Heady Topper

There are only a few beers in my humble opinion that live up to the hype.  Pliny the Elder being one of them and Heady being another.  I had Heady a few years ago and thought is was really good, but not exceptional.  I'm not sure if it is due to their recent brewery ramp up, or due to the fact that the case I received from my friend Shawn was straight from the brewery, but I was blown away by my latest sampling of Heady.  It has an amazing dankness to it, peachy flavors, with waves and waves of hops.  It also blows me away that it is so good from the can.  The warning on the can is absolutely correct, drink it from the can.  I've had it from a glass and from the can and the can wins every time.  I brewed this clone from an online brew shop.  The shop did not give the exact details of the hops, but they said they would "work" with me if I liked the beer.  I didn't use their S-05, but used the actual Conan yeast that I received from a buddy on HBT.  Since I have a 1/2 case left of the real Heady, I was dying to brew this one up.  I brewed this on my full HERMS system and hit all numbers spot on, awesome.

Grains:
13.2# 2-row
.5# c-20
1.3# corn sugar

Hops:
Warrior at 60
Mix of Chinook, Simcoe and Cascade at 15, plus irish moss
Mix of Chinook, Simcoe and Cascade at 10
Mix of Chinook, Simcoe and Cascade at 3
Mix of Chinook, Simcoe and Cascade at 0
Dry Hop Mix of Chinook, Simcoe and Cascade

Results:
6.9g collected at 1057 without corn sugar, 1068 with corn sugar at 7.1g
6.1g post at 1076
Conan yeast
82% efficiency fly sparge
Mashed at 151-153 (target 151)
Ferment at 66, raise to 68.

Forgot to add my brewing salts, darn again.

New Zealand IPA

I really wanted to brew this IPA with all NZ hops.  They have been growing some really interesting varieties lately.  I brewed this as a tandem brew with my Heady Topper clone.  I did a single batch sparge and came up rather short on volume, but hit my target gravities exactly.  I think I rushed the runoff.  My recirculation pump overheated as well so the mash temps were a bit off.  The 1056 took off in a matter of hours and produced a really nice krausen.  The 4 oz dry hop should be tasty.

Grains:
11.5# 2-row
.5# c-20

Hops:
Hop Total: 4 oz pacific jade, 2 oz Moteuka, 2 oz NZ Hallertau
Split as follows:
.5 oz Pacific Jade at 60 (was closer to .8 oz)
3.5 oz mix of Pacific Jade, Motueka, NZ Hallertau
4oz dry hop mix of Pacific Jade, Motueka, NZ Hallertau

Results:
Mashed at 150 (Target 152)
Batch sparged
5.5 collected at 1053
4.7 post boil at 1062
Wyeast 1056
65.8% efficiency
Ferment at 66, raise to 68

Forgot to add my brewing salts, darn.