My Double IPA

Well I've always been a fan of the hops. It started with American Pale Ales. I loved the citrus, floral kick of the hops. Then I had my first IPA. It was 75th Street's Good Hope IPA in Kansas City. I was blown away. Since then, if I can find an IPA in the store or at a restaurant or brewery, I have to try it.

Then I heard about Pliny the Elder from my SoCal friend RJ. Living in Rolla, MO doesn't afford me the opportunity to imbibe in this highly regarded beer. Luckily I'm an AHA member and get Zymurgy. I noticed in one of my issues they interview Russian River Brewery and they gave a recipe.

I modified it a little by substituting Cascade hops for the Centennial hops. Kept the Columbus and Simcoe hops. Other than that, I stuck to the recipe. I tried something different this time though. I did a cold crash on the secondary to really drop the sediment. Only problem, it was too cold for the yeast to interact with the sugar fully. This left me with an under carbonated beer. Was I pissed. There was some minor carbonation, but not enough. It had great flavor, it was just missing that extra umph of carbonation.

So luckily for Christmas my dad got me a Corney keg and his old 20 lbs CO2 tank. So today I finally assembled the tank and keg, transferred the beer, injected it with CO2 at 16 psi and put it in the beer fridge.

Here's to hoping it works!!

PS - I haven't named the beer yet, so if anyone reads this and has some ideas, let me know.