Strawberry Cream Ale?!?!

So, we've been talking about making this beer for little over a year now. The original concept came from my assistant, 'Scuba' Steve, to add 60 lbs of strawberries to a beer style that is uniquely American and originated on the east coast. I said, "right on, let's do it!". The idea being that we'd present this beer on or around the fortnight that Wimbledon was happening...strawberries and cream...get it? The name of the beer was going to be Forty Love (40-0). Genius!(Well, at least we think so.) The timing just didn't work out for us to brew this beer for that time of year. We already had Graduation on tap the month before and we thought that back to back fruit beers would diminish just how unique both beers were. Fast forward to 2010. The strawberries we ordered were still resting comfortably in their cryogenic state;90 lbs of them, in fact. We have an open fermenter. We have grain and hops. We have extra yeast. Hmmmm. Long story short, Forty Love is being brewed as I type this. Instead of Wimbledon as the tie in for this beer, we will now be shooting for a Valentine's Day unveiling. Darn, aren't we smart? For the beer geeks out there-you know who you are- the grain bill is German Pilsner, American 2-row Pale malt and Belgian Cara-pils. Saaz and Strisselspalt hops. 18 IBU's. We're going to use our Chico yeast strain on this baby. Lager yeast could be used, too. But, this style calls for a warm fermentation and since we will be making our Steamer in a few weeks, I just figured ale yeast would be better. 60 lbs. of strawberries will be added into the fermenter at knock out, and 30 lbs. of macerated strawberries will be used in the dry hopping. I really hope it turns the beer a hue of red....we'll see! See y'all soon! PLB-boog