on sunday CB rolled by and I whipped up an IPA using a partial mash recipe I formulated based on a couple of sources.

• I based the malt bill for my recipe on a partial mash breakdown of CJ’s rising sun JPA recipe over on brewboard:
  • 6# LME (pale)
  • 2# 2-row
  • .5#aromatic
  • .5#wheat
  • .3# cara-pils
  • .3# crystal 15L

• additionally, I slightly modified the hop bill from my very first brew session (a recipe from robert over at what used to be fermentation frenzy):
  • 1oz. columbus @ 75
  • 1oz. columbus @ 55
  • 1oz. columbus @ 20
  • 1oz. amarillo @ 10
  • 1.5oz. amarillo @ 0
  • dry-hop 1.5oz amarillo, 1oz. columbus

• my batch sparge went fine – I added a little over a gallon of 160F water to the mash, resulting in a mash temp of around 152F.  I mashed for an hour and sparged with the same amount of water at the same temp.
• it had been a little while since I had cracked out my scratch-built mash tun, and the little guy worked like a dream.  in fact, I am debating picking up a turkey fryer and boil pot and doing some all-grain beers with it in the near future…
• the hop schedule was originally @60, 40, 15, 5, and 0, but things got a little hairy during bottling of my imperial espresso stout (lowdown to come) and the boil got inadvertently extended.
• my starter of wyeast cali 1 was bubbling along nicely, and after a shot of O2 and some healthy yeast, fermentation kicked off in no time.
• I plan on tossing the dry hops into primary next week, and kegging a week or so after that.

I have a confession to make – throughout my years of beer-drinking and research, and my general love for all things belgian, I had never tried orval’s trappist ale.

• I think it was the beer’s general accessibility that encouraged me to keep putting it off – it was one of the first trappist ales I ever ran across in stores (aside form the omnipresent chimay line), and I always spotted it when out on beer runs.
• I still didn’t seem to be motivated after my latest trip to belgium, where I noted many a local with an orval goblet in their hands.
• finally, after reading about it’s unique production in brew like a monk (it is dry-hopped and local wild yeasts including brett are added during secondary fermentation), I figured I could put off a tasting no longer.
• I’m glad I finally came to my senses – orval definitely puts out a unique trappist ale.  it had a funky nose and rocky head, with clean, earthy, funky flavors.
• in fact, the brew tasted much like a saison, but had a cleaner finish and was infinitely drinkable.  I would love to get my hands on a fresh sample, as any dry-hopping aroma was definitely absent from my bottle.
• the bottom of this page describes how the beer changes over time.  I wonder if I can line up a 3 bottle, 6 month interval flight?