Homebrew Recipe: New Year's Hopsolution IPA (All Grain)

There's nothing quite like hop puns in beer names is there?  Next time you're a little bored, try to think of some that haven't been used.  Then hit the Google and see how you did.  At any rate, not wanting to be left behind in the hop and holiday pun category, last year's New Year's IPA got it's own pun.  Truth be told, I never checked to see if that one had been used before...

Homebrew Recipe: Red Ryder Christmas Ale

Red Ryder Christmas Ale

I got this crazy urge last year to brew a beer that tasted like Christmas. I was bringing kegs to my in-laws for Christmas vacation and I wanted something that was seasonally appropriate. This was my first attempt in what I expect to be an ongoing Christmas ale tradition. Many breweries make a Christmas time spiced winter warmer of some sort and they change up the spices a little each year. I envisioned this as being something similar.

Homebrew Recipe: Black Gold Imperial Stout

Black Gold Imperial Stout

Brewing Premise: I seem to get involved in lots of trades and swaps involving the exchange of beer for other goods and services. I've even traded homebrew for help replacing brake pads in the past –  but this particular beer was crafted to trade for some old homebrew equipment! A co-worker of mine used to be into homebrewing and has since had multiple children and taken up other hobbies. He still loves craft beer and a good homebrew so I asked him what he’d like in exchange for all his old equipment. He wanted an imperial stout that wasn't over the top on the alcohol. As a new All-Grain Brewer I couldn't wait to figure this one out. I only had a 5 gallon mash tun at the time so the recipe is tweaked a little to help me get the ABV up since my tun wasn't large enough to hold all the required grains.

Homebrew Recipe: Kung Fu Panda California Common

Kung Fu Panda California Common (Extract)

For the past few glorious weeks, the MLB playoffs have been consuming the evening airwaves. For that past couple weeks, I've had the pleasure of explaining to people here on the East Coast why San Francisco Giants fans are frequently seen wearing panda hats. It is certainly a valid question. It's not like pandas are indigenous to the Bay Area. The panda paraphernalia came about after one of the Giants' fan favorites, Pablo Sandoval, was awarded the moniker of "the Kung Fu Panda". Sandoval is a bigger guy, yet he is astonishingly nimble in the infield and quick around the bases. So, there you go, connect the dots and pandas abound.

Hacksaw Brewing Top 10 Extract Recipes

For the first 2 years of my brewing career I was an extract brewer. I highly recommend starting out this way as there is a very small learning curve and great beer can be made. This list is my ranking of the top 10 best extract recipes I made or was involved in making during my career. A couple of these are joint brews that Down the Hall was involved in the brewing and recipe creating. We are both usually involved in each other's recipes - and I'd love to be involved in YOUR recipe too!

Feel free to check back as these recipes are posted I will link to them. My (our) #1 extract recipe is still to be released :)

Homebrew Recipe: Sleeping Grizzly IPA

Sleeping Grizzly IPA (Extract)

We might as well call this one throwback Thursday because it takes me way back to the beginning of my brewing career. If I recall correctly, this was one of the first beers that I could objectively say was good. So it is near and dear to my heart. It is also a very easy and standard IPA recipe that could be tailored to your own taste.  I remember feeling a little shaky after my first two batches, but decided I'd try my hand at my favorite style, the IPA. After some minimal research, I learned the value and importance of steeping grains to the quality of the end product. Even that single pound of caramel malt really makes a difference in flavor, texture, and even appearance. But that is just one of the many reasons homebrewing is the best hobby ever. There is so much to learn and always another brew day to put those lessons into practice.

Homebrew Recipe: Bury the Bulldogs Amber Ale

Bury the Bulldogs Amber Ale

Brewing Premise: This was another “Carter-Finley” brew that we teamed up to make. The first CF Brew recipe I shared was here if you’re interested. This beer was actually part of a Double Brew Day and made at the same time as another of the CF brews I’ll share at a later date. With the theme of making fun of our opponents through our beer names we dubbed this Bury the Bulldogs as we were playing Citadel. At the outset we knew we wanted a good amber but weren’t positive how to get there. The hop schedule on this one lends itself to being a little more a hoppy amber – but don’t let that scare you IPA haters! This is an excellent amber with some added complexity. We’ve modded this recipe over the years as it proved a great starting point.

Homebrew Recipe: Bold Beach House Brown Ale

Bold Beach House Brown

This was the third beer I made in my career, and of the first three it was by far the best. I brewed this recipe from the Northern Brewer Caribou Slobber kit I received the Christmas that homebrewing officially became cemented as a solid hobby. I was very pumped about this kit because it provided a lot more specialty grains – which at the time were fascinating to me. This is one of the more heavily advertised kits on Northern Brewer, and if you are a beginning brewer this will provide excellent results.

Homebrew Recipe: Pappy's Ol' Cough Medicine

Pappy's Ol' Cough Medicine Bourbon Imperial Stout (all grain)

Ah, the fall.  The time for pumpkin bread, pumpkin beer, and pumpkin spice lattes. Wait, those things already happened two months ago? Oh. Well, in that case, it's the perfect time to start planning your winter beer!  Truthfully though, if you're looking for a nice, warming, high gravity beer to enjoy all through the winter months, October is your time to get brewing. That was my motivation a year ago when I set out to brew a bourbon aged imperial stout.  In fact, one of the great things about big beers like this is that they will keep for quite some time. I even have a few more in the basement that I'm looking forward to enjoying by a campfire as the evenings get cooler (since it's actually fall now).

Homebrew Recipe: Matty Mike Homegrown Amber Ale

Matty Mike Homegrown Amber Ale

Brewing Premise: My homegrown centennial and nugget hops needed a place to be showcased. I didn’t have very many, but what little I had, I wanted to be on display in a beer as the aroma feature. Mrs. Hacksaw’s brother had an upcoming birthday and so I crafted an amber ale that would then be a tad bit hoppy (I hoped) with the addition of my hops at the end of the boil. One  a side note – Birthdays are an incredible way to share your homebrew and bring joy to people. Anybody who halfway enjoys craft beer typically loves having a case of beer that had the recipe and label and name crafted specifically for them.

Homebrew Recipe: Shadow of the East Black IPA (Extract)

The black IPA is kind of like the liger of the beer world.  Except lions and tigers are at least kind of similar.  Black IPAs fuse two styles that really just don’t seem like they would work together.  So naturally, I was a bit apprehensive when I was putting this recipe together.  I didn’t want it to be dominated by hops, but I didn’t want it to just be a bitter stout either.  So, the only thing really to do was to jump in and give it the ol’ college try. 

Homebrew Recipe: Chop Down Wheat Forest

Chop Down Wheat Forest

A few football seasons ago, Down the Hall and Hacksaw teamed up to create some homebrews for consumption during tailgating of NC State games. We jokingly called ourselves Carter-Finley Brewing after the NC State stadium name. While the attendance at our tailgating parties wasn’t great - we had a ton of fun putting together recipes and theming them around the opponents. This particular brew was for the Wake Forest matchup which happens to be where Mrs. Hacksaw’s sports loyalties truly lie. The goal of this beer was to make a classic hefeweizen that could be morphed into a blue moon with the addition of a fresh orange.

Homebrew Recipe: Newly Wedded Wheat

When a wonderful couple asks you to brew beer for their wedding – you say yes! This recipe was crafted based on their input that “Blue Moon” and “Wheat Beers” were their favorite. Making a clone of Blue Moon was not going to happen because I cared about these people too much. I insisted I would make a crowd pleaser that would be even better than Blue Moon. With that goal in mind I built an American Wheat beer that had some hints of orange. Sounds similar to blue moon but it had much more malted wheat flavor and higher ABV than Blue Moon packs.

Homebrew Recipe: Saisonal Affective Disorder (All Grain)

I vividly remember the first saison I ever had. It was actually at Hacksaw’s bachelor party, and it was from a Sam Adams mix pack. It was nothing short of terrible. Easily one of the top five worst beers I've ever had. This experience turned me off to the style for quite some time. However, after partaking of a few that I really enjoyed, I decided to try my hand at making one. I wanted dry, crisp, and refreshing, with just a hint of that characteristic fruity funkiness.

Homebrew Recipe: James Brown Ale

Two admirers of your homebrew want a batch to split for themselves? This was a problem I was practically born to solve! There was some debate over what style of beer they wanted, but once a brown ale was settled on I was off to the races. This is a style I’ve brewed several times and I was eager to put my newly discovered all grain skills to work. Seeking to make an easy drinking but satisfying brown ale would prove to be a good test indeed.

Homebrew Recipe: The Dunkel (Extract)

Once upon a time, shortly after I became a confident brewer, I had the dream that I was going to
revolutionize the beer world by inventing or pioneering a new style. In my pursuit, I thought to myself,
“what about a dark wheat beer, surely that’s never been done before!” Well, I emailed this to Hacksaw
Brewing, excited to share my genius. And then I remembered, ye olde dunkelweizen is a dark wheat
beer and has been around for quite some time. You win some, you lose some I suppose. Nevertheless,
I decided to take my realization and brew it up.

Homebrew Recipe: Sandy Toes Pale Ale

This delicious, summery, easy-to-drink Sandy Toes Pale Ale recipe was made in late spring with the goal of creating an easy drinking beer that could be enjoyed while sunning on the Wilmington beaches.  As evidences by the name, it did not disappoint!

Homebrew Recipe: Plague of Darkness Stout

One of the first beers I brewed in my career was an Irish Stout that turned out anything but “stout”. When I set out to brew this beer I kept repeating over and over in my head that I wanted it to be STOUT! I wanted my taste buds to be hammered by roasty, toffee, coffee flavors and be overwhelmed by stoutiness. I may have gone a bit overboard with the darker malts… but learned a valuable lesson along the way.