Weasel Piss IPA

Camping last weekend we discovered a huge stash of wild hops growing next to our camp on East Clear Creek.  I collected a bunch and went in to the brew shop to ask if anyone knew anything about them.  "Yep" quoth our resident brewmeister, "tastes like cat's piss."  Well that's a bit of a let-down.

But hey!  Am I or am I not an alumni of the Festival 24-hour Alcoholic Porridge?  Did I not help to mash up the grapes of Sulphuric Lemming Juice with my own two hands?  Do I not share a lineage with Fine Banana Wine?  Should I let mere taste, expertise, and certain disappointment dissuade me from trying a thing?  I think not.

So I bought an all-grain American IPA kit, without the finishing hops.  I forgot to get a grain bill - I'll try to remember to ask tomorrow - but the last time I did one it was:

11.5 US 2-Row
8 oz. Carapils
8 oz. Crystal 40

(which can't be right, as this only came to 11 lbs.)  Mashed with 4 gallons at 152 F.  Sparged at 168 F to 6.5 gallons.  Boiled for 1 hour with:

1 oz. (dried) US Magnum (14.7% AA, 6.7% BA)

because a little research told me fresh hops aren't as good for bittering (and a random breed wasn't likely to have much acids.  Selfsame research tells me that fresh hops should be used at roughly 6 times the weight of dried, So I used:

3 oz. at 5 minutes
3 oz. at 0 minutes

(Roughly half the amounts of finishing hops used in the last American IPA.  But it was all I had, and sheesh but it was a pile of hops.)  Cats Piss, as my brew-shop-guy described these hops, turns out to be a duly trademarked name of about half-a-dozen beers.  Thus I dub thee: Weasel Piss.