Ladies and Gentlemen:

 The General has come out of retirement to brew…an IPA. I went to my parents’ house to grab my old brewing equipment, then headed to myLocalHomeBrewShop for supplies. The guys there were bend-over-backwards great in making sure I had everything I needed (and nothing I didn’t need, which surprised me). If in the NoVA area, I highly recommend a visit there…or across the street to the Dogfish Head restaurant. Or both.

The recipe I had called only for Columbus hops. The guys at the shop admonished me on its potency (what little I knew until I smelled them!). Instead of the 2 oz. Columbus, I went with 1 oz. and added in Centennial, Mt. Hood, and….Simcoe! I couldn’t resist. Maybe it was because I had a quick Dogfish head while waiting for a pizza last night, I dunno but Simcoe called out to me. Oh, and hops were not hard to get at all; they were just a little pricey. This whole batch ran about $40 in ingredients ($12 in hops, about $28 in liquid malt extract/grain).

With this being the first time I brewed beer with a side-burner on a gas grill, my brewing status went right back to virgin again. The 15,000 BTU burner worked well, but waiting for the water to boil with such a large kettle, in 40-degree weather, was about as desirable as having getting shot in the taint with a paintball gun. And I should know. Where was I going with this? Oh, right, the beer. The boil went great, and my devoted wife held a sanitized steel colander over the Ale Pail while I poured. The schmeggy stuff at the bottom (from 2 lbs of grain and 4 oz. of mighty hops) beared the resemblance of baby-poo after junior tries his first plate of refried beans. By the look on my spouse’s face (which the steamy odors wafted directly into), I was convinced that my once-clean kitchen had instantaneously become a Superfund site.

OG was 1.061, which means ABV could be about 7% so long as the yeast attenuation kicks in. I will let you all know what happens when I move to the secondary in a few days. Candidly, I can tell you that my ABV has yielded higher than estimated (my 2006 IPA was 7.2%; my 2007 Altbier was 7.4%!). That’s what hops are for. Stay warm, peeps. Only a few more weeks of winter left.