But, soft! What light, through yonder IPA breaks?

A delicious IPA. Yesterday.

It is the beer, that welcomes in the sun.

And with that it was spring. As has become typical around here we were enticed with gradually warming temps, only to be suddenly slammed by snow beyond vernal equinox. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure its worse back east (on both sides of the pond), but it was a most jarring contrast albeit a brief one. Thankfully that is behind us and Seattle is now quite balmy... at least by recent standards.

And to the matter at hand; our dear sweet libations. Much has happened in the intervening period since last we spoke. Our testing ground IPA is coming to fruition, and our Pistachio Porter has matured to term - both are excellent. Although at risk of falling foul of the trappings of hubris, I had fully expected that would be the case with the Porter. The IPA however, has surprised in spades. From a modest beginning with the simplest of grain bills and a moderate to aggressive hop schedule I had expected to come out with a serviceable yet somewhat hop-heavy end result. However, the beer we've ended up with is somewhat startlingly delicious. The balance of hops seems to have worked quite nicely, and instead of overwhelming the whole affair they instead have deftly complemented the malty goodness with but a hint of bitterness and a smooth, soft edge. Hop-heads might not sing its praises, but its got a decent identity and has been worthwhile beyond the simple exercise of finding how clear we could make a lighter beer and seeing the results of using but one style of grain.

So if you see me, give me a shout, we've a bonnie pair and the Amber is but a couple of weeks away. I think that might end up being the catalyst for some kind of hootenanny so mark you calendars for a weekend in early to mid April for Sound and Fury goodtimes. We've even been expanding our kegging capacity in order to mark the occasion.

See our kegs, see our kegs - made from real Stainless Steel...

We've added 8 Cornelius Kegs since we put the Porter on tap, so we're going to be needing some help sampling our wares (or we'll have a very unproductive next few brewery days). We're also going to be working on classing up our dispensing system. But that's for the next post.