With Andi's parents coming in town for Thanksgiving this year, I was hard-pressed to get some good beer on tap in time. Luckily, the Sun Harvest IPA brewed on November 7th was ready. I ended up dry hopping the batch with 1 1/2 oz. of Citra in the carboy for 10 days followed by 1 1/2 oz. Citra in the keg.
The beer came out with a FG of 1.010. Dry, but the rye gives it a nice mouthfeel. It's a nice golden color with a pungent hop aroma. The Citra hop is very interesting. Tropical flavors like mango, pineapple, and citrus abound. Pleasant firm bitterness and dry finish with just a hint of malt. The dry hopping really brought out the hop aroma and perceived flavor in this beer. I'm glad I purchased a pound of these hops, and I'm looking forward to using them in conjunction with my other staples of Amarillo and Centennial. YUM.
The other day I decided to open a bottle of Russian River Consecration. I thought it would go well with the mussels Andi and I were cooking for dinner. Consecration is a sour beer aged in oak barrels with currants added. It's brewed with Brett, Pedio, and Lacto among other things. I kept it for about one year since I got it in the mail back in Virginia. It's one of my favorite beers. By the way, our dinner fucking rocked!
Since I love this beer, I decided to use the dregs and add them to a batch of sour beer that is aging in the fermentation room. Basically, I add the dregs to a small gravity starter that has been boiled on the stove and cooled. I'll check for activity after a few days and add it to my sour beer.
Here's a mixture of about 100 ml of water with 100 g of light dry malt extract. Let this come to a boil to sanitize and then cool it down. I decided to take a picture of the Consecration bottle as this was approaching a boil. Check out the pic below.
It's a great shot of the bottle but an even better view of Andi's sweet ass. I was mesmerized and forgot about the flask of wort boiling on the stove. Here's what happened...
Oh well. It was worth it!
I hope everyone out there had a great Thanksgiving while understanding that ours was probably better. You just can't beat fried turkey. Ask Lily.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!