Fruit Beer (Kiwi-Strawberry)

I'm not one to hide things, so I'll just say it: for the Queen of Beer competition, I'm going to send in a kiwi-strawberry wheat beer (extract).

Courtesy of ifood.tv

I'm still not confident enough to brew an all-grain but I think this will be my last extract. I have equipment I can borrow from my buddy, Tom (who just won First Place in the Krolsch division at the L.A. County Fair homebrew competition, woot! woot!) but, to be honest, borrowing stuff sucks. In the words of Veruca Salt, "I want [brewing equipment] NOW!" Fine, I'll wait.


Anyhoo, my other brewing buddy, Teela Smith (who one Second Place in the 2009 Queen of Beer Fruit group with her Sassy Strawberry, woot! woot!), is brewing two spectacular beers as well, but I'm not giving away her secret here.

Courtesy Strawberriesweb.com

I decided to go with fruit because I've never attempted it before. The only things I'm worried about are dryness and a tart taste (from the kiwi). Will the fruit dry out the beer? Will the pound of kiwis I'm using in the secondary be too much? That's the fun part of brewing - you just don't know. You can make a guesstimate as to the flavor and body, but you just really never know unless you've perfected it which, of course, I haven't.

Fortunately, Tom, at Stein Fillers in Lakewood, Calif., helped me out a bit and handed me a great wheat kit along with some invaluable help. Thanks, Tom!


Here's the recipe:

Malt: 6 lbs. wheat malt extract
Grain: 1 lb. Crystal malt
Hops: .5 oz. Centennial
Yeast: Safale US-05 ale yeast (dry)
Fruit: 3 lbs. Fresh strawberries, 1 lb. fresh kiwis

I'm going to experiment a bit with the fruit and add the strawberries in the primary after four days, letting it sit for three days; then add the kiwis in the secondary for four days before bottling. We'll see what happens!

I'll go into fruit beers a little later, but for now, I'm off to brew!

International IPA Day - What is It?

For those of you who love beer enough to follow Tweeters who love beer too … and Tweet about nothing BUT beer (such as me), you already know today is IPA Day. Where did this “day” come from? What is the insane obsession with IPAs? What the hell is an IPA?

Don't worry; calm down. I'm hear to explain all of the above.

First of all, shockingly enough, this is International IPA Day. What? You mean there are those who live outside of the U.S.? People exist and drink beer in other countries? Yes, Americans, they do. Tie up your tennis shoes and pull down your belly-showin' tank-top while in France, please. Basically, it's just like every other day for us boozers, but today we have a goal.

Let's start with those who have no idea what an IPA is. Don't feel bad; how could you know? It's three simple letters scrunched together (usually with a # in front of it), so what's the big deal?

Here's the big deal: IPA stands for Inda Pale Ale. No, that's not a euphemism for an Indian who's so drunk he's turned pale. It's a type of beer. Actually, it's a “style” of beer. Basically, back in the olden days (around the 17the century), beer that was brewed with a pale malt was called a “pale ale.” A fairly good amount of hops were put in these beers to keep them from spoiling on the long trip over to India, and when East India Company started taking them to India, India Pale Ale just stuck. Let's not get into specifically why the British were sending beer to India, but let's just say the British were like “and what? And what?” to Indians. This was around the 1830s that IPA earned it's infamous name.

Nowadays, IPA is a pretty standard beer. However, an American IPA isn't the same as a British IPA. How dare you even assume that! IPAs in the U.K. are usually regular session beers, meaning standard, low-alcohol ales (yet no less delicious).

IPAs in the U.S. are brewed with what we've decided are our standard hops, either mixed up together or with a single hop. They're generally of the same standard variety, such as the classic Cascade, Centennial, and Nugget, to name a few.

Now we're getting into the nitty gritty of the IPA. Here you have your standard British and American IPAs, but what happens when you throw a darker malt in the mix yet use the same hop variety? You get what's called an American-style black IPA.

What do you get when you brew an IPA that has a really high alcohol content (above 7%) and throw some seriously hoppy hops in there, including some dry-hopped variations of brew? (Dry-hopped beer is when you place a hop bag full of dry, uncooked hops into the beer while it's fermenting or after it's done fermenting, in order to bring out some serious hoppy aromas.) You get a beer called a double IPA. And let me tell you, that is some goooooooood beer. Ever heard of Pliny the Elder? No? Go get one – stat! I believe it is the finest double IPA ever created, and a lot of people will agree with me on that one. It's brewed by Russian River Brewing Co. and it needs to be on your beer-bucket list and in your mouf right this second.

Now that we know what an IPA is, what is International IPA Day? Actually, it's technically #IPADay. Well, today was the very first IPA Day. Yep, the very first! This is a day you drink your daily bread on Earth as it is in heaven … with a Sierra Nevada or Dogfish Head IPA.

According to NBCBayArea.com (I refuse to pretend I actually know who started this, so NBC gets the blame if I'm wrong!), the day was officially started by @TheBeerWench (Ashley V. Routson), and Ryan A. Ross, the guy who started Chardonnay and Cabernet Day (brilliant, by the way). Basically, the IPA is pretty much the most widely available beer in America, and kind of a standard as far as our craft-beer scene goes, so why not create a day for it?

I don't know what the original idea behind it was, but I'm going to take a wild guess and assume it's to introduce friends and neighbors to really good craft beer, regardless of what country it originated in. That is reason enough.

What am I drinking on International IPA Day? A Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen. I'm cheap and won't buy more beer if I already have some. And what?! And what?!

Image courtesy of “Lupulin Libations” @ http://lupulinlibations.blogspot.com