10/25 -- the penultimate kit: Hop Head double IPA

Our previous trip to Midwest Brewing yielded not only the late- (but great-) performing porter kit, but also the promise of huge hop flavor. Most recipes we've seen, before and since, even ESBs, require no more than 3 or 4 ounces of hops in the entire process. This one called for 6. Hopes were high -- if we'd been more savvy and knowledgeable at this point in our learning, we would have been able to predict the ultra-bitter flavor a 60 min boil of chinook hops would yield. But we didn't. Anyway, onto the recipe.

10/25 -- the boil.
Grains:
4oz Aronette
12oz Caramel 60
8 oz Victory

Extract:
9.3lbs gold LME

Hops:
1oz Chinook (11.5 goddamn percent)
1oz Cascade 5.4%
1oz Centennial 10%
1oz Crystal 4%
(no boiling times recorded for any of these, although I seem to remember starting with the high-alpha hops and adding the others later.)

Dry hop
2oz Cascade 7.4%

5:23pm -- SG: 1.053 at 71 degs

10/30

7:26pm -- dry hopped w/ 2oz cascade. Gravity = 1.021

11/5

Obama becomes USA's first black president and apostle of hope. SG remains 1.021. On track for weekend bottling.

11/6

Giving it a stir for good measure.

11/8

FG = 1.021. Time to bottle.

Bottle key plain.

Note: Feb 22nd

We just finished drinking this batch the other day. The balance between hop flavor and bittering units never arrived at any kind of happy medium -- the bitterness was overpowering, and the flavor never emerged over the top. Additionally, one's head felt uncomfortably swimmy while he drank it; I chalk it up to the low alcohol content and the correspondingly high sugar content. We couldn't taste the maltiness because the hops were simply overwhelming, but in terms of flavor, alcohol wallop, and drinking experience, it's back to the drawing board. Incidentally, we've just improvised with an ESB in which we double-dry hop with Kent and Cascade. We'll see what happens in a month or so.