October 4th, 2009
HOPLESS in San Diego!
HOPLESS - Staying on the brewing line Saturday Dennis, Myself and Jeff awoke at dawn and met Chuck Silva and Ben Spencer (Magnolia Brewing Co in the Haight) @ Chuck’s brewery (Green Flash) to brew Hamilton’s official 3rd anniversary ale. It was clear from the minute we walked in that something special was in the works and chuck greeted us with a smile and said “you boyz jest entered “Gruit Country” an affectionate term Chuck coined in a southern tone. Matt Navarre showed up early in and started doing his thing and we were excited to see Dean from SD Brew Co cruise out for half the day. Here is a little history: This beer almost happened last year but I whined and whined because I really wanted Chuck to rock a massive high ABV hop monster we can just call a TRIPLE IPA in our 2nd anniversary ale we named “Palate Wrecker”. Im still really pleased that I did because Palate Wrecker is the Sickness. So PW completely set the table for this year and us tobrew the beer Chuck was thinking about last year in this gruit. A Gruit is an old world /celtic style beer with the use of NO HOPS. He had talked with Ben a bit back about having him down and 10-03-09 and Ben makes a killer Gruit called Weekapaug @ Magnolia. Before hops the use of herbs/botanicals we’re used in the ale for their medicinal, aphrodisiac, stimulating and hallucinogenic characteristics. This beer is just going to be unique and tasty especially for San Diego. It was a lot of hard work and tt was a really fun beer to make and we’re soooo looking forward to trying it in the next couple weeks as it finished out. Think about this: We used around 5-6 different grains such as Golden Promise, Honey Malt and Special B. We also used about 6 different herbs/botanicals such as Yarrow, Elderflower, Sweet gale and Heather. The wort was probably the best tasting wort I’ve ever had. I can tell you right now the beer is going to have deep rich color and a nice malty backbone. We’re hoping you get a nice citrus aromatic in the nose as well. Anyway, it’s time for the yeast to do it’s thing and we’ll see what comes out but I can tell you the process and the day couldn’t have been more enjoyable. As always we thank are brother chuck and overly stoked Ben was part of it and we hope you guys enjoy it so be on the look out for this special ale in the next couple weeks!