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This blog is predominately about camera trapping in California. We camera trap to save our souls and to teach primary school students about biology and conservation. We will also touch on other camera trapping news and musings, sets from afar, mediocre herpetology, sucky birding, and other natural history discussions.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Brewer's Corner: To Grandmother's House We Go

I have a few of homebrew posts to write and get up here on this blog, but I have been spending more time drinking beer than writing about beer.

We will get started with a Red Ale that I brewed with my good friend Alex, aka onegoodarm.  This was a bit of a kitchen sink ale, where we threw a recipe together from the grain and hops we had left-over from a few other brews.  However, the brew crew had recently brewed both American and Irish Red Ales, so we had the material for another Red.  The American Red was the second beer I ever brewed. It was decent but was not awesome.  The real problem with it was that it kinda fell in between two different styles.  It was not malty and bready enough to be an Irish, but was not quite crisp and hoppy enough for an interesting West Coast American Red.

We decided to fix this with a new recipe and dry hopping the smack out of it.  4ozs total of dry hop went into it and a hoppy American Red Ale was born.  We christened her Little Red Hopping Hood. Probably the most clever beer name I have come up with to date. We dry hopped in the keg so as the keg matured and the keg got drank, the beer changed.  It was probably best at week two, T-minus 2 gallons when the hops gave off the perfect, albeit strong, floral, herb aroma.


Primary fermentation
Primary fermentation prior to transferring

Transferring
Transferring to the soda keg


Yes, Little Red Hopping Hood was clever, but I have seen a few craft beers out there with great pun names that I really wish I had thought of first.

(1) Hoptimus Prime by Legacy Brewing: Reading, PA.
(2) Tricerahops Double IPA: Nikasi Brewing: Eugene, OR
(3) Hopacolypse: Drake's Brewing: San Leandro, CA (I am drinking this as I write this post and at 9.6% it is certainly a big boy beer, but has a very fresh hop flavor. Highly recommended)

Help a brother out with any good Hop puns that I can use for an upcoming IPA.


Little Red Hoppinghood
In the glass after 3 weeks of dry hopping

4 comments:

  1. Ok - here's my cuts at hop cheese for ya. Warning: some may already exist, or perhaps be too painful or stupid to exist.

    - Hoptical Allusions
    - Hoposition Research
    - Hoptic Verve
    - Hoperetta

    ==

    ReplyDelete
  2. College drHopout

    Hopposable Thumb

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like those guys. Could even switch up one of RT's to Hoptic Nerve. One of my brew buddies is a neurobiologist. Might work great for him.

    I like Hoposition Research and the very fitting College drHopout best.

    ReplyDelete