I have a goal to brew Saturday evening. First brew at the new house. Means I got to put in some extra work till then per my deal with the boss (Kim). Will brew my Dunkel. Fitting for the first brew.
What are you doing with homebrew today?
- Thread starter BOB357
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Livio De Sanctis won a bronze for his German Pils at NHC and I won a gold at the NHC finals for a German Pils. It was pretty cool that Livio shipped his beer all the way from Italy to Kansas City to win a bronze, but even cooler, he reach out to our home brew club to see if I would be interested in a collaboration beer.
We turned it into a club collaboration between our club in Big Lake, Minnesota and his club in Bra, Italy. He wanted to do a Smoked Pineapple Helles, which over some discussion became a Smoked Pineapple Pale Ale made with BRU-1 hops and 34/70. I was going to source the hops in the US and ship them to Italy so both beers would use the same hop and even the same lot number. I thought it was a great idea, until it went kind of went south.
Turns out shipping to Italy isn't cheap and they see hops as an restricted agriculture product. It costs $190 US to ship a 2 pound package and there is no guarantee that it would be released from customs. Plus an excise tax would be applied.
So Livio had a co-worker from the chocolate company he works for (Ferrero Rocher) who was working at one their plants in Bloomington IL. Livio convinced him to put the hops in his luggage. I just needed to get them to his hotel before he left to go back to Italy.
Long story short, I shipped the hops to the Marriott in Bloomington hotel, Maurizio stuffed them into his luggage and Livio got his hops Monday. I feel like a heroin smuggler, but I got those hops into Italy! We hope to brew the beer the same day and post a bunch of pictures on social media.
Here's the recipe for anyone interested:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1585025/livio-s-smoked-pineapple-pale-ale
We turned it into a club collaboration between our club in Big Lake, Minnesota and his club in Bra, Italy. He wanted to do a Smoked Pineapple Helles, which over some discussion became a Smoked Pineapple Pale Ale made with BRU-1 hops and 34/70. I was going to source the hops in the US and ship them to Italy so both beers would use the same hop and even the same lot number. I thought it was a great idea, until it went kind of went south.
Turns out shipping to Italy isn't cheap and they see hops as an restricted agriculture product. It costs $190 US to ship a 2 pound package and there is no guarantee that it would be released from customs. Plus an excise tax would be applied.
So Livio had a co-worker from the chocolate company he works for (Ferrero Rocher) who was working at one their plants in Bloomington IL. Livio convinced him to put the hops in his luggage. I just needed to get them to his hotel before he left to go back to Italy.
Long story short, I shipped the hops to the Marriott in Bloomington hotel, Maurizio stuffed them into his luggage and Livio got his hops Monday. I feel like a heroin smuggler, but I got those hops into Italy! We hope to brew the beer the same day and post a bunch of pictures on social media.
Here's the recipe for anyone interested:
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1585025/livio-s-smoked-pineapple-pale-ale
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Happy boss, happy brewer!
Planning my next brew which hopefully will be in the next few weeks. Limited space means less brews during the year.
Well, at least a Hop smuggler…
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Wasn't that what the French Connection movie was about....hop smuggling? 
