American IPA - Tasting

I brewed up this IPA with the hopes of duplicating my favorite beer (Four Peaks Hop Knot) which is only available in Arizona.  Now that I have moved to Pennsylvania I will no longer have access to that beer and I wanted to see if I could put together a reasonable approximation.

I will capture my notes on the comparison between the two beers later this week and today I will just assess the beer on it's own merits.  It drinks very easy and at 7% alcohol (which is very well hidden) I'm finding that drinking three of them results in me getting a skull splitting headache the next morning.

It was reputed that the US-05 strain of yeast will produce a peach ester if fermented below 60 F.  Based on the original clone's lack of peach character using WPL007 I decided to give this technique a shot.  It ended up producing a very significant fruity/peachy flavor.  It is actually quite different than the original but I'm finding that the peach yeast character blends very nicely with the character produced by the dry hops.  I'm sure I will laugh at this when I finally get a chance to try some Heady Topper but this balance reminds me of how that beer is often discussed as having a nice balance of peach ester from the yeast and the floral/citrus hops.

Anyway, I found it interesting to use the yeast in a non-standard way to get some different flavors.  I would like to play around with this some more in the future.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Citrus/piney hops are the dominant smell mixed with some fruity peach ester character.  No malt and no alcohol in the aroma to speak of.
• Appearance:
• Has a decent head after a fairly aggressive pour (not pictured) that lasts over the course of drinking the beer.  A little bit of lacing on the glass.  It is pretty clear beer if you are careful to avoid the significant amount of sediment at the bottom of the bottle.
• Flavor:
• Up front there is a sweet fruitiness of the citrus hops and the peach ester.  The two flavors get a long pretty darn well in this beer.  The finish has a nice assertive bitterness.  It's a very dry finish.  The flavor has changed a bit over the last two weeks that I've been drinking it.  The finish has gotten drier ss the beer has conditioned in the bottle.  This is the best bottle I have had so far.
• Mouth-feel:
• Has a full bodied mouth feel and finishes very dry.
• Overall:
• The balance between the hops and ester is complimentary.  The bitterness that has emerged after the beer has adequately conditioned makes this a much easier drinker.  The high ABV seems a bit over the top - I think it would have been just as good at 5% and much less hangover inducing.

So, I am very happy with the beer based on it's own merits.

Strong Brown Ale - Tasting

It has been just over 2 months since I brewed up my Strong Brown Ale.  It was intended to be a semi-clone of Lagunitas' Brown Shugga.  I haven't tried it next to the real thing yet but I strongly suspect that I was a bit off the mark with this one.  I ended up stopping the boil a little too early and had an extra half gallon of wort that I poured out after chilling.  That cost me about 6 points off the original gravity.  Then the yeast ended up taking the beer all the way down to 1.015 rather than stopping at 1.025 as I'd hoped.  I believe part of the strategy of using the WPL002 was that it would die off at around 10% ABV but since I started with less fermentables it was able to take the FG down further.  So, it's a bit dryer than the original which is a pretty big flaw since the sweetness was one of the primary characteristics I was shooting for with this beer.  Live and learn I guess.

I tried this beer a few weeks back and it had a pretty stiff alcohol bite too it.  It's still got quite a bit of alcohol in the finish but it is much smoother now.  I believe it will continue to improve over time.  I will plan on doing another tasting in November when the real thing hits the streets.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Alcohol/Fruity Ester character are the prominent smells.  The fruity flavor is of dried fruit - prunes maybe - it is quite nice.  There is also some malt sweetness in there.  No hop aroma to the beer at all (shouldn't be a surprise because I eliminated all the late hop additions).
• Appearance:
• Very slight head even after a fairly vigorous pour.  The head quickly fades to nothing.  It is a cloudy beer - the cloudiest beer I've made so far.  This is probably due to the wine yeast added at bottling.
• Flavor:
• Even with the lower than expected final gravity there is still quite a bit of sweetness to the beer.  There is quite a bit of dark fruity flavor that goes nicely with the sweetness it has.  I also think I'm tasting something like a brown sugar flavor but that may be my imagination.  The malt has a bit of subtle nutty flavor too it.  The finish is primarily alcohol.  The bittering hops are all lost in the background - can not pick them out past the alcohol.
• Mouth-feel:
• It has a pleasant amount of body too it - I don't think I'd want this to be much more carbonated.
• Overall:
• This beer still seems a bit green.  The alcohol flavor dominates at this point and it's a pretty harsh alcohol burn.  The fruity sweet flavor is pleasant - hopefully that element remains a few months down the line.  Some flavor/aroma hops probably could have improved the beer a bit at this stage of maturation.

I am thinking the beer may be better a few months from now.  The malt and yeast character are very pleasant.  I am hoping that the finish becomes more about them and less about the alcohol as it ages.