Isolated Hare IPA | Part 01

The Idea

Hi everyone! Most of you probably do not know this, but one of my biggest passions besides dance is craft beer. I grew up helping my dad and his best friend, better known as the brothers at BrightForest Abbey, brew their own various homebrews. So, beer has been a part of my life from a very early age. Now whenever I walk into a brewery and smell grains and hops boiling, it takes me back to being a little guy, watching my dad… very nostalgic to say the least.

A few years ago, I told my dad that I wanted to start homebrewing as well. That summer he taught me the basics of homebrew and we made our very first brew together, and a new passion was born. I no longer needed to go to a brewery to remember that smell. I could get it in my own kitchen. He set me up with the supplies that I needed, and I got to work. I have made quite a few beers at this point, but I have been following recipes that I have found online or buying kits that come with the ingredients that I need. However, I have been wanting to start creating my own recipes.

Last week, during a virtual Wonderbound company meeting, Dawn asked me if I would create a beer for Wonderbound during this difficult time and I jumped all over the idea. This was the perfect time to come up with my own unique brew. I began racking my brain about how I could come up with a recipe that would embody who we are at Wonderbound and it hit me. We are collaborators and everything that we do is Colorado grown, so our beer should also be Colorado grown, and thus Isolated Hare IPA was born. A West Coast IPA using only ingredients that can be grown in Colorado. Due to the virus and all of the social distancing we are practicing, and of course us being Wonderbound Hares, the name of the beer was a no brainer. Hares living in isolation.

Day One | Shopping Day

I visited my new friends at Altitude Brewing & Supply. I had never been to this shop before, but this will be my new home for my homebrewing needs. I walked in, but unfortunately as I did the city was in there shutting them down due to Covid-19. However, they still came out and asked me what I needed and told me that I could still do pickup. I told them my idea and they also became very excited about making a beer that is truly Colorado grown. They told me to go home and call them so that we could come up with the recipe together since I wouldn’t be able to shop inside. After many conversations in the matter of only a couple of hours we came up with the recipe.

The hops are what give a West Coast IPA all of their flavor and the ones I am using are Columbus, Centennial, and Cascade.

Day Two | Brew Day

This is not going to be a blog boring you on how to brew beer. There are many more steps than what I will show, but I will not bore you with that! This will just be a track of how the process is coming with pictures to go along. First, we need to take out all of our ingredients.

Ingredients

This is all of our grains, hops, malt extract and yeast. The only other thing we need for beer is water. I always use tap water because beer does better with harder water.

Steeping the grains.

Basically we’re making tea.

After you steep the grains for 20 minutes, remove the bag and bring the water to a boil. Add in the malt extract and return to a boil stirring continuously. Then we begin adding our hops following the schedule in the recipe. This recipe boils for 90 minutes.

Remove from the heat and cool to 70F. I use an ice bath because I am not fancy enough to have a wort chiller.

After you cool the wort to 70F, pour into the primary fermenter and add another 2.5gal of water. Stir in yeast. Our wort has now transformed into beer.

Secure the lid and airlock

and move to a cool dark space.

We want our beer to ferment around 70F with no sun exposure.

I use a closet. Limited on space in my apartment! The airlock on top of the lid should start bubbling within 24-48 hours. This is the yeast eating the sugars in the beer and releasing carbon dioxide, the part of the process that makes the alcohol. Yeast is our friend and we need to make them happy. Words of encouragement to keep eating seems to work for me.