Well Happy New Year! Here's to a great 2013! It's been a LONG time since we have done any updates to this blog! April 2012 to be exact! OUCH! OK, to recap most of last year... We have added new equipment and replaced the FTCU with a Freezer and a Ranco temperature control unit Allowing us to ferment within 2 deg. of the yeast's spec published by White Labs! The Beer has been coming out MUCH tastier!. In June 2012 we entered the San Diego International Beer Festival's Home Brew competition! The Beers we entered were Death Row Red (Irish Red Ale), Hopical Parrot IPA, Our Agave Pale Ale and our Smoked Maple Bacon Brown Ale dubbed Bacon Explosion! Below is our line up!

Much to our surprise, we took FIRST PLACE in the Specialty category #23 for our Bacon Explosion! The Beer really is that good! It had aged for 8 months at that point and had finished out way beyond our expectations!



Since then I have bottled the rest of the batch and have had many different people tasting it from Professional Brewers to Home Brewers seeking feedback on how we can do better! The consensus was that the Beer is well balanced and has better aromas than it's actual taste (Although everyone said it's taste and finish was lovely). Based on that and some tweaks on our Award winning recipe, I decided to redevelop the recipe and came up with an Imperial Bacon Brown Ale for 2013's competition. Hopefully we can uphold our position! The new version of Bacon Explosion is now brewed and aging! I tasted the beer at the time of racking about a month ago and it was truly awesome! It has very good potential and we are hoping for the best!
As for the rest of 2012 and first month of 2013 we have been working on IPA recipes and developing some more specialty Beers to this years competition! I will talk about those as we brew them in more detail! In the mean time I do not intend on neglecting this blog as bad as last year. Just been to busy to keep it going. That will change with new and different content and stories related to Home Brewing! Thanks for checking us out!

Death Row Red V. 1.4

We have yet another version of our DRR coming out of the fermenter tonight! The only difference between the previous batches is we substituted the 60L with 90L to try and add more flavor! I tasted a sample last night and it's very promising! We also boosted the ABV to 6.2% a little higher than previous. If this batch comes out like I plan, it will be entered into the San Diego Home Brew competition this year at the fair! This is one of two Beers we are entering. More on that in a near future post! Now that we have bottling equipment we are going to bottle a couple 22s of each future batch to see how the Beer ages and how the character changes with age. This way we can do tastings of all our Beers 2X a year and have another reason for a party! Thanks for reading our blog and do stop by and have a taste of this Irish Red once we get it Kegged and flowing!

Chocolate Irish Stout V1.2, GP LUCKY LEPRECAUN

It's Been a year since we did our Chocolate Irish Stout. We usually do this Beer for St. Patrick's day and so that is exactly what we did. Very similar to a Guinness™ dry stout but with hints of Chocolate and Coffee! This year we added a few coffee beans in the Boil. We tapped this Beer just before the Holiday and it was VERY tasty! The OG ended up at 1.058 which left us with a 4.5% ABV. A little low on the final ABV but still VERY tasty! Excellent Chocolate undertones with slight hints of Coffee and a lovely dry finish! Single infusion batch sparge and we let it mash a little longer than normal! In case you want to try this Beer, ingredients are as follows:

 

This Stout left us with a grand St. Patty's celebration and paired well with Corned Beer and Cabbage!  And with the luscious hints of Chocolate, it was a hit with the Girls! Thanks for reading out Blog and we look forward to exciting posts this summer about our Home brewing adventures! In the meantime, sit back have a Home Brew and relax!

GPB BELGIAN PALE ALE

Our latest batch of Home Brew is a Belgian Pale Ale. Used a ABBY Ale yeast. Brewed on 02/18/2012. Very smooth brew session! Ran the grain through the mill twice for efficiency and did a single infusion mash. Ended up with a OG of 1.058. By Monday the foam was going CRAZY and blew through the fermentation lock all over the floor. My bad for not using a blow off tube for primary! Today 02/23/2012 I drained off the first batch of trub 1 day into secondary! I think i'll harvest this yeast for another batch. The Brix had dropped to 8.8 and the gravity already 1.020. Seems to have a great taste developing and it's a VERY active beer! I will post more on the caricature of this beer as it finishes up. Here is the recipe but I would wait and see what we end up with before you brew it. Tasting notes to come in about a month or so!

 

Thanks for reading our Blog! I know it's been a while since I have posted but it's been way too busy around here. Be sure and check back to see the updates on this brew! In the mean time Relax and have a Home Brew! Cheers!

4/13/2012 Tasting notes: It's Friday the 13th and I've had this Beer on tap for a week or so. I'm sorry to say this one did not come out good at all! In fact we are planning on Throwing it out! It fermented out nice, everything went well but it just didn't come out the way I had planned. Very long sweet aftertaste. I guess it's OK if you like sweet Beers but I'm ready to move on, LOL! I would not recommend brewing this recipe! 

DOUBLE VISION PARROT Double IPA

Last night, 12/19/2011 we brewed some Double Vision Parrot IPA however, this batch is the DIPA. And DIPA it is! This beer is extravagantly hopped over the top pushing the IBUs to a whopping 130.1! Can you say HOP HEADS? Instead of showing you pictures of the boil or mash, I decided to snap one of our messy garage brewery! Pictured is the DIPA during the boil and MOJO the Chocolate Lab watching our every move! Funny how he loves to crash next to a Keg. Don't be fooled, he always has one eye open making sure we are on our game! The gravity was a little less than last time. 1.058, Brix was 14.3! The beer may come out a little cloudy as we forgot the fining agent.  Then again it may fall clear on it's own. This is a much anticipated batch. We used most of our Star B ranch hop stock for this batch! It should be ready for the tap on Feb 1, 2012! For all you Hop Heads, this is a good recipe to try even if you are substituting the whole hops for pellet hops. With an estimated 6.0ABV it should still pack a punch as you enjoy all that pure hoppiness! Be sure and check back after Feb 1, 12 for tasting notes! In the meantime, brew a batch of your own or just sit back, relax and crack a Home Brew! Cheers!

TASTING NOTES:  We tapped this Beer on 2/3/12 a little bit early and it was so good we put it online! Extravagantly hopped with Cascade, Columbus, Centennial at 130 IBUs! A little cloudy but does not disappoint the hop heads! Starts out with a nice Citrusy flavor ending with a long lasting finish with a bit of an earthy undertone. This is by far our best beer yet! I would rate it a 7 out of 10! Cheers!

Periodic Table of Beer Styles

This is a VERY cool chart. It not only includes the various styles of Beer but also Gravity, IBUs and SRM ranges! Thanks to mashspargeboil.com for posting and sharing this. Definitely a Beer Geeks thing! If you want to print it just click the link below the table for a larger image (you might need a plotter printer though). Cheers!

Larger, printable version of this chart here... 

Death Row Red V1.3

Fire under the Brew Kettle

We Brewed another batch of Death Row Red Saturday night 11/12/11. We did not change the recipe this time as I think it's perfect. Now we are going for consistency! It was pouring rain so it was a little challenging cleaning equipment in the rain but over all the brew session went very well! I love bringing the brew kettle to life during a late night brew session. Definitely better than a campfire! We have this beer online now and you can get the recipe on a previous post as well as read the latest tasting notes. New to our blog along with tasting notes are some basic food pairings with our beers! So if your are a "foodie" like myself you might be inclined to do a little cooking while pouring up some of that Home Brew! We would love to hear feedback from anyone that has brewed one of our recipes! This beer has had very positive feedback from people who don't know us tasting it from as far away as Germany! I have had no negative feedback yet so I think we have a great Irish Red recipe! The specific gravity was a little bit lower on this batch but very close to the batch on tap now! Here are the specs: OG: 1.057 Brix 14.0 IBUs: 25.9 SRM: 13.9 and an estimated ABV: 4.9%.  Be sure and check back on this post for tasting notes right around Christmas! In the meantime relax, sit back and have a home brew! Cheers!

Maple Smoked Bacon Brown Ale

We brewed the much anticipated Maple Smoked Bacon Brown Ale yesterday. All in all it was a great brew session! Things went much smoother than anticipated. I built this recipe from the ground up using Beersmith. Bacon Brown 22.6 SRM The previous Bacon Porter we brewed was ok, but we lost the bacon flavor as it aged out so I decided to do a Brown Ale and hop it like an IPA with real smoked bacon as well as bacon extract! My hopes IF this beer turns out is a nice, smokey Brown Ale with mild earthy undertones with a hint of chocolate, herbal aromatic qualities and a huge blast of bacon in the finish! Kind of like a Bacon Party in your mouth! Definitely unconventional beer. The hop schedule was basically 1.5oz. of pure bacon every 15 minutes for a hour boil! At the half hour and the end we added a cup of the secret bacon extract along with the real bacon! The bacon seemed to infuse into the boil quite well. During the cool down there was some bacon fat floating in the wort. I tried a piece and it had lost all it's flavor to the wort. I plan on dry hopping another ounce of bacon during secondary and carbonating with the bacon syrup extract instead of corn sugar. After all, one can never have enough bacon right? It will be interesting to see how this experiment comes out. We decided not to post the recipe unless it works out. It's kind of an expensive experiment but one I had to try. There is a brewery in Santa Cruz, CA Uncommon Brewers that is making a similar beer. I think they intend to can it. Some quick stats on this Beer, OG: 1.054 Brix: 13.2 Single mash infusion. Estimated ABV: 5.0%. Can't wait to try it! Hops & Bacon 30 min. hop schedule Residual Bacon / cool down Be sure and check back for the tasting notes on this one in about 6-8 weeks! In the meantime, relax, have a homebrew! Cheers! Thanks for checking out our Blog!

Green Parrot Brewing Sticker!

GREEN PARROT BREWING stickers are now available! Get yours now and support our blog! Comes in 3" diameter quantity (6) and 1.5" diameter quantity (20)! Only $4.95! Be the first to sport our cool logo!



Get your Green Parrot Sticker right here!

Hoppin' Parrot IPA

Hoppin' Parrot

Last night we brewed our first IPA dubbed Hoppin' Parrot IPA! This is our first IPA and looks to be a great Beer. Good OG: 1.062 and the color is spot on. With 77IBUs and a speculated 6.8% ABV, this IPA will leave you in Hop Head Heaven. Further, we utilized some of the Star B Ranch hops we hand picked a few months ago (see previous posts). Hopefully this will end up being one of our regular Beers! Marcus did 95% of the brewing on this one so this is really his creation. But being a Hop Head, I am really glad to see the introduction of an IPA to our wares! I felt useless in this brew session because of my swollen, twisted, messed up ankle. I had a difficult time standing on it. Nothing a cold home brew and a Macanudo cigar can't cure! I will post the recipe for this IPA below and will be posting the tasting notes on this beer in about 6 weeks. We have been letting all our beers age out about 1 month minimum by default. This seems to be a good practice. Of course some will age longer but our staples will follow the default protocol. I'm thinking the next batch will be the long awaited Smoked Bacon Brown Ale. Stay tuned for more info. on that soon. With all this brewing we could use a second fermenter! Something to look forward to! In the meantime, Sit back, relax and have a Home Brew! Cheers!

Hoppin' Parrot IPA

Star B Cascade Hops

Tasting Notes: We tapped this beer up on 11/27/11. Our first IPA and it was delicious! With 77IBUs, it was sure to satisfy a Hop head's palate and it did just that! Nice strong bitterness of the Nugget is right there out of the gate! Finishing with a light sweet citrusy hint of grapefruit and a wonderful piney aroma at the end. The Beer ended up a little cloudy but the color is great! A definite winner! We will be brewing this one again in the near future! Pairing this IPA with food is somewhat difficult due to it's stronge hoppiness however, I found that some of the stronger European Cheeses go very well! One of my favorites is Scharfe Maxx, indigenous to Switzerland. A nice tangy, meaty flavor enhanced by the bitterness of the Beer. If you decided to brew a batch of this beer, there are many other cheeses you might find to pair with. For those of you who try this recipe, please let me know your feedback! Cheers!