Brewing a CDA with Adam

Adam and I met at the Evergreen State College in Washington State while taking a program entitled "Food, Health & Sustainability". We soon learned of each others passion for beer and homebrewing.  This particular batch of "Cascadian Dark Ale" (CDA) features Adam's homegrown Cascade and Chinook hops. CDA's are essentially Black IPA's made of ingredients from and brewed within the Cascadian bioregion. I really hope that with the spread of the local food movement, beers, wines, cheeses and other foods will gain regional qualities similar to those that exist(ed) in Europe.

The recipe we used is from NorthernBrewer.com, but ingredients used are either grown locally or purchased locally...

INGREDIENTS

0.25	#	Dehusked Carafa III
0.25	#	Chocolate Malt
0.5	#	Briess Caramel 80
3.15	#	Dark Dry Malt Extract (60 min)
6	#	Dark Dry Malt Extract (15 min)
1	#	Corn Sugar (0 min)
1	oz	Summit Hops (60 min)
1	oz	Chinook Hops (30 min)
1	oz	Cascade Hops (15 min)
1	oz	Chinook Hops (10 min)
1	oz	Cascade Hops (5 min)
1	oz	Cascade Hops (0 min)
1	oz	Summit Hops (dry hop in secondary)

Recipe directions and more can be found here.

Adam and I also concocted a strange mixture of a couple different fermenting beverages I've had lying around for a good while. Sweet Dandelion Wine (too sweet), Sour Gruit Ale (too sour) and a Ginger beer plant (symbiosis of ginger and yeast in an aqueous suspension). We made small mixtures using a 50mm syringe to record each ratio. Finally reaching a nicely balanced mixure, we bottled it so it could carbonate. The end result was a very pleasing sort of fruity, herbal and very booze heavy soda pop.

Below is a slideshow of the days events