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HBC 438 “Ron Mexico” Out Now!

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If you remember my review of the candy orange/passionfruit-forward HBC 438 “Ron Mexico” from a few months ago, I mentioned it should be available for purchase after the fall harvest season. Good news: according to its grower, HBC 438 should now be widely available!

News of the recent home brew exclusive testing of experimental hop variety HBC 438 has been creating a buzz throughout the home brew community since its release announcement at the 2015 National Homebrewers’ Conference. We are happy to report that these highly anticipated hops are now hitting the shelves at home brew stores throughout the United States.

Source: Experimental Hop Released – YCH HOPS

HBC 438 is great in any hop-forward ale and should be strong enough to stand on its own or can be mixed with other citrusy/tropical hops to add some amazing depth. You should be able to find HBC 438 wherever Hop Union/HBC hops are sold, but if you cannot find it locally the hops are available at the following online retailers:

Full Review

2015 Neomexicanus Hops Are Here!

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15301738192_30260a8269_m_hopsAh fall, when a young brewer’s heart turns to lupulin; if you are anything like me, you have been eagerly awaiting word of the fall hop harvest being ready. Well, good news: not only are normal hop varieties starting to roll out, but I just got word that the monks at Holy Hops have just released their 2015 crop of Neomexicanus varieties!

First some bad news: not only was this year rough in the Lupulin Triangle (Washington, Oregon, and Idaho), nature was a fickle mistress down in New Mexico as well.

The 2015 growing year was a challenge to say the least… In April, May, and June we experienced abnormal amounts of rain, rain, and more rain that soaked the fields and put less direct sunlight on the maturing bines… July saw returns to normal temperatures, afternoon rain, and otherwise long, bright sunny days which was encouraging. Then August arrived with a vengeance! We experienced a series of heavy hail storms during the first two weeks of August. One storm was so severe that small pea size hail pellets fell so violently that it stripped most of the maturing hop cones off the plants. At the end of the storm, there was about 12 inches of hail on ground mixed with thousands and thousands of hop cones! It was heartbreaking to see the damage to the crop. None the less, we did a very short two day harvest in late September that produced less than a quarter of a normal harvest.

Now the good news: the neomexicanus varieties they harvested were especially potent and there are still plenty available to homebrewers only. Unfortunately there’s no Chama available (my favorite from last years crop), but Amalia, Latir (review), Mintras, and Tierra make a return.

Click to view 2015 Neomexicanus harvest on Holy Hops

Click to view 2015 Neomexicanus harvest on Holy Hops

In the mean time, feel free to catch up on my series of posts about Neomexicanus hops. I will make an update if I hear of any other outlets selling Neomexicanus this year. Happy brewing!

2015 BrewUnited Challenge is On!

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BrewUnited Challenge logoI am excited to announce the 2015 BrewUnited Challenge is now officially open for registration! My buddy Olan over at BrewUnited has been working feverishly to put together what is sure to be one of the most interesting homebrew competitions this year. On top of that, he has managed to secure some amazing prizes for the winners (and the list keeps growing). Heck, there are so many prizes on the line it would almost be more expensive not to enter!

The gist of the competition is as follows:

  1. Build a recipe for the handful of styles divided up into “malty,” “balanced,” and “hoppy” using all of the required malts.
  2. Choose exactly two of the types of hops from the list of available choices.
  3. Choose whatever yeast (including Brett) you want.

You might be asking yourself, “how am I supposed to make a Mild or Brown Porter using just Pilsner, Munich, and Crystal 60?” That’s the challenge! Just because you’re limited to Pils malt does not mean you cannot take that Pils malt and toast it in your oven to recreate something like Victory or Amber malt. I have already begun researching how to toast my own malts, perhaps I will even throw up a guide once I experiment a bit.

Just remember: there are only 100 entries available for each category, so be sure to act quick to secure your spot. Good luck and happy brewing!

Intro to Sour Mashing

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Year of the Sour Mash

Part of the Year of the Sour Mash series.

Sour beer, the homebrewer’s final frontier. Many homebrewers spend their entire brewing careers fighting infections, but there are some that crave them; choosing to harness the organisms that would otherwise spell ruin to make something magical.

To many, the idea of making a sour beer seems like an impossible dream: the time, equipment, and expertise required ensures that many homebrewers view sour beer as a pastime for the brewing elite. My friends, do not despair, sour beer is within your grasp! There is a fast, easy method to get active making sour beer: the sour mash. Sour mashing is a technique for any beer that would benefit from a crisp, tart, or funky edge.

I am kicking off the Year of the Sour Mash with this overview of sour mashing. I will be covering many of these topics in greater depth in future posts, but in the mean time I hope to convince you that sour mashing is not something to be afraid of, but a fun process that is easy to be successful at if you follow a few techniques. Without further ado, let us get started!

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