minute additions are what's important to me here.

I'll report the results in a few weeks.

Good Beer To You.

Oh Yeah. I Almost Forgot About This Blog

So its been a minute.  Two years, in fact.
But don't think I'm not making beer.  I've brewed about 50 times since my last post.
First lets catch up on some things.
The kegerator project went south on me.  After I painted the thing, got the holes drilled, installed the taps and poured about 3 kegs out of it, the compressor failed and it became junk.  Then, over the same weekend, my fermentation vault stopped too.  So I pushed both out to the front lawn and called the junk collector.

Now I'm looking toward my now 10-year-old dorm fridge to do the dispensing and thankfully, a friend donated an updated kitchen fridge to me.  I put a temperature controller on the side and started again.
There have been vacations and a life event or two during the last 24 months.

I renovated a couple of rooms in our house.  Learned a few things about flooring along the way.

I'm thinking about re-branding this blog.  After all, we've lived in Nashville for about 8 years now and it might be time to let the BCB domain go to somebody who'll use it in Memphis.  Lots of new breweries down there now.  I'm rooting for all of them.
Finally, today, I'm making an IPA that leans in the direction of Bells Two Hearted.

This is the third try at this beer.  It's a good beer.  It's still short of being a great beer.  Still working on it.
As always,...Good Beer To You