I live in Arizona, so it should come as no surprise that chilling a batch of beer is a giant pain in the ass here. I'm lucky if my tap water gets under 90F in the summer, and I've never seen it fall under 70* in the winter. I bleed with envy at all those folks that can simply hook up a hose to their chiller and run 50* water through it. But alas, I live in the desert, and chilling wort sucks here.

Here we are, it's finally time to put my 12% Imperial Stout down for a nice long twelve month nap. To quickly recap, I'm brewing a huge imperial stout, and trying my best to mimic the barrel aging process for the beer. I've been wanting to brew a beer like this for a quite a long time, so it feels really good to finally get moving with it. I'll skip over most of the barrel aging process, as I covered that in my last post.

Let's talk about an interesting topic: Barrel-aged beers. I started thinking hard about these after I just paid $9.99 for a 16oz bottle of Bourbon County Stout this Black Friday. It got me thinking: I'm a competent homebrewer, I'll just crank out a batch and age it myself. Experience making high gravity beers: Check. Tasty RIS recipe: Check. Barrel-aging: Um, not so much. And there lies the sticky point: Barrel aging. It's something home brewers struggle to replicate short of getting together with a club, buying a barrel, and brewing 55-60 gal to fill said barrel. I personally have little to no experience with it. I've oaked a few beers before, but none had anything close to what I would call "barrel-aged" flavor.

Over the past couple years here at Bertus Brewery there have been countless requests to brew a Fresh Squeezed clone; about 98% of which happen to come from Mrs. Bert. Since I also really love that beer, and I'm currently woefully lacking an IPA on tap, it seemed that the day has finally arrived! Fresh Squeezed is a really interesting IPA. It's not very bitter, nor is it in-your-face-hoppy. It has a pretty big caramel malt character, but it makes up for all of that with really juicy, citrusy, fruity aroma. It's smooth, approachable, and really well brewed.

What if I told you that most of what we knew about Pliny clones was wrong? Well, about six months ago, I received an email from a fan of the blog who happened to stumble across some info about the Pliny recipe that looked pretty different than what we've heard from Vinny in the past. I’m intentionally leaving out some details, out of respect for Russian River, but I have every reason to believe the info to be accurate. The same recipe info was later posted to a popular homebrew forum, although it surprisingly didn’t garner much attention. With that said, please don't ask me for specifics, as I'm already pushing my moral boundaries here. I really debated whether or not I was going to post this recipe at all. After some deliberation, and considering just a cursory search will turn up the same details now, I decided that I'm not exactly divulging any secrets. So here's my experience brewing this newer (more accurate) Pliny recipe.

I think this is like the 4th or 5th time I've brewed this beer, so sorry if it's getting a little repetitive. With the holidays fast approaching, and 1lb of last year's Nelson Sauvin and Galaxy in the freezer I needed to use up, this recipe was kind of a no-brainer. I also find it interesting, as Stone has started to release this beer with wider distribution, I think a little of the novelty has worn off. It's still one of the best DIPAs available these days, and one of my all-time favs. I have a theory regarding the availability of a beer and how good it's perceived as a result, but we'll save that topic for a later date.

I've been excited to write about this beer for a little while now, as I've been trying to craft a session IPA recipe for well over a year. Session IPAs (or whatever you want to call them) are polarizing beers. Personally, I love the concept, as I love a good IPA, but want something I can drink on a weeknight. Those 9% DIPAs take their toll. So I set out to create a really tasty low-gravity IPA, although I didn't realize quite how hard this style would be to get right.

Two dark beers in a row!?! I know, this isn't my usual M.O., but tis the season for dark beers. Quite a few months ago I remember reading that Stone was going to release a Coffee Milk Stout, and thought, hrm that sounds pretty tasty. Since I couldn't get my hands on a 6 pack of this, I just decided to brew something similar myself.

In words of the great Ladies Love Cool James, "Don't call it a comeback."

It's time for me to start writing again. I want to start by saying thank you to all the loyal readers.  I've received countless emails and comments(yes, I'm definitely still alive) over the past year with nothing but nice things; you guys rock. I have to admit, I underestimated the ebbs and flows of writing(or any long term hobby) until I hit a bit of a lull. If anything it's a testament to some of those blogs that have been going consistently for the better part of a decade; it's not easy. With that said, the keys are clicking again.

Short post today, as the wife and I are off to Europe for the next couple weeks. We're going to Amsterdam, Brussels, Ghent, Brugges, Cologne, and Dusseldorf, and would love to see if any of you guys have any beer-related advice (breweries, bars, or beers to try).

We've already checked out the European Beer Guide (great reference), as well as looked into going to Westvleteren (too far), but I was wondering if anyone had personal recommendations from their experiences.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm sure I'll have some pictures and stories in a couple weeks when we get home.

Of all the beers I made last year, one of my absolute favorites was my American Amber Ale. It wasn't the biggest, it wasn't the hoppiest, and it might not have been the most exciting, but I really enjoyed having it on tap. So it was long over due that I made another batch of this.

So, confession time: I've never brewed a Russian Imperial Stout. I had planned on brewing one a few years ago, but for whatever reason, I pushed out the brew day. Then for some other reason, I never got around to brewing it. With winter approaching, I figured it was finally time to get around to making a big, massive, roasty stout.

So in keeping up with the beers brewed last year, it's time for a post on the Southern Hemisphere Pale Ale. This beer was basically an attempt to brew something like Stone's Enjoy By IPA in a 5.5% ABV Pale Ale. Obviously the beers would be different, but my hope was to hold onto the core flavor profile, in a beer that's much more drinkable.

Whew, I'm back from a short writing hiatus. Between the holidays, getting a new puppy, work, and just not making the time, it's been a little while. On the bright side, I have been brewing in the meantime, so I'll have a bunch of new content up shortly. For the sake of keeping thing chronological, let's start with this Scottish I brewed to have on tap for Thanksgiving and Xmas.

UPDATE: Alright, thanks for the wait guys; we have two winners!

Amarillo - Jacob Dennis
Citra - Steve Greco

Drop me an email at bertusbrewery@gmail.com with your shipping addresses, and I'll get the hops in the mail. Thanks again to all who entered. Hopefully we'll do something like this again in the near future!


I've mentioned it a few times, but I buy 98% of my yearly supply of hops in bulk after the harvest. I love the flexibility this yields, as I always have what I need on hand to brew what I want. I'm usually pretty good at accurately estimating how much I need, but this past year I bought a little too much.

So with that said, I'm happy to announce that we're doing our first ever giveaway! I have 8oz ea of 2012 crop year Amarillo and Citra taking up space in the freezer, and I won't use it before the 2013 crop shows up. They've been vacuum sealed in my freezer since harvest last year, so they are as fresh as year-old hops can possibly be. You guys have really helped make this blog what it is with all the suggestions, questions, comments, and support, so I wanted to say thanks.

Here's how it'll work: If you wish to enter, please leave a comment on this post with either the word 'Citra' or 'Amarillo'. You can only enter your name in for one or the other; I'll delete both entries for duplicate posts.

Entries will be accepted through December 9th, and two winners will be selected on December 10th. We'll get in contact after that, and the hops will ship out later that week.

As much as I love all you International readers, I regret to say this giveaway will be for US residents only. Sorry guys.

Finally, I wanted to say that I've received a ton of great suggestions and requests for the blog, both via email and in comments, recently. You guys have some great ideas, but it's often hard for me to either remember them, or keep them organized. So I'm going to create an additional page at the top of the site for suggestions and requests. That will help keep me organized, and hopefully I can dedicate some more time to those posts. Keep an eye out for it in the next few days. I can't promise that I'll get around to all of them, but I'll certainly try.

Thanks again for the support everyone! Cheers!

Between brewing a lot of clone IPAs, and then beers for the wedding, it's been awhile since I've brewed an IPA of my own. The timing is good, as now is also a good time to finish using up the remainder of my 2012 hops before the new 2013 ones come in. Also, we're going to be camping this Thanksgiving with the in-laws, so I'm going to make this a 10 gallon batch, and bring a keg out for the weekend.