Eva, IPA, and Draft Beer

Apparently I was mistaken in calling the weather cold when brewing Rachel awhile back, as I had a little trouble keeping pressure on my propane tank, because this past Sunday was seriously frigid. In fact, too cold (as I discovered 1 1/2 hours later) to bring 6 gallons of beer to a boil. Only after pumping out most of my available propane, wasting good hours of my weekend, and scorching the shit out of my brewpot did I throw in the towel and do a double boil on the worthless gas burners of my stovetop. But frustrations aside, the result should be a clone copy of my Big Sky IPA, this batch of which will be getting entree treatment at the beer pairing in March. The only difference is a yeast substitution (Burton Ale for Edinburgh ale), which should leave the overall flavor/body profile rather similar, with perhaps a bit more fruitiness in the background. Not like I had a shortage of my house yeast; I have six vials in my fridge waiting for a beer. A mistake shipment from White Labs at work yeilded some free yeast when they showed no apparent interest in us sending their package back. So I took more than I needed for the time being, including five vials of German Lager yeast for a possible Maibock to be brewed late winter, possibly by the vice-brewmaster herself.

Besides that charade, I brewed up another Eva the week before, revamped like I'd done to Rachel, but not nearly to the same extreme; just changing some proportions of grain that were too strong in the finished product, substituting some flaked oats for creaminess and body, and substituting neutral British hops for the American Chinook hops that ended up taking on a sour note in the finished product. This also got the Burton Ale yeast treatment (as opposed to its usual prime of two packets of generic dry yeast) just out of curiosity for a new yeast. This batch of Eva will likely be paired up with the soup course of the beer dinner, since nothing sounds better to me than a big earthy brown ale (I should have added some rye malt, now that I think of it) and a big earthy mushroom soup.

Rachel, as it stands, is hanging out in a carboy just mellowing out until she meets her packaging fate. Either she'll be bottle about a month before the dinner (end of February), or, if plans/finances with building a draft system come through, she'll go into a corny keg as soon as the purchase is made. (Granted, Rachel isn't on the menu, but she could serve as a good substitute for the IPA in the rare case of a botched batch or infection) As of now, I'm eagerly awaiting a meeting a week from now with the Associate Dean of the Honors College (who is responsible for the committee awarding me my $1200 grant) to request an additional $600 of funding in order to have the beer available on portable draft at the event, which would be more logical and definately classier, and the construction of which would leave me with some vestige of my accomplishments after it all is said and done, so I could serve beer on draft at other occasions into the future (including my sister's wedding in October '07). Bottom line: very cool. And since Dr. Hearit (the Associate Dean) has been getting some pretty intensive milage out of my thesis idea with the incoming WMU freshmen, who clearly like the idea of an Honors College that supports their students making booze, I'm feeling confident that I might be able to talk some good business with him.

Next up: Tripel, then some sort of dessert beer that won't take more than two months. Unfortunately, I've procrastinated a bit on this one...but I'm sure I can come up with something decent for the event. Perhaps a nice smooth stout, or something lighter on the opposite end of the spectrum. You'll know when I know.