Well it looks like it will have been 2 months since the last thing was posted on here unless I do something about it.  Imagine that… guess I’ve been doing way to much drinking and not enough brewing.

So without further delay, I present what I initially wanted to call Hop Head Red, until I realized that beer already exists.  Damn sub-conscious bullshit.  So it’s called, simply, The Hopped Red Ale.

Enjoy!

Recipe for 5 gallons

Grain Bill:
5 oz Flaked Barley
5 oz Crystal 10
5 oz Crystal 60
4 oz Roasted Barley

Sugars
6 lb Pale Extract

Hops
1 oz Willamette @ 60 min
.20 oz Willamette @ 15 min
.40 oz Willamette @ 0 min

Yeast
White Labs WLP004-Irish Ale

Clarifying Agent
1 tablet Whirfloc

Alright so, I can’t remember what the date was, but to put it into perspective (of sorts), whenever it was, I’m down to the last bomber… and that makes me sad.
Oh I guess this is where the instructions would go huh?  Sorry, been a while.

Um, its a basic extract recipe.  I can say that if I make it again I will up the aroma hop amount, possibly do some dry-hopping too, as I really wanted a much hoppier brew.  Considering this was only my second hand-crafted recipe though, I was happy enough with the results.  If someone out there on the interwebs really wants to know the procedure they can check any of my other recipe posts.  The only variation is that this is the first brew where I used the Whirfloc tablets.  Oh and the first that called for Flaked Barley, for head retention.  A note on each…

Whirfloc:  Did I pretty good job with clarifying.  However, the addition of Flaked Barley made for a much “trub-ier” fermentation, which may explain why I didn’t get as great of results as I had expected.  Nevertheless, I haven’t had a cleaner looking beer in the bottle.  Definitely going to use it again.

Flaked Barley:  Momma! This little addition really helped get the head I’ve been waiting for in my homebrewing.  I can’t say enough about it.  Again, this one seems like a no-brainer in many future recipes.  Like a foam sandcastle sitting on top of the glass, without filling the rest of the glass too.  Nice!

Well there you have it.  Maybe I can get the other dudes to put something up now.  I mean, if the lonely brewer in so-cal can do it, it should be a piece of cake for the pdx’ers to tag-team something, right?

Gentlemen, the ball is your court.