 |
| First sample of the Nightman, right out of the fermenter |
The Nightman was born on August 21, 2010. It was my third ever batch of homebrew. At the time I was living in a world of darkness (and watching a lot of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia). I wanted to drink a big black IPA, and try brewing with Citra hops for the first time.
I put together a fairly simple recipe consisting of 2-row, C45, and Carafa Special III. Bittered with Warrior, and with Simcoe and Amarillo late in the boil. My initial plan was to dry hop with 3oz of Citra, but after some research I got scared about using that much Citra for dry hopping. I had read several places that it was easy to overdo it with Citra. The only other hop I had a the time was 1oz of Chinook, so i decided to dry hop with 1oz of Chinook and 1oz of Citra.
The beer was amazing! My first two beers were decent, but this one was really something special. It was the first moment in homebrewing that I felt like I was able to make a brewery quality beer.
Looking back, I'm sure a 3oz Citra dry hop wouldn't have been too much, but I'm glad I came across the beautiful combination of Chinook and Citra.
Return of the Nightman
June 12, 2011 was the second coming of the Nightman. As it turned out so well the first time, I only made minor changes to the recipe. I swapped the C45 for C77, Upped the Carafa Special III to 1 lb, and added some Victory I had lying around from a previous batch. As for the hops, I really wanted to focus on the Citra and Chinook combination, so I changed the late boil hops from Amarillo and Simcoe, to Citra and Chinook. Finally I upped the dry hops to 2oz of each. The first batch of the Nightman was fermented with Pacman, this time around I had lots of Wyeast 1450, so I just used that.
Recipe is as follows:
No. 16: The Nightman Cometh
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.084 SG
Estimated Color: 38.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 90.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Grain
15.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Carafa III (525.0 SRM)
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (77.0 SRM)
0.38 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)
Hops
1.00 oz Chinook [12.40 %] (60 min) (First Wort)
1.00 oz Chinook [12.40 %] (60 min)
1.00 oz Citra [12.30 %] (10 min)
1.00 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (10 min)
2.00 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (0 min)
2.00 oz Citra [12.30 %] (0 min)
2.00 oz Citra [12.30 %] (Dry Hop 14 days)
2.00 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (Dry Hop 14 days)
Yeast
1 Pkgs Denny's Favorite 50 (Wyeast Labs #1450)
Mash Schedule
Mashed @ 152F for 60 Minutes
Fermentation Temp
63F ambient for 4 weeks
Actual Numbers
Measured OG: 1.084
Measured FG: 1.022
ABV: 8.1%
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2011 Toronto Homebrew Competition
After not having anything ready to send to the 2010 Toronto Homebrew competition, I wanted to hit the 2011 competition hard. I had and imperial stout that had been in the bottle for 8 months, a several month old American style barleywine, and a super fresh hoppy wheat beer, all of which I would be sending to the competition. I almost didn't even submit the Nightman. It had been in the bottle for 9 weeks by the final entry date of the competition, and the hops had started to fade away into the darkness. I had a couple extra bottles, so I included them with the rest of my submissions. It was entered under category 23, and on the entry form I specifically didn't call it a black IPA, as I felt it would get dinged for not being hoppy enough. I called it, "The Nightman Cometh, Black Ale".
Competition Results
The results for the categories I entered were as follows:
Milds, Stouts and Porters
Gold: Jeremy Skorochid – Coffee Stout
Silver: Kyle Teichert – The Imp – Imperial Milk Porter
Bronze Spencer McCormack – Stormy Night Stout
Strong Ale
Gold: Jeremy Skorochid – Barleywine
Silver: Eric Ecclestone and Russ Burdick – Old Toby
Bronze: Kyle Teichert – Honey Nugget Barleywine
Light Hybrid Beer
Gold: Dan Poulin – 11-005 Creme Ale
Silver: Jeremy Skorochid – Wheat Beer
Bronze: Jordan Rainhard – Homecoming Ale
Black IPA
Gold: Jeremy Skorochid – The Nightman Cometh
Silver: Duncan Rodger – Hop Will Eat Itself
Bronze: Jeremy Coghill – Black Hearted Ale
Needless to say I was pretty happy about how successful I was, but I was especially shocked that they had created and Black IPA category, and I had won.
1st Round Judge Feedback on The Nightman
Dark creamy pour with a nice lingering head. Some hops and sweet fruitiness in the nose. Very balanced flavor with a well-integrated roastiness. Nice body with a balanced sweetness and good hop bite. A fine effort. Gold medal.
Best of Show Round
The winners from each category advanced to the best of show round where they would battle against each other, the winner getting at trip to the 2012 Craft Beer Conference in San Diego.
The 24 beers were judged by a panel that consisted mostly of brewers from Toronto area breweries. They narrowed the beers down to their top 6, of which my coffee stout and the Nightman were part of.
When the dust settled, The Nightman had been very narrowly edged out for the best in show. My reward for taking second place overall was Amsterdam Brewery in Toronto would brew a a one-off, production size batch of the Nightman.
No comments:
Post a Comment