Colorado Kitchen Brew

If you hit the  way-back machine to 2013 , you'll find a post similar to this one. My Barleywine was basically an end of year excuse to clear out a collection of leftover ingredients. It's 2020, and I'm doing it again by making an English Imperial Stout.  This time, I didn't have quite as many leftovers, so I had to buy the 2-Row and Warrior hops. Everything else was either in a box in the basement or the fridge.  The idea behind using two yeast strains was taken from a recipe I stumbled across a few years ago for the long unavailable Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter . That beer used both an American and English strain for fermentation. My guess is that at this strength, the SafAle US-05 will make up for the fermentation limitations of the LalBrew London. Plus, if it was good enough for Gonzo, it's good enough for me.  As a last step, I'll add an oak spiral that's been soaked in Whiskey. I'm hopeful that the oak will be subtle rather than overpowering.

It's been five years since my last blog post . I had no idea so much time had passed. It's almost shocking that this site hasn't been turned off by Google to free up server space.  Being laid up at home with a certain thing that made 2020 pretty much the worst year ever is what inspired me to hit the restart button and bring this blog back to life. It's time for more brewing articles that people will hopefully find interesting, helpful, or both. Plus the occasional article that has nothing to do with beer . A lot has changed in five years.  I moved from the mountains to the city, which caused me to drop my old tagline about brewing at 7,734 feet. One kid is in college and the other will be soon, meaning my wife and I are about to become empty nesters. There's also an '81 Chrysler project car in the garage that has a very interesting backstory . My brewing setup also got a bit fancier, although not  too  fancy. This blog did start out focused on brewing without a

The New England/Hazy/Juicy IPA is a beer style I've been having great trouble getting into.  Part of it might be a "get off my lawn" issue regarding what my brain thinks an IPA is supposed to be. I grew up with two IPA styles: an English IPA that is bitter, amber, moderately strong and uses English hops, and an American IPA that is bitter, amber, moderately strong and uses American hops. In the case of the American (now considered West Coast, blech) the more "C" hops the better, damn it. The clarity had better be good too, because I must be able to see through my glass. Pale and hazy is the realm of Wits and Weizens, not the IPA gosh darn it. And by the way, who took all of my VHS tapes?   All that said, now that I'm on the wrong side of 50, it's time to open up the mind a bit.  The brewing process of the Hazy IPA is what intrigues me most. It's probably the main reason I'm taking a stab at the style.  Most everything regarding hops happens late