Brewday Suds

Sunday night I had a group of friends over to help me brew and drink a few beers. We started off with Jolly Pumpkin's Oro de Calabaza, a strong, soured, golden ale. It was actually much more tart than I expected, and I would say it was the most sour of any of their other beers I've had. It was really refreshing, but this is about all I remember about it.

We moved on to my last growler I had brought home from Russian River, and that is their "Russian River IPA." You can find this beer at various places down here but it is that much better when poured cold straight from the source. Compared to Blind Pig, this IPA has a bit more alcohol to it, but less IBU's. To me it has a little less aroma, but a more well-rounded flavor, as Blind Pig can be pretty bruising as far as hops and bitterness goes. This is such a great beer I wish I had a local brewery anywhere within 50 miles that could make an IPA as good as this.

The brewday went pretty well. It was my first partial mash on the way to all grain brewing (which I can't wait to get to). We brewed an IPA that was originally somewhat inspired by Alpine Duet IPA which uses only Simcoe and Amarillo hops. My original recipe started out with only those hops but evolved to something a little different. For anyone interested, here is the IPA recipe I came up with.

• Stats
• OG: 1.064
• FG: hopefully 1.012-1.015
• ABV: ~6.7%
• IBU: ~80
  
• Color: 8 SRM
• Grain
• 6 lbs Pale Malt Extract
• 1 lb Cane Sugar
  
• 1.25 lbs American Two-Row
• .5 lbs English Carastan (30L)
• .25 lbs American Crystal 20L (decided upon at last minute for a touch more color)
• .5 lbs Carapils
• Hops
• 1 oz Chinook @ 60 min
• .75 oz Simcoe @ 15 min
• .50 oz Amarillo @ 15 min
• .50 oz Centennial @ 5 min
• 1.25 oz Simcoe (Dry Hop)
• .50 oz Amarillo (Dry Hop)
• .50 oz Centennial (Dry Hop)
• Yeast
• White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast