This weekend we tasted all three versions of our "6x dry hopped" Black IPA. We accidentally put three times as much hops in each secondary for dry hopping, and for twice as long as the recipe called for. From the moment we realized the mistake, I've been worried that the beer would end up as just undrinkable hop juice.
As it turned out, the beer was quite tasty! The hop presence was certainly strong, but not undrinkable by any stretch. Of the three, the Sorachi version was my favorite. The Galaxy was lighter in flavor and crisper. The Cascade surprised me. I expected the flavor to be harsher but it had some interesting complexity and was really pretty good. Behind all those hop flavors was a nice dark malt base that made for good Black IPA flavors in all three.
Even beyond the specific hop and dark malt flavors though, the actual quality of the beer seemed really good. There were no off flavors I could detect. This was our first beer using our new temperature controller, and also our first beer using dry malt extract for carbonating rather than corn sugar. Of the two, I would imagine the steady fermentation temperature had the bigger effect. Regardless, it's exciting to see some improvement in our beer quality given all the changes we've made to our process and equipment since that first batch.
As for the name - if you're a Penn State fan it requires no explanation, but for the rest of you, we brewed this beer in mid January just after the news came out that Penn State's 112 wins from 1998 to 2011 were being restored, bringing Joe Paterno's total back to 409 - the most for any coach in NCAA Div 1 Football history. For all the players involved in those wins, and for all the devoted fans of the University and of Paterno himself, the reinstatement of the wins represents a tiny victory in the face of the vilification that has taken place over the last three years.
[ Black IPA Racking ] <---
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