All this IPA talk has me wishing I had factored in an IPA to the regular homebrews. Or maybe the IPA goes into a "big beer" slot and I start making giant DIPA's? I feel like could do such a better job of it now.

Speaking of, here are my truncated pics for that IPA bracket:

Elite 8

Bell's vs He'Brew Hop Manna
Heavy Seas Loose Cannon vs Cigar City Jai Alai (although I hope Sweetwater pulls the upset)
Great Divide Titan IPA vs 400 lb Monkey (total guessing here)
Port Wipeout vs Ballast Point Sculpin

That bottom part of that Southwest bracket is ridiculous. Potential for Sculpin and Blind Pig in the Sweet 16 is criminal. Also Wipeout and Lagunitas in the first round is brutal. Either one of those could go a long way in my world.

Final Four:

Bells' vs Cigar City
Great Divide vs Sculpin

Champion - Ballast Point Sculpin

Ultimately, my big question is how the fuck did they get all of these beers delivered to Atlanta???

Some from over the weekend:



Highland Brewing - Devil's Britches

This is a seasonal that is a Red IPA named after a hiking trail in North Carolina. I got it in a 32oz growler. Drank it while making dinner Friday night. I think this was their attempt at a bigger, bolder IPA. It wasn't bad but just like most things I've had from these guys it just misses the mark. It's good not great. Their Tasgall Ale and Cold Mountain Ale still remain the best things I've had from them.

Sixpoint - Crisp

So these guys just came into this market finally, but only on tap for bars or Growlers. The mother in law was in town this weekend and we went out to this place for Bangladeshi food and I thought this would go well with that. It was perfect. The description calls this a German Pilsner. I've always though Czech Pilsners had a pretty specific taste and bitterness. I like them fine but it's not my favorite style. This was much more subtle and if this is the difference in Czech vs German, I need to seek out more German pilsners. I found mixed reviews of this beer but I thouhgt it was really good. It was more a backdrop for the food and conversation so I should give it a more focused tasting but I'm encouraged by this brewery so far.

Terrapin Brewing Co. - Hopzilla

Seasonal from Terrapin. Double IPA. One of the "biggest" beers they do at over 10% ABV. 4 types of hops and 100% Maris Otter malt to balance things out. Again, one of my favorite things about Terrapin is that they constantly tinker and experiment. Only problem is, they never can quite hit it out of the park. This is a pretty good DIPA but with a fair amount of citrus flavor but the alcohol just comes through way too much. Not near enough balance (then again, maybe I shouldn't expect that from something called Hopzilla). Still, I could barely get through it without losing all sense of taste. Overall a pretty good effort that could be really good with some tweaking.

I need opinions on big DIPAs. Do you guys like a sweeter, more caramel-like malt base, or do you like something more straw-colored and dry?

And the winner of Wipeout vs. Lagunitas would face Union Jack in the next round which could easily win that round and go a long way too. They f'ed up in putting the N. CA beers in the SW rather than the NW in my opinion. SW is easily the toughest bracket and NW looks pretty weak. I'm not sure that there is a single great beer in the NW bracket. I'd put Boulevard, Ninkasi and Alaskan as the best but none of those are really great in my opinion. And how the hell is maui in the NW.

SW bracketing is indeed a shitshow.

Also Derris how did you not rate Blind Pig to go farther? Shit is fantastic.

Have you had the Ballast Point?

I'd probably take Blind Pig over Sculpin but it is admittedly a tough call.

Yeah, I almost posted that it would depend on which direction the wind was blowing that day. The Blind Pig I has was wonderful but the Sculpin was the 1st beer I had out there and the last one I had after a day at the beach on Sunday. Both times it was stellar.

The Southern bracket is just sad comparatively but I'm hopeful because so many breweries are popping up all over the place here. Raises the stakes a bit to make better beer.

Speaking of Ballast Point, I had their Indra Kunindra recently for the first time.

It's an export style stout made with madras curry, lime leaf, coconut, cayenne and cumin. A bit strange yet very interesting and overall pretty good especially with the curry I was eating at the time.

I don't know all the details behind it but it was apparently a collaboration beer with a local homebrewer.

That sounds bizarre and interesting.

So BG can you expound for a moment on milds? Like, how dark you think they should be, how roasty, how caramel, hop profile... like, what do you like? I'm sure you saw but I took my first stab at them and I like it ok, but I don't have a good frame of reference. Mine is clear and brown, like Newcastle, and is a little on the buttered toffee side with a tiny bit of roast in the background. Hops are very minimal.

Hmmm....I wouldn't really say I'm any expert in Milds.

The one I've had the most and liked the most (Eagle Rock Solidarity) is jet black in color with a slight head, minimal hops with the flavor coming from the roasted malts. It's a little bit like a very light stout.

Here's a picture (not mine) of one:



I do note that they call it a black mild so there must be variations. If memory serves, the ones from Pretty Things sound closer to what you made.

I don't know anything about this source and how accurate a representation it is but this is a recipe for a clone of Eagle Rock Solidary:

http://hopville.com/recipe/1477507

It does have a little bit of smokiness which I guess comes from the German Rauch smoked if that recipe is accurate. They serve it on nitro which gives it a little creaminess and sometimes do a version with vanilla added. I like it more than I liked the Pretty Things versions. It's much better on nitro tap than it is out of the bottle though.

(checks out recipe link)

That is a light stout, yeah. I just had to dump it all into my spreadsheet so I could see percentages of base malt to specialties. Interesting. So that recipe has really similar starting and ending gravities, and finishes (sorta obviously) at the same final alcohol content, but along the way it uses a LOT of kinds of malt, many of them dark, half of those smokey and half sweet. I can't ape the notrogen part (wish I could) but the rest is easy peasy, more or less. And that rauch malt - german rauch malt is beechwood not peat, so it smells and tastes VERY much like a BBQ joint. That sweeter, chewy, BBQ smell, as opposed to peat smoked malt, which smells like scotch. You like that BBQ component? Maybe next Mild I'll try to re-create this one instead.

The Southeast bracket results are in:

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2 ... ign=130325

Feeling good about one of my picks here. The other......not so much.

The Northwest also:

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2 ... nor-1.html

I scored an interview for the Taproom manager gig. I went to a tapping party for the brewery I might work for on Friday night and talked with the head brewer about the job. His partner was keeping him out of the loop on who was applying for the position, but he said was going to put in a good word for me.

No Caldera in the NW bracket? Heresy!

First, this is good news.

Second, the brackets...

Southeast - I started strong, 2 for 2. Then I blew every call til the last one, Sweetwater taking West Sixth. Real killer was Heavy Seas - I had them taking the whole Southeast... it's a really good beer and I don't know most of the others. Youch.

Northwest - I got Avery, ODell, Boulevard, and New Belgium right. Boulevard take the whole quadrant, so I'm potentially ok.

Good People is one of LooGAR's favorite beers (Monkeynaught as well). FWIW, I don't like that Heavy Seas much at all. Much like Highlands, I think most of their beers are really blah.

Jai Alai is the best beer in that bracket that I've had by a pretty good distance. Great fucking beer. I'm actually kicking myself for not checking my bag and bringing some back from Orlando.

Oh shit - it's that good? Wow. Must google clone recipes...

Yeah, it's unique like a Two Hearted is unique. Can't really put my finger on it, but it's tangibly both better and different than most beers called IPA's.

Recipe has been acquired, including the real hop schedule. A guy on a forum emailed the head brewer and he responded with details. Awesome.

And holy fuck my ass, it's a LOT of hops, delivered in a LOT of ways. Hops will be 2/3 of the batch cost.