Tired Hands HopHands Clone - Tasting Notes

This is a low alcohol, very hoppy pale ale, which I brewed back in January and which I've been enjoying on tap for the last month.  This has become one of my favorite styles of beer to brew since I started kegging.  It is a very drinkable beer session kind of beer that has hop flavor comparable to the famous commercial examples of IPA when it turns our right.  This is an expensive style of beer to buy (frequently see $4+ pint cans for these.  Buying hops in bulk makes the price for homebrewing pretty good

Tired Hands is a very good local brewery here in SEPA that makes some very good hoppy beers.  I got this recipe from another PA Homebrewer's former blog "Ales of the Riverwards".  It has been a while since I had the original beer so I can't really comment on how close this is as a clone to Hop Hands

This was kind of an interesting recipe in that it uses a large amount of flaked oats (2 lbs).  The original beer is very hazy due to this.  My beer started out pretty hazy as well but has dropped fairly clear over time in the keg.  These beers are so hevilly hopped that the malt usually doesn't come through much - this one has a bit more malt character than others I've made (which may be the oats or the fact that it finished at 1.020)

I've been drinking quite a bit of this beer and am starting to expect it to kick soon.  Figure I better do an official tasting while it lasts

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Sweet Citrus (Grapefruit and Orange) along with a bit of piney aroma.  I may be picking up a bit of fruity ester in there as well.
• Appearance:
• Pours with a 3 finger head.  This fades down to a thin layer over 5 min or so.  Leaves lacing on the glass.  Straw colored and a little bit of a haze to it.
• Flavor:
• Bold hop flavors up front - piney, herbal, and citrusy.  These linger into the finish.  The finish fairly assertive bitterness that lingers.  There is a bit of malt character that cuts through in the finish as well - the balance is strongly towards the bitter and other hop flavors.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium-light bodied and pretty smooth.  A very easy drinking beer - bitterness lingers and makes you want to take another sip
• Overall:
• This a very nice hoppy beer.  It has bold hop aroma and flavor and a nice level of complexity.  The level of bitterness is very nice - makes for a really drinkable beer.  It has a nice level of body and substance to it that you would not guess that it's a 4% ABV beer (kind of like the way an English Bitter doesn't drink like a low alcohol beer).  I'm drinking this after quite some time in the keg (a bit over a month) but the hops haven't really fallen off in any significant way which I'm very happy about.  This is a beer that I will make again for sure.

English Barleywine (2021 Version) - Tasting Notes

This is my eighth version of the English Barleywine style of beer.  These are beers that are strong and often very sweet which allows them to age well.  They are often hopped aggressively (as was this version with low AA English hops) which makes them quite bitter young.  Over time they hops fade and complex malt, fruity yeast derived flavors, and aged flavors become more prominent.  I've brewed this beer with the intention of drinking half of this relatively fresh this year and to drink the remaining half over the next 25 years or so.

I choose a different recipe every year to keep things interesting.  This year I chose a historical recipe from the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins Blog: 1954 Tennant’s Gold Label.  This was an interesting recipe in that it used Flaked Corn at a high percentage (20% which was 5 lbs worth in my brewing) as well as Invert Syrup (which is a common ingredient in English Beers but not typically in Barleywine in my experience).

I hit my OG numbers and used the recommended yeast for this beer (S04, the Whitbread Strain) but ended up finishing quite a bit higher in FG than the recipe called for 1.040 vs 1.024.  I let the beer sit in primary for 2 months, secondary for 4 months with a couple ounces of Brandy Soaked Oak, bottled almost 3 months ago now and am very much enjoying the beer.

Time to do a first set of tasting notes now.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Boozy with a bit of overripe fruit character.  I get some herbal hop character and maybe some caramel and bready malt - maybe some graham cracker in there.  Has some oak character that cuts through as well
• Appearance:
• Pours with a thin layer of foam that quickly dissipates down to nothing.  Dark golden brown in color and fairly clear
• Flavor:
• Sweet up front with caramel and lightly toasted bread flavors.  After that I get a hit of alcohol, some fruitiness (indistinct in character) and then a bit of grassy hop flavor.  The finish has a fairly assertive bitterness which almost balances out the sweet malt - bitterness and sweetness linger together for some time after the swallow.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium-full bodied and pretty sticky on the palate.  Has a bit of astringency to it.
• Overall:
• Bold flavors and a lot of different elements to pick out with this beer.  Quite sweet and pretty boozy.  I like the strong hop presence of this beer and the bitterness - the balance is somewhat to sweetness but the hops provide enough of a counter to make this a beer you feel like drinking rather than sipping.