First off HOPZILLA is on tap right now. 65IBUs, American IPA.

Jean on Color Patrol

Now down to today. Right now we are brewing an old favorite of mine called Highland Flame. There’s a funny storie behind the name of this Scottish Ale: about 10 years ago I was asked to make a beer for the Scottish Highland Society. This group is a hoot. You know, men in skirts with daggers, LOTs and lots of bagpipes, little girls dancing, scotchscotchscotch. In any case they needed a Scottish Ale for their Highland Games (mostly head butting, rock throwing and drinking. My kind of people) and they had the name all ready to go. They wanted to call it Highland Fling which is the name of a famous highland dance. Turns out I can’t hear so well and all of the t-shirts and signage came back with HIGHLAND FLAME on ‘em. The beer rocked and all was forgiven. They did give me a sport kilt which they made me wear to the tapping party….

On to the beer. Highland Flame is a Scottish Ale low in alcohol and high in flavor. I like to think of it as dark beer for the summer. We used just a touch of this killer new smoked malt from Briess which I am also excited about. I stopped by Rock Bottom last night to borrow some Edinbourough Ale yeast from my friend Brian and have a few beers. I’m in fine ’Scottish form’ today, so this thing should be over the top. Expect a smoked porter made with the smoked malt soon too. Here’s a shot of Jean checking out the wort color. Sure looks tasty doesn’t it?