Epic Brewing - 825 State Stout Release #23

Epic always makes a good beer. The 825 Stout is no exception. My only complaint: the 825 Stout strikes me more as a black Porter and the Galloway Porter strikes me more as a brown Stout.

What is the difference between a Stout and a Porter? Not a whole lot really. Primarily it's marketing and shades of color and shades of roastiness.

If you blind taste test beers marketed as porters vs. those marketed as stouts, you'll be hard pressed to find a clear commercial distinction between the two.

My personal bias comes down to the level of roastiness. If more chocolate-coffee flavors come through -> porter. If more coffee-espresso flavors come through -> stout.

The 825 Stout always hits me as a chocolate-coffee beer. The Galloway Porter hits me as a coffee-espresso beer.

Epic Brewing - Mid Mountian Mild #23

Mild Ales are not a style that I have a whole lot of experience with. There just aren't too many of them around here. Originally, the term "Mild" meant the beer was served young as opposed to other beers that were served aged, or "stale.". Generally speaking, these days the term is used to mean a beer that is lower in alcohol and lighter hopped than their Brown Ale and Bitter cousins.

This beer pours with an inch of white head and maintains between 1/4 and 1/2 inch. The carbonation sounds a lot like Rice Crispies.

The alcohol comes in at 5.1%, which is on the high side for a Mild, but is not distracting from the beer.

Base malts include: Muntons Maris Otter and Briess 2-Row Brewers. Specialty malts include: Weyermann Cara Munich 1, Weyermann Munich Malt Type 1 and Roasted Barley.

Epic Brewing - Smoked Porter Release #14

Smoked beers are among the most interesting beers.  Before the invention of electric kilning, all beers would carried this flavor from the wood fires used to roast the malt.  Some of these beers are aggressive and weigh heavy on the palette.  Others are light and refreshing.

Epic's Smoked Porter pours with an inch-or-so of head. It maintains about 1/4 inch of head as it laces down the glass.

This beer, perhaps, is midrange on the smokey scale. Many smoked beers need to be pared with food. But this beer goes down nicely on the palette without becoming overtaxing. Although, I'm not sure I could drink two in one sitting without a major palette cleansing in between.  By the time I finished the 22oz bottle, my mouth was holding onto a serious ashy aftertaste.

Thanksgiving Turkey Fry Homebrew Brining Wort

Crushed Grains for Wort and Grain Bag

It will have been two years this Christmas since I received my turkey fryer.  The ostensible reason for asking for it as a gift was to make the move to all-grain brewing and to move my homebrewing out of the kitchen and into the garage.

It was just before Thanksgiving last year, when my wife and I were planning to host both our families at our house for the first time, that I realized I could use my turkey fryer to actually fry a turkey.  We ended up frying three turkeys last year:  thanksgiving, christmas, and another one for fun sometime in March.

Epic Brewing - Hop Syndrome Lager (Release #7)

Hop Syndrome is one of my favorites from Epic Brewing. It's an American Lager. It's also just about the lowest ABV beer that Epic brews.

Stats from the website:
Malts: Pilsner, Light Munich Malt, Carapils

Boil Hops: Calypso, Crystal
Hopback: whole leaf Aramis
Dry Hops: Crystal, Calypso

ABV: 4.8%

I think of this beer as essentially being a dry hopped American Pilsner. The body is thinner than a true pilsner without the corn flavors you would associate with a macrobrew.

The hop flavors are what this beer is about. Don't let the name mislead you, it's not a "hop bomb". It's a hoppy pilsner. And it doesn't take much dry hopping to hop-up a crisp Pilsner / American Lager.

Epic Brewing Spiral Jetty IPA

Epic Brewing's Classic Series IPA - Spiral Jetty,named after the sculpture built in the Great Salt Lake by Robert Smithson (thepinkness of the water in the photo is from naturally occurring sulfur bacteriain the north arm of the Great Salt Lake).

Epic is currently my favorite local brewer.  When the Utah changed their lawsallowing for breweries to sell greater than 4.0% ABV beer direct from thebreweries, it changed the landscape of the beer scene.  Some breweries seemed thrive on thechange, while others seem to have lagged behind.

Epic came on the scene shortly after the change inthe law went into effect.  Theirbrewing philosophy is that they will only brew greater then 4.0% ABV beers.  I believe that their lowest strengthbeer is the Mid Mountain Mild at 4.5% to 5% ABV.

I’m not a big IPA drinker.  I know, it’s a sin to say it on IPA Day2012.  But it’s true.  It is rare that I find an IPA that Ilike.  For similar beers, I tend tofavor its bigger brother, the Imperial IPA.   In order to get the higher ABVs of IIPAs, brewers tendto use a maltier backbone and more residual sweetness is left in the beer.

Its even more rare for me to find a simcoe hoppedIPA that I like.  I know, another heresy.  But it is also true:  I don’t like a lot of pine flavor in myfood or drinks.

This beer has an excellent copper color and thehops highlight  citrus, piney, andfloral flavors and aroma.

I should mention that I have a little bit ofdifficulty differentiating between bittering “flavor” hops and dry “aroma”hops.  I tend to taste themboth.  Aroma hops come in softerwaves than flavor hops.

Epic Brewing has three other variations on thisbeer:  (Elevated Series) CopperCone Pale Ale, (Elevated Series) Hopulent IPA, and (Exponential Series)Imperial IPA.  Copper Conetypically ranges from 6% to 7%ABV and I tend to think of it as a Pale Ale Extra– meaning half way between a Pale Ale and an IPA in hopping.

Hopulent IPA weighs in at 8 to 9% and averages closeto a pound of dry hops per barrel (31 US gallons).  It is much more of an aggressive beer than either SpiralJetty or Copper Cone.

There aren’t many of Epic’s beers that I haven’thad the pleasure of trying.  TheExponential Series Imperial IPA is one of them.  Rest assured, I will steadily working my way through theirlist of beers