What a great time we had at Black Diamond Brewing in Concord! Many thanks to Justin and crew for hosting us and giving a great tour of the facilities.

Congratulations to all the brewers that entered the Black Diamond Pro-Am GABF contest. From looking at a few scoresheets, some great beers were in this comp. There were, however, some standout beers that made the top 4:

  1. Coffee Stout from Tom Weber

  2. American Barleywine from Pavel Anisimov

  3. Belgian Tripel from Jeremy Pendrey

and the number 1 beer that will be brewed by Black Diamond and entered in the GABF Pro-Am…………. a Schwarzbier from Jeremy Pendrey. Way to go Jeremy!!

The other special announcment of the evening was a new DOZE project beer.

DOZE 2015 Project Southern Imperial IPA

We are starting a new brewing project aimed at learning about New Zealand Hops. The project will begin with a simple grain bill and WLP001 yeast. From there, you can use any or all of the following NZ Hops available from MoreBeer in any addition you choose.

We will begin this project at the JUNE 29 meeting and continue for several months until we have narrowed a recipe down to 1.

If this beer passes all the taste tests, MoreBeer will feature it in future catalogs as DOZE Southern Imperial IPA, just like they did with our Black IPA.

This is not a contest! It is a learning experience for hop usage. DOZE will get the credit for brewing this beer, not the specific brewer of the final beer.

Here are the recipe specifics: keep the minimums in mind when selecting

Grain Bill (you must use them all)

85-90% Pale Malt

3-8% Dextrine-Cara Pils Malt

2-5% Crystal 40

2-5% corn sugar

Mash at 148-152

Hops (you can use any or all in any addition)

New Zealand Motueka

New Zealand Pacifica

New Zealand Pacific Gem

New Zealand Pacific Jade

New Zealand Wai-iti

New Zealand Wakatu

Starting gravity 1.070-1.090

Yeast = WLP001

Keep diligent notes while brewing this beer, because it is likely you will be brewing it again, and we will need all of your information to assemble a kit from the final recipe.