New Brew!

Ohhhhh I can smell the hops just looking at it!

A space odyssey comes to my fridge! Hal-IPA-2010

I bottled a quadruple-hopped India Pale Ale over the weekend. During the last stage of fermentation I crushed 1 oz of Centennial hops into a fine powder and dropped it into the top the fermenter. When I popped the top of the fermenter to start bottling, the whole room started to small like hops (slight exaggeration). I put 2.25 gallons into the party pig (small keg-photo) and the rest in bottles. Although it usually takes at least 2 more weeks for the beer to condition and for the sugar to produce carbonation, I dispensed a glass full while tying some flies yesterday because I knew it would taste good already. I'm worried that I'll never experience the true greatness of this brew because I'm I'll have it gone before it matures.

Next time, I'm considering dropping an individual hop pellet into each bottle. I'm crazy into hops right now because I just choked down the last glass of a thick Porter that I brewed back in Nov. Five gallons is a lot of beer to drink, five gallons of Porter is a ton! Don't worry, I didn't drink it all myself-I'm not an alcy.

I'm ready for IPA again. I tend to only brew two types of beers, Porters and IPA's (opposite ends of the beer spectrum for me). Everything else I might as well buy in the store because I don't brew them well.