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peterchiodo wrote:
I was thinking of installing a hopback between my whirlpool and strainer basket prior to my heat exchanger (of course). Any ideas/comments?
Stone Brewing adds a lot of hops to the whirlpool... enough that they even get some bitterness from them (their homebrew clones account for this). I think the key is that there's some heat (but not enough to evaporate many precious hop oils), with plenty of mixing. Their 13th Anniversary strong ale had a phenominal hop nose.
As Rob said, the water can really make a difference as well. I don't think you need to Burtonize your water, but I do like a little bite (some of the west coast 'soft' water brews don't seem like they have near the bitterness they report).
went to summerhill LCBO. web site says they have a few in stock. Ask a guy, he has no idea, yells at another guy, he says,never heard nothing about any monkeys. shows me a flyer with ALL the beers the LCBO carries, if it ain't in there we don't carry it. I'm a little pissed off
$ wrote:went to summerhill LCBO. web site says they have a few in stock. Ask a guy, he has no idea, yells at another guy, he says,never heard nothing about any monkeys. shows me a flyer with ALL the beers the LCBO carries, if it ain't in there we don't carry it. I'm a little pissed off
I went to a friend's housewarming on Saturday, and she knows nothing about beers, but she had picked up a 6 of Hoptical Illusion from the LCBO just because she liked the packaging. I slid my 6 of ST IPA in the fridge, and got to drink both all night!
She got the Hoptical Illusion from the LCBO on Dupont near Spadina, and I got my ST IPA from the Fairview Mall, where it was just sitting on the floor, unrefrigerated and hidden. The HI was also unrefrigerated at the Dupont LCBO.
Finally picked some of this up today. The LCBO in uptown Waterloo had 8 six-packs and we bought four of them.
It's interesting, every time I try this beer it tastes a bit different, but always great. The first time I had it on tap it seemed a bit lighter and crisper. Second time was at the Kitchener Rib Fest where it seemed much fruitier, and this time (out of the bottle) the signature hop flavour was much more pronounced and the maltiness was also much more noticeable. I'm excited to see how this beer evolves over time.
'Pure' as a marketing term is relative to what you can make people believe. The famous/infamous Formosa Spring which had a well head under our labeler in the Formosa brewery constantly showed bacteria counts that forced us to use sanitizers and constantly watch out for product contamination. Was that from the system we used to deliver the water or was it because the area was surrounded by cattle operations that hugely impacted the ground water supply and undoubtably interfaced with the aquafer at many points? The Barrie landfill sounds similar to a cattle operation to me.
If the direction for some of the Flying Monkey brands is big hop bitterness combined with big hop aroma, then the use of the lower alpha aroma hops in a hopback/whirlpool is the obvious answer and is reinforced by the practices of the big American craft brands. That being said, I still like the idea of creative engineering to dose hops into beer. It's the serious fun part of brewing.
It could also raise awareness of this pure aquifer (I had no idea). Unless of course the site 41 dump goes ahead...
It's a great idea to use the surrounding resources and market it as something pure. However, I think it'd be a little better if they decided to use ice berg water in something other than an extreme light beer.
That seems more legitimate to me. Sorry for assuming it was just you or you and a significant other ('we picked up 4'). You must understand the outrage one might feel if given the impression someone came in a took half the stock away of a beer they really wanted.
Peter Chiodo you can take my knee-jerk reaction of outrage as an indicator of how much I like your beer .
Don't worry about, trust me, I know exactly how you feel. Sorry for stealing the stash... this beer needs to be rationed off in singles apparently.
I was actually stressing pretty bad for a bit. I'll be moving back to Ottawa in a couple days and one of the Flying Monkeys people at the Rib Fest was saying that the LCBOs up there aren't likely to get it for a little while. I was getting pretty worried I wouldn't see it here before I left.
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