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Ok, so many of you have been asking about the Experimental IPA moniker on Hop Henge.  I’m sitting here with Larry Sidor, our brewmaster and we  have a bit of a story to tell you.

Whoops!

We have been experimenting with different hops and hop addition techniques.  Some new, some old and some quite unique.  Through all of this, our quest has been to produce  a teeth staining, mouth numbing, tongue scraping IPA that would impress the most iron-lipped hop head.  We have come a long way and, judging by the reviews I’ve read on BeerAdvocate.com many of you also think we’re doing pretty well with that. 

But, here’s the story:

We have always stated the IBU’s on the Hop Henge label (International Bitterness Units) and listed them as 95 IBU’s.  We thought that was pretty acurate as we, like most other small brewers, calculated on paper what we added and how many IBUs that would produce and that was good enough.  And, we were adding as many hops in as many different ways as we could think of, so we were pretty confident.  This year, with the experimental moniker, we gave ourselves ample license to really blow the lid off (so-to-speak).  And, quite literally, that’s exactly what happened (more on that later). 

But 95 IBU’s turned out to be so much wishing.  Our first brewing of Hop Henge this year produced the following result.  The very vigorous ferment, with a fermenter at capacity, blew our precious dry hops all over the floor depriving us of all the goodness therein.  The result was a beer we calculated to, on paper, 243 IBUs!   In the bottle, we only got 80 IBUs.  Still, as I mentioned earlier, you apparently loved it.  So, what did we do?  We made another batch, added more hops, only filled the fermenter half-full and thought we would blow the doors off the beer (and your taste buds).  The original calc’s on batch #2 were the same as batch #1, but without the blow-off on the floor we ended up with a massive 117 IBUs in the fermenter, as determined in our lab this time.  We were excited at the possibilities and fastened our seat belts for the ride.  The beer has now been centrifuged and removed from the dry hops (which then took our guys and gals 4 hours to remove from the fermenter!) and we sent it back to the lab for analysis looking to tell you of our herculean feat.  Meanwhile we tasted the two batches side by side today and were impressed by the huge pucker-factor in the new Henge, much greater than batch #1.  So, we sent it off to the lab to await the results.  87 IBUs!  We still did not even hit our promised 95 IBUs. 

Second Batch

Nonetheless, we feel strong enough about this beer to tell you this story and to place a separate designation on the label in the vicinity of the Julian date and the  best by consumer dating window.  It will say Batch #2.  Compare the two side-by-side and see which you prefer, then let us know.  We watch BeerAdvocate.com and Ratebeer.com, or you can reply on this blog with your feeback.  Remember, you are already telling us you are digging batch #1.  Maybe batch #2 will not be as good, or maybe better.  The moral of the story for us is we will not again put 95 IBUs on the label.  The moral of the story for you might be a wink next time someone tells you their beer has 120 IBUs in it (or even 95 for that matter).

Gary and Larry

To celebrate Oregon’s sesquicentennial, a.k.a. 150th Birthday, we decided to brew two beers using only Oregon ingredients, something we have never done before.  Both beers will go on tap this Saturday, February 14th, at our Bend and Portland pubs and in our tasting room.  Just like Oregon, these beers blaze their own trail and are far from traditional.

Maiden Oregon Ale, brewed at our Portland Brew Pub by Cam O’Connor, is a Belgian amber ale that was brewed using Crystal hops from the Willamette valley, organic 2-row barley from Klamath Falls, water from Mt. Hood, Oregon beet sugar from Nyssa, and yeast from Wyeast labs in Hood River.  At 8.0% alcohol by volume, this one will be best enjoyed sipped out of a snifter glass.

Oregon 150 Ale was brewed at our Bend Brew Pub by Paul Arney.  This beer has a very unique color and flavor that makes it hard to categorize.  Brewed with barley malt grown in the Klamath Falls basin (malted in Portland), blackberry honey from Yamhill County, Oregon marionberries and Crystal hops from the Willamette Valley we have created a beer like you’ve never tasted before. Our mash conversion took place at, you guessed it, 150 degrees!

Go Oregon!