Beer Diary...

Some of my best brewing equipment I've found either at garage sales or the flea market. Two of my keggles I saw while wandering the isles of the flea market here in Santa Cruz and another at the scrap metal yard on Whidbey Island in Washington. I also found a cool thermometer at a boat salvage place and the item I'm about to talk about here, I got at a neighborhood rummage sale. Mixed in with a collection of household items I came across an old Bronco Pump . These are the pumps that you see at every kegger party you've ever attended. Off to one side, a keg rests in a garbage can of ice where invariably you'll see someone holding a cobra tap over their red plastic beer cup while their friend frantically pumps down on the Bronco to get the beer flowing. Practically speaking the Bronco pump is used to force air down onto the head space above the beer in the keg creating the pressure that forces the beer out to the tap. The upside is that this is an easy tool for the typi...

I'll be brewing this recipe on Wednesday as I get ready for my all-grain class in two weeks. I want to have some beer in a secondary in order to show the students the process of racking to and force carbonating a keg. I'll also be serving this beer (along with a previously brewed hefeweizen) at a homebrew and music event in Santa Cruz in August so I want to make something special. The idea behind this beer is to create a quality IIPA in line with a Pliney clone but a little more alcohol, alternative hops based on what I've got on hand and with the added dimension of blackberry honey flavor. My plan is to add the honey at flame out. Word on the homebrew street is that honey should be added to the fermentor to retain the highest level of flavor but I'd prefer to add this at flame out in order to provide a more subtle flavor profile, I still want the hops to be the major player. Blackberry honey This will be a single infusion mash utilizing mash hops ...

Firestone Walker Brewing Company's Wookey Jack is a black IPA with malted rye. It's 8.3% abv level seems high to be referred to as an IPA but I'm not complaining here. However, I would qualify this beer as more of a Russian imperial stout with it's overtones of late hop earthiness, citrus aromas and the dry complex spice component. This is a viscous beer that generates a massive tan head that lingers. It has that rich, brown sugar bittersweet flavor along with the full mouthfeel that I find in the classic RIS's like Old Rasputin . This is a very enjoyable beer which is not surprising considering FW's reputation for excellent beers. I was actually surprised to find that it isn't barrel aged and I think that if it were, that added dimension would put it over the top in terms of great beers. In the mean time, and halfway through the bottle on an empty stomach I read at the FW website that they state: " Watch for 'bottled on dates' loca...