Foam Hopping...

A new technique developed by home brewers to improve beer...

"It smells like fucking pumkin pie!"

"Yeah, it does. Exactly." Responded my brewing companion. We'd just finished the Goat Scrotum Wort and put it into fermentation. He'd gone to The Beer Store (that's the store where I buy my Pilsner and Franziskanner, just up the street) and asked for a recommendation. Only the guy who used to work there and has excellent taste in beer doesn't work there any more. So we had to ask for a rec from a different guy. He assured that the Pumpkin Ale is good.

It's not fucking good. It smells like pumkin pie and it tastes like pumkin pie and fuck that.

This is how foam hopping was invented: that goddamn pumkin pie ale needed to be fixed. I had about half an once of old cascade pellets. I crushed one into the pumkin pie beer. Wait five minutes. The bad beer now smells like hops. This makes it more drinkable bad beer.

Foam hopping is best avoided. To avoid it, drink better beer. Failing that, foam hop it.

Goat Scrotum.

I've been promising to make this insane beer since awhile. Now I have.

My brewing companion (call him "BC") (who has gotten a fermenter himself--it's in my living room) and I were at the bar. "We're brewing Goat Scrotum" I told the bartender. She smiled "where are you gonna get goat scrotums for the beer?" (She likes us.) "Well, they're hard to find. I might have to do without getting any." BC: "he's just gonna have to make do with the goat scrotums he already has." Something like that was the conversaion.

Here's what eventually was done with the goat scrotum:

-5 lbs. dried munton's dark malt extract
-1 cup brown sugar
-1 cup blackstrap molassas
-1 lb. 120 L Crystal Malt
-1/4 lb. roasted barley
-1 oz. Northern Brewer's hops (9.2% AA)
-1/2 oz. Cascade hops (6.0% AA)
-1/2 oz. Cascade hops (finishing)
- ~1/3 cup grated ginger
- 3 serano chilis
- ~1/4 cup dried juniper berries
- 2 tsp. gypsum

There was a one hour boil. I forgot 1/2 oz. cascade boiling hops in the start, so they went in with 45 minutes to go. The grains were steeped for 30 minutes at around 155 degrees. The finishnig hops were added with three minutes left in the boil. OG = 1.062.

This beer generates great excitment. Frankly, I suspect it's less than outstanding. It will be less bitter than I want in a beer.