Bottled up the batch of beer I made with the wild hops I received for free. Sampling it, it had a real mild floral aroma and a light amount of bitterness, which I expected. The malt finish on it was nice. It’s going to be a much better beer than I first thought.
Final gravity was 1.008, initial gravity was 1.025. Subtract the two gives us .017, multiplied by 105 gives us 1.785, which is the percent alcohol by weight. Alcohol by volume is 2.23%. So, another light alcohol content beer, which again demonstrated the low extraction yeild I’m getting from my grains. If I decide to do all grains in the future, I’m going to build a mash system using a cooler.
We got 45 bottles out of this batch. Not great, but not bad. I’m still trying to decide what to name it. Maybe something like “The Wild Hop Brew” or “Fat Guy Generic Ale” or something along those lines. Any suggestions would be helpful!
Now, the next three batches I’m going to brew have been planned out by my beer sponsor and myself. The next batch is Papazian’s “Righteous American Real Ale,” then “Palilalia India Pale Ale,” which we plan on doing a hop substitution for, and then “Freemont Plopper American Lite.” So, batches 14, 15, and 16 are already planned out.
We talked about creating an IPA that we plan on naming “Boom-Chicka-Boom.” The goal will be super hoppy and super malty. You think “Boom” when you drink it. Then the follow up to that will be “Booma-Chicka-Rock,” which would be a more mellow IPA. I’ll work out the recipies for those soon and let you all know.
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I’ve never brewed with wild hops before, that’s sounds interesting. Where did you get them and how did you get them for free??? Maybe you can name the brew “Wild and Free”!
I got them off of Craigslist. My wife saw someone advertise on there for free hops, went over, and he had a hops vine growing up the side of his house. I asked him if he knew what type they were, and he had no idea.
So, my guess is it’s most likely some wild variety (low alpha acid levels).
Ya gotta love Craigslist!
You always call me a “Craiglslist junkie” but lately I have gotten stuff for you on there. So you can’t give me a hard time especially when all of the stuff has been free.
Your beer sponsor? It sounds like some kind of reverse A.A. “Hi. My name is Brett. I’m a home brewer.”
“Hi Brett”