Short Leash (aka #6) Rebrew

I first brewed a Belgian session IPA (a la Raging Bitch but toned down) in my first year of brewing as a birthday gift to my father. He liked it so much that he has regularly asked if I plan to re-brew it ever since. Today I finally decided to give it a go using a similar base recipe but converted to my current all grain setup and substituting hops as needed to use what I had on hand (Nugget in place of Warrior).

Brew Day (9/26/15)
~9 Brix (~1.035 gravity) pre-boil.
Boiled for 45 minutes, cooled to 80 degrees in under than 30 minutes with my new immersion chiller. A huge improvement over my previous ice bath times of an hour plus.
11.5 Brix (1.043 gravity) post-boil.
Wort split between two 3 gallon better bottles. One carboy was moved to my chest freezer at 45 degrees with the temperature controller set to 65 to allow for slow cooling. The other carboy was left at room temperature around 68 degrees.

9/27/15
Fermentor at room temp bubbling away, the one in the chest freezer is just barely starting to get going around 55 degrees

9/28/15
Both batches fermenting vigorously, fermentation chamber up to 60 degrees.

10/11/15
Dry hop blend added to each carboy.

10/17/15
I didn't notice a large difference between the two batches and didn't have any 3 gallon kegs available so I decided to blend them together into a single 5 gallon keg.  PSI set to 30 for 2 days, then will drop to 10.

11/8/2015
Tasting Notes

Appearance: Pours with a large head that lasts for a long time leaving thick foam on the sides of the glass as it slowly falls.  Color is a nice shade of copper with just a touch of cloudiness and some nice carbonation bubbles.  All around a pretty good looking IPA.

Smell: Floral and slightly grassy hop character mix with sweet and stone fruit-y yeast and malt characters. There's also little bit of bread and just a touch of phenolic spice. Could use a more pungent and more interesting hop aroma.

Taste: Dry and mildly spicy on the tongue with just moderate hop flavor but fairly high bitterness on the end. The overall impression is decidedly more bitter and spicy than the fruity and pungent flavors I was aiming for.

Mouthfeel: It took a while for this one to carbonate correctly but it's now at a solid level. The beer is unsurprisingly dry, but with the high bitterness it is a little too attenuated.

Overall: Like a lot of my recent IPA's this one falls in the drinkable but not very good category.  The hop flavor and aroma are disappointing and I think the yeast would have done better at a higher temperature in order to bring out more fruity esters and make it feel more "Belgian" instead of just being dry and spicy.  I am happy with the color and malt profile.

It's hard for me to tell exactly what's been wrong with my past few hoppy beers. I probably need to evaluate every aspect: the ingredients including the type, quality, and age of hops being used and the processes including how and when hops are added in the boil, steep, and dry-hop. For example: I haven't been weighting my dry-hop bags, could that be limiting the ability for the flavor to come out or increasing the oxidation rate?

For this batch I'm going to add an ounce of Amarillo hops to the keg to try and improve it, though I doubt it will get above drinkable.

#33 and #33B - Belgian Session IPA Double Tasting

I brewed this Belgian Session IPA/Belgian-American Pale Ale just over 6 weeks ago.  Tasting it during the time since, I have found it to be one of the best beers I have made to this point.  At a recent brewclub meeting it received rave reviews from all who tasted it including Michael Tonsmeire.  Unfortunately, it was so popular that it was gone by the time Charlie Papazian unexpectedly showed up to the meeting.  Getting such positive feedback felt great and made me want to review the half of the batch which had a green tea tincture added.  Today I'm doing a side-by-side tasting of each.

#33 - Straight

A- Slightly hazy coppery orange with a one finger bright white head.  Pretty perfect looking for a dry hopped beer in my opinion.

S- Hops dominate with tropical fruit (pineapple, mango) and light citrus (tangerine).  There is also a light fruity cherry character in the mix which appears to be from the Westmalle yeast strain.

T- Like the nose hops again dominates with the yeast seemingly lending a hand as pineapple, mango, peach and nectarine lead the way before a moderately bitter, lightly tannic, finish.

M- Relatively light but still mouthfeeling and moderately carbonated.  Like the color I would say this is exactly where I wanted it.

O- A very pleasant beer that nicely showcases Mosaic hops (most members at the homebrew meeting were able to pick this out without being told any other details).  Still, there are enough other elements to keep this complex and the low starting and finishing gravities and moderate bitterness makes this very drinkable and enjoyable.

#33B - Green Tea Version

A- Identical to the straight version.

S- This version comes off less fruity with the green tea coming into the mix as a lemon-tea character that seems to round out the other flavors nicely.

T- Like the nose, the flavors seem rounded off a bit with the tea.  Up front the flavor is again tropical fruit with light citrus, though not as pronounced as in the other version.  In the finish the tea character seems to round out the bitterness so that the finish is smoother.  The tea doesn't seem to dominate and I wonder whether someone who didn't know about it would guess it, but with the knowledge that it is there, and the immediate comparison to the straight version, it shines through.

M- Again, fairly dry but right where I would like it.

O-  Having only had one bottle of the tea version and not noticing the tea strongly at that time, this tasting really surprised me.  The tea is far from dominating, but shows through just enough to affect all the flavors around it.  While I might have liked a more assertive character from it, the experimental half came out nicely without being identical, a success by any measure.  In the end, I arrived at 2 similar, but equally good, beers.

7/7/14
Forgot to post the following blog entry on the results of this beer in a competition so I'm just adding it here.

The DC Homebrewers' (my local homebrew club) Cherry Blossom festival was the first brewing competition I have entered.  Being a BJCP sponsored event this competition holds a little weight and had almost 240 entries.  In addition to entering my Belgian Session IPA (As an American Pale Ale) I also helped steward the event.  In this post I have decided to focus on my competition results and compare them side by side with my own personal tasting to see how strongly I agree or disagree with the judges opinions.

Aroma
Judge 1- Floral hops dominate the nose. Faint citrusy notes, crowded a bit by estery sweetness, faintly perfume-y. 7/12
Judge 2- Nice pine-laden hop aroma, a bit solventy, otherwise very clean. Little if any malt aroma. 9/12

Appearance
Judge 1- Dense, fomy head. Brilliant clarity, absolutely no haze. Deep red-gold color. 3/3
Judge 2- Pale amber color, good clarity, just off white head, creamy and with good retention 3/3

Flavor
Judge 1- Low-to-moderate floral and citrus hop flavor, competing with significant perfume ester flavors. No perceptible malt flavor underneath.  Dry finish with persistent hop bitterness. Faint cardboard flavor - oxidized? 9/20
Judge 2- Minimal malt flavor or body, but a good hop flavor from the start. Bitterness is subtle, and flavor is a bit one-dimensional with the fairly simple hop flavor going from start to finish. 11/20

Mouthfeel
Judge 1- medium light body, medium carbonation. Slight astringency, likely from hops.  Very drinkable, although the body could be fuller to support hops.
Judge 2- Slightly thin on the body, medium carbonation.  No astringency or warming, but - bit lifeless due to thin body. 3/5

Overal Impression
Judge 1- A beautiful looking beer, but the estery characteristics and slight body prevent the full expression of the hops.  Try fermenting at a lower temperature within the bounds of the yeast temperature recommended range. 6/10
Judge 2- A nice hop flavor beer, but lacks the malt and nuance of the style.  Boost body with specialty grain additions, or try a higher starting gravity. 6/10

Total
Judge 1- 28/50
Judge 2- 32/50

My take:
Both judges seemed to be pretty similar here and both hit the nail on the head: this beer is too thin and too estery to be a true American Pale Ale.  The Belgian yeast (and the Palisades hops) both played into giving this beer a stronger estery and perfumey character than one expects in this style and the yeast definitely dried it out to a point where the caramel malt couldn't shine and instead the hops and yeast derived characteristics took center stage.  In retrospect I wonder whether this beer would have fared better in the Belgian Specialty Ale category though I fear it would have been deemed too clean there.  In the end both judges gave very accurate descriptions of the beer and some accurate feedback (given that neither knew the true reason for the dryness/fruitiness was the strain of yeast chosen).

If I were to enter another BJCP style competition I would likely only do so with a beer brewed intentionally to style, something that I have a hard time doing.  That said, I think it was a good event and my beer scored a pretty average score overall, respectable for my first time, especially given that the beer was far out of style.

Session Belgian IPA

I brewed this beer in honor of my father's birthday and styled it largely after one of his favorites: Flying Dog's Raging Bitch.  As my father is (quite) a lightweight but also enjoys to have a few beers regardless of strength I wanted to knock down the ABV on this from the normal belgian IPA strength and, due to the decrease in OG, also knocked down the BU's somewhat.

Appearance - A very clear amber with a bit of a reddish tint that almost appears violet.  A small head of about one finger fades quickly into a thin white film. Pretty good in terms of looks, wasn't going for anything in particular in this category but it seems to be my clearest beer so far.

Smell - Wow, right up front there is a ton of fruit. Some is yeast derived ( cherries, plums, apricots) and a lot is from the American hops (orange) with a bit of sweet candy malt also present.  When I first tasted this prior to carbonation I feared the dry hopping and overall hop presence may have entirely outshined the yeast, the aroma now seems to favor more towards the Belgian side than the hops.

Taste- Like the aroma the hop taste seems to have faded very quickly.  Part of the problem is the under attenuation and residual sugars which I blame likely being due to the extract.  This puts the beer far from the level of bitterness desired and adds sugars which detract from the hoppiness all around.  That said the belgian yeast components do come through with a bit of fruit and spice and the hops make their presence with the nugget definitely apparent.  A bit of bitterness at the very end alludes to the 40 IBU's estimated.

Mouthfeel - Fairly full bodied, again likely due to underattenuation, but also highly carbonated.  The carbonation does allow the bitterness and hops to coat the mouth somewhat but again the residual sugars shine a bit more than I would have hoped for.

Drinkability/Overall - This beer met some expectations (my dad does seem to enjoy it) but it did not work quite right. I blame the low attenuation (about 72%) on low fermenting temperatures (around 68) and extract which is generally not mashed at low temps.  While I do enjoy this beer quite a bit and love where the aroma is I think more flavor hop additions should have been used, and with this high amount of residual sugars a bit more bittering as well.  One of the most important things about this beer to me is how much better it got as it warmed, I pulled it straight from the fridge and everything was much stronger and simply better by the end.  I'm not a huge hophead but this is definitely one I will make again.