Brewer's Friend Home Brewing Software

Lifting Carboys and Kegs with a Pulley in the Brew Shed

Lifting carboys full of beer in and out of keezers can be bad for the lower back.  My brew shed is setup with freezer chests for both the fermentation chamber and keezer. Freezer chests require awkward bending and lifting to get carboys and kegs in and out. There is no way to lift with the knees in this situation.  The solution is to install a pulley system above the keezers! With this system in place, I never strain a muscle.

If there is something in your brewery to over build, the pulley system is it! Mine is rated well over 250 pounds. Most parts are rated higher but the weak link is the single carabiner that links the pulley to the gambrel.  That said, 250 pounds is way more than the 60-70 pounds I’ll be lifting at one time.  Figure the pulley and gambrel weigh 10 pounds, the better bottle 1 pound, and 6 gallons of beer at 8.5 lb/gal reaches at most 65 pounds.  I never stand under it when there is load, and I’m careful to make sure I’m ready if something gives.

To make life easy, the pulley slides left and right along a 6 foot 1″ iron pipe mounted to 2×6 boards that are lag bolted into the joists. The pipe is held to the 2×6’s with brackets and screws that go through it at each end.  Two rings allow the pulley to move horizontally. Really only one ring is needed, but I went with two in case a weld fails.  The bar has paste wax smeared on top to allow the rings to slide easily.  On the floor between the keezer and the fermentation chamber there is an open spot where I can start the lift operation. After the payload is in the air, I can push it left or right, then lower it to the destination.

I went with a good quality pulley and gambrel kit on amazon: Hunters Specialties Mag Lift System with Gambrel. This pulley has a nice auto locking mechanism so the beer stays in the air. The pulley and gambrell are something you would normally see on a hunting trip.  Wire clamps on either side of the hooks keep them securely in place.

For lifting corny kegs, I remove the gambrel, and loop a heavy duty chain through the handle and hook it to the carabiner on the pulley. The hardware store will sell chain in short lengths. A foot is about right.

General Carboy Safety:
For safety – no matter what you are doing, always use a carboy hauler (the nylon basket show in the photos). If you have ever shattered a glass carboy, it is bad news. It can lead to nasty if not life threatening cuts. To avoid death by a broken carboy, I’ve switched to using better bottles. Cleaning a better bottle can take extra work because they are easy to scratch the inside of.  I’ve found PBW with a rag inside the container gets the chore done in 10-15 minutes.  We have a detailed guide on cleaning better bottles.

Other ideas:

• Some people go for the electric hoist:
  https://www.harborfreight.com/110-volt-440-lb-capacity-electric-hoist-with-remote-control-40765.html
  See it in action:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdM5L73AYNQ&noredirect=1

• Before I built my brew shed, I built a wagon for rolling carboys around.

• In retrospect, a fermentation chamber with a side door built around a smaller fridge could have worked, but I’d still be stuck with needing the hoist for my keezer.

• In googling this subject and researching it before I installed my own, I’m amazed at what people get by with and consider ‘safe’.  Make sure to over build your pulley / hoist system well past the load ratings! Some of these cheap made in China pulleys are a real joke and I wouldn’t trust them.

• I almost went with an I-Beam and an I-Beam trolley, but decided that was too expensive and overkill. It would look awesome though.

• It is possible to design a pulley hanger that allows for not just left/right movement, but also in and out from the wall!

Posted in Equipment | 2 Comments »

Why Kegging Home Brewed Beer Just Feels Right

Cracking open that first bottle of your own home brew is a satisfying feeling and a great accomplishment. The rush of CO2 as the seal is broken, the anticipation, the smell, and ohh the taste, and mmmm another sip…

Along the same lines, your first pour of kegged beer will be equally satisfying. Kegging offers a fast and easy packaging process, consistent carbonation, less exposure to oxygen, and no residual priming sugar. Not to mention, having home brewed beer on tap at home just feels right!

At this point in my brewing progression, I’m focused on quality and saving time. Brewers can save money by sacrificing time and or quality (see Better Faster Cheaper Beer). The other night, with all my kegs full, and a batch of home brew ready to package, I was busy soaking ~40 bottles of various sizes. It felt tedious. I began to add up all the extra steps bottling involves. Then I realized kegging is a convenience factor and a quality factor in one.

When converting to kegging, most people make the mistake of starting with a simple one or two keg setup. My advice is to buy a keezer big enough to handle at least 5 kegs. Trust me, if you are this far into brewing, you’ll want the extra room to expand later. I added a collar to my keezer so I could fit 5 kegs. In retrospect, I should have gotten a larger freezer chest to begin with. Now that I have 5 kegs, I wish I had 7. I don’t think it ever ends really…

Yes kegging is expensive to get started. One way to save money is to have just one picnic tap and switch it between the kegs for dispensing. The added benefit is the line doesn’t get goaty as fast because it is being cleared regularly. I also use one regulator. That means all my kegs are at the same pressure and volumes of CO2. That is not a big deal to me.

A breakdown of kegging vs. bottling:

BOTTLING:

1. Plan how many bottles you need of each size using our bottling calculator.
2. Make a priming sugar solution, calculate how much sugar you need using our priming sugar calculator.
3. Cool down the priming solution.
4. Add some fresh yeast if it is a lager.
5. Meanwhile, sanitize the bottles.
6. Rack beer to bottling bucket, add priming sugar, lift bottling bucket up to table.
7. Begin bottling and capping. Stir gently at a regular interval to avoid variation between bottles and ensure consistent carbonation.
8. Label 50 bottles (the fastest method I found is to write a short code on top of each cap with a sharpie – ie IPA, ESB, P for porter, PA for pale ale, etc).
9. Wait 4-6 weeks for bottle conditioning (stress about bottle conditioning in the interim).
10. When pouring make sure to decant off the small amount of sediment in the bottom.
11. Clean out said bottles after using, dry, and put away for later use.

Organizing bottles is a challenge:

KEGGING:

1. Sanitize 1 keg and parts.
2. Rack into keg.
3. While racking is happening, assemble keg parts.
4. Label 1 keg.
5. Hook up to gas line, carbonated in 14 days. Our keg carbonation calculator can help.
6. Drink and enjoy.

Other Thoughts:

• The big downside of kegging is the initial cost. At approximately $50 per used corny keg, a 5lb CO2 tank, keezer, temperature controller, hoses, the gas manifold – it adds up quick.
• Keg lines do need to be cleaned regularly. I have a 4ft long wire brush to assist with that.
• If I want to take my beer somewhere I fill a growler.
• When you open a 22oz, you are stuck with it. Can’t just have a sip like you can with beer on tap.
• A basement bar/brewery man cave looks awesome with tap handles on display.
• I have noticed my kegged beer tastes fresher, has consistent carbonation, and is preferred by my guests.

Posted in Kegging and CO2 | 3 Comments »

June 2013 Updates

We got a lot of good features out this month. Recipes and brews can be organized into folders. On the recipe editor the yeast drop down may be sorted by product id, or by name.  Nine new yeasts were added. We now accept payments with Stripe (in addition to PayPal). The new brewing report page is live.  The recipe labels feature has been updated (thanks for all the great input in the feature request forum). Shared recipes may now be embedded in other web sites with an iframe tag.

Folders for Recipes and Brews:

Recipes and brews can now be organized into folders. It works via drag and drop. See our FAQ about this feature.

Yeast list sortable by product id or name:

On the recipe editor the yeast list may now be sorted by name or by product id. There is a new button to change the sorting, and the default can be set under your brewing profile. The default is to sort by name (the way it has always been).  We feel advanced brewers will appreciate this.

Nine new White Labs yeasts have been added:

• Whitbread Ale Yeast – WLP017
• Southwold Ale Yeast – WLP025
• Premium Bitter Ale Yeast – WLP026
• Klassic Ale Yeast – WLP033
• Belgian Saison III Yeast – WLP585
• German Lager X Yeast – WLP835
• Copenhagen Lager Yeast – WLP850
• Munich Helles Yeast – WLP860
• HP Lager Yeast – WLP925

Now accepting payments with Stripe:

Stripe is a secure and easy to use payment option now available on the upgrade page.  Stripe has far fewer steps than the PayPal checkout. Stripe also has the convenience of not requiring a ‘stripe account’. We are still accepting payments via PayPal.

For current premium members, you may now upgrade to a lifetime subscription and get a discount based on remaining time left! See our upgrade page for details (requires login).

Brewing Report Page

For those of you using the brew feature, a brewing report is now available that summarizes brew sessions, ingredients, and allows drilling down. FAQ entry is here.

Perfect if you want to plan for next year. I’m buying Amarillo in bulk!

Updates to Recipe Label feature:

As requested in the feature request form – there are three new fields on the Recipe Label page:

• Brew Date
• Bottle Date
• Comments

All fields are overridable. When a field is blank it is not displayed. Removes ‘equation’ designation (tinseth/rager), which cleans up appearance and makes room for the new fields.

Also, as requested in the Feature Request forum: The link to the ‘Label Generator’ from Brew Session page sets fields based on the brew’s data.

Embeddable Recipes:

For shared recipes, a new embed tag button is available that allows for the recipe to be embedded in another website via an iframe. Any changes to the recipe automatically flow through to your audience. The view count is incremented when someone views the recipe at your site!

Other Updates:

• Recipe editor water profiles updated to match those on the Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator.
• For public recipes, a share via Pinterest button has been added next to the Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus share buttons.

Posted in Announcements | 1 Comment »

Pro Grade Refractometer Atago PAL-1

The Atago PAL-1 is a professional grade digital refractometer that we got to test out over the past few brew sessions.  Compared to my $40 refractometer from Amazon, it is a night and day difference. The PAL-1 is super accurate reading to reading, varying only +/- 0.05 Brix. Contrast that with my cheap-o refractometer which reads +/- 0.6 Brix sample to sample, making it near useless since I have to average 6+ samples to get a good idea of the gravity.

For anybody who brews beer often the PAL-1 is a real treat to use. I can see this unit being an essential tool at any pro brewery. The measurement range is from 0 to 53 Brix, plenty wide. It is water resistant, so you can rinse it off in the sink. It even floats (but I didn’t test that).

Unlike a standard analog refractometer, the PAL-1 is digital.  It requires two AAA batteries and works from the palm of your hand. Just put a couple drops of wort in the sample area and hit the start button. It only takes a second for the reading to come up.

Like all refractometers the PAL-1 needs to be calibrated with water before each use.  The unit is simple to operate – there are literally just two buttons (start = take reading, zero = calibrate with water).  The manual provides detailed info about how to operate it and the various on screen codes that come up. The only trouble I ever had was skipping the calibration or not putting in a large enough sample (both user error). I found that 2-3 drops does the trick, with a wide margin of error provided the minimum sample size is met.  The unit reads best at 59F, but has automatic temperature correction (ATC).

Like all refractometers, the PAL-1 does not correct for the presence of alcohol which throws off the reading. This is not a showstopper for me because Brewer’s Friend corrects for this both in the Brew Log entry screen, and in our stand alone Refractometer Calculator.

I found the FG numbers the PAL-1 and my old school refractometer were giving lined up reasonably well with a hydrometer after applying alcohol correction. Still, FG readings should be taken with a hydrometer.  Refractometers are best suited for OG readings, and taking readings during the mash, or at preboil.

Technical Explanation of How a Digital Refractometer Works:

“Light emitted at an angle from a point source underneath the prism toward the sample liquid enters the boundary surface at multiple angles. Depending on the refractive index of the sample, light may be transmitted (refracted) or reflected. For example, water has a low refractive index, and therefore, light is refracted at a small angle of incidence. Likewise, light traveling through a sample of high refractive index is refracted at a large angle of incidence. Refractive index is proportional to critical angle, the largest angle of incidence for with refraction can still occur before incident light is totally reflected. A boundary line separating light and dark fields appears at the critical angle. The location of this boundary line is detected by the light receiving sensor and the refractive index is calculated.”

– Atago Catalog

Here is a page that explains more about how it works.

Atago’s website and ordering information:

www.atago-usa.com (main page)
https://www.atago-usa.com/PAL-1-Pocket-Refractometer-p176.html (PAL-1 product page)
https://www.atago-usa.com/PAL-Plato-p437.html (PAL-Plato product page)

But wait, there’s more…!

Atago granted our readers a special discount code! Brewer’s Friend readers can save 5% off a PAL-1 or PAL-Plato. Valid through 2013. 

Promo Code for web store: BREWPAL

Post by Larry
(Brewer’s Friend received an evaluation PAL-1 demo unit.)

Posted in Equipment | 1 Comment »

Book Review – Booze For Free

Booze for Free – The Definitive Guide to Making Beer, Wine, Cocktail Bases, Ciders, and Other Drinks at Home – by Andy Hamilton.

https://www.amazon.com/Booze-Free-Definitive-Making-Cocktail/dp/0452298806/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1

This book is a fun, quick read with some witty comments by the author.  The book is mostly focused on ingredients that can be foraged, like wild herbs, berries, fruits. It includes more exotic, historical, and what are now considered peculiar ingredients like tree sap, dandelion, nettles, etc. Touches on beer a little, but there are much better books out there that focus strictly on beer.  The free part is a bit of a misnomer, unless you want to forage for berries and do a wild fermentation. I’d like to re-iterate to readers, when it comes to brewing anything – you get what you pay for in terms of ingredients! Garbage in garbage out is the saying in the computer world, and the same is true in the brewing world. My advice is to start with the highest quality freshest ingredients you can afford!

If you are interested in brewing with any of the following ingredients, I’d check the book out. There over 100 recipes using the following:

• Acorns
• Apples
• Bay
• Beech Leaf
• Beets
• Birch sap
• Blackberry
• Blackcurrants
• Broad Bean (fava beans)
• Broom Flower
• Carrots
• Cherries
• Cleavers
• Courgette
• Damson
• Danelion
• Elderflower
• Grapes white/red
• Golden lime sap
• Gorse
• Hazelnut
• Himalayn balsam
• Hops
• Horseradish (vodka – whew!)
• Japanese Knotweed
• Japanese Rose Petals
• Lavender
• Mint
• Mugwort
• Mulberry
• Nettles
• Pears
• Pine needles
• Plumbs
• Pumpkin
• Quince
• Ratafia
• Rhubarb
• Rosebay
• Rosehip
• Rosemary
• Rumtopf
• Sloe
• Sumac
• Sweet corn
• Walnuts
• Yarrow

  and finally:

• Prison Booze – complete recipe!

I personally wish I could try small samples of some of the recipes and see if it is worth attempting a brew. I’m pretty skeptical of dandelions in beer…  However, my lawn is full of them!  I’d have a year round supply (if it was to my taste that is).

Disclaimer: Brewer’s Friend was sent a free copy of the book to review.

Post by Larry

Posted in Book Reviews | No Comments »

2013 May Release Updates

May has been a busy month for Brewer’s Friend. The mash calculator tab has new updates. Recipes integrate with the Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator.  The 1.3 version of our iPhone app is live and supports sync of brew sessions and brew logs!

We are very happy to get these items knocked out for you! Our mission is to help you brew better beer!

• Strike Tab now allows targeting mash thickness or infusion volume.
  

• Ability to mash in quarts or gallons (for users who have their units set to US).  The input fields on related tabs work in gallons as well.  Mash water unit is profile option. The default is quarts, but it can be changed under your brewing profile.  The mash water unit value can also be overridden on the Brew Start page. Related to this, the Water Volume Tracking table shows key volumes in quarts and gallons (when brew is in US units mode).

  

• Added Fly Sparge and Batch Sparge options, which make things much clearer.

• Warnings related to exceeding volumes, boiling, or freezing are now textual instead of popup alert dialogs.

A few months ago, in collaboration with Kaiser, we launched our Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator, which does mash pH estimates in addition to many other water chemistry calculations.  In this release, the advanced water calculator and the recipe editor are more tightly integrated. Look for the link to the Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator on the Recipe View or Recipe Edit pages. (Requires a water profile to be selected.)

I’m hooked on this tool because it shows the relationship between grain bill, brewing salts, and mash pH. Following the link from the recipe leads to a pre-populated version of the tool (target profile, grain bill, and water volumes are filled out based on the recipe and your profile). You can also load in your source water profiles from the drop downs without having to re-type them.

As a follow on to the above item, accounts now supports multiple water profiles, not just one!

Brew Session and Brew Log Sync Supported!

• Ability to delete all items from shopping list.

• On the recipe edit and view pages, the number of yeast cells needed to hit the targeted pitch rate is displayed.

• Added brew log entry type ‘yeast starter’.  I typically create my brew session the day I make my starter.  The volume drop down now supports Liters as well (for some reason I always do starters in Liters).

Happy brewing,
Larry

Posted in Announcements | No Comments »

BRY-97 American West Coast Yeast Review

BRY-97 is a relatively new dry yeast on the market released in limited amounts in 2012.  Got a pack for the first time late last year. That brew is almost completely gone, and I’m happy with the results, but there were a few surprises!

In a nutshell, BRY-97 is NOT your typical Chico strain like US-04, Wyeast 1056 or White Labs WLP001.  

BRY-97 accentuates malt character and provides some fruity notes (pineapple, citrus). It also has a huge frothy krausen head and a long lag time compared to US-05.

I brewed an IIPA with it, fermented at 65F (not too cool, not too warm).  The beer was great, but I was surprised that it wasn’t a more neutral strain, like the Chico strains.  The shed smelled like pineapple the entire time it was fermenting!  The tropical note has dropped off now after several months in the bottle but there is still something sweet and fruity about it.

Since I only had one pack, I did a starter – check out the krausen head:

Normally with dry yeast I would buy more packs instead of making a starter. I could only get one pack on special order with BRY-97, so I did a 1.5L starter. Due to the lag with this yeast (which I was not aware of at the time), it took 2-3 days longer than normal to finish out, and I had juggle my brew schedule.

Flocculation was great, the beer was clear after 2 weeks. No off flavors or any issues with esters or weirdness. The beer was quite drinkable after 30 days, so I take it this yeast doesn’t stay green as long. I’d use BRY-97 again for something along the lines of a Kolsch or summer beer, but not in a brew where I want the hops to shine.

This Home Brew Talk thread has pages and pages of interesting comments. There is a lot of concern about the lag time, extra price, and muted hops:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/anyone-try-bry-97-yet-333553/

Danstar’s product page is here:

https://www.danstaryeast.com/products/bry-97-american-west-coast-yeast

Post by Larry

Posted in Yeast Cultures | 3 Comments »

Pre-Prohibition Beer Bottle Lamps – Art, History and it Lights Up!

If you are looking for a cool item to give to the brewer who has everything, check out Peared Creation. They make lamps out of pre-prohibition beer bottles. We were sent one of these lamps to review! The cord is an antique fabric style. The on/off switch is a vintage faucet handle. It gives a nice warm amber light. The lamps use standard 15 watt bulbs and each lamp comes with a spare bulb. Each lamp includes a tag that contains more information about the particular brewery the bottle came from. While the lamps are not cheap, starting at $125, they are unique and offer an authentic and intangible historical component you can’t get at Walmart or Target.

Peared Creation has several designs to choose from:

Peared Creation also has a wide range of pre-prohibition bottles which can be purchased separately from their lamps.  In looking through the selection, they sure don’t make beer bottles like the used to. I like how the brand names are embossed in the glass. It is also interesting to note that there was a larger percentage of clear bottles back then.

I can’t imagine how frustrating the prohibition must have been for brewers! I don’t recognize any of the names of the bottles, probably because they all went out of business. 

I asked Jay at Peared Creation about the possibility of re-packaging home brew into pre-prohibition bottles. His reply: “I wouldn’t trust the bottles to drink out of. Many of them have been in the ground for 100+ years and minerals have been leached in and out of the glass.” 

That’s a bummer, would look cool, but better to err on the side of caution. I’ll keep using the pre-prohibition bottle for a lamp, and stick my my recycled bottles for beer.

By the way, I am trying to talk my wife into letting me keep the lamp in the house.  For right now it is in the shed – works for me.

Post by Larry

Posted in Fun | 1 Comment »

Hops Squeezing and Hops Absorption – More Bitterness Please

Should we squeeze out the hops bag or not?

A recent IPA brew session called for 7 ounces of hops. The recipe is 110 IBU with a lot of late hopping.  For this brew, I did not squeeze out the hops bags and left them behind after draining the kettle. I then squeezed out the hops bags into a small bucket, and here is what I got:

The resulting beer wasn’t as bitter as I would have liked, maybe more like 80 IBUs, and I think the lack of squeezing is the reason.   I tasted what I collected, and holy moly was that bitter! It was like an IPA espresso!

There are claims floating around online that say avoid squeezing or else harshness will be extracted. That applies to the steeping grain bag, but NOT for the hops bags.  When it comes to hops – squeeze away!

On lighter beers with only an ounce or two I skip the squeezing step, but for IPAs I will be squeezing from now on.  A dedicated set of BBQ tongs work the best.  Sanitize them first along with the kettle lid and primary fermentor.  Don’t use dirty bare hands to squeeze, as this could infect the batch. Not to mention, wait for the wort to cool down if using an immersion chiller. If using a counter flow chiller or plate chiller, be extra careful about squeezing the hops, which will be boiling hot.

How the Brewer’s Friend recipe editor and brew feature handle hops absorption:

• The hops absorption amount shows up in the water requirements report (recipe tools -> water requirements). The result is based on the amount of hops in the recipe, and your hops absorption equipment profile setting. The system correctly excludes dry hops and mash hops from the hops absorption calculation.
• My profile was set to the default hops absorption rate of 0.15 quarts per ounce. At 7 ounces of hops, that comes to a little over 1 quart. In measuring what I got in the bucket, it is spot on. The default of 0.15 qt/oz was accurate in this case.
• Hops absorption negatively impacts brew house efficiency. This comes into play if your batch size target is set to ‘fermentor’ (which means brew house efficiency is the efficiency factor the recipe is working with). If your batch size target is set to ‘kettle’, then you are targeting ending kettle efficiency, and hops absorption doesn’t count against that.  Read more about efficiency here.
• For purposes of designing a recipe ‘to the fermentor’ that uses a lot of hops, if you are not squeezing out the bags, adjust efficiency down 1-2% to compensate for hops absorption.

Posted in Brewing | 6 Comments »

Want to know everything about IPAs? Check out this book by Mitch Steele

IPA Brewing Techniques, Recipes, and the Evolution of the India Pale Ale by Mitch Steele.

A great book covering every detail you ever wanted to know about IPA brewing. It starts from the early history of beer all the way through to today’s modern hop bombs like Pliney the Elder. The author is the Brewmaster at Stone Brewing, so when it comes to bitter beer, he knows what he is talking about.

The recipe reference in the book is worth it alone, about 60 pages in total covering historic and modern IPAs. Don’t expect to get the times and amounts of ingredients in recipes though (bummer). The key appears to be aggressive dry hopping in most cases!

There is a lot to learn from this book. It challenges the historical myth that IPAs (India Pale Ales) were brewed specifically for export to India because nothing else could survive the journey. The author points to evidence that Porters, Pale Ales, and all kinds of brews were shipped to India for almost a century before the name IPA came along. What we do know is the beer back then had stability problems, and hoppier, stronger beers were more suitable to such a long haul. These high quality, strong, bitter beers were originally sold as Pale Ales or October ales. In the early to mid 1800’s Pale Ales were re-branded to read “Pale Ale for India”, or “Pale Ale brewed Expressly for the India market” – seems like more of a marketing switch than a recipe formulation issue to me. In the end the name stuck, but the style evolved considerably.

A typical “IPA” or Pale Ale from the late 1700’s was radically different from what we think of as a modern IPA.

• Most IPAs back then were SMaSH brews (single malt and single hop). This makes sense because pale malt and Kent Goldings were pretty much what was on hand. There were specialty grains, a few other hop strains, but they were not as common in IPAs.
• The beer was aged for 9-12 months in oak casks. The oaking would make a huge flavor difference on such a light colored beer!
• Beers were likely tainted with a cocktail of bacteria including Brettanomyces, Pediococcus and Lactobacillus. That explains the sour and tart flavors in historical tasting accounts.
• IPAs back then were often dry and even sparkling!
• They were typically high in alcohol, 7%+.

Two world wars, prohibition, and the rising popularity of the continental lager all but destroyed IPA brewing for most of the 1900’s. However, this all changed in the 1990’s with a craft beer renaissance. This was enabled by new hop varieties like Cascade that were becoming widely available. I am proud to say that my hometown, Eugene, OR is credited in the book as being the first craft brewery to put an IPA on tap continuously – Steelhead Brewing Co, with its Bombay Bomber! Thank you Teri Fahrendorf!

The book also helped me realize just how spoiled we modern brewers are given the wonderful selection of hops available to us. Consider, what would the world be like without the four C’s (Cascade, Columbus, Chinook and Centennial)? Let’s not forget the patented strains Simcoe and Amarillo which run up in about 10 years. There are new hop strains being developed all the time, so the future looks great for the variety and quality of new IPAs and beer styles. Going forward, brewers will continue to push the limits and evolve the IPA style. New categories may someday be introduced to cover the twists like Black Ales, Black IPAs, and Cascadian Dark Ales (CDAs). We discussed that issue previously in this article: Black Ale as a Beer Category.

Here’s to filling all your kegs with IPA’s and IIPA’s – cheers!

Post by Larry

Posted in Book Reviews | No Comments »