Beer de Blank, King Ben's Smoked Porter, IPA

Saturday Rodney and I did a little busy work around the cellar, cleaning and controlling some of the chaos. I owe him some beers for doing the heavy lifting until I have back surgery in January. Three beers were transfered into their respectful secondary conditioning vessels. The Biere de Blank (not Blanc, but Blank) dropped from an original gravity of 1.072 to a final of 1.010. It is spicy,malty and warming and pretty damn tasty and a warming 8.1% ABV. It will get two months of cold conditioning before it is corked and bottle conditioned. Ben's smoked porter is still kind of young, but attenuated down to about a 1.022. A good couple of weeks in the secondary and I think this beer will come into its own. The IPA was transfered as well and I can't speak for Rodney, but this was my favorite, and I think the best IPA we have made so far. We kept the grain recipe the same as we always have, but Rodney played around with the hopping schedule using the idea of adding alsmost all of the hops in the last 20 minutes of the boil. This beer has huge hop flavor while not being overly bitter.I can't wait to try this with our new whirlpool chiller.Even more so, I can't wait until this baby is carbonated and sitting in my pint glass. I was excited and gave Adrian (the newest authority of hoppy beers on the scene) a barrel sample. I think it may have surpassed her standards, and she is my toughest critic.