HB Bitter, served from a pint-sized flip top, and let the bottle sit out for awhile to bring it up to a more proper temp - kicking myself for only figuring that out now with only one left, because it's by far at its best this way. Just have to make more...
What made the most improvement was when I started focusing on water profiles and mash ph, it changed everything.
If it's dry yeast I just pitch it in dry; if it's liquid I make a starter or use an appropriate amount of slurry if it's from a fresh batch. Since I started making starters/pitching...
Some of the best news I've heard in a long time! And nice to see the article used only the real Anchor bottle labels, not those awful rebranding monstrosities, hopefully they'll bring those back.
HB Belgian Golden not Strong - Designed to be like Duvel but lower abv, I call it "Little Angel" lol - came in around 5.9% after bottling. Belgian Pils, and opted for 9% table sugar (Duvel uses 17%) + a few ounces dme to make up for a bad grind/low pre-boil gravity; Styrian Golding and Saaz; and...
HB Bitter - Golden Promise and small amounts of Biscuit, Honey, and Pale Chocolate; EKG and Fuggles; wlp 007 (Dry English)- starter from nearly year-old jarred/fridged stout slurry; about 4.5%abv after bottling. Enjoying quite a bit this evening.
HB helles or kolsch (fermented with Wyeast CA lager) - a hellosch? A hair darker than designed due to about half Belgian pale ale malt (shop was out of German) but wonderfully bready and light. And then an old, soon-to-be-extinct favorite.
I think something like a blonde or cream ale would be a great intro to all-grain. I really enjoyed Northern Brewer's Cream Ale kit, and no corn or adjuncts are used. And there are some great HBT classics in the recipes section that are easy and people love them, like the Centennial Blonde or...
Probably helps not to be in San Fran or probably CA in general. Wish they considered relocating and/or downsizing. Kind of feel that there was some mismanagement involved.
As far as i know, cali lager was mainly only used in the Steam beer. Unless you're talking about their ale yeast which was used in most of their other beers, which is pretty distinct, and i could see some people not liking it.