Challenges Faced Fought And Won

Here's the deal with blogging. You have to keep doing it. No matter if you are tired or have other things to do, you have to keep at it.Long day or no, it's like the modern day Pony Express. Rain or shine, the blog has to get through!

Lets see, beer related. OK, so I was trying to clone Redhook's Late Harvest last year. I used way too much smoked malt, so it's really a lot more like a smoky porter. Had some tonite with some friends, and as it ages it gets less smoky. It was pretty good, it had some faint chocolate-y notes. It worked well with dessert. I bet if I did a reduction with it, I could use it in a drink mixer. I had a drink at the Knee High back in December that was called "Cup of Awesome". It was a stout reduction with some spices and gin and some other things, it was truly awesome! I could do something like that with it.

More beer. Ok, I made a pale ale that is carbonating in the bottle right now. I tried some at bottling and it didn't taste very hoppy, which is a little disappointing. I might make another pale ale to make up for that. I did make a brown ale that is in secondary at the moment, it tasted really good when I racked it. It was good and nutty without being too burnt or toasty.

I just made a wit. It was really good when I made it last year, it's been fermenting pretty well so here's hoping it's a good one! It'll probably be good as the weather here is getting warm and sunny.

I need to brew this weekend, I'll be making the hefeweizen that I have used twice to teach friends how to brew, and it comes out really well. I'm thinking of naming it "Citrus Mountain Hef" because it's got a lemon and an orange in it. It smells crisp and fresh and people love to drink it!

I'm also planning on making my "Sunspots" beer again this summer, although I'll need to get my hands on some Citra hops. I'll probably buy a bunch of them, so I'll need to do something with the rest of them. Maybe a Citra IPA?

MMM, all this talk of beer, I bet I dream of hops tonite!

Also, watch this space for some exciting details in the weeks to come!