Poo Dollar Memories

This past weekend I had a few of the guys from my fraternity over. They came in Friday night and one of the guys who is now a 5 star chef and masters grad from the CIA, cooked up steak and lobster on the grill and we washed it down with the Poo Dollar IPA. (My chef friend was all sorts of impressed with the beer so that was a small victory)

As much as this was a fun get together, it was also an emotional one. We went to Rochester to say our good byes to a close friend. Chung (pictured here to the right of me) was a good friend and we are all going to miss him. The IPA was named Poo Dollar after a game that Chung made up. It consisted of taking a dollar bill and picking up a piece of dog poo with it. After that you leave the dollar on the sidewalk (poo side down of course) and let the hilarity begin. Anyway, he used to have a sinister little giggle when he would talk about Poo Dollar.

Named appropriately, Poo Dollar IPA has Chung's evil little fingers all over it. It's what we would call back in college a "creeper." One of the guys that was over was really throwing them back and kept telling me I was lying about the ABV and that it was not that strong. In fact he went so far as to pound a full glass before he wonked out for the night. Well the next morning the joke was on him. That Poo Dollar creeped up and nailed a spike through his head in his sleep. He looked (and probably felt) like shit. It was great.

Anyway, a quick review of the Poo Dollar; It has a very pinny smell right out of the tap. The head is hit or miss because I was screwing around with the PSI on my keg more than anything, but when you get a good pour, the head retention it strong with a tint of copper. The color of the beer is on the darker side of an IPA, I would say it has the color of an DIPA. The flavor profile if not what I expected. There is a flowery, pinny almost off flavor that is coming out of the hops. I am not sure how to nail it down, but it is not the kind of tastes you would expect from an IPA. Nonetheless, it's very good on the malt side of things, though most of the malt character is really drowned out by the hops.

Drinkability is dangerously delicious. These guys slide right down and weighing in at just under 8%, they really do creep up on you, like picking up a dollar bill only to find poo on the other side.

Now since last weekend put a real dent in my brew supply, I had to push up the brewing of my next batch. Instead of doing an all-grain, because I am working on some tight time schedule stuff, I am going to brew an extract batch. This is my second shot at a flavor beer and it's a vanilla cream ale. I looked into buying vanilla beans, but they are so damn expensive I couldn't bring myself too it, so I bought some pricey extract. Here is the recipe:


5.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) 83.3 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) 8.3 %
0.25 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) 4.2 %
0.25 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) 4.2 %
0.50 oz Hallertauer [4.80%] (60 min) 9.6 IBU
0.50 oz Mt. Hood [6.00%] (30 min) 9.3 IBU
1 Pkgs California Lager (Wyeast Labs #2112)
1 fl oz Bourbon Vanilla Bean Extract
OG-1.043

I am brewing this tomorrow night so we will see.

Cheers!