Ello Poppet!

I like hoppy beers.

My wife (aka The SheppyBrew Beer Model) tells me she doesn't like hoppy beers, but quite often when I brew a hoppy beer, she tells me that she really likes it.

What she really means is that she doesn't like real bitter beers. While bitterness comes from hops, many flavors and aromas also come from hops.

My wife isn't alone in this confusion between the words "hoppy" and "bitter" when it comes to beers. I think part of the problem is that here in America, the IPA has become so popular, and for quite awhile, brewers just concentrated on making these more and more bitter. I think at this point, the American hop profile: pine, citrus, tropical has a subconscious association with bitterness which may or may not be there.

Often, when other hops are used .. English or German hops for instance, people don't even associate the more floral smooth spicy flavors as hoppy.

Anyway ...

One of the hoppy beers I make that my wife really loves is ...

Ello Poppet Czech Pilsner

I bought a yogurt maker

I bought a Dash Greek Yogurt Maker.

About a year ago.

I got an Amazon gift certificate that Christmas and I decided to spend some it on a yogurt Maker.

Perhaps you remember that I had been making yogurt in a crockpot. You can read about my yogurt-making adventures at Sheppy's Blog: Yogurt.

I still do make homemade yogurt about once a week. But for the last year, I've been using a device intended for making yogurt.

When it comes right down to it, the yogurt "Maker" is really just an incubator with a couple of containers. It keeps milk warm while bacteria converts it to yogurt.

#SWMBO Wheat Brew Day

I brewed Sunday.

She Who Must Be Obeyed Wheat. ... aka SWMBO.

SWMBO came about in summer of 2013 because I needed to brew something for my wife's (aka The Beer Model ... aka SWMBO) side of the kegerator.

I felt like I wanted to brew a new recipe ... not one of the recipes I've brewed over and over and over for her. You can read more about the details on the Sheppy Brew SWMBO page, but I grabbed recipe elements from  Laser Salt, Buckwheat's BPA,  Ello Poppet. and Summer Lovin' Wheat.

As it turned out, it was a fantastic beer. It is one of those beers that both The Beer Model and I can enjoy.

So ... I brewed it Sunday. Sunday was sort of a busy day on our family calendar, and I screwed with my process just a little bit to fit things in.

I got the mash started before the sun came up. Nothing unusual about that.