Perhaps because I live in such a wonderland of New England IPAs, I’d never felt a burning desire to make one. Don’t get me wrong, the challenge itself is tempting — but only 4-ish years and 75 brews into the hobby, there are still so many challenges to choose from! However, when the opportunity to get a little hop hash came around, it seemed like the perfect excuse to take a stab at this. And this brings us to Lupulin-Industrial Complex:
People kept telling me that making cider was the easiest thing in the world. (“Easier than making mead?” I’d ask.) Apparently this is true. And if I hadn’t been so stubborn about it, I would have made my batch much earlier.
On the left? Literal Fidelity. On the right? Witty Pome.
Brewing a big ol’ barleywine is a homebrewing right of passage, right? Something you simply must attempt at some point? And so here was my first stab at it — Extinction Event:
Yesterday, I judged at the New England Regional Homebrew Competition — earning my 5th judging point, which should put me into the Certified rank. It was a great experience, and I wanted to jot down a few notes while they were still fresh in my memory.
Photo blatantly swiped from Facebook, but 100% credited to Paul Hayslett, who published it publicly for all to see.
The second1 in this “junk drawer” series of “leftover ingredient” beers. After the (relative) success of #1, I looked in on what odds-and-ends were kicking around and applied my imagination toward Hoarder Intervention #2.
A style that wasn’t really on my radar until I started studying for the BJCP exam was the (4B) Festbier. I cannot imagine that I’d never had one before, but I also must believe that I’d always either conflated it somehow with either a Märzen or a Helles (Bock?)1 when trying to place it on the spectrum. Once I’d made a concerted effort to study the styles though, you might say that I fell in love with it. I had to brew one.
So when word came along that the Green Mountain Mashers were going to hold a little OktoBEERfest as a dedication party/ceremony for the Greg Noonan Memorial Library, I knew that I needed to bring a Festbier to share. And so I put together a little formulation for what would become Tilde Festbier:
With 2018 having been flush with hoppy American-style beers, Belgian-inspired ales, and meads, I was feeling like a change of pace. It was time to dust off my Vienna mit Roggen recipe and give an all-grain version a test drive. And that beer is Sirius Moonlight (Mk. II):
The time came for the fourth installment of my single-hop APA series. Having heard a thing or two about Huell Melon, it seemed like a perfect candidate for this experiment. And so… Prosody (Huell Melon):
Like I said last year: “How do I get myself into these things?” Except… now I know how I get myself into these. As a back-to-back Vermont Mead Maker of the Year, I feel like it’s my responsibility to get out there and demo the art for people.
In the year 2018, the Mead Day demo mead becomes A Mead Has No Name:
A project I’d long considered since making that first batch: a little honey and a little grape must gets you a pyment. And that’s what gives us Partial Shade:
