Class 13 Double IPA and Barleywine

This rich barleywine was a big hit at the January 2015 Falcons Member meeting!

A classic, big bad barleywine brewed by the the Falcons Board members in 25 gallon batches. The first two batches were brewed in the end of 2010 to fill a fresh Rye Whiskey Barrel from Heaven Hill Distillery. Our friend Pat Rue of the Bruery in Placentia was instrumental in helping us to obtain this great barrel. Since its initial filling, the barrel has had portions drawn off for the 2011 and 2012 AHA Conferences (San Diego and Seattle), the So Cal Homebrew Fest, and Falcon fests. It has been refilled (25 gallons at a time) three times since then (as of February 2013, with another 25 gallons fermenting.

Every year on my birthday I brew up a Barley-wine, but then have to wait several months to drink it, way after my birthday. So, this year I brewed a Wheat-wine (Barley-wine with a large proportion of wheat) six months before the date to make sure it was done in time. It was done nice and early…too bad it didn’t last! I heard the term “Wheat Wine” thrown around, so I did some research on the topic/style. The best resource I found was “Brewing with Wheat” by Stan Hieronymus. Chapter 11 is entirely on the subject, and titled Two Recipes for Wheat Wine (pgs. 141-145). It’s a fun “Style” in progress, so feel free to do what you want with the recipe: Ferment with any yeast or different types of Wheat Malt… Also, Wheat-wines will age differently and quicker then normal barley-wines… probably because of the wheat!

This beer was brewed for the 2004 AHA Conference in Vegas as one of 3 beers (SNAFU, QUAFF, us) and a mead (SNAFU) presented to the attendees. The recipe is based on a previous beer brewed by myself (Drew Beechum) and Jim Kopitzke - the Double Trouble IPA. Since this brew is intended to represent the club the recipe was presented to the club for comments. Great comments were collected from everyone, but in particular there should be callouts to MB Raines, Ken Rhude, John Aitchison, Jim Moorman and John Aitchison. The hopping schedule on this beer seems utterly absurd, but it was spurred by some comments that MB made when I came to the conclusion that I wanted a balanced hop character. To see the logic behind the hopping schedule check out the Hop articles on the tech section of the website. Cullen Davis whipped up a great label and homage to Ralph Steadman. Check it out! The beer was bottled up by a six man team who managed to bottle up 400 bottles in 2.5 hours. Thanks to Steve Cook, George Mahoney, Don Knott, Kent Fletcher and Don Knott for their bottle donations. The intrepid bottling team consisted of Matt Udall, Kent Fletcher, Cullen Davis, Steve Cook, Jim Kopitzke, Jay Babchuk and myself. Special thanks to Kent Fletcher for taking care of the ferments and providing a great bottling setup