Designing a New SheppyBrew IPA

So ... for various reasons, I want to brew an American IPA soon.

Atypical to most homebrewers, I don't actually brew very many IPA's. I like them (a lot). But, they are a little higher in alcohol than I generally like to have gallons and gallons of at home.

And ... every brewery I know brews several IPA's. If I want an IPA, I can find them commercially at any one of hundreds within bike riding distance. Not to mention grocery stores and liquor stores now have great craft beer selections.

But, every once and awhile I like to brew an IPA.

Unless I'm forgetting any (which is possible, but not likely I think) I've brewed 5 beers that could be called traditional American IPA's: 

SheppyBrew Going Professional

SheppyBrew Brewery is going Professional! Yes, we have decided that we are going to sell our beer ... for money.

The Brew Master has decided to quit his day-job and raise the capital for a brand-new 7 barrel brew-house. If you have a couple million dollars you wish to invest, we are open to discuss how you can help get this shiny new brewery open.

At this time, we have not decided on a location, but we are fielding offers from multiple municipalities who want us.

We will continue to employ gnomes to do most of the day-to-day brewing. Gnaughty and Gnasty will be promoted to co-head brewers and we will be hiring a small army of other gnomes to assist in the brewing and packaging process.

We will not discriminate against leprechauns, tommyknockers, elves, or any other kind of small, mythical woodland creatures, but there will be absolutely no consideration to any creature who is a fan of the Detroit Red Wings and we will certainly not be hiring ANY Green Bay Packers fans.

#IPADay Announcement: Near-Sighted-Swine

I've mentioned this before, but shockingly SheppyBrew Brewery does not brew a lot of IPA's.

SheppyBrew's TommyHawk APA is actually technically an IPA, but I think it might be my only one. And, of course, its name still has "APA" in it as a tribute of where it came from.

I've brewed Black IPA's and West-Coast Reds, but those don't really count.

I think it is about time that I actually design and brew an IPA.

I've decided to call it "Near-Sighted Swine IPA" in honor of Russian River's Blind Pig IPA. It isn't a clone of the beer, just a tribute.

It isn't real high in alcohol or bitterness, but has quite a few late-addition hops and dry hops.

I am planning for this to be the next beer I brew. Stay tuned to read about brew day and how it ends up turning out.

Chelsea Dagger 2013

The Blackhawks won last night thanks in part to me and my little Gnome buddy. Obviously, game 6 was on the road so they were not going to be playing Chelsea Dagger in the stadium, but I took it upon myself to play it loud whenever I thought the Blackhawks needed a lift.

It worked.

I was also sure to save some SheppyBrew Blackhawk Black for the final period. You may think that my choice of beverage has little to do with how the hockey team did, but you would be wrong. Tommy Hawk APA helped get them to the finals, and  Blackhawk Black helped push them to the championship.

I waited all my life to see the Blackhawks win a Stanley Cup. I just had to wait 3 years to see them win a 2nd. Hopefully I'll get to see several more.

Go Blackhawks!

Kegging TommyHawk and Grilling Steaks

The regular season is over for my Blackhawks. Tonight the playoffs start. The Blackhawks did finish with the President's trophy, which means they will have home-ice advantage all the way through the Stanley Cup finals.

The mighty Blackhawks will soon be opening up against the eighth seed evil Minnesota Wild.

SERIES E TIME (ET) #1 Chicago vs. #8 Minnesota Networks
Tuesday, April 30 8 p.m. Minnesota at Chicago       NBC Sports Network, CBC
Friday, May 3 9:30 p.m. Minnesota at Chicago       NBC Sports Network, CBC
Sunday, May 5 3 p.m. Chicago at Minnesota       NBC, CBC
Tuesday, May 7 9:30 p.m. Chicago at Minnesota       NBC Sports Network, CBC
*Thursday, May 9 TBD Minnesota at Chicago       CBC
*Saturday, May 11 TBD Chicago at Minnesota       CBC
*Sunday, May 12 TBD Minnesota at Chicago       CBC

I can't wait. Go Blackhawks!

Brewing TommyHawk, doing Taxes

As far as I can remember, I have always left doing my taxes until the last weekend before they are due. This is partially because I know I always owe money, and I don't want to write the government a check until I absolutely have to. More to the point, though, is that I am a procrastinator when it come to doing things I don't like to do. I have always been this way and for the most part it works out very well for me.

Well, Sunday, in addition to being the day I had to prepare to file my tax returns, was a brew day. I had to brew TommyHawk APA (which is actually an IPA). Also, there was a BlackHawk's game I had to watch. Of course, Sunday I need to take the family to church as well.

So, it was going to be a busy day.

The streak is broken

Every month since May of 2011, this blog has gotten more and more page views. February did not have more page views than January, so this epic streak is now over. Part of me is relieved that this happened. The streak was unnatural and creeped me out a bit. According to the average views per day, had this been a 31 day month, the streak would have continued. If it were a 30 day month, we still would have missed it.

If you feel like reviewing the magic ride, feel free to read through the posts at http://blog.ericshepard.com/search/label/Blogging. As it turns out, February comes in 5th all-time behind Oct 2012 thru Jan 2013.

For what it is worth, March is off to a great start.

#IPADay My favorite IPA

I'm just going to say it ... my favorite IPA is one that I #HomeBrew.

SheppyBrew's TommyHawk APA has evolved over time from what I called an APA to what is now an American IPA. I guess part of the reason I call it my favorite is that I crafted it myself, but it isn't just a case of me liking this beer just because I am the one who brewed it.

Breast Flashing Cider

We are pretty close to the one year anniversary of my famous Cider Drinking and Breast Flashing blog post. Remember that?

Good times.

Today I found a bottle of the cider in one of my beer fridges, and decided to drink it as my New Brew Thursday drink (see just about any of my untappd articles if you need to know what that means).

The cider is still not as good as my beers, but it is not too bad, and I think people who drink hard cider might like it. Maybe.

I am pretty sure this is the last bottle of my "Breast Flashing Cider". I should probably make some more.

This year, as far as I know, no drunk female hockey fans have pulled out breasts and flashed them to any opposing teams' players in or out of the penalty box. Of course the Canucks were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs so maybe the crazy Vancouver chicks just did not have the chance to get to it.

Promiscuous drinker

Home-brew craft beer

I drink promiscuously.

Yes, I am pretty slutty about my beer selection.

When it comes to drinking beer, I have practically zero brand loyalty. I do not even stick to similar styles of beer. My favorite thing to order at brewery tasting rooms is the sampler platter so I can try small amounts of many beers. Quite often, I'll never see those beers again. I won't even call them the next day to let them know that it is over between us.

If I am having a beer when out to dinner, I always attempt to score something that I have never had before.

My untappd profile confirms this. Since I have started checking beers into untappd, I have tried 130 different beers.

TommyHawk Brewday

Sunday, I brewed my Tommy Hawk APA.

Tommy Hawk is actually more in the American IPA range, but it started out as an APA, and I just decided to keep the name as a bit of a reminder as to where this beer came from. Tommy Hawk is one of the beers that started out as a Mr. Beer recipe, got upgraded to a partial mash, and then upgraded again to all-grain. This is my 5th time brewing Tommy Hawk, although it is obviously much different now than batch 1 was.

It is essentially the same recipe as batch 4, except that I am using the hops a little differently. This time, rather than a traditional bittering addition at 60 minutes, I decided to try first wort hopping (FWH). Basically that just means that as I drain the wort from my mash tun, the hops are added and steep through the steeping process. Theoretically, this give a more smooth, less harsh bitterness with more flavor than a traditional bittering addition.

Pompously Apricot

The BlackHawks lost last night. This does not make me happy. All four games so far  went to overtime. It is possible that they come back to win the series, but not likely.  I sure hope they do, because at this point I cannot think of another hockey team I can endorse this year.

Any team that is as offensively gifted as the BlackHawks are but have such a pathetic power-play does not deserve to win a championship. Besides as a Hawks fan, I cannot be too greedy. I have already seen my once-every-50-years Stanley Cup.

Last night I needed a "New Brew Thursday" beer. As I didn't have any and really did not want to go out and buy one, I decided to try blending the two beers that are currently in my keggerator.

Blending, of course, is a technique a fair number of commercial breweries use. For the most part it is done with barrel aged and/or sour beers as a way to add consistency to the final product year after year. They can also use it to come up with new beer flavors that would be difficult to achieve with one beer.

New Belgium, for instance has the sour base of La Folie (they call this base something, but I cannot think of the name they give it). They blend it with different styles to get most of the sours in their "Lips of Faith" series of beers.

Tommy Hawk APA

So, you may remember the whole thing with Whisky Wife Wheat that I wrote about a couple weeks ago.  Long story short:

• I took a poll on what I should brew (WWW, TommyHawk APA, or Stone Soup IDA)
• TommyHawk came in with the most votes.  WWW came in with the least amount of votes.
• My wife voted for WWW.
• Because I am whipped, I made WWW, despite the fact that it got the least number of votes.

This weekend, WWW was ready to bottle.  This freed up two Mr. Beer fermentors.  I got a new wort chiller for my birthday last weekend.  The weather was supposed to be beautiful.  I even got a shipment from Northern Brewer which would included my first 5-gallon carboy (although in the end, I decided to save its maiden brew session for next weekend).  The beer I had at dinner on my birthday was the New Belgium seasonal Mighty Arrow APA (which is what originally inspired the Tommy Hawk recipe).  All these factors could only combine to mean 1 thing:  time to brew a batch of TommyHawk APA.  Friday afternoon, I stopped by The Brew Hut to get the ingredients for this weekend's brew.

Bottled up WWW this weekend.  39 12 oz bottles; 1 22 oz bomber; 2 1 liter bottles; 1 2 liter growler.

I feel a little dishonest calling this an APA.  It is sort of in that gray area of being a hoppy / high alcohol APA, or a lower-end American IPA.  Technically, though, I think IPA would be a better description of what it truly is.  If you are ever drinking one and feel cheated by the name, feel free to ask for your money back.  I will gladly give you double what you paid for it.

Regardless (notice that I didn't say irregardless), Tommy Hawk is a nice hoppy beer.  It also has the best art-work of any of my labels.  My oldest son drew that Blackhawks logo for me.  He was only 6 at the time.  He's a much more talented artist than his father.

This is my first all-grain batch of Tommy Hawk.  It is also the first large (large compared to my usual batch size. regular compared to most brewers) batch of this beer.  My plan this time is to split the batch into two Mr. Beer fermentors.  I'll dry-hop one half and leave the other without.  A nice little experiment to see what the dry hopping actually adds.

I started the brew day before going to church.   Right when I left, I measured the temperature at 154 (exactly what I wanted).  Weirdly enough, it was at 160 when I got home 2.5 hours later.  So, my mash was probably hotter than I wanted.  Oh well.

I measured my SG from the start of the boil at 1.055 in about 7 gallons of water.  I was expecting 1.048 going into the boil.  Beer Smith tells me my mash efficiency at this point was a bit over 95%.  I know that can't be right.  I guess I must have measured something wrong.  Did I grab too much 2-row on Friday?  Don't know.

The wort chiller that my wife got me for my birthday worked fantastic. The wort went from boiling to about 80 in 10 minutes and was in the low 60's after about 20 minutes.  That is much better than the ice bath.  I am glad my wife was nice enough to get me one.

I ended up diluting the wort quite a bit at the end of the boil.  Even so, my OG ended up much higher than I intended.  I guess the good news is that I seem to be getting bigger beers than I intend rather than smaller ones, and that can't be a bad thing.

The weather was sunny and mid-60's but we still have quite a bit of snow.  The boys and I built a snowman after my brewing day was over.  Yes, Tyler is dressed in PJ's and snow boots.  Connor is a bit more reasonably dressed.  Isn't Colorado weather fun?

Anyway, it ended up to be another successful brew day.