BB Hopnog 2011

Anyone planning on brewing this or have already brewed it?

Just bought it last weekend

baron said:

Anyone planning on brewing this or have already brewed it?

Just bought it last weekend

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Btw- received a nice 1/2 gallon commemorative growler with it too (free).--while they last .

A couple people discussed it in the HBC 342 thread. I brewed mine last weekend and it chugged along nicely for a while as I fermented it pretty cool.

As for the experimental nature of the kit, I bittered with centenial or whatever it came with, then an ounce of HBC 342 at 15 and 5. I'm going to dry hop with the last ounce for 10 days before bottling. It smelled really good, and I'm going to taste a sample tonight.

One last thing - the whole hops broke my autosiphon! I used a strainer to filter them out after that, and I'm glad I did. First time I used whole leaf, but it was a good lesson to learn.

Freaking amazingly delicious. Easily in my top 5 IPA's.

Bought a second kit.

I dryhopped with citra with my first kit. Might try dryhopping with the HB342 this time (since I can't find Citra anywhere)

danmdevries said:

Freaking amazingly delicious. Easily in my top 5 IPA's.

Bought a second kit.

I dryhopped with citra with my first kit. Might try dryhopping with the HB342 this time (since I can't find Citra anywhere)

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They supply 3 bags of hops.
I'm thinking of 2 boil additions and 1 dry hop.
Glad to hear how good it is.

I will be bottling in a couple days. It smells extremely floral and delicious. Haven't tasted it yet but it smells like bells two hearted ale. Yum.

danmdevries said:

Freaking amazingly delicious. Easily in my top 5 IPA's.

Bought a second kit.

I dryhopped with citra with my first kit. Might try dryhopping with the HB342 this time (since I can't find Citra anywhere)

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Can you give us more of a description and your addition times?

Just getting around to brewing this tomorrow.
Nice day predicted-- 50 and Sunny.

I was considering picking this kit up for a continuous hop trial...hmmmm...

I brewed it about 5 weeks ago and am enjoying one now. It is a very good beer and I think you'll be happy with it. Nice and hoppy and fun to brew. Cheers!

I was a little low on the OG. I had 1.052.
Should have checked OG before filling it all the way to the 5 gallon mark.

I'll occasionally open the fridge to check on its activity. It's going strong. Smells great also.

Also -- first time using my new refractometer. Love it.

Brewed this last weekend.

topped up to about 5.5-6 to compensate for absorption from the oz I'm using to dryhop.

Didn't take a grav reading.

Going to do 21 day primary, 5 day secondary/dry hop. So i should be drinking this one right around the new year.

I've had the Hop Nog Kegged for over a week. It turned out really well.. Especially if u are a Hop Head. Probably one of my best extract brews to date.

Excited to see this is getting such good reviews.

My aunt and parents have always struggled with what to buy me for the holidays... and while I brew mostly all-grain; they love to get me extract kits for pretty much every holiday/event that involves giving gifts.

I'll gladly brew pretty much anything I can get my hands on, so I'm excited to give the hop-nog a try!

Reading all this good stuff really has me excited! She got me the growler with it also; it's really nice!

hannylicious said:

Excited to see this is getting such good reviews.

My aunt and parents have always struggled with what to buy me for the holidays... and while I brew mostly all-grain; they love to get me extract kits for pretty much every holiday/event that involves giving gifts.

I'll gladly brew pretty much anything I can get my hands on, so I'm excited to give the hop-nog a try!

Reading all this good stuff really has me excited! She got me the growler with it also; it's really nice!

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I think u will like it. I too mainly brew All Grain, but my Lhbs sells the brewers best and thought I would give it a try.
I can't stay away from it -- the hop nog is really good. Nice up front malty taste with a backend flavorful hoppy finish.

I'm almost through my keg of this and I gotta say it was quite good. I only bought it for the growler, and since I made the 2010.

Very happy with the final product. used 2 oz in the last 20 of the test hop with an 1oz Dryhop for 5 days.

All grain guys who are loving this kit...are you doing full boils?

I did a partial boil, 3.5 gal boil added 2 after the ice bath.

Trying my first glass out of the keg right now. I can honestly say this is not my favorite brew to date. It's not my least favorite either. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being fantastic) I give it a 6. That said, I'm pretty critical of my reviews and hardly ever give a ten.

My issue with the brew is the aftertaste. I like a smooth, non sticky mouthfeel and smooth, clean after taste. Some of these shortcomings could be my fault, as I struggled to maintain a consistent temperature during early fermentation.

I would describe the hops as very well balanced. It doesn't have strong fruity tones, nor the strong piney tones (I am a huge fan of citra, simcoe, amirillo, etc). This would be great hops if your looking for something in the middle.

flyingfinbar said:

All grain guys who are loving this kit...are you doing full boils?

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since i do a 2.5 gallon batch, it is like i bought two kits and then combined them and split it differently than recommended. definitely full boils for me though since my run is half of everyone else. i did my first batch with a can of extract and the caramel grains using an ounce to hop the batch, focusing on bittering and dryhops, then using the rest at 20 minutes. it turned out wonderful. it is a red IPA, a little reminiscent of the lattitude 48 from sam adams. the second batch is a big barleywine using a can of extract, the DME, and some chocolate malt for color from my LHBS. its around 8% i think and 90IBU. i used the millenium for bittering, did an ounce combined at 20min 8min and 1 week of dryhops. it is bottle conditioning now, but the first bottle i tested was right on the money for an American Barleywine. I also aged some for a week on bourbon barrel char chips and some more on whiskey soaked oak chips, so we'll see how that goes.