Hey Tazio, What's in the Beer Meister (Single malt IPA, Slimy the Imposter, #homebrew)

Aah, yes....

The Meister be filled and we be whittlin' away at some fine homebrew for the past few weeks.

The Espresso Stout is about kicked, barely holding on 1/2 way out the back door of the Meister, but, no fear: we've got a new roomie lined up. More about that later. This stout was a good beer, a fine beer--don't get us wrong: chocolaty and faintly espresso flavored, with just a wee bit of hop flavor and taste. Beautiful color and a tempting chocolate-milk head. We were a tad disappointed by the espresso flavor--didn't use anything special for the espresso, just grocery store Espresso Napolitano. Will be brewing this again but will try some other espresso.

The second keg contains our first attempt at all-grain that started out as the Blackfoot River Brewing Co.'s single malt IPA clone. But sans the correct hops (Citra substituted), it turned quite good in its own right: a grapefruity vunderkind knockout which even S enjoys the hell out of. This one's a bit foamy and never calmed down much and it too's almost kicked.

But wait: there's more...

The third keg is an all-grain repeat of Slimy the Imposter, but this time with the correct hops, but the wrong yeast. (Sidebar: our starter never, um started, and in a masterstroke (not really, more like a desperate attempt to save brew day) pitched a outdated packet of Munton's ale yeast into the starter. It did the trick and this version turned very clear (the Munton's yeast perhaps?) unlike the previous ver. Fine and dry as tinder be. D loves it but T enjoyed the previous version which had Amarillo substitution and seemed truer to the real thing. Pliny the Elder really does live up to the hype.

So, if all goes according to plan, a sensational (?) little black CDA should be taking up residence in the Meister, two weeks hence. We're calling this Zeroth Degree CDA in honor of our first zero degree brew day yesterday. We hit pre-boil gravity right on a 1.06 and starting gravity of 1.07. It's percolating nicely now.

A Single Malt Exercise

Next in line is an experiment with single malt.

As in brewing, not distilling.

(Although distilling a single malt whisky like Glenmorangie is a beguiling idea.)

Specifically we're going brew a clone of Blackfoot River Brewing Company's Singlemalt IPA.

Teeming with Simcoe® and Cascade hops, stiffened by Maris Otter, using our own mountain water straight out of Glen Summit Springs, this baby looks so dang good on paper, we just had to do it.

Do or do not. There is no try. --Yoda

Best part of every day.™