Brown Beer and Autumn Hikes: Two Great Tastes that Go Great Together!

The last two weekend I've gone hiking. After these hiking trips I have enjoyed a brown ale at a local watering hole. I thought I would share those with you.

The first hike was at Laurel River near Hot Springs, NC. It was a 7 mile hike total, which was a little long for someone like me. I really wanted to give up at about the 6 mile mark but where would I go? No helicopter would come rescue me, so I had to keep hiking.

After we did finally crawl back to the car we drove into the town of Hot Springs to the Spring Creek Tavern and had a seat at the bar. It is a really nice place with great atmosphere. We haven't tried their food yet, but we plan to next time we're up in Hot Springs.

I ordered a Bell's Best Brown, a great year round brown beer brewed by Bell's in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I consider Bell's my first craft brewery even though that is a slight exaggeration. I went to college in Kalamazoo but at the time I didn't drink beer at all so I can't really claim to have been a fan in the 90s. I'm willing to jump on that band wagon now, though.

This brown ale is one of my favorites when I am in the mood for malty goodness, which I usually am about this time of year. It is well balanced with just enough hops to give it some character but not too much to draw attention away from the roasted malt flavors.

If you like traditional browns with just a hint of something extra this one is a good bet for you. It is sweet and caramel-y. It is perfect for a crisp fall afternoon or for the first beer to quench your thirst after a long and strenuous hike.

For the second hike in as many weeks, we drove down to Tallulah Gorge in North Georgia and met up with some friends from Atlanta. The hike around the gorge is pretty easy with the most difficult being over 600 steps down to a suspension bridge and 500 steps back up to the top of the gorge. It took me a while to make it up the steps. I'm not really what you would call "in shape" and I have asthma so I puffed my way up one section of stairs at a time.

After our hike we drove up to the town of Clayton, Georgia and discovered their quaint downtown area. We stopped for dinner and drinks at the Universal Joint. I was surprised to find this place in such a small town. There is also a Universal Joint in Ashevlle.

There I ordered a Duck Rabbit Brown Ale which is brewed in Farmville, North Carolina. They served it to me in a Red Hare glass, which is a brewery out of Atlanta. It seemed appropriate. Duck Rabbit specializes in dark beers and their Milk Stout is one of my very favorites of all time, which I know is a pretty bold declaration.

Duck Rabbit Brown Ale is rich with a very well played bitterness to the hops profile. It is a strong beer that can stand up on its own if you like that sort of thing. The dominating flavors for me in this one is chocolate and coffee but neither are overwhelming. They play off each other and the hoppy bitterness very well. If you want a brown beer with a little more punch than most of them check out this one.

Have you been out hiking this fall? Have you stopped for a beer afterwards to quench your thirst? What have you been drinking?

How About Some Browns

When I started this series I suggested that classic American Brown Ales were also "Fall Beers." There is no real reason for this except my personal preference. Unlike Oktoberfests and Pumpkin ales, you can get brown beers all year round but the comforting roasty flavors of browns make me thing of the cooling weather and falling leaves so I drink them this time of year.

Here are a couple browns that I've had recently.

Sweet Josie Brown.

Lonerider Brewery out of Raleigh, North Carolina, brews a fine brown beer called Sweet Josie Brown. It is, in fact, a pretty sweet little brown ale. It is very dark and the head is thick and creamy. It has a delightful sweet chocolate malt flavor with some light hops to balance it out, but not to many to make it an overly bitter beer. This is a really great drinking brown and goes well with a lot of flavors. I admit to drinking this one other times of the year as well if the desire to have a brown ale strikes me.

(I didn't have any good props for the photo of Sweet Josie Brown)

Beer Guy Grown.

Here in Asheville there is a local beer guy named Tony Kiss. In fact, people here do call him "The Beer Guy." Asheville Brewing created a tribute beer of sorts called Beer Guy Brown that they release again from time to time. I hadn't been able to grab it on tap there...until yesterday. The Asheville Brewing location on Merrimon Rd. in North Asheville is also known as the Brew N' View where you can see $3 second run movies and order a pizza and beer at the same time. Super fun times!  This week we went to see The Wolverine when I saw the tap labeled "Beer Guy Brown." I was finally able to give this delicious beer a try. It is a really drinkable beer - what people in the know call "sessionable." This just means it would make a great afternoon sipper for leaf watching from your back patio. Or something. It went very well with my buffalo chicken salad as well.I'm not sure how long this batch of Beer Guy Brown will last at Asheville Brewing, but I highly recommend getting out to give it a try.

(As you might imagine, it is difficult to get a photo of a beer in a dark movie theater.)

What kind of brown ales do you love this time of year?

Autumn Seasonal Beer Time!

Highland Clawhammer Oktoberfest 2012

Hello very neglected beer blog. I attempted to make an effort to post here more during Asheville Beer Week and only managed one post. I am a bad beer writer.

But I like to think of myself as a good beer drinker.

Beer drinking is very much a pastime that exists in the now. By that I mean while I am out enjoying the beer I think of all the wonderful things I would like to share about it but then I get back to my regularly scheduled programming and I don't think about it again. I want to share my love of beer with you, I really do.

Now that summertime is coming to an end all the craft brewers are coming out with their Fall seasonals. I love Fall seasonals. The Browns! The Pumpkins! The Oktoberfests! As the weather begins to cool down and the leaves begin to fall I want nothing more than to put on a sweater and drink these rich delicious beers.

So, readers - I would like to make a commitment to you. As I experience the Fall seasonal beers here in Asheville, NC and sold here from around the country I will share my experience with you. That is a promise! 

So stick around for an exploration of Autumn, beer style! 

If you know of any Fall seasonal releases from Asheville brewers or companies that distribute to my area, please let me know! I would love to seek them out! 

Great Beer Night

It has been a while since I've paid much attention to this blog. With my other projects, sometimes this one gets a little neglected.  Making beer is very much a repetitive process, so sometimes I don't feel the motivation to write about it after I've done it.

However, there has been another aspect to Beer and Now that I have been neglecting. The beer experience. I have certainly had some great ones this summer.  Last month, we spent an afternoon at Highland Brewery in Asheville.  We've also been spending some times at local Atlanta bars enjoying new brews. But last night was one of the best beer nights I have had in a while.  

After work, I picked Matt up at our apartment and we drove up to our favorite beer bar, and one of Atlanta's best kept secrets.  We had a mission, so we decided that while we were enjoying some tasty craft brews, we would also work on a budget for our project in South Africa.  We ordered our first beer, the Southern Tier Harvest, and some food. This past week in Atlanta had cooled down significantly after Hurricane Lee swept through and yesterday really felt more like a gorgeous Autumn day. The Harvest Ale felt like a great kick off to an early fall.  I don't usually associate ESBs, which is one of my favorite styles, with Autumn beers, but it was a really well done brew.  The color evoked the season perfectly with the orange-amber lights and the flavors were earthy and malty with just a hint of caramel.  We got some food too and chowed down before the table was cleared and we set up our laptops to work on the budget for the shelter project.

While we researched and set up our spread sheet, we were ready for our second brew of the night.  Matt had the Rogue Love and Hoppiness. He wasn't as impressed as he was hoping to be, but he said it was all right.  I, on the other hand, tried the Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale. Here is the thing about pumpkin beers.  They are either hit or miss - either they blow your mind or they taste like pumpkin flavored water. I asked our waitress her opinion before ordering and she said that this was the good kind of pumpkin ale - full of spicy flavors. I went with it and seriously did not regret the decision. She was right about the spices. The flavors of clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg were prominent and a fresh pumpkin taste. 

Nearing the end of our research, it was time to try our third beer of the night.  Matt got the Stone 15th Anniversary Black IPA, which our waitress said was super hoppy and really good. He agreed and my sip did confirm it as well.  But since I had been enjoying Fall Seasonals all night, I really wanted to keep it going.  So, I did the unthinkable... I ordered a beer I have already had before!  The Sierra Nevada Tumbler has long been one of my favorites. Since I do love a good brown beer, this one is a great Autumn offering and it was exactly what I was looking for.  It is just a solid brown beer with some nutty flavors.

We had already packed up our laptops and were finishing our beers when we asked for the check.  While that is normally the end of a great evening out, that was actually when the fun began.  Two guys who had been standing at the bar came over and said "Hey, we saw you were paying and we wanted to know if we could be vultures and get your table?" So told them they certainly could and they sat down in the other two chairs. They introduced themselves and we started talking. We started talking about beer, of course, because we were all enjoying fancy beers at a fancy beer bar. Then, it turns out, one of the guys is This Guy. Now, we went from talking about enjoying beer to brewing beer.  Matt and I told him we were home brewers and that we had a pomegranate wheat in the carboy. He told us that he started homebrewing and now he does contract brewing with Thomas Creek in South Carolina.  Then his friend asked us if any of us were musicians and Matt told them he had been a drummer since he was a kid and recently took up the guitar and singing. Both guys were also musicians so then we talked about music for a while.  And finally, somehow, the conversation got around to building and we talked to them about our cabin in North Carolina and about or project in South Africa. 

It was such a great night.  We got a lot of work done, drank some fantastic beers and met some folks who seem pretty cool.  That is one of the things I like about the "Culture of Beer".  There is something about this shared interest that can really open up those spontaneous social situations. Seriously, hanging out at the bar and talking to strangers is truly one of my favorite hobbies.  You just never know who you'll meet.

Damn, I make good beer!

Okay, I don't want to jinx myself and I am sure the first bad batch of beer is coming eventually, but my most recent batch is awesome.  The Austin Home Brew modified brown recipe is delicious.  A little bit nutty, a little bit chocolaty.  It has a beautiful thick and creamy head that leaves a beautiful lacing on the glass.  I couldn't be more pleased. 

Here is the party pig - along with whatever it was we were making for dinner.  

Yum.  

A couple of weeks ago, we stopped by a local home brew store - Brewmaster's Warehouse. I was planning to design my own beer but I wasn't feeling too confident when we got there.  I decided to just have them help me pick out a recipe.  We went with an American wheat.  I do plan to modify this one as well, but my plan is to add pomegranate as a part of a secondary fermentation.  There are a few companies that do a pomegranate wheat, so I imagine that it can either be amazing or really horrible.  I'll keep you updated. 

Chocolatey and Roasty

Chocolatey and roatsy are two of my favorite words when it comes to beer. If a beer is either chocolatey or roasty they are typically beers that I like.

Yesterday, Matt and I bottled the latest beer that I had brewed about a month earlier along with some friends. I wasn't sure what to expect since I had taken a recipe from Austin Homebrew Supply and added an additional pound of dark malt. I wasn't sure what this modified recipe would do for the final product and since reading Designing Great Beer I have learned that randomly adding ingredients isn't precisely the way to modify a recipe. So, as I set about cleaning and sanitizing the space, equipment and bottles I was little nervous about the outcome.

Once we started the siphon, I put some beer in the hydrometer tube to determine the final gravity and alcohol content. I think we finally have a hang of this process and the beer ended up being about 4.5% alcohol by volume which I think might be the first time I've made something more than near-beer.  (Actually, I don't think that is true entirely, but I'm just not certain what the content was in the previous two batches was).

Then as the beer was transferring from the carboy to the bottling bucket, I poured two sample glasses of the finished but not carbonated beer.  I really wasn't sure what to expect. I was a little worried, to be honest.  What if this beer just wasn't good at all. I suppose I shouldn't have been too worried, the beer had a great foundation with good flavors including chocolate malt.  It smelled pretty good so I proceeded to give it a small sip. And I was pleasantly surprised.  The chocolate and roast flavors were the most pronounced. It was probably the most complex beer I  made so far.  It is, I should say. 

We filled the Party Pig and then bottled about another case and a half.  It just needs to condition for about three weeks or so and then chilled and enjoyed.  We plan to try the Party Pig first and save the bottles for a summer camping trip with friends so we can share it.  I can't wait to taste it once it is carbonated in the bottles.

Girls a-Brewin'!

Matt has been out of town.  Actually, out of the country.  He is in Toronto with his brother this weekend.  But I wanted to brew the next batch of beer, so I set out to do just that.  I invited our friends Andy and Emily over for some assistance and company.  The process went smoothly and the beer is fermenting away as we speak so I would consider it a success so far. 

Since Emily was helping me out with the brewing this week I got to pondering the role of women in home brewing.  I'm familiar with the history of brewing and that it had long been a woman's role in the household, but then the 20th century came and it became the domain of the college-age man.  There is a female presence in the professional brewing industry, but still don't hear a lot about women home brewers.  When googling the subject, you find some articles as old as 1994 and messages in forums wondering if there are any women out there, but receiving only a few responses.  It seems that beer hadn't been an interest for women until the craft beer boom in recent years, so it seems to me that brewing would be a hobby more women would want to get involved in. 

So, this weekend, with Emily helping me with my third batch of beer ever (and second brown) I wanted to celebrate Girl Power in brewing.  I really enjoy this process and I am getting more comfortable with my skills. I'm ready to move on to designing my own recipes. Maybe I can lead the way to a girls home brewing movement.  Who's with me? 

Introducing: Sphynx Cat Home Brew

Today, I opened my first bottle of home brewed beer. I wasn't sure at all what to expect. It was hoping for "Well, that's all right."

I was pleased to discover that what I had was "Wow, that is really good!" Now, of course, this is a beer brewed from a kit, but considering it was my first attempt I feel really good about it. 

Sure, it seems cheezy to name your home brew, but I am doing it anyway. My beer is named after my Sphynx Cat, Piglet. This first beer is the BareKitty Brown. And it is yummy.

I am excited to brew my second batch now. 

The consequences of questionable decisions

There are a lot of poor decisions that beer consumption can lead to*. "Drink Responsibly" is not just a catch phrase in advertising for alcoholic beverages. Understanding your own responsibility when it comes to beer is probably the most important thing you can consider before enjoying that beverage.

There are some lesser infractions, however. This Super Bowl Sunday, I gave in to one of those. The "Free Beer Glass" decision. I love collecting beer glasses. I have a growing collection. Occasionally, though, it is probably a good idea just to say no.

As you may have seen recently, I just spent a week's vacation traveling in the south east. On that trip, with friends, we went to a local sports bar to watch the game between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Being a Detroit Lions fan, it is sometimes difficult for me to get really into the super bowl game. We arrived by cab at this sports bar a little before the game and planned to stay until about half time and get some wings and have a couple of drinks. The waitress approached and told us about her specials, which included "blah blah blah blah with free football shaped beer glass blah blah blah blah." I was sold. I didn't care what it was, I wanted that beer glass. She even told us that since we get to keep the glass after we drink the first beer we could just get pitchers of other beer and use the glasses. This sounded like the best idea ever.

Turns out, the beer was Coors Light. Now, if you enjoy Coors, that is fine for you. What ever you like, I'm okay with that. I do not, however, like it. Many years ago, our friend Dann (who we were traveling with) offered me a Coors Light style beer when we first met and I looked at him and said "No! Beer Yucky!" which he thought was hilarious. It was a shock to him when he learned I was enjoying beer at all. Well, for me Coors is the epitome of "Beer Yucky." But for the good of the Football Shaped Beer Glass (tm), I was willing to suffer through.

Thankfully, we did have that option to purchase pitchers to fill up our Coors Light glasses after the first sampling. We resolved that problem with Sweetwater 420. Interestingly enough, I am just starting to explore pale ales. I find that this Atlanta brewery's flagship beer is a very drinkable beer.

Later in the week, I felt the need to make reparations for the partially regretted decision to get the Football Shaped Beer Glasses (tm). While on a visit to the beautiful Biltmore in Asheville on the last day of our vacation, Matt and I enjoyed some Biltmore brewed beers and acquired a more sophisticated pair of pints. I enjoyed the brown ale and Matt had the pale ale.

I suppose this will not be the last time I fall victim for the free glass with purchase trap. Sometimes you get nice glasses, and sometimes you get Football Shaped Beer Glasses (tm).

*Please be aware that this video is pretty intense. No matter how intense it is, the Australian PSA might be one of the most powerful drunk driving commercials anyone can watch.

Bottles of Beer!

Another step in the beer brewing process has been achieved today.  After returning yesterday from our vacation we spent today bottling our first batch of home brewed beer. 

We cleaned the kitchen, got everything set up and sanitized our tools.  We popped the carboy up on the counter and siphoned it into the bottling bucket on the floor.  During this process we also took a sample for the hydrometer and we added the priming sugar solution.  We realized at this point that we had recorded our initial gravity reading incorrectly and because of that we were unable to calculate our alcohol content.  So, the recipe suggested that it would be about a 4.5% alcohol beer so we're going with that. It was also a good time to taste the beer.  The color was a perfect brown color and it tasted like not-half-bad flat beer, which I suppose is exactly what it is supposed to taste like at this point.  I can't wait for it to condition in the bottles so we can taste it with the right carbonation. 

At this point, it was time to  bottle the beer.  We used typical amber colored 12 ounce bottles which we had washed, sanitized and rinsed.  We used the sweet bottle rinsing attachment on the kitchen sink.  It is a little brass doohickey that goes on the faucet and points up with a lever that when you push the bottle down, pressurized water swooshes into the bottle.  What fun! 

We put the bottling bucket up on the counter and tried at first to use the spigot to bottle the beer.  I found this method messy.  So we attached the siphon hose to the spigot along with a nifty spring loaded attachment.  You stick that into the bottle and press down until it fills up to the mouth of the bottle and when you remove the device the bottle is filled to a perfect level.  It worked very well.  Then we set the bottles in the dishwasher just to dry, which you can see behind me. 

Of course, after bottling comes bottle capping. We have the simple hand held bottle capping tool and it was so easy to use that even I could do it.  It didn't require any sort of brute force, just the right downward pressure and it was a snap. 

As I said, now it is a waiting game.  The bottles need to sit and condition in a cool, dry place.  This will ensure that it they are carbonated properly.  I believe that we will end up with a thoroughly drinkable beer. 

In other beer news, I also received a package today containing the ingredients for my next two batches of beer.  I found a great website called Austin Homebrew Supply where they sell "kits" for beer making but not the traditional beer kit in a box like the one we just did.  Essentially, they have developed several recipes and sell you the combinations of ingredients to brew that particular beer.  It opens the door for some experimentation as well.  We ordered the recipe and ingredients for another brown as well as for an ESB.  We are in Atlanta this coming weekend so we think we might brew up our second batch of beer while we're home. 

There will be beer!

Yesterday, I brewed my very first batch of beer. It remains to be seen if this batch is indeed successful - we'll know after a few weeks when we bottle it and chill it. 

I woke up kind of early on Saturday because my brain started working and I was getting excited about trying my first home brew.  I started the day by cleaning everything as per instructions.  Matt and I are by no means dirty people, but the kitchen was the cleanest I think it has ever been once I finished with it.  A little at 1pm our friend Emily came over to hang out while making the beer.  We all decided that it was imperative to enjoy beer while making beer so Matt was drinking Sierra Nevada Pale ale, I had a Left Hand Milk Stout and Emily was drinking Framboise Lambic. 

The brewing process was pretty much a one girl show.  I felt pretty good following the directions.  I decided to start with a kit because it was my first time brewing.  I wanted to be able to follow the directions step by step so I understood the process and could take that to experimentation with recipes in the future.  Before Emily arrived I spent some time actually writing out my own step by step directions using notes from my first beer making tutorial with Beer Yoda Bill several weeks ago, the book The Joy of Homebrewing and the directions included with my kit.  I started by making a brown ale, because it is my favorite style of beer. 

Step 1, Clean and Sanitize
I did all of this, as I said, before Emily arrived.  The kitchen was sparkling, the equipment was ready to go. 

Step 2, Prepare Malt Can
This was something beer Yoda Bill showed me how to do and I didn't realize it was standard practice. I removed the label from the can and soaked it in a hot water bath so it would soften and become more liquid-y. 

Step 3,  Boil Water
The directions for the kit said 1 to 1.5 gallons of water.  This seemed low, but I wanted to follow the directions.  However, I decided specifically to start with the lower end because I knew this would not be a high alcohol beer and I thought (maybe erroneously) that the more concentrated the ingredients were perhaps it would be a little stronger.  I don't suppose that really does matter because you add a lot of water in the end anyway.  But, there I was with 1 gallon of boiling water.

Step 4, Add Extract, Malt and Hops
The package directions suggested I take the water off the heat at this point to mix in the ingredients.  I did turn the burner off but after getting the extract out of the can, I decided to turn the heat back up because that was how we made the beer at Beer Yoda Bill's.  I slowly added the malt powder mixing it with the paddle to make sure there were no lumps.  Then I added the hops, which the beer store people assured me wouldn't make the beer too hoppy, it was just there for a little bitterness and aroma.  I trusted them. 

Step 5, Bring back to Boil

Step 6, Boil for 30 minutes

Once it came back to a boil, I set the kitchen timer for 30 minutes.  I noticed in the package directions they were pretty noncommittal in regards to how long to boil it.  I decided to boil it at the long end of the suggested times.  This was done for purely unscientific reason.

Step 7, Pour Cool Water in Carboy
I don't remember doing this at Beer Yoda Bills, but it made sense to me.  By having cool water in the carboy it would help bring the beer temp down significantly once it was in the carboy.  The package directions suggested "3 to 4 Gallons" so we went with 3. 


Step 8, Pour Mixture Over Ice Into Carboy

The ice trick was something we had learned from Bill.  It was an easy way to bring down the temp of the mixture quickly.  We used a giant no-splatter funnel that we bought when we got our equipment.  I really liked it.  We put in the funnel filter but also used, at the recommendation of the beer store people, an additional nylon bag screen that we fit over the funnel.  This was to keep a lot of the sludge out of the carboy.  Worked like a charm.  We filled it up with ice and then slowly poured the beer mixture through and let it filter and melt down and then repeated this step until all the mixture was in the carboy.  My assistants were very helpful in this endeavor.  This photo is a dramatic recreation. 


Step 9, Add More Cold Water
The final number of total gallons in the carboy was to be about 5.  We calculated how may gallons we already had and added a couple more to get it up to what should be 5.  It looked to be at about the same level I remember Beer Yoda Bill's wort being in the carboy so I felt good about it. 

Step 10, Temperature
The wort at this time needs to be between 70 and 80 degrees to be able to pitch the yeast.  We dropped in the thermometer and it was perfect - about 75. 

Step 11, Take Gravity Reading
Our specific gravity at this time was 1.38.  This was great since it said the starting gravity would be about 1.45.  The lower the gravity the higher the probably alcohol content so I am guessing it'll be slightly higher in the end than the 4.5% that the package indicates.  This is good, actually.  Not that I am trying to make an 11.5% alcohol beer, but I didn't want to make O'Doul's

Step 11a, Taste the Wort

I failed to put this on the list, to Emily wrote it in.  When we tasted the wort at Beer Yoda Bill's house it tasted like bread.  This is normal.  His beer was a wheat, while ours is barley based but it still should taste like bread.  We put a little into some cordial glasses my sister got us for Christmas.  (She liked them because they looked like little beer pilsners and because they were tiny she bought them for our tiny house) They were perfect.  The wort tasted like water and bread and I think that was about right.  Bill's tasted less like water but he had used a LOT more malt to get a higher gravity beer so the difference even made sense to us. 


Step 12, Pitch the Yeast
There was some conflicting information about how exactly to pitch the yeast.  Some suggest mixing or shaking the carboy to make sure it is all incorporated into the wort.  Some suggest just pouring it in and letting it drop on its own.  I hadn't yet made the decision but the decision was made for me soon in the process.

Step 13 Add Airlock
Throughout this whole process I thought to myself "Wow, this has been really easy".  There was no issue, no complications.  I followed the steps and I felt really good about it.  Then I had the "Oh Shit" moment. Matt, while attempting to be helpful, stuffed the airlock stopper too far into the carboy neck.  In an attempt to get it out, we simply managed to push it into the wort.  That the was moment where I thought to myself, "I can't do this?  What am I doing? I suck."  It is a feeling I've had several times in my life, but I think it is those challenges that make the ultimate experience worth while.  After I few choice words, Matt made an emergency run to the beer supply store. 

Step 13a: Buy New Airlock Stopper
When he went in the owner was there and he said to her, "We have an emergency!  We have just put our beer into the carboy with the yeast and we don't have a stopper!"  She told him to just take it and he came back within just a few minutes.  A quick google search later I discovered that this is not an uncommon problem.  We will deal with getting the sanitized stopper out after the beer is done fermenting. 

Step 14 Take over the World
After our beer brewing adventure we decided instead of taking over the world we would simply walk up to a local restaurant for dinner, which was yummy.  We'll take over the world some other time. 

Over night, the yeast started working it's yeasty magic and the airlock is happily blurp-blurping away.  The next part of the process is to simply wait.  The fermenting beer smells like hops, which I also googled to find is completely normal.  In fact, it seems that fermenting beer can smell like all sorts of things so hops is one of the more normal smells.  It should mellow after a short time. 

Now, we wait.  Watch for updates on my first brown beer once we get to the bottling stage.