Sunday 30 December 2012

Christmas Walk Around Round Up

So, here I am. Fresh as a daisy, the day after. A few new places under my belt, and definitely a few more to add to my emergency 'Lost in London and Thirsty' map.

After a bit of a nightmare due to Tube engineering work that were 'planned' but not flagged on the National Rail site, Ian and Julie and I ended up having to take Shanks' Pony to the first stop, the Bavarian Beerhouse in Old Street.

This is a large underground kind of place, and I mean that in terms of its location rather than reputation...I just stopped myself using the term 'bunker' in the context of a recreated Munich beer cellar, that's all. When it gets full, I suspect it is gets warm and noisy. However, we were the first customers in and treated to Erdinger Dunkel and Hefe Weisse to start. I suppose this kind of stuff is all a bit old hat now, but I do like Erdinger, it has just the right balance of banana/clove/bitterness for me. The Dunkel is, perhaps, less refreshing, but the dark malt does add a bit of toastiness that I really like. Anyway, this helped us wash down lunch of schnitzel and an array of sausages, sauerkraut and fries. Great drinking food!

A short step north from here, passing by some very attractive Victorian terraces into an empty space probably forever changed by either 1970's town planners or the Luftwaffe (with the same result one thinks), you arrive at proper old school corner boozer. It sticks out a mile (ma'am), but you also wonder how it does business. Stepping inside, you realise. Voted for again and again by their local CAMRA group, The Wenlock Arms really takes you back. A horseshoe bar dominates, seats against the outer wall with tables and stools. All it really needs is sawdust and a couple of spittoons  and this place is much more at home in 1912 than 2012. The beer was also good, Dark Star APA (has this got a tad weaker? The pump said 4.7%, but I am sure I drank it at 5%) and Rebellion Mild, but there was a selection of about 6 beers. The pub had a few locals and then visitors in, suggesting that people know about this place, which is all to the good. God forbid that we should lose this kind of place! However, if BITE is to be believed it lives in constant threat of 'redevelopment'. Oh, and a final point, the music playing was not obtrusive and great - Fleet Foxes (why do I always think of summer when I hear stuff from their first album , Stones, Elbow, Led Zep (Bron-y-Aur Stomp no less)

From there, we had a 15 minute walk up City Road to Angel - again not a part of the City I am that familiar with. We hit the Old Red Lion Theatre. This was an interesting place, full of period features, but the beer selection was on the popular side (Tribute, Wherry, and TT Landlord). Having said that the Landlord was in fine form; I've had worse pints in so called 'real ale' pubs in Southampton. It was crisp, hoppy with a little hint of sweetness that makes it so drinkable when its good. So no complaints there. The pub was busy, OK there was football on the telly, and then....it emptied. It emptied because, in the corner of the bar, is a box office where you buy tickets to the theatre that sits above it (I assume). An interesting first for me, and Julie has threatened to visit again next year for their Christmas show. I am just hoping that the punters hadn't been told this was West End show!

Ever onwards, we started our descent into the City. A few rights and lefts found us in northern Clerkenwell (I suppose) at the Pakenham Arms. Again, for mid afternoon on a Saturday between Christmas and NYE, the pub was quiet, with  dozen or so 'locals' at the bar - but no less welcoming for this! Julie tried the Sharps wheat beer, which was an interesting beer (none of the wheat beer of earlier in the day, this is a clean, slightly sweetish pale beer with a bit of bubblegum rather than the more interesting banana/clove thing). Ian and I opted for a pint of Nemophilia from the Botanist Brewery, based along the Thames in Kew. This was lovely, dark, roasty but not too bitter, and I am interested to try some of their other beers if they are of this quality. This pub was accompanied by some beer tapas (wasabi peas and crisps!), and another non-obtrusive but fantastic music selection (Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd....have these pubs raided my music collection?). Again, not an area I tend to visit too often, but the pub was great and would definitely go back!

There was a real sense of heading home, as we we took a short walk towards Lamb's Conduit Street, and went into The Lamb. We had been here last year, and it seemed a good place to stop before pressing on towards our final stop. Young's Winter Warmer was our tipple here - nice, but I always think it could do with being a but stronger and fruitier for a real winter ale. The pub was much busier this year than last and MUCH warmer - look, even Julie felt warm, so it must have been hot.

And then, finally, a dash through the rain towards Clerkenwell Road, and Leather Lane's Craft Beer Co. This has been recommended to me so many times, I knew I had to visit this soon. We managed to find a seat to perch on, as it was rather busy, and we spent a bit of time choosing our beer. The Craft Beer Co summed up everything I love and hate about the 'craft beer' thing. The beer was lovely....no scrub that...it was, in fact, gorgeous. But, at that price, so it bloody should be! We had three rounds here, and I managed to sample halves of the Mikkeller Milk Stout (utterly superb, really well balanced), a double IPA from Southern Tier in the US (resinous, pine, orange, amazing), and a final beer of Against The Grain's 'Scottish Charred' (a lovely sweet smoked beer, which does not predominate but does go on.....and on).

And my gripe? Not the quality? Not they hype? Not the beer snobbishness? No, just the bloody price ticket. In every pub, 2 pints and a half had come to less than £10 - that's not bad for Southampton let alone London, these days. But here, three halves came to £12-15. Utterly shocking! Yes, I know it's a prime location. Yes, I know these kegged beers have come in from abroad. Yes, I know some of these 'different', maybe even 'not to be tried again'. But, please! If you peruse the bottle list, it gets worse, with some bottles coming in at over £30. As I read this out aloud, I am sure I saw Dick Turpin leave through the back door. This is not about me being a skinflint or not appreciating 'craftmanship' or 'quality', this goes to the heart of my point last month. Beer in this guise is becoming a rather effete, middle-class product. That means those who cannot afford this kind of money end up drinking cheap, bland, mass produced pop. That is not only bad for choice, it's bad for beer.

Anyway, rant over (again). We finished up and Dr B headed North for Low Speedlink through the MEdway towns, whilst we walked up to Holborn and tubes to Waterloo, destination south coast. A great day - 3 miles, 6 pubs, 8 hours. We went from the swank of craft to the sawdust of Wenlock, through the gentrified Victorian streets via the Munich Beer Halls. Here's to another in 2013.

Friday 28 December 2012

Christmas Crawl 2012

Oh yes....it's that time of year again. Time to scour the streets of London for a few interesting and recommended pubs. This year, there is a real mixed bag, some of which come from Pollard and McGinn's 'Around London in 80 beers', some from 'Beer in the Evening', and others from sheer pragmatism and the need to cut down walking times during a day that looks as if it will not be blessed with great weather tomorrow!

Our journey starts at Old Street, yet again in a part of town I do not know, and then heads north west, then south west, ending up in Clerkenwell (kind of). In between we should experience, a proper boozer, an old theatre  a Munich styled beer hall, and a homage to the craft beer revolution. The trip will look something like this:


View Christmas Crawl 2012 in a larger map

We start at the Bavarian Beerhouse on City Road. Alledgedly, we should be experiencing a bit of Deutsch Gastlichkeit whilst there; wheat beers and plenty of pork products - you know the thing....looks a bit restauranty, but we'll give it a go. A short walk north sees us at the Wenlock Arms. This looks like a really old school corner boozer, so I hope it's friendly. It has appeared in the Good Pub Guide numerous times, so I am expecting a  good pint at least! Then we plough on to towards Angel, and stop at the Old Red Lion, a bar/pub in a theatre (we shall come across this kind of things again, later!). I think it is fair to say that these three represent a bit of a 'give it a go' choice of places for a pint this year. They may be great, they be pants, but that's kind of what these crawls have become about. If they are good, they end up on my master map of London pubs, which always comes in handy in times of thirst in the Smoke.

The final three pubs represent something a little more familiar. A decent stroll from the Angel sees us in the north part of Clerkenwell, in the Pakenham Arms. Looks a little more 'up market', but the bottled selection looks good, and I am promised (according to the blurb) of a changing roster of draught beers. Certainly the photos suggest a good selection. Looking forward to that one. Continuing our walk south west, towards Bloomsbury, we end up at The Lamb in Lamb's Conduit Street. We went there last year, to this pub with an old theatre upstairs and fantastic tiled outer aspect. Hoping Young's Winter Warmer is on, and up to snuff, but I liked its cosy green leathered interior. Then, tiredly, we will make our way towards Holborn, and finish in the Craft Beer Company in Leather Lane. A new one on me, but this comes very recommended, and I am looking to spend a few minutes perusing my beer menu before making my final choice(s) of the day.

As ever, I'll be on Twitter as I go around

Saturday 15 December 2012

AG #11 - Wailing Bike

With a number of important points learned from the last two brews (namely watch your carbonation, and late hopping is great), I sat down to plan out this years Winter beer.....it was supposed to be Christmas, but I kind of got around to this a little late.

I decided to roll with what I had, a load of pale malt, a vial of White Labs WLP500 Trappist yeast, and a pile of New Zealand Motueka hops from the dark saison I had brewed a while back (which has now been fully road tested, and no one has died). I supplemented this list with a bit of crystal, liking the colouring it gave to the Bluebird clone I had brewed, some light Belgian Candy sugar, and a smidgen of torrified wheat for a bit of head retention. The recipe is here.

As you can see, if all goes to plan, this is a it of a mighty beer. One to very much sup and savour. The tropical notes of the hops should work well in a Belgian beer, according to their blurb, so here goes.

Brew day went without much of a hitch. I also decided to forego my recent ritual of boiling my water and instead opted for using Carbonate Reduction Solution (CRS) to get my alkalinity down. Whatever is in this stuff really works, according to my test kits. A few millilitres in 20 litres of water, and the alkalinity has dropped by an order of magnitude. I look forward to easier brew days from now on.

I forgot to make a yeast starter too. Don't usually bother with White Labs stuff, but this is such a strong beer that more beasties would have helped. I thought I had killed the blighters, and, eventually, took to putting the beer in the airing cupboard after 24 hours. After about 72 hours, I spotted the first hint of krausen, which developed through the day. Once this subsided, the whole beer became alive.....and I am now a bit worried.

I'm a tad concerned now that this is TOO active, the temperature too high. I know that fermenting high gives really fruity esters, especially with these yeasts, but too much can really kill the beer. Certainly, when I removed the lid, the smell was AMAZING....fruity hops and bananas from the yeast. It is now back in the kitchen, and it is still fizzing away. Hope this beer doesn't turn into solvent!

My other worry is the masses of crud that I have generated, presumably from cold break material. I hope this stuff settles out somehow, otherwise this will not drink well! In the relative cool of the kitchen, it now seems to have crashed a little, and I will take a week-on gravity reading soon. I can see some of this stuff settling out....if it doesn't compact well, I may only have 5 litres of this to drink.

Mind you, at that strength, this may be a bonus. Please send all small bottles direct to me.....don't reckon a pint of this will a good idea!

Oh, and a free bottle if you can guess from the above why this beer is so named...

 

Friday 7 December 2012

The Session #70 – Don’t Believe The Hype


Hype?

Well, I’ll probably get hammered for this, and there is an element of me being contentious for its own sake (because I DO like much of the stuff I taste!), but can I suggest the most over-hyped beery thing is the term ‘craft’ and the stuff that sits around it!

It’s a meaningless term. It is generally defined as something you do with skill and by hand. So, can someone tell me how the ‘craft’ of brewing a pint of Banks’ Mild is less than that of making a beer with ‘bucketloads’ of hops before ageing it in the stomachs of Bactrian Camels? How can a brewery so aggressive in its defence of the term ‘craft’, defined in the US as ‘small, independent and traditional’, pump out around 2.5 million litres of product, ripping up everything we know about ‘style’? (a hateful word, anyway)? It isn’t that, to quote Brewdog, ‘real ale no longer means anything’, it is that the term ‘craft’ has been misrepresented, incorrectly used, and been foisted on drinkers as a marketing ploy, in a cynical attempt by brewers to entice the weak willed into buying their product.

And, as we (and I have been there too, comrades) get drawn into the seedy guerrilla marketing world of ‘craft’, we become involved in the beer-porn universe they want us to inhabit. For the analogy bears some testing. You start off, perhaps dissatisfied with the pint in your local, professing it to be brown and bland. You find, lurking in some recesses of the Beeriverse, an old bottle of some kind of IPA, packed with New World hops. You drink. You savour. No one need know. It’s your little secret; American beer isn’t that bad after all. However, soon, a beer spurting with Amarillo no longer thrills; you need to move on. Before you know it, you are drinking a Saison, flavoured with creosote, brewed on the auspicious day of the Great Farting, filtered through the gusset of a pair of tights worn by Betty Grable, and delivered by water cannon fired by homeless Ugandans. And we can tell our mates about it. And we can metaphorically say ‘Fuck You! I drank a PHENOMENAL beer that was only PHENOMENAL when I drank it…it is now shite, and you can’t have it!’

Why am I so exercised? Jealousy? That I cannot afford the £45 a bottle price tag? Hurt pride? That I can never brew beer like that? Not really. It’s more like the spicy hit of tedium, aged with chippings of concern.

Tedium. Tedium, because all of a sudden beer is starting to gain the caché of wine. Even CAMRA support that kind of thing. However, we now talk about beer pairings, artisan manufacture, and is someone going to say terroir soon? As a geographer, I really want to think about beer as a geographical entity; the hydrogeology of water supply, the transport of ingredients and product, the historical context, the environmental footprint, the way beer permeates parts of our social fabric and how that has changed over time. As a drinker, I just want a good, tasty pint, well kept! When I go to the pub I want to leave the academic stuff behind (that’s my day job!), and sup a beer and think ‘Mmm, I could have another of them….’ Don’t get me wrong, I am happy for people to taste and describe. I belong to the Scotch Malt Whiskey Society, and some of their tasting notes make Gilly Goolden blush. But, sometimes, over-analysis tells us nothing. You’ve just got to taste it yourself. And I don’t care what you think.

Concern. Well, because some proponents of the term ‘craft’, seem to have forgotten the roots of the drink they so love. And this has built a sort of ‘beer snob’ culture that I hate. I get accused of being a ‘beer snob’ because I turn my nose up at a pint of Worthy CreamFlow, but by ‘dissing’ lots of small, regional, truly traditional breweries who put out stuff many are now seeing as ‘bland and brown’, means that the real essence of the craft could be lost, at least to the many. Beer IS a simple product; the ingredients are few and common, and the process not that difficult – after all many households made their own in times gone by. But the present shift of the ‘craft’ movement towards chucking everything at it from coffee grinds to printer cartridges (‘ummm…yes…wait…I’m getting hints of the HP Magenta ink circa ‘95…’), means that they are actually making brewing a far more arcane activity, as if these brewers have some divine connection to Ninkasi, and marking the product up accordingly.

Beer, and brewing, is about democracy. Firstly, like any good democracy, you participate; not just in the process of selection but in the creation of product. There are aspects of the ‘craft’ industry where this is just as alien as the so called ‘regionals’ or ‘nationals’. Don’t get me wrong, there are both ‘craft’ and ‘non-craft’ areas that get this right, but neither can claim the moral high ground. Secondly, beer is democratic in that you choose to like it and choose what to like. At GBBF this year, a thoroughly decent ‘regional’ introduced us to a new range of beers laced with New World hops. They were, in my opinion, pretty rank. Or, at least, much worse than either the bitter or dark mild they had brewed for generations. Even they had been seduced by the ‘movement’! Even worse, could there be a time when I can no longer choose their ‘boring, brown and bland bitter’ over these new brews? All of a sudden, this lack of beery competition is sounding like taste autocracy!

I could go on. But you have probably nodded off into your exquisitely fluted glass of fermented yaks horn, barrel aged in the sewers of Paris, and fermented under strict conditions of 24 hour Popul Vuh records being played at barely audible volumes.
Cheers.

Wednesday 14 November 2012

AG#10 - The Tasting

Well, here it is....in all its glory!



This is the late-hopped Bluebird clone, fresh out the barrel. First impressions, this is rather too carbonated...I'm going to have to move the barrel to the shed, as sitting inside, even in the coldest room, is playing hell with the fittings.

That aside, the look is great...compare that with a previous photo, and the colour is smack on. Dark golden in colour. That bit of crystal has given a nice hue, and just a hint of residual sweetness.

I late hopped this quite considerably, and I can report that it has really worked. The nose is really hoppy, when it is first poured. Afterwards, this dissipated a bit, possibly losing it in the head (?), but a gentle swirl gets the aroma back. Of course, this was hopped with Challanger, so the hop hit is all spicy green hops, rather than the New World tropical fruits.

On the palate, the beer is nice and bitter...not over the top at all, but good enough to keep coming back. So my concern that I would not get enough IBUs out of the late hopping are unfounded. It lacks a bit of body (this is almost 1% lighter in ABV than it should be, due to a lower attenuating yeast than must be used by Coniston). However, this means that this is a cleansing pint, which you can keep coming back to.

Quite chuffed with this. The technique of late hopping looks promising.

Sunday 21 October 2012

All Grain #10 - Bottling the Bluebird

Last time, I wrote that I had decided to try a Bluebird clone, but use a significant amount of very late hops.

Well, the brew went quite well. I seemed  to hit all the volumes and gravities, with perhaps the finishing gravity being a little high (1.014 rather than 1.013). Having said that, there was no way I was going to get 3.6% out of this wort and yeast. Either Coniston have a phenomenal control of fermentation, which I suppose goes hand in hand with a more professional brewery, or their yeast has one hell of an attenuation rate. Well, 3% ABV isn't that bad, is it?

So, it all get kegged today. Great colour, that lovely burnished gold that draft Bluebird has....here's a particularly fine example from it's home in Coniston - a well deserved pint after a day on the hills with 45 undergrads!:



And did that late hopping work? Indeed it did, and this is quite exciting - almost 60g of Challenger hops added with 5 minutes to go. This gave me half of my bitterness, and it is still there. It's crisp and really enjoyable, well balanced. However, most of all, the hoppiness is there in the nose, in a way I have not been able to get before. Challenger is not a big aroma hop, and it's %AA is relatively low compared to the New World hops.  The aroma is one of hops (yes, I know that sounds remarkable!) rather than citrus or any of the stuff you get with hops like Chinook and Amarillo. It's kind of a grassy, spicy smell, not unlike the 'hop store' aroma of the hops in their packed state. Rather nice, and reminds me that the 'hopheads' who keep piling New World lupilin into their beers need to touch base with home occasionally!

Clearly, for the pocket, late hopping is a bit of an issue, but the results have been good so far. With some of the bigger aroma hops, with higher %AA, I can probably cut down on use. However, as a first go, with some good British hops, the results are decent. What it also means, is that I have probably been a little conservative in the past with my late aroma hops. It is also a technique to keep in mind when I have hops that need to be used. The single varietal pale ale approach isn't a bad tactic every now and then - a session beer with interest, easy to make and using up hops before they tire.

I hope I don't get any kegging nightmares before I can start drinking in 2-3 weeks. For some unknown reason, I seem to have yielded more beer than usual - the pressure barrel is full, so I hope there are no explosions.



Sunday 7 October 2012

The first of the Saison

After two weeks in the bottle, I opened the first trial bottle of the saison this afternoon.

I think it is fair to say that it is a little young, and it will be interesting to see how this ages in the bottle. However, time for first impressions.

I cooled the bottle down, it having conditioned in the warm, then coolish kitchen. Removing it from the fridge for 30 minutes seemed the best way to get to a decent serving temperature. And cool it should be; this beer is well carbonated, and probably needs cooling to prevent serious foaming when you uncap the bottle.

It poured with a decent effervescence, but nothing that meant I lost the beer. It is a bark russet red/brown in colour, not black. Although there is wheat malt in the beer, I neither got a decent head (just a thin lacing of foam), nor, apparently, a cloudiness you might expect. As far as I can see, through the darkness, the beer is clearing well.


On the nose is that faint Belgian yeast smell, that I always find really inviting with Belgian beer. The dry hopping has added aroma, but if you are thinking North American hops; all citrus and tropical fruits, that's just not there.The hoppiness is more woody, more European/British, if it is there are at all.

The first taste was unusual. That slight saison sourness, with a hit of chocolate which develops more as the beer warms slightly. The finish is dry; pleasing bitterness, but almost flint dry so that the beer finishes really early leaving that roasted malt taste - more black coffee than mocha. Because of this, I wonder if this is a beer to pair with food rather than just drink as is, as it may cut through some foods.

Very interesting. I am starting to think bottling it by the pint may not have been wise, though. This feels like a half pint measure, but I suppose you can always share!

I was tasting this as I mashed for another brew. This time, I've gone for something pale. A bit of a pain as my water is all wrong for pale ale, so I had to boil it first and get rid of some alkalinity - note to self, buy some carbonate reduction solution! Anyway, I'm going for a clone of the rather lovely Coniston Bluebird, but following this trend, I am getting half the IBUs by throwing a load of hops for the last 5 minutes. The aim is to get a really great hop hit, but with the bittering added. I have a load of Challenger that need to be used, so, why not?



Wednesday 26 September 2012

Closed saison

Well, bottled anyway!

Sunday saw me bottling the dark saison co-created with Steve at Beers I've Known. On removing the top of the FV, the first thing I got was a huge hit of hops from the Pacifica I had added as a dry hopping experiment. Gravity remained at 1013, suggesting a beer of around 5.5%.

Tasting it before bottling, there had definitely been a change over the week. The sourness was there but less pronounced, the roast notes there but much more subtle now - and providing more balance than main interest now. However, the dry hopping had made this beer taste much fresher - not exactly the hit I expected from the way the hops smelt and were described, but a nice crispy taste that came from these new hop oils. I wonder what bottling will do for it?

Next time, I think I will get some kind of small bad for dry hopping, as fishing all the arrant leaves out was a bit of a pain. I primed the bottling bucket with about 60g of sugar, and syphoned from SV to bottling bucket.

Managed to squeeze 13 pints and a couple of small tester bottles out, so Steve, you have your saison! Will let you know what it's like in a couple of weeks!

At the same time, I decided to do a bit of housekeeping. I decided to get rid of the remainder of the Veno's Porter....it was just getting too much for me! I also had to get rid of three remaining bottles of the winter Belgian I brewed. Not sure what happened here, but the yeast never settled, and opening at room temperature created lots of foam (so I suspect I over primed). However, one thing to note is that months and months down the line, the beer still tasted great, if not better than when I first brewed it - a definite plus side to the faff that is bottling

Sunday 16 September 2012

Saison Update

So, a week from pitching, and I thought I might take a peek at the Overseas Dictator....

First thing to note was just how ACTIVE the yeast was. I had my first ever overspill in two years of brewing....it just went nuts. Now this maybe because I fermented in the kitchen, rather than understairs, and the weather has been a bit warmer...but we returned home on the Monday to froth everywhere! Even after a week, there is still krausen sitting on the surface, which I had to skim off to take a gravity reading.

Secondly, this yeast attenuates very well, regardless of what I have heard some say about its general finickiness  Perhaps warm is best for this yeast! However, seven days on, gravity comes in at 1013, from 1055. That's over 75% attenuation, and 5.6% ABV. This was a little higher than I expected, so it looks as if the yeast has done most of its work. I shall let it sit for another week, just to allow it to condition a little before bottling.

Finally, the taste. I have to say that I think this is one for the enthusiast. Easy drinking this is not. The roast that was dominant before pitching has lessened, but there is clear dark, smoky hint. Bitterness wise, there is a decent balance, but it is not overpowering. I have to say I do not get the citrus notes from the hops, but this may improve with bottling. However, the beer is rather dry on the palate, with black pepper (for me), and then there is just a hint of sourness. This is not acetic sourness from contaminated beer, but something all the more subtle, similar to the sourness you expect from this and similar styles.

My suspicion, on first taste, is that this one will be better served a little cooler. This may also help me carbonate it a little more without explosion!

Sunday 9 September 2012

The Overseas Dictator

Todays brew day was brought to you by the evil mind of Steve Lamond at Beers I've Known.....

In a recent Session, Steve blogged about his perfect beer. He described a Saison, but, with a sick twist of dark malt and New Zealand hops! Bloody weirdo.

I thought this was interesting. Partly because the beer he described was so far from what I thought a saison to be, and partly because, as I brew more, the more I appreciate the skill of people who do this kind of thing of thing for real; regardless of what you THINK you want the beer to be like, it never really seems to happen that way - whereas the really good brewers appear to get it right more often than not. May be that is harsh on us real amateurs....perhaps what we drink from others is the result of lots of practice, mistakes, and small test brews. I admit that, even with my crap set up and bucket chemistry approach I've not made a really crap beer....oh, hang on, I take that back....but anyway, malt, water, hops and yeast tend to have made something palatable.


I suppose it's a bit like cooking....you only really get to taste the dish from the chef when they've tweaked and tailored it. But my beer has always struck me to be something like my photography....in my head the picture has always looked better than the actual image. In my head, I'm Ansel Adams, but the pictures look more like they were taken by Tony Adams. In my beer, I'm more Yosser Hughes than Sarah Hughes...

So here was an interesting test. Steve knew what he wanted, and I knew I could brew it, but would it really be any good? Steve suggested the name, Overseas Dictator, and I thought the following would be both a record of a collaborative brew (he got the brains, I got the boiler...), and also a description of the process should people be interesting in taking up home brewing.

So, here we go. My technique is known as BIAB or brew in a bag. Here you forego the conventions of grist to liquor ratios and mash in the boiler. This is ok for the small volumes I make (9 litres), but a bigger brew would require some thinking about and dunk sparging. I have dealt with water chemistry tweaks here, so adding brewing salts, I get the water heating up to about 70C.

Once we hit about 70C, I dough in, or add the malt. Mashing usually occurs at temperatures between 64-67C, so that little bit of extra heat accounts of heat loss upon adding the grain. I add the grain into a simple mashing bag.

Here are the malts for this brew, and this is where my first problems lie. A bit of research would suggests pale malt base is usual. Check....there is Maris Otter and Pilsner here, but I saw Vienna, Golden Promise, and a range of other pale malts added to the water. I suppose that all makes sense; Saison was typically a farmhouse brew, and they were not going to get sniffy about the exact malt, although they were largely malted not roasted...far too busy to do this I assume!

However, Steve wanted Carafa and Chocolate Wheat in there. These give colour, but also a nice roasted/chocolate hit. However, since Steve's idea was a bit unconventional, it was difficult to get hold of how much of these malts needed to go in. In the end they came out at about 5% of the malt bill, and this, on reflection was wrong. There is a handful of acid malt in here too, just to get that pH adjusted properly.


And here are the grains, in all their glory, mashing for 90 minutes. The thermal properties of my boiler (and water) are such that I just check on the temperature every 15 minutes and give the water a warm to get back to temperature. It's a bit of a faff, and I could use insulation, but then If I do that I might as well go straight up to full, traditional all- grain brewing.


Once the mash is over, and after a 10 minute mash out, where the temperature is raised just to extract that last bit of goodness, I drain the bag, and start to bring the wort up to a boil, taking a gravity and temperature reading (to correct the calibrated hydrometer)



On boiling, the first hops go in. Again, I was guessing...I used this advice to work out what my bitterness should be, and then just played around with timings and amounts of hops until I got the right IBU figure. Secondly, these hops were new to me. I knew Nelson Sauvin hops, liking them, but I went with Steve's suggestion of the fantastic lemon- lime hit of Motueka for bittering, followed by another addition late on for aroma (along with some Irish Moss to fine, and some yeast nutrient), and a last minute addition of the orange/ floral Pacifica for aroma. These two really did smell different from the bag, so I am hoping I can pick their individual characters out in the final product.




The observant might now be looking at the photo of the hydrometer jar saying "That looks dark for a Saison!", and I would agree. I think I over did the roasted grains, Steve! Anyway, I now tend to cube and leave overnight. So that all done, and I then perform the MOST IMPORTANT bit of a brew day (apart from sanitising stuff), which is clearing up....this is key if you want to be allowed to do it again ;-)

The following day, I took the cooled wart, decanted it into a sterilised fermenter and added the yeast. Regardless of the colour, the hops, the strength etc., it is the yeast that gives these beers their real flavour. I splashed out on a vial White Labs Saison yeast. I got Type I, described as giving earthy, peppery notes, and apparently coming via the legendary Dupont brewery, which makes a notable Saison. The other great thing about these yeast vials is that for my volumes, I pitch straight in. On opening the vial, I have to say that the yeast smelt fantastic. OK, so there is that yeasty hit you always get, but there was something sweet and really pleasant behind it. Certainly has encouraged me to think about brewing a light version now!!

So there you have it....I hope you're satisfied Steve! You made me make a dark, chocolate Saison....I'm not sure I know of one of those. We shall have to wait and see....the unfermented wort is, erm, interesting. It may be that in a week or so you go the way of all dictators, crashing to Earth in tragic delusions of (beer) grandeur....or your tactical beer like genius may take over the World.....

Wednesday 29 August 2012

Late reports

It's been age since I last blogged. There a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, and foremostly, not a great deal has been going on....secondly, and sadly, the dear old moggy, after whom this page is named died in late June. We both miss him dreadfully, and I have been staying away from this site for a bit.

 

My last entry was all about a poorly fermenting porter. Well, it never shifted, after getting down to 3.2%. A bit of a shout out to the really helpful BIAB community convinced me that I had really of exaggerated the speciality roasted grains. No software makes allowance for the fact that such high percentages of roasted stuff (about 40% here....I was told 15% is about right for an Imperial Russian Stout!!) just do not ferment out like a wort stuffed full of pale malts. It sounds as if it is all to do with roasting locking in sugars during the roasting process, making them unfermentable.

Well it's been sitting around in the barrel. Cannot drink lots of it; the strength is fine, the roast is just quite full on...even though summer here has been crap, I still need something a bit more autumnal to get me drinking darker beers. However, the are times when this beer reminds me of old-fashioned Venos cough medicine; a kind of alcoholic black treacle!

 

As you can see, it's got good deep colour, a nice thick porterish head, so looks the part. Certainly headed in the right direction, and I have definitely started to get the battering issues sorted by looking more closely at my water chemistry.

As the season starts to turn then, I'm looking at a new brew, and also looking to adapt my process, but more of that later.

 

And Sockster...thanks, it was a real privilege. I'll keep brewing with your name, and raising a glass to you, old pal. Cheers!

 

Thursday 14 June 2012

All a ferment!!

This week I have been struggling with stuff yeasty.....or have I? And that's kind of the problem.

A week or so ago I brewed a porter, not a style I had tried by BIAB. All the techniques came out; mash water treatment, based on Wheeler's Calculator, and a preboil of 30 mins with some gypsum to remove most of the carbonate. After cubing for a day, I pitched a vial of White Labs English Ale yeast, and left it to do its stuff.

I also decided to mash at a slightly higher temperature to produce a slightly sweeter, full bodied beer, as I like my dark beers this way! And I think that is where the problems started.

Mashing high tends to also produce non-ferment able sugars, hence the residual sweetness. So, even though I missed my OG by four points, I was confident I was going to get the kind of beer I wanted. Starting slowly at 1.055, the yeast never really started going, and after 5 days the bee looked spent. Taking a gravity reading, I was at 1.030, an attenuation of 45%, not the 63% I was quoted, and a full 10 points out. This site told me that I could correct my attenuation for a high mash....but I was still 6 points shy of target.

And so I hit the dilemma....stuck fermentation, or was I done? Even trickier was the fact that, although now 3.2% rather than the 5% I was aiming for, it tasted great (mocha, anyone?). Further fermentation might just dry it out a bit. Moreover, if it was stuck, a kick of priming sugar may cause the odd nasty explosion.....really not good.

I have tried rousing it, and leaving it in a warmer spot, and three days later nothing. Eventually, those nice people in t'Internetland suggested I try a Fast Ferment Test....this is a great idea! Perhaps I should do this all the time? 200ml of brew, over pitched and kept warm....if the gravity drops again I know the yeast has conked out and I repitch, if it stays the same I can keg with impunity! I started the FFT yesterday, so let's see how it goes.

Update on 16/6: FFT has been sitting in the airing cupboard for two and a half days. Justtaken a gravity reading....1.030. Looks like I'm good to barrel it!



Friday 6 April 2012

It's all about water - Part Two

As if worrying about what's in it is not enough, the last 24 hours have seen me think about water in general.

Water is one of the major facets of beer's environmental footprint, probably second (maybe even first) to the transportation footprint of the ingredients and the product. Certainly for home brewers it is pretty significant. Ordinarily, this should not be an issue, but, yesterday, the South was placed under a hose-pipe ban. Now using water for 'food' does not come under the ban, but the message to conserve the little was seem to have down here is clear.

Water is used all over the place in brewing. Not only do you start with almost double what you end up drinking, but you are constantly rinsing and cleaning and rinsing again. Moreover, to ensure that the wort does not get infected by bacteria and yeasts from the outside world, you try and cool your wort as quickly as possible. I have done this previously using an immersion chiller - apiece of copper tubing that runs of the tap and discharges down the sink. This typically takes 30 minutes, and I hate to think how much water I use. The immersion chiller can be seen here on the left:



So, this brew, I have used an idea from Australian brewers, whose water shortages are far more severe than ours! They use a method called cold cubing or no-chill cubing. Simply, this a HDPE food grade jerry can (not the ones Francis Maude suggests you fill with petrol!!!), which you fill with wort and then fully seal. I tried to get mine to be brim full, and you 'burp' the container to try and remove as much air as possible. The wort then cools naturally without contact with air and nasties:


I should be able to pitch yeast tomorrow, although some brewers keep their wort like this for months with, allegedly, no deterioration in quality. I leave them to that kind of thing, but, for now, I'm glad I'm saving a bit of water!

It's all about water - Mash pH

Well, it seems ages since I last wrote.............hang on a minute, it IS ages since I last wrote, 12 weeks or so, in fact!

Well, this post is all about trying to create a light, summery beer. I ended up with this, looking for some light bitterness from Hallertau and a bit of floral stuff from Amarillo.

However, I had noticed that yet again my beer was showing the same character that I wanted to get rid of, that other local brewers were not getting e.g. the beers being brewed over at Totton's Vibrant Forest brewery. What I was getting was astringency when ever I used darker grains, and an over bitter taste. I have my concerns at the various bits of programming that predict your IBUs - they never give the same answers. However, I found out this was probably due to using different volumes of 'batch size' in the Tinseth Equation for predicting bitterness. Even so, what I was getting was not what I thought I should be getting, and I needed to get rid of this 'tang' for this beer.

A little scouting around the internet led me to discover this might have something to do with mash pH. Probably best explained here, mash pH is about how the acidity/alkalinity of your water changes in response to the phosphate being dissolved out of malt upon mashing. Apparently, the ideal mash condition is acidic at pH 5.4 or so. One of the things this can lead to is astringency from darker grains when the pH is too high. Secondly, I found out that in the South, dark beers brew better than light because of the hardness and alkalinity of the water. Clearly, then, I had to investigate the chemistry of brewing water a bit more.

I use bottled Sainsbury's Caledonian Spring water, so thought I would get away with the South of England high pH, hard water chemistry. However, by reading the labels, plugging in the typical composition into a free water chemistry calculator, and adding the last recipe's malt bill, I discovered I mashed at pH 6.4, was deficient in Ca and Mg, and had a sulphate:chloride ratio that suggested 'bitterness may be enhanced'. Bang on!And measuring the pH of the water I've been using, it was well above the 6.8 of my pH strips,

So using the spreadsheet above, I did two things. Firstly, I added salts like gypsum, calcium chloride and Epsom's salts to rebalance the cations and anions in solution, and to establish a better mash pH, I added a small amount of acid malt to lower the pH even more than usual. I could have taken the old fashioned route, and added an acid rest in the mash (this is a low temperature mash, where the pH is significantly lowered by liberating phytic acid, and this was the old way- possibly before any chemist understood what was going on!- that was used by German brewers using the incredibly soft waters of Pilsen).

So, what have I found? Well, nothing yet....as I haven't tasted it. I did notice there was not as much crud on the boiler element, as there usually is, although that may not be chemistry, that might just reflect the malt bill. What I DO think is a result of messing about with the water chemistry (apart from getting a pH of 5.2 according to the pH test I ran), was that I have got a few more percent efficiency out of the mash and boil. There is some evidence to suggest that this is also influenced by mash pH, and the result may be that my calculated grain bill was too high (based on previous efficiencies) and I now may have a beer nearer 6% than 5%! If I have also nipped that bitterness thing in the bud, that sounds like a win-win to me!

Sunday 15 January 2012

A Brown Day

A new year, a new brew. Have been thinking of something brown and malty since I finished brewing the Belgian beer....well to be honest, I had misordered malt, and had a big bag of Belgian Aromatic left! Since this is supposed to be used sparingly (authors suggest something in the region of 10% of the total grain bill) I need a few ideas. So, I brew lots of malty beer, a huge batch...which my kit does not allow...or experiment with a beer with a massive hit of AM (unwise, I'm led to believe)



Anyway, you can find the recipe here. I've used Northdown, again for pragmatic reasons. Firstly, they seem to go with darker beers, but, more importantly, I had a load of them left which were best before December 2011...well, what's a month? They came in at 7% AA, but I wonder whether they might be a little old now...oh well, at least I'm not desperate for a hoppy beer!

After my usual mash routine (dough in at 55C, let the temperature rise to 67C, leave for 80 mins, mash out for 10 mins at 70C), the wort has a lovely dark mahogany colour. As I write, I have almost finished the first stage of the boil, and it's almost time for a second addition of Northdown. A small addition at flame out and cooling, should, at least, give me some balance. however, I am looking forward to the the malt speaking for itself in this one.

I also invested in a clean element...actually I bought two ( one to wash, one to wear!). Boiling away beautifully! So the moral is, keep that element clean, and I have bought a load of descaler to prepare for the next brew!




Sunday 1 January 2012

Christmas Crawl - Field Report

With one of the party hors de combat, due to a broken ankle and other complications, it was left to Dr B and myself to seek out pubs and pints this Festivetide. All pubs and pints have been more fully reviewed through RateBeer . The map can be found here

Starting at the Bree Louise, we settled down to a couple of fine pints, and some hearty fare. This is a grand pub; unpretentious, relatively cheap, and in a good central location. A discount with your CAMRA card, too, which is a real bonus. With such a choice on offer we sampled Kent Brewery's Black Gold, Downton's Qhadhop, Saltaire's Elderflower Blonde and Nethergate Old Growler. All were good, well kept, with the Saltaire disappointing most, which surprised me. On reflection, we should/could have stayed here, but the Christmas Crawl is all about discovering, so we pressed on.

The Lord John Russell was but ten minutes away, and a half decent boozer. It didn't have the beery charm of the Bree, but it did its job well. A one room pub opening on to the main street, it sold a variety of beers....we could have even had a Brains Bitter if we were brave. But my recommendation had been for Dark Budvar, a nice roasty but refreshing pint....but rather pricey...damn that import duty! The place seemed friendly enough, and would definitely go back.

A slightly longer walk saw us in the Lamb in a part of the city I had not really walked through before. A dark, warm pub this, with oak and green leatherette the design motif. Quiet, but a good pint of Youngs Winter Warmer was most welcome. The theatre memorabilia made for an interesting conversation piece, and we supped our pints steeling ourselves for the walk into mainstream London.

We eventually found ourselves on High Holborn, but avoided the detour toward the Cittie of Yorke and pubs down at Chancery. Instead, we turned right and found the Princess Louise. I must have walked past this pub in the past, but will not do so again. What a great characterful place this is. Lots of Victorian glass and tile work, interior decor, and a well priced pint of Sam Smiths, which helped Dr B balance his budget (he being the poor sod that had to buy the Budvar earlier!). As you might have expected, this was busy, and, as the day (be it shopping or working) was drawing to the end, folk were hitting the pubs.

Then the most disappointing part of the trip.....a left and dogleg saw us walking down Shaftesbury Avenue to Seven Dials and a little beyond to The Harp. CAMRA pub of the year this year, I was looking forward to visiting. What greeted me was a pub virtually devoid of seats, processing custom at rapid, but efficient, pace. The standing drinker was treated to good beer, my Dark Star Over The Moon was lovely, the keeping bring out the good balance of mild malt and fruity hop. However, my natural inclination against standing in pubs was further exacerbated by Dr B getting involved in 'words' with several members of the clientele who thought obstructing a perfectly pleasant request to allow passage was a bit of fun. My understanding is that The Harp is always this rammed, so I doubt I'll be back.

Frustrated we turned left and a longish walk down The Strand, Aldwych, and onto Fleet Street found us at a favourite hideaway pub, the Crown and Sugar Loaf. This pub seems so unknown that it was shutting as we arrived, at 7pm!!. This forced Us into the second option of the very busy, very touristy Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. This pub is worth visiting if you've never been, just for the history. The Sam Smiths OBB is still cheap and tasty, but the place gets very full.

We were now within striking range of an evening closer in Ye Olde Mitre, another hidden away place, just off Hatton Gardens. This place feels like you are entering a secret world down alleyways of Victorian London. Always pleasantly full, yet rarely squashed for a place to sit, the pub seems to have gone all Fullers on us, although that may be my memory. An OK pint of seafarers, as the guest was off (this place IS tiny, it can probably only accommodate one guest!). The evening drew to a close, with the nasty taste of The Harp in our mouths - albeit not a beer related taste!

Taking the long walk back North to St Pancras to see Dr B off, and then back to Euston to get the tube to Waterloo, I felt my 8 hour, 8 pint, 7 (and a half) pub, 6 mile crawl had been a good one. Certainly a few more venues to add to me map of decent pubs I've tried in town.

The only downside? Well I slept through my stop at Southampton Central, and ended up in Brockenhurst!! Fortunately, I had but 10 mins to wait for the last train back East!