Just got back into full brew mode again once the weather changed over here in the Kern River Valley of California. Started off with a couple of pro series kits from NB. Brewed the Town Hall 1800 and the Lakefront Bridge Burner. The 1800 turned out really “Fuggley/Tobacco-y” but has mellowed in the month or so since I’ve bottled. The Bridge Burner turned out really nice. The malt gets a little lost in the hops, but it has also mellowed a bit since bottling.
The new project has been an experiment with the Pliny family clones. The first batch, brewed last weekend, used my local water (relatively hard…may be understating). I used Vinnie’s recipe from the Zymurgy with a couple of tweaks. I replaced the Simcoe with Citra and used Wyeast 1272 instead of 1056 (had to babysit the fermenter for a few hours after it blew its top). The next batch will be using my water once again, but I am going to boil what i need ahead of time to reduce the Carbonate content. The final batch is going to be an oaked Pliny Clone.
I’ll put up pics and tasting reports once my buddies get back to me…
