New Brew

In my last post, I said that I would be brewing up an Anchor Steam clone on the 4th of July weekend. Unfortunately, my yeast was a tad old and did not puff up as needed when I smacked it open to make the starter. So, I was delayed for a few weeks. The Anchor Steam clone is coming, probably mid-to late September. But today was all about Lot 46 Pale Ale.

Since Iowa football kicks off in 21 days, I figured it was time to get a beer made for the annual Iowa vs. Iowa State game. I re-ordered my house Pale Ale yeast (Northwest Ale from Wyeast) this week and with its arrival on Friday, Saturday was looking good to brew. In the previous post, I had said I would be reprising my exceptional (3rd place) Bike Path Pale Ale. That was put on hold with the discovery that an ounce of Cascade hops in my freezer had split open and oxidized. So, using the hops on hand, I had to develop a hop bill using (no more than two ounces) Summit, Warrior, Simcoe, and/or one ounce of Cascade. With this whole Iron Brewer thing in mind, I chose to use one ounce of Warrior, two ounces of Simcoe, and my one remaining ounce of Cascade. The Warrior was split into two half ounce measures for bittering and flavor (45 and 5 minute additions). One ounce of the Simcoe was reserved for dry hopping while the second ounce was, like the Warrior, split into two half-ounce measures for flavor (10 and 1 minute additions). The beer is happily resting in the downstairs closet for seven to ten days until it gets pulled to secondary and will hopefully be ready for the Iowa State game. If not, no big deal.

The name of this beer comes from the traditional tailgating lot for my family, Lot 46. This beer was brewed specifically with tailgating in mind. I needed a good, lightly bitter, strong hop flavored session beer for the upcoming warm months of the football season. When the weather turns cold I will have a nice Rauchbier to curl up with.

On Iowa! Go Hawks!