Fin Du Monde is pretty stellar. I think Chimay has gone down hill in the past couple of years. I believe they use hop extracts now in their beers.

Russian River uses hop extract.

Are they a bunch of monks? Making a low IBU beer?

I think it is a different choice when you are making a double IPA.

Westvleteren uses it too.

What I mean is, it may the case that Chimay has gone downhill recently (I don't drink it often enough to know), but I doubt it's because they use hop extract.

I'm about to purchase some of the Amarillo HopShot from Northern Brewer to use in place of a bittering addition simply to keep the amount hops in the kettle reasonable. If there is interest, I will report back with my results.

Id like to hear how the hop shot works out.

I would be surprised to hear that Russian River uses the hop extract on the Elder/Younger or any other IPA they make. Maybe some of the sours. But Im just speculating.

Yeah I've definitely heard RR uses hop extract before, not that I really care though. I've never had their beer unfortunately and if it tasted good I reckon I could care less what they used to make it.

Found a semi-local place that does 'Firkin Friday' every week and tried that out last night. They had a Left Hand Porter on cask and it was really good. Also had an Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock which was pretty fantastic.

What does it mean to be a Tripel? I've seen this beer everywhere, but I have been reluctant to try it. I'm not a huge porter/stout fan and for some reason in my head I put this beer into that category.

nothing like a stout/porter. Beer Advocate's description is pretty good and much better than i could ever describe it. http://beeradvocate.com/beer/style/58

Wow, that description sounds amazing. I'll definitely give it a shoot very soon. Thanks derosnec.

Celebrator is definitely one of the best beers I've ever had.

It may be because less people want to become monks. Can't imagine it is a rock star lifestyle. The hop extract was meant more to say that it has changed, not that there is anything wrong with the hop extracts themselves. Just see it as a sign of a changing of the guard at Chimay.

And personally it may not be that Chimay has gotten worse, may just be I've had better examples since then.

I saw a Pliny the Younger clone where they were used sucessfully:

http://www.themadfermentationist.com...ne-recipe.html

How long is their shelf-life and do you have to use the whole shot in one go.

Unrelated:

Finally bought the rest of the hardware I need to finish building a keezer. Now just need to coordinate time with my dad and his wood working shop to finish the build.

well i finally learned how much better the draft version of a beer can be than the bottle.

i had Ommegange's Rare Vos in a bottle last week and found it unremarkable and never thought about it again. then i went to a place that had it on tap. not only was it better, but it became one of my top beers.

also i tried Trois Pistoles again (bottle). i really can't say enough good things about it. probably my fave bottle beer now. had the Maudite too from Unibroue, which is also in the category of Belgian Strong Dark Ale, but it's not as flavorful and smooth as Trois Pistoles imo.

also tried a bunch of well-regarded IPAs and for whatever reason i still don't like IPAs. maybe it's a nooby thing and i'll eventually love them.

You will. They will grow on you.

Sparge-Fest 2011


I've got 10 gallons of American Pale Ale (or whatever, it's slightly darker red than your average APA) going on the right and one of my Funky Brewster boys has 5 gallons of Witbier on the left.

Sick life.

Magnums are considered a pretty clean bittering hop.

The citrusy note in Stone IPA comes from Centenial - which is used for every addition with the exception of the bittering addition.

ah-ha! thanks for the clarification.

Weird. I guess they changed the recipe and I looked at an old version of it. When Lee Chase was brewing there he said it was magnum/ahtanum. I just went to their website and neither of those hops are listed now.

I think you're correct. I just looked at a bunch of clone recipes and many of them called for the magnum/ahtanum schedule that you reference. (Of course those clones are not always correct but they're usually close if not exact on the actual hops used if not the schedule.)
It looks like at some point they switched from ahtanum to centenial and chinook for the flavor and aroma additions, and then from magnum to zeus for the bittering.

Hey how did your pale ale come out?

Tonight I'm going to transfer my pale ale onto the dry hops and move a batch of kolsch from lagering in secondary to a keg.

beerwise the trip to groningen was a success


By fngshmstr at 2011-08-15

It's carbing up in the fridge right now. Hopefully will be good by the weekend. For some reason the keg wouldn't hold at 30psi for the 2 day method so I just set it at 12psi and it's holding fine. I've gotta figure out how to bottle it from the keg and I'll ship it out to you this weekend/next week.

Nice.

Before I got my beer gun I bottled a few beers by taking a piece of tubing and slipping it onto a picnic tap. Then bleed the pressure from the keg and set it at like 3 or 4 psi - just enough to push beer through the line - drop the other end of the tube into the bottle and fill it up all the way. When you pull the tube out it leaves just about the correct headspace.

This seemed to work fine.

If you want to try my pale ale I'll send you a couple of bottles when it's ready. It should be ready in early September.

Omw to Denver tonight. Anywhere besides great divide I should check out?

not sure where Avery is (and I can't check now) but you should go there. Best CO Brewery imo.