Hob Headless Porter

Brew #13: The Hob Headless: a porter modeled a bit after Deschutes Black Butte Porter and Anchor's Porter. Honestly, I cant quite remember exactly what recipes I referenced while working up my own, but what came out, tastes a lot like the above mentioned, esp. the Black Butte.



The name of the brew is inspired by an old English tale about a Hobgoblin they called "Hob Headless". I came across a mention of the tale during a recent re-reading of Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon. Looking for more info, all I could locate was one paragraph from a book titled Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern counties of England and the borders by William Henderson. Wildcat assisted me in brewing (and bottling) this one, and also designed the labels. He did a great job imagining Hob Headless, and also included the blurb on one version of the label. A good brew for winter.





Hob Headless Porter
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Malts
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8 lbs Malt Extract
1 lb 2-Row
1 lb Special B
.5 lb Chocolate Malt
.25 lb Vienna
.25 lb Munich

Hops
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2 oz Fuggles (4.5%)

Yeast
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White Labs Yorkshire Square Ale WLP037

Etc
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1 lb Turbinado sugar
1 tablet Whirlfloc
1 capsule Servomyces

Basically followed what has become my "normal" method of one-step minimash brewing. I brought the first water (about 1.75 gallons) to 160 F and then added the specialty grains; Mashed for 45 mins; sparged with 170 F water; recirculated etc; 60 minute boil when it hit the flame. 1 oz Fuggles at 60min, 1 oz at 30min, then at 15min added the Turbinado, Whirlfloc & Servomyces.

Fermented at around 68-70

Primed with about 3 oz raw cane sugar

Brewed Sun, November 1, 2009
Racked Tue, November 17
Bottled Sat, November 21