The beer pours a dark golden bordering on amber with a very clingy white head.  The aroma is moderately hoppy, citrus and spicy with a noticeable sweet malt in the background.  The flavor is moderately hoppy but there is also a noticeable and competing malty flavor, a bit sweet, slightly bready and something a bit different than any other beer I’ve made, perhaps the wheat malt shining through.  (I’ve only used flaked wheat previously.)  The bitterness is medium-low and provides a nice balance combined with a slightly dry finish.  The carbonation is moderate and body is quite smooth.  Overall I’m very happy and very impressed with this beer and the hops!  I don’t know I’d change much with this recipe, it is quite tasty.

So the brew day started at a chilly 23F.  But no worries, I had my winter jacket and hat on.  The brew day went well despite the cold temperature, although running the hose to the wort chiller was kind of a pain, the hose was quite stiff.  Some of the water froze in the hose while I was cleaning, but no big deal, I’ll let it melt in the garage.  Also using so many whole hops I knew siphoning the wort might be a challenge, so I tried something new, using a copper scrubber attached to the racking cane to act as a filter, I got the idea from another brewer on the web.  It worked very well, no clogged racking cane.  Although I’ll say this, no more brewing outside in subfreezing weather…back to the kitchen until spring or maybe a mild spell.

The recipe today was quite simple:

9.0 lbs Maris Otter

1.0 lbs Wheat Malt

1.0 lbs Crystal 40L

Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast

1.25 oz Cascades 60 mins

1.20 oz Cascades 15 mins

1.20 oz Cascades 0 mins

I will ferment this batch cool, in the low 60s.  With the simple grain bill, clean yeast and cool fermentation temperatures this beer will showcase the entire 2009 harvest of our Cascade hops.  I’ve attached some pictures of brew day if you’re interested.  If I have time I’ll also post a few things about two of my other latest brews, a Northern English Brown, which tastes fantastic and an update on the Maibock Pale Ale which I’m enjoying as I write this.

The pictures:  1) a cold start!  2) the grains, toward the ‘top’ of the bag you can see the crushed wheat malt atop the other grains 3) the mash after doughing-in 4) the bittering addition 5) wort before the boil got going 6) wort with the bittering hops added

Sunday, August 30 we harvested the Cascade hop cones.  We harvested 15 5/8 oz wet (444g) of luscious hops!  Below are some images of our hop harvest.   After I got the hops home I set them out on some non-fiberglass furnace filters and bungee corded them to a box fan for drying.  I can’t accept credit for this drying method, I got the idea from Alton Brown’s Beef Jerky Good Eats episode on the Food Network.  Below are some pictures of my drying rig.  I blasted them with the box fan for 4 days, I’m sure they were plenty dry after about 2 days, but wanted to be sure.  After drying, the hop’s weight had decreased by nearly a factor of 5!  The 15 5/8oz (444g) of wet hops now tipped the scale at 3 5/8 oz (106g).  Finally I put all the dried hops into a vacuum seal bag and sealed them up for storage in the freezer until brew day.  You can seem them sealed up in a bag not much longer than an average size banana.

Now the brainstorming begins for a recipe using these hops.  Although it shouldn’t take too much brainstorming.  We want to showcase our hops in an American Pale Ale, so the recipe will be rather simple with a clean yeast and we will use only these hops.  Look for the recipe sometime soon!  Until then, enjoy the hops pictures!