San Diego National Homebrew Competition Entry

We packed and shipped the IPA to the National Homebrew Competition Finals! Judging is 6/11 and the awards ceremony is 6/13. We are hopeful for the best!



The IPA has Rahr 2-Row Pale, German Cara-Red (20L), Crystal 10, and Carapils malts with Amarillo, Cascade, Columbus, Centennial, Citra, Chinook, and Crystal hops.  We were pleased with the batch that used GigaYeast GY054 Vermont Ale yeast as it had less attenuation, but gave a brighter color and aroma than the Safale US-05 American Ale and White Labs 001 California Ale yeasts.

Hard Way IPA Brew Day

Today was the brew day for a kegged beer to enter in the People's Choice Award contest for the Peach State Brew Off presented by the Covert Hops Society on 2/28/14.

It was a windy day, but the trusty Blichmann burner powered through.

There was a lot of steam!

After chilling, this golden beauty was racked to the carboy.

The yeast for this batch is Safale US-05 American Ale.  After it is finished fermenting and dry hopped, we will bottle a few using carbonation drops and keg the remainder.

Citra IPA Brew Day

Today, we brewed an all Citra Hop American IPA. This is batch 9 of this recipe, with small tweaks along the way.  The last batch scored second place for American style IPAs at the Music City Brew Off AHA BJCP homebrew competition in Nashville on 11/8/14.

The malt in the recipe was American 2-row Pale Malt as the base with Munich for breadiness/maltiness, Crystal 10L for light sweetness, Carafoam for body & head, & Melanoidin for sweet toastiness.  The hops were of course all Citra added as First Wort Hops, then 60, 15, 10, 5, 0, & Dry Hops.  The mash was a single infusion which rested at 152F.  We did a single batch sparge and 60 minute boil.  After chilling and racking to the carboy, we pitched Safale S-04 English yeast at 9pm into the 1.062 original gravity (OG) wort.