One foot in the door

Very much against my will, I am starting to enjoy more beers on the hoppy side of the fence. Perhaps it's this misty green vale of mystery where I reside that is working this insidious magic upon my taste buds. Perhaps I was just ready. I still stand by my previous jeremiads about the corrupting nature of hop-lust, but I've come to conclude that most people are just doing it wrong. It's not how many pounds of fragrant green flowers you pack into your brew, it's how you pack them that counts.

My biggest complaint has always been that most IPAs are like chewing grass. Too green, too bitter, too laden with what tastes like pine tar. Occasionally, I encounter a lovely IPA. I've started to notice what I like: citrusy, floral aroma, a bit of sweetness and full-bodied nature, high alcohol content (7%+) and not a whole lot of bitterness. You can tell that the beer was made using a lot of hops, but you don't feel like you're currently trying to eat them. After some research, I became confident that I could pull this off, and so I made my first IPA today. In honor of a US soldier and homebrewer (and game player) who is coming home for a week in May, and who will probably open the first growler of the brew, I'm calling it Afghan Pale Ale.

Hops are added to the brew at two points. Just as the boil begins, the bittering hops go in. Hops are flowers that contain bitter resins that do not easily dissolve in water, so it takes a long boil to extract them. They also contain very aromatic compounds that are easily dissolved in water. These are destroyed in a long boil. Thus, flavor or aroma hops are added at the end of the boil. For most of my beers, I use a very small amount of hops at the end, and typically boil for 5 minutes, and leave them in while I'm cooling the wort.

For this beer, I used almost as many ounces of aroma hops as for bittering, but I used very aromatic, citrusy hops (Amarillo and Centennial). Also, I put them in a mesh bag and only boiled them for 1 minute before removing them. I think that this will give me the character that I seek without contributing any more of the green/bitter flavor to the beer. The 7.5 lbs of malt extract and 1.5 lbs of cracked grain should help to balance out the extra hop character, and give a nice kick to the beer.

I'm looking forward to this one. It smells pretty.
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Also wanted to add, for those who follow along, that Jim and Sonja have begun posting on their boat blog again. The ice must be cracking in the harbor up there. (link on sidebar)