"Garbage pail" ale: something to help me clean out some older ingredients.
I had a few pounds of Maris Otter (an English pale ale malt) and a lot of pellet hops that are getting to be almost two years old-- even sealed and frozen, they won't last forever. So I whipped up an IPA recipe, with the Maris O bolstered by some pilsner malt, and a lot of Amarillo hops.
Beersmith says this will be very high on the bitterness scale, but it's quite likely the degraded hops won't take it so far.
Brew day went pretty well, with no headaches apart from the weather. Unlike that wonderful January brew day, today was minus a handful, grey, and breezy. But the mash went great, so did the boil, and it only took one kettle's worth of boiling water to restore flowing water to the outside tap.
Recipe Link
In other news, the January Pilsner is still around, quietly conditioning in a corner of the basement, a spot that hovers around 55 F during the winter. I may end up bottling it at the same time as this one, in a couple of weeks.
