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As Seen In |
Surprise Attack Ale (Published in the January 1997 Brews and News)
There was a Club brew at the Home Wine and Beer Shop on December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day, hence the Surprise Attack Ale designation. Bruce Wenzel led 4 other brewers through a brew session intended to duplicate his Taking Liberty IPA brew. This was the IPA that was first runner up at our Oktoberfest competition, as well as a very popular brew at the homebrew tastings during some recent meetings. A very fine IPA indeed! The crew, consisting of Bruce Wenzel, Doug King, Thom Rogers, Rich Schmittdiel, and Dick Watson, got started at 8 AM by filling the kettles and crushing the grain. After mashing the grains in around 9, we began sampling some of the IPAs, commercial and homebrewed, that the crew had brought. The mash went very smoothly, and was transfered to the picnic cooler lauter tun next. The lauter ran very smoothly as well, the boiler was filled and there was another gallon or two of good sweet wort collected and saved for addition after boiling down a little. During the boil came the fun part, all those hops! There was around 13 ounces of whole hops in that kettle! Plus there will be 6 more ounces to be dryhopped! Well, that is the way to make an IPA, use lots of hops! Our only problem came after the boil when we tried to run that hop stew through the chiller. The poor fitting false bottom of the boiler let all those hop leaves get underneath and into the chiller, hopelessly clogging it. After clearing the chiller,we opted for a copper racking cane with nylon hop bag over the end to remedy the problem. This worked well, and we recovered 12 gallons of 1.063 wort. This was diluted to around 1.055 and pitched with Brewtek CL\50 California Pub Ale yeast. A truly fine brew day wrapped up around 3:30 or so with the fermenters going home with the crew. Since this is a very highly hopped ale, it might be a while before it's ready for the club to taste. Believe me, the wait will be worth it! The exact recipe used is listed in the club's brewing logbook, located on top of the shop system. |
