So, almost three years to the day after deciding to create this site I brewed the inaugural beer to be written about.

This beer comes from the Red Car Brewing Co. in Orange County, CA. It’s a clone recipe that I originally stumbled upon in a monthly Brewing Magazine, and tried to re-create because of how impressed the authors were when they unexpectedly found this beer on a road trip. I first attempted this brew back when I was an extract brewer. The use of specialty grains was very exotic to me, and made me feel like I was big shit. I’m sure I did plenty of bragging to the Mrs. about the kickass brewery she now resided in.
Anyhow, this one turned out better than any I’d made before (or since), so why not make it the first beer to chronicle on Forty Pints? Shit … why not make it the House Beer for that matter? (Good question–I’ll take that under advisement.)

The recipe I followed two days ago was the all-grain version of this clone. The details are as follows:

10.5 lbs. (4.75 kg) 2 row pale malt grain
9 oz. (.25 kg) crystal 60°L grain
2 oz. (57 g) chocolate grain
½ Tsp. yeast nutrient (15 min.)
6.5 AAU Nugget hop pellets (60 min.) (.5 oz./ 14 g of 13% alpha acid)
4 AAU Willamette hop pellets (30 min.) (.8 oz./ 23g of 5% alpha acid)
1.7 AAU Cascade hop pellets (5 min.) (.3 oz./ 8.5g of 5.75% alpha acid)
White Labs WLP 002 (English Ale) or Wyeast 1098 (English Ale) yeast
.75 cup (150g) of corn sugar for priming (if bottling)

Of course, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly.