last weekend I finished up the last of my four “house” sours – cuvee de banning.

• after finishing my first “american-style” sour (cuvee de cabrillo), I decided to toss four “house” sours into my brewing pipeline, such that after a year’s time, a new year-aged sour would be available for bottling every three months.  the pipeline is filled as follows:
• cuvee de cabrillo (dark strong sour) – January
• cuvee de blanc (dark “mild” sour) – April
• cuvee de vizcaino (golden strong sour) – July
• cuvee de banning (blonde sour) – October
• as noted above, banning is a sour blond ale inspired by various recipes for russian river’s temptation.  the recipe is as follows (for 13 gals @ 80% efficiency):

• 26.00 lb	Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM)	Grain	94.55 %
  1.50 lb	White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM)	Grain	5.45 %
  3.00 oz	Saaz [2.00 %] (60 min)	Hops	7.6 IBU
  0.50 oz	Saaz [2.00 %] (30 min)	Hops	1.0 IBU
  0.50 oz	Saaz [2.00 %] (5 min)	Hops	0.3 IBU

• I used some of my stash of aged hops from seven bridges for a sub-10 IBU count and pitched a starter made from a vial of white labs WLP655 and dregs from bottles of RR’s consecration, two brothers’ askew, and drie fonteinen oude geuze.  after 4-5 days, the starter had developed a healthy pellicle and was smelling pretty funky when I pitched it at 72F.
• I also had MV over and whipped up a batch of belgian blonde for his upcoming wedding, and he took home a bag of spent grains to make some dog treats.  congrats MV, and enjoy the brew!