Homebrew Diary - Blackrock IPA + Hops
Jimmy Weasel - Saturday, 4 November 2006 - Print The Wax
Given that the first batch wasn't a failure, but exhibited signs of having room for improvement, this brew was begun with 2 goals in mind - to make the Pale ale a little stronger in flavour, and also to work out which of the sugars upon god or bog or whoever's great green supermarket shelves would yield the best of the secondary fermentation stage.
The hops component was relatively easy - add hot water and a bag of hops to a cup. Add beer ingredients to keg. Add hops to keg. Brilliant.
The sugar testing phase would be slightly more involved. This is a direct result of the risk of small eruptions of beer and broken glass should the ratio be too high. Careful amounts of: brown sugar, icing sugar, caster sugar, fruit tingles, jelly jubes and red jelly crystals were trialled.
The beer with the brown sugar had a noticeably more bitter taste than the control or "carbonation drop" beer. the caster sugar was very similar to the icing sugar in taste, but in terms of sediment, it was noted (with large amounts of mockery) that the particular box of icing sugar from which I was drawing my 3 grams was a hybrid of sugar and corn flour for the purposes of thickening confection. There was no noticeable thickening of the beer, but there was undissolved crap at the bottom. The rest, friends, is another story altogether.
The aroma of the hopped beer is a very pronounced fruity smell - fruity without being too sweet. It tastes mostly like it smells - grand. Thankfully, the testing/dicing around bottles weren't full longnecks. Two cases of Beer Lao were dutifully emptied to make 48 snack-sized beers for ready consumption. It is definitely easier to fit two stubbies in a crowded freezer rather than one longneck. And BeerLao is a powerful good beer to be drinking. Its fruity aromas increase as the temperature of the bottle rises - perhaps to allow for the hot and steamy Laotian climes from which they hail. Nice and easy to knock back. And stinking cheap. How beer that good is that cheap is baffling.
As a direct result of the correct amount of water, and the addition of the hops, the Blackrock India Pale Ale is definitely a summer beer. It is recommended that you make this one always using the hops, given the "thin" nature of the IPA. This is a great brew to sit in the sun without a shirt and swill back with a bunch of punks.
Making meals for the world to enjoy.
Have your say
Speaking of:
Previous articles by Jimmy Weasel
- Homebrew Diary - Barrel of Blackrock Pale Ale
- The journey toward enlightenment need not begin in any particular direction so much as that it needs to begin at all - and if you create your own beery reality with which to illuminate yourself, enlightenment can indeed glass you in the jaw in the comfort of your own bathtub.
- Kitchen Antics - Sweet/Sticky/Spicy Pork Stirfry
- 80% alliterative. Deliberate? Subconsciously. All normal thought stolen by the weight and treachery of the outdoor world. A world where a boy has to battle all manner of foes armed to the teeth just to find the time to get back into the kitchen where he belongs.
- Kitchen Antics - The Mushroom and Salami Incident
- If you cook naked, and you get burned, then you're a chump, and I'll throw my empties at you from my balcony. Goddamnit, boy! Put some pants on and cook like a grown-up!
Build and label your own kind of beer at Brewtopia and get it dropped right on your doorstop.
an affiliate ad
Punch the button and keep a fresh and up-to-date eyeball on our latest reviews, articles and filthy somesuch. Does not hit back.
- Kitchen Antics - Chicken in Faux Ragoût
- Ladder of flavour? A few rungs above bland. This can be constructed & delivered in less than 30 minutes, depending on your aptitude with a knife.
- Lassitude abandons the Throwing Knives
- Down on the chamber pot, the percolating smells brew up quite the nasal fest. From the wafting fumes, the air solidifies partial sweaty rock and musty punk, a taste hinting at delicious pockets of after-aftertaste, and the not so floral punch of an undone music interview leaves the tongue wanting something else.
- Where in Kentucky - Mammoth Cave National Park
- Dark and neverending is the trail of a labyrinth below Edmonson County, Kentucky. Beyond the shallow graves and lime walls, Mammoth Cave is the literal long tail of cave systems. Alas, no minotaurs or woolly mammoths call the caverns home.
- Homebrew Diary - Wheatbeer of misery
- If what can turn a foul mood around becomes the harbinger of the foul mood, what happens next? Turn it into a learning experience. And when that learning curve makes a late break over the plate, you'd better start to swing away.
- Homebrew Diary - Barrel of Blackrock Pale Ale
- The journey toward enlightenment need not begin in any particular direction so much as that it needs to begin at all - and if you create your own beery reality with which to illuminate yourself, enlightenment can indeed glass you in the jaw in the comfort of your own bathtub.
- Kitchen Antics - Sweet/Sticky/Spicy Pork Stirfry
- 80% alliterative. Deliberate? Subconsciously. All normal thought stolen by the weight and treachery of the outdoor world. A world where a boy has to battle all manner of foes armed to the teeth just to find the time to get back into the kitchen where he belongs.