Hoppy Monday indeed!

IPA week has begun at the ‘shire. With a single batch of a Double IPA recipe in the tank, we await a double batch of Watershed IPA Wednesday and a Double batch of Perfect Storm Double IPA Friday. LEt’s just say the cows are happy and the hop contract is getting used (ask a probrewer if that doesn’t make sense).

Today’s beer, called Glen’s Hop Vice is being brewed special for the Sasquatch Beer Festival June 6th. The Sasquatch fest is held ever year in Eugene to honor the late Glen Falconer, a beloved local brewer who tragically passed away several years ago. Attending breweries showcase a beer of their choice and have the option of brewing a tribute beer in Glen’s honor. As Oakshire has done this in the past so too do we do it this year. The recipe was going to be based on a recipe of mine called Vishnu’s Vice, but when we decided to brew two double IPAs at the same time, we wanted it to be as different as possible. There fore it is now based on another recipe called XIPA. THis beer has one malt (Simpson Golden Promise) one hop (amarillo) and one yeast of course (english ale). It is boosted by a little Indian Palm Sugar (found it finally!) In case you’re wondering if that is a traditional ingredient in IPA, first, who cares, and second the expatriates traveling back from India certainly could have brought this unrefined sugar with them for UK brewers to add to their INdia PAle Ales. I know they didn’t, but then again, they weren’t bringing resiny double IPAs either, so there. THe Hop Vice will not have one ingredient (sans water) that the other Double IPA will have.

Anyway, we like to think that if Glen were given one malt and one hop to use, he would certainly choose to use a f**kin’ lot of it. So we did(in fact 44lbs were thrown inthe 15ish barrel batch today and dryhopping is still to come!). Check it out at the Sasquatch fest in June.

More on the other DIPA, PErfect storm, to come…..