Saturday 21 December 2013

Christmas Crawl 2013 - Camden and Kentish Town

Christmas. Time for tradition. You know the sort of thing; the same inane rituals, the same shit decorations you won't throw away, the same ranting at another year without a late night Marx Brothers' film to munch cheese and pickles to.

And so to an event now firmly lodged in the Christmas schedule. We've done the family stuff, we've even had a few days to relax. So it's time to hit London with Dr. B. and drink some beer. And, as usual, the planning is interesting/stressful. Will the pub be open? Will the beer be ok? Can I get away with drinking in London without having to overstretch the mortgage? Can I get some decent nosebag for less than twenty quid for a plate of chips? (Gastropubs! Christ!). So here's this year's plan, with a thankful nod to Stig and his Foursquare list:



View Christmas Crawl 2013 in a larger map

Unfortunately, the Camden Town Brewery is shut when we plan to go...ah well, another day. The Grafton seems best bet for food without being fleeced (is it me, but to get a decent bit of scoff in this bit of London it seems like gastros all the way?.....I can eat Scotch Eggs 'til the cows come home, but I regard the Scotch Egg as a snack!). I am sure Brewdog will both amuse and infuriate me, and I look forward to the more homely atmosphere of the Bree Louise at the end of the day.

As ever, a round up will follow!

Sunday 15 December 2013

AG #15: Blackberry Hefeweizen

Elsewhere on this blog, I have posted the recipe for this.

The yeast, after being a bit slow, really kicked into action, and then stopped in a cold snap. THE FG was still rather high, so I roused and put it in somewhere warm. Nice bit of krausen, and then stopped again. My final gravity is still really too high (by about a full tenth of a point!!).

Well, it went in the keg anyway. A hefeweizen tends to primed scarily high (about 100g of sugar in my 10 litres). I replaced 10 g of this with the crushed juice of 200 g of foraged blackberries (assumed a 5g/100g sugar content, as per the Internet). So this could all go wrong in a scary pink explosion!


This efficiency/gravity thing is getting annoying now. So much so, I am thinking of mashing in a large esky to make sure I maintain heat. Yes, the yeast may have been a bit old - it was on the last month where I could use it. But it had been in the fridge all that time, and smelt OK. The beer also smelt and tasted fine....it just won't ferment out fully.

Given that I have experienced this phenomenon more than once, with different yeasts, suggests that it must be me and my technique, not my ingredients. I am sure my worry about hitting temperatures leads me to warming the water too much, adding the grain, mashing high. As the saying goes M.A.L.T. (more alcohol, less temperature).

To be honest, the temperature loss in my kettle/mash tun is pretty small over 90 mins, so I wonder if it is better to dough in a few degrees under, and the add hot water?

As it is, I've ended up with a lighter beer than I thought (3.7% not the 5% I aimed for), perhaps sweeter (thank goodness I added more hops than I did in my original attempt), and potentially explosive to boot :-{

Tuesday 3 December 2013

The Session #82: Beery Yarns

Well. Some of these yarns could be ribald, some long and convoluted in the telling, and others could be as fishy as they are beery. However, for this Session (and apologies for not contributing since my last rant many months ago!), I wanted to focus upon beer as being the excuse for the story; the stimulant for the tales that unfold, not the story itself.

In fact my first yarn hardly features beer at all. Back in the day, as a postgrad student in Cardiff, in the early 90s, beer was Brains (or, if you were unlucky, Hancock's....or if you had committed one of the most heinous sins known to Man, Ansells). So a chance to sample something else was always welcome, and one pub where this was possible was out of town, up a hill, at a pub where we had to direct the taxi driver - the Ty Mawr in Lisvane.

On a summer's evening, the garden looked down to the coast, with a great view. But this evening was a wintery one. It was blowing a gale outside, raining sideways. I don't recall what I drank, probably something dark and deeply flavoured. I almost cannot recall who was in the intrepid party, except a few brave souls from the Department. But what I recall is the pub, with its fire roaring, shuttered against the elements, the gentle hubbub of conversation, gradually loosened by beers we had never tasted before was the antidote we all needed. I just remember laughter, warmth and friendship. I also recall visiting a few years later, as a friend left to I study in the US. It had now become a family friendly pub. For all this, the warmth it had on that winter's evening had disappeared in a haze of menus and child friendly policies...

My other tale is also wintery. Christmas morning to be exact. My sister and I had taken a walk up to the pub whilst mom finished cooking. Our destination was The Beacon Hotel, not 20 minutes walk up a relatively steep hill. The day was crisp; snow on the ground from a previous fall, but the sun was out. Glorious. We sat, with many, in the back of the pub. The landlord had tapped a new barrel of Ruby Mild. After the walk up, it tasted utterly superb. The boss came in and individually wished all of his customers a "Happy Christmas" and there was much chatting between strangers. If you don't know the pub, and I know many do, it is an old Victorian building, with furnishings to match, and the decorations consisted of holly obtained from the Beacon Hill behind the pub. No music, no fruit machine, just the cracking of coals in the grate, and the sound of people happy and contented. It was almost as if this scene was a replay of the same moment, recreated over 100 times on the same spot. After a second pint, lunch beckoned, and I left this fantastic bit of the Black Country behind me, knowing full well that however things change outside, what happens inside would represent what is good, and will persist, for many Christmases to come.

 

Sunday 24 November 2013

Brewing a taste of autumn

Not a lot has happened since my last post. I seem to have been busy or ingredient less for months, and I am almost at a loss to remember my last post.

Anyway, in between then and now, I continued on the tweaking of recipes and using of simple ingredients. Well, it was summer, and I wasn't looking for anything complex and heavy. So I settled on a really nice and simple pale ale, with two hops; Magnum to bitter, and finishing and dry hopping with lots of Cascade. I know some people really love this hop, one of the three big 'C's that got US beer really rocking. I also know of folk who find their sweet citrus thing just too much; a veritable 'tarts handbag' (thanks Ann and John Ince!). But I'm a bit of convert, and it is the kind of crisp summery hop that makes beer both Julie and I can drink.

The results of the recipe weren't half bad. I suppose that its great clarity, great mash efficiency, and excellent fermentation was always going to guarantee that I liked this beer. But there was a catch....
To get that great efficiency and to make sure I hit my ABV, I decided to mash on the low side. To make the hop stand out I opted for the rather more flavour neutral malt bill, with plentiful wheat malt. To make sure it cleared I opted for a yeast with great attenuation and flocculating properties, SafAle04. All of that made a great beer in those regards, and it certainly meant that you had almost nothing to disrupt you tasting Cascade....I just wanted something more....the taste was TOO clean, it needed a bit of malty backbone.

We've had one of the best autumns for fruit that I can remember. Blackberrying this year was a joy, pounds picked in minutes. Outside of the crumbles made with apples scrumped from a neigbour's overhanging branches, the question was what to do with all the other fruit. As I write, I am coming to the end of a boil of a Hefeweizen. I brewed this a few years ago, and it worked very well, the White Labs yeast was superb. So I have upped the malt bill a little, to give it a bit more oomph, been more generous with the hops as I like the floral properties of Hallertau, and I will, eventually, prime with a mix of sugar and blackberry juice. At least the photos will look nice!

Wednesday 31 July 2013

TMS 2013 tasting and a summer beer

It seems an awfully long times since I last blogged.

I am now at the end of the TMS 2013 - an amalgam of English and Kiwi hops to celebrate the early season Test Series between England and NZ. It was an overwhelming victory for England.

Wish I could say the same for this beer. It's nice; in fact I really like it, and a friend who usually drinks lager quite liked it to. But, as ever, it wasn't what was in my head when I started the brew. Where were those great late hop hints from the Pacifica? The addition of the mild malt over Maris Otter meant that this shifted from a crisp golden ale, to a dark golden, just a little sweet brew - what it really reminded me of was a pint of Banks's Mild from back home.

Not that that is a bad thing; it has been a long time since I tasted a pint of this back home. But, perhaps, this is why my lager drinking friend liked it - it was lightly bittered and easy drinking in the end.


I would definitely brew this again. My only issue was, in the heat we have just had, getting the pressure barrel down to cellar temperature is well nigh impossible.

And so, the summer really kicks off. Well, to be honest, its been and gone weather wise. Braving the high temperatures (Hey, I quite like estery beer!) I thought I would try a nice pale ale. This time, I wasn't messing, and decided to use some Cascade against some Magnum I had left over (a great bittering hop). I have also kept the malt bill nice and clean with a mix of MO and Pilsner, with a bit of wheat for some body.

Technique wise, not a lot has changed, but I do have two new sites that helped me. Firstly, I was becoming concerned that my efficiencies were not great, so I started to look at mash pH, and the effects my malt bill might impact on water chemistry. Up until know, I had just been concerned on the water only - now I started to look elsewhere. This great site let me work out water chemistry and mash pH all at the same time. Finally, the old site I used for recipe storage has moved, here's my new recipe, archived at BrewToad.

Tuesday 30 April 2013

AG#13 - TMS

I am slowly working may way through the milk stout, and getting to like it. A touch more alcohol would have made this really tasty, but it is a good beer for a couple of pints supped slowly through the evening.

And so on to my next venture. I was impressed with the Bluebird Clone, even more so when I walked into the Black Bull Inn in Coniston two weeks ago. Another year of fieldwork, another day on the hills, and a pint of Bluebird was in order. And I have to say, my attempt was not half bad at all. It perhaps needed a little more body, from a bit more booze, but the hopping was good, and the late hop technique of half my IBUs in the last 5 minutes of the boil gave great aroma.

That being so, I decided to recreate the beer, but this time I upped the malt bill. I was hoping for an OG of 1.056, but for a reason I need to look into, I only seemed to hit 1.052, and that was with a little more malt than I needed. Against this poorer extraction, I set a boil of East Kent Goldings, and finished the boil with 5 minutes of the rest of my Pacifica hops, which I had bought for the dark saison I brewed at the back end of 2012. Hoping for plenty of orangey hints from this hop, and, I have to say, I much prefer these Kiwi hops to their more abrasive US New World cousins.

The starter of SafAle 04 made sure that fermentation was well underway, after 7 hours of pitching.....it also meant I saved half the pack of yeast for another brew soon! My aim is for a solid 5% paleish ale, with a nice malty backbone, balanced out by English bitterness and some New World marmalade aromas and palate.

I wish!

 

 

Thursday 28 March 2013

Milky Milky! It's a beer...it's a bread!

The milk stout has had plenty of time to sit and mature in the barrel now. So I gave it a taste today. There is still a bit of carbonation, but I think that I under primed it (I am cautious with this after a few issues) and much of the yeast I had left in the be was probably on its last legs after a three and a half week ferment.

It pours a dark, black/brown, with a thinnish tan head. On the nose, there is a bit of hop, but this is mainly roasted grains, almost burned toast. Tasting it, I am first struck by its creaminess, perhaps from the body the lactose gives it, but I know that the flaked grains often give a good texture to the beer. It is soft and bitter, as Mackeson's is, with the majority of balance coming from the roasted grains, and this is mainly dark chocolate and coffee, rather than the liquorice you get in some stouts. The roasted grain taste does linger, but does not kill the palate, which I have had in previous darks. I think the sweetness helps here.

 

But, not really a session beer; there's just a bit too much going on. So, what to do with 9 litres of the stuff? Well, I think this beer suits the unseasonably cold weather at the moment, and, with the addition of some crisps, nuts, or scratchings, this would be a great in-front-of-the-TV beer. But even I can't think this cold snap will go on for ever. Therefore, I needed another use for this.

I do, occasionally, get taken with baking bread. I love it, but I'm just not that good at it. Inspired by Paul Hollywood's new series on bread, I tried his basic bloomer, which came out amazingly well. So, this morning, I started his rye, ale, and oat loaf. The recipe just calls for ale, and uses black treacle. But I have used my stout in this, and, boy, it honks of dark beer....hope this isn't overkill. It looks very dark, and smells amazing. We have a bit of cheddar and a pot of Stilton still to finish from Christmas....maybe a few salad things, and some chutney, a cheese ploughman's tea looks on the cards!

 

Thursday 21 February 2013

An odd bottle swap

In my other job - the dull one I have to do to pay the bills - I take a module whose concept I shamelessly nicked off a couple of academics in the States and Canada.

Called 'the Lifestyle Project', the unit asks students to plot out a course of 10 weeks of progressively more austere measures in their personal lives to eliminate or reduce aspects of their environmental footprint. Usually, people focus on travel, local food, water usage and the like.

However, this year, one student has focussed on trying to reduce his beer footprint, by brewing his own. And just to show that it works, we did a bottle swap (so it does not look like a gift in lieu of a good grade, right David!). And here's his attempt:



His gone kit rather than AG. I swapped for some Wailing Bike, and he's still around, so that's good.

The beer is well carbonated, and has poured very clear - probably less need to fine a kit beer. However, this just shows the real benefits of using real ingredients over extract. I expected it to be hoppy, given the colour, but their isn't the aroma you get from that big hit of late copper hops. Malt wise, this is pretty clean, almost lager like, and again, I think a few hops in the boil would have bittered this up (it is a little sweet in the balance for me). I also think that a mash might have dragged more flavour out of the malt. But, probably, the clincher would have been the yeast. Something giving a few more fruit characteristics would have made this a really decent first attempt.

However, Dave, a really good first go at zymurgy. I will be interested to see how you try and an environmental footprint out of this. Yes transportation costs may have gone down, but don't forget the extra processing that has gone in getting this kit up together.

Discuss.

Stuck....Again!!

Well the Milk Stout fermented rather well.....sorry, actually that is a lie. It fermented fine, until it stuck. So stuck, that the gravity has not dropped one iota since a week after pitching. I have now hit the fortnight, and I am really annoyed.

I followed someone else's recipe this time, not some fanciful dreaming of my own, so why should THEY get it wrong too? It just seems that me and roasted grains just don't get on. Is it the BIAB technique? Does that have some impact on breaking those dark, long chain sugars down? Not really sure, may have to ask!!

Well, completely at a loss, I googled some stuff on stuck ferments, and my last gasp solution is to introduce alpha amylase into the FV. Now, there should be some of this around already, but the idea is that this enzyme will get to work on those stubborn dextrins, and make the brew fermentable again. So, here goes, dark lovers. A teaspoon in, a bit of agitation.....who knows where this will lead! It may just be a bit dry, taste like rocket fuel, or stay as cloyingly sweet as it is.

2 gallons of Mackeson's clone, anyone?

Friday 8 February 2013

Left Hand, Right Hand (AG#12) and Wailing Bike testing

Been a little while since I wrote, but only two brewing type things have happened during the hiatus.

Firstly, I have cracked open a couple of bottles of the Wailing Bike. Christ, this stuff is strong. Really interesting that although I used a big late hop of Motueka there is not a great hop nose here. Comparing this with the rather tasty Bluebird Clone (AG#10) I was really surprised. The hops are definitely aromatic, possibly more so than the Challenger I used in the Bluebird. So why the difference?

I am sure this is all about the yeast. The Belgian Trappist yeast I used (WLP500) is terrific, but it definitely does a certain job. That job is to make the whole beer taste and smell like a good Belgian should - fruity, estery, organic chemistry lab like!! I think that killed off any of the hop aroma I might have got. However, all is not lost, as the big hop hit on the palate is still ere, and it balances a strong ale out really well. Perhaps too well; it makes the whole thing rather drinkable, and counteracts the caramel sweetness from the crystal really well. So, whilst this beer is strong and sweet, the bite makes it dangerously suppable.

Took some of this to a party, and it went down rather well, with someone asking what brewery it came from!! 

Secondly, after drinking some great Milk Stout from Mikkeller at the Craft Beer Co at Christmas, I realised that it had been some time since I brewed a dark beer. I have had a couple of issues with dark beers in the past; I've made them too dark. I have used too many dark grains, which makes for a less fermentable pint, so the thing has always come out a little thin and too bitter/roasty - even for me!

This time, I consulted the web for guidance. I eventually found a clone of the infamous Left Hand Milk Stout that friends rave about. The reviews had been good. The unscaled, non BIAB, recipe is here. It is relatively involved, and, at such low volumes, I must have annoyed the folk at Hop and Grape getting them to crush 200g of stuff a few times. There was no need for CRS this time; the dark malts are good foils for a too low pH, and did change my water (more by luck than judgement having visited Waitrose rather than Sainsbury's that weekend! Wairose get their water from Church Stretton, under a very different geology). And, just to finish things off, there is a hefty dose of lactose!

This is now actively fermenting (and I mean bubbling like a mad 'un, not quite writhing like the Trappist yeast did), after adding a sachet of Saf-Ale US 05 yeast. I had used 04 in another beer, and was impressed, so I will be interested to see what happens here - it is an American recipe after all. However, after my lesson from the last brew, this yeast is supposed to be rather neutral in flavour profile, which should give the complex malts and bitering hops a chance to vie for supremacy. The unferemented wort tasted great - almost drinking chocolate with hops - so roll on next Sunday and barrelling!