Druids brew on cask

I am having my car looked at over the last couple of days. Its a Renault Scenic which is a comfortable car but a pain in the ass due to electrical issues. Faults are usually sensor related so I have the car with issues like not starting (turns over fine) for ages due to the top down sensor. I have my speedo not working because the sensor that tells that the car is moving does not work. This in turn means the automatic door locking at 5mph does not work and also on the up side, the mileage does not increase. I have been getting over that by using my sat nav to tell me how fast I am going. Also my temp sensor is not working so I do not know if the engine is overheating or not. All this is getting looked at, maybe not fixed but at least diagnosed and then when parts are ready I can bring it back in.
I dropped it in to a diagnostician but I am worried it is going to set me back the guts of a grand (€1000). I might get lucky but if its too expensive then I would have been better off getting rid of it and buying another car. The problem is, it helps to have a car with a working speedo in order to sell it.

So anyway I spent the last two nights with my parents. I saw AC/DC on Sunday so stayed Sunday night for that reason. I then dropped the car over on Monday morning and will be picking it up today fixed or not. I also spent Monday afternoon at the Bull & Castle.

**Image thanks to The Beer Nut**
Before AC/DC we went to the Bull and Castle so I could try a Druids brew. This is a Cask stout from the wonderful Carlow brewing company who make my favourite stout: O'Haras.
I am not used to cask beer as the only other regular offering is TSB from the porterhouse (I like this one). The two big differences with Druids and O'Haras or cask versus keg or bottle is as follows.

1: Temperature - In the cask, the beer is pretty much room temperature * or chilled a little to just under it but its about the temperature of a red wine. * note: this is not a bad thing

2: Carbonation - From the bottle, O'Haras has a nice level of carbonation with Co2. In the keg they use the same nitrogen/co2 mix that Guinness uses but it is still noticeably carbonated. From the cask however there is little or no carbonation, well perhaps there is more when first tapped but since usually a cask is hand pumped as opposed to Co2, the carbonation does not last very long.

I apologise as I had no camera or notebook but it looked like a dark, pretty much black stout with no head and no bubbles.

The aroma was what you would expect from an Irish stout with roast coffee, some chocolate and something else...
The flavour in the mouth reveals the something else to be a wood flavour from the cask. I am going to assume its an oak cask. There is perhaps a hint of vanilla. The other roast flavours seem more muted than their O'Haras counterpart. I should have tried them side by side to be honest, I am kicking myself that I did not.
This beer was like velvet or maybe silk in how smooth it was. A real sipper for me as opposed to a quaffer.

This is how all beer used to be served so I wonder if once upon a time, Guinness tasted like this?
The beer grew on me. I usually like stout when its hot but since this was not in any way cold, I simply could not drink more than one on each day and had to have a nice IPA to quench my thirst.

My thirst was quenched on Sunday by my first bottle of Sierra Nevada Anniversary ale.
This is like the normal Sierra Nevada pale ale but there is a lot more to it. For starters it is slightly stronger at 5.9% as opposed to 5.6%. It is also 9 IBU more in bitterness.
They use more malt and some different hops and I have to say that this was the best IPA I can remember having. It tops the wonderful Galway Hooker but not enough that I would order one over a Galway hooker. That is just simple economics. A 330ml bottle of Sierra Nevada costs €6 at the bar but a Pint (well 500ml + head) of Hooker is only €4.50 making it more economical to have my beloved Galway Hooker.

I have a bottle of Torpedo at home I have yet to try though. More alcohol and bitterness than either the hooker or the Anniversary ale so we shall see how I like that.

Beggars Belief IPA taste test after 1 week & new all grain stout recipe.

I spent the morning practising and learning on my keyboard. I am trying to pick up how good I was, or thought I was as a kid and learn properly now. I took a quick break just before noon to try my IPA since it has been a week since I bottled.
Firstly you will notice that it is not very pale at all, though there are other IPA's that are as dark as this.
I dry hopped this with east kent goldings as opposed to cascade. When I was transferring to the secondary there was the expected grapefruit aroma of an IPA. After the secondary however and the dry hopping with the goldings I have ended up with something that smells and tastes more like orange marmalade. It is almost a bit more like an English bitter than an IPA. Either way I found this pretty nice to drink and left a nice dry feeling. It was good for a week so I am hoping it will be even better next week.

One other thing while we are talking about IPA's. On Thursday I met up with a load of Irish craft brewers at the Bull and Castle for the monthly meeting and tasting. I had my Chocoholic Stout which was very well received. The beer nut rightly mentioned that the only thing was that it is a little over carbonated but I knew that when I was making it as I am less concerned about carbonation levels than I am flavour at the moment. There were 3 or 4 IPA's that evening, including TheBeerNuts own Fat frank IPA which was very nice indeed.
Also worth a mention was the 60 minute IPA that came from the other end of the table. I am not sure who brewed it but it was fantastic. Maybe someone can comment on who it was.

Moving on, I have just spent the last hour formulating a recipe in beer tools pro for a nice simple Dry Irish Stout.

Cloaked Stranger Stout

13-A Dry Stout

Author: Reuben Gray (Saruman)

Size: 25.0 L

Efficiency: 75.0%

Attenuation: 75.0%

Calories: 154.07 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.046 (1.036 - 1.050)

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Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.007 - 1.011)

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Color: 73.83 (49.25 - 78.8)

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Alcohol: 4.56% (4.0% - 5.0%)

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Bitterness: 52.1 (30.0 - 45.0)

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Ingredients:

3500 g Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt

300 g Crystal Malt

500 g CaraPils Malt (brupaks)

234.23 g Chocolate Malt (pale)

400 g Black Malt

500.0 g Roasted Barley

50 g First Gold (6.2%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min

45 g Fuggle (4.1%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min

25 g Challenger (6.5%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min

1 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 min

1 ea WYeast 1084 Irish Ale

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

Schneider Weisse - Kristall & Original

I picked up two Schneiders recently. One I had not tried yet (or so I thought). First up was Schneider Weisse - Kristall. I am assuming it is called Kristall because it is clear.
This was interesting, very light in the mouth almost like its Champagne counterpart.
Strangely my wife was not too impressed. I myself prefer a more traditional wheat beer. The one word that best describes this beer is delicate.

sight - Clear yellow, large white head.
smell - Banana, little spice.
taste - Wheaty, spicy, banana
sweet - 2/5
bitter - 2/5


Now here was a shocker. There was not supposed to be a second tasting. I only grabbed the Schneider original just to have a normal Heffe handy. I was sure I had tried this before. When my wife decided she wanted a beer I had no problem telling her to take the Schneider. Then she poured it and I realised I had never had this. It was dark almost like a dunkelweizen.
It is not a dunkelweizen though.

I have to say that I enjoyed this a lot, well the few mouthfuls I got as my wife also loved it and was ready to do injury to my hand to keep it away.
Unlike the delicate nature of the Kristall, this was so much fuller that it was almost chewy. It was more bitter than the kristall too with more hop character.

sight - Dark brown, little to no head.
smell - Faint Banana, plenty of spice, not much though.
taste - Spicy and spice lingers, malty, lovely!
sweet - 2/5
bitter - 3/5

One point I will make is that the Original was very cold so there may have been more aroma and perhaps something in the taste that was missed. I am also surprised by the lack of head, perhaps my wife was too careful when pouring. Out of the two I certainly would prefer the original over the kristall.

On the subject of wheat beers, I picked up a case (12) of Schöfferhofer at Aldi today. Perfect for the warm summer evenings of late.
Also my mash tun arrived yesterday along with my extra grain (wheat and barley). My next beer will be an All grain wheat beer and I am also planning a Dry Irish stout. Only for the fact I do not have enough bottles, I would have started my next batch yesterday. Perhaps at the weekend if I formulate a recipe.

And now for something completely different... combinations.

For anyone who knows me very well, you will know that I am a big believer in trying anything once. I love pairing things that most people would never even think of pairing. It makes me a very interesting (and pretty good) cook. It also means I can come up with random beers like the bitterbock I did a while back.

When I was 18 years old I started and stopped drinking in the space of about 6 months. In fact I only had two real drinking sessions and I was at a legal drinking age too marking me as very different from your average western teen.

These are the two moments involving drink that defined a large chunk of my life.
Firstly was my first real alcohol experience. Myself and some friends went to the off license by the Silver granite in Palmerstown and got beer. Being new to beer, and being the sort of person I am I decided I did not know what to get so I picked one of everything. This turned out to be 8 cans of beer and each one different. I am sure even back then there was more choice than 8 beers but I had to walk and carry them so 8 was enough. Anyway I don't remember what I picked, I am sure there was a harp in there at the very least. After we got the beer we went to the Chinese and got Curry chips. Now that is a great combination (more on curry chips later).
We walked back to my firends house and started drinking beer and watching TV, typical teenager stuff. Later, perhaps 5 or 6 cans later my friends mother came in to check on us and brought us in some fruit cake as mothers do. Well I had a dilemma at this point. In one hand I had my curry chips and in the other I had this fruit cake leaving no appendage for my beer! Well this was intollerable so I did what any sane person would do, I put my curry chips on my fruit cake and grabbed my beer! What a Genius I was, it was fantastic! A mind blowing experience and of course everything became quiet so after a few minutes I looked up and saw everyone looking at me with dropped jaws. Well people, to this day I maintain that this was fantastic but I have never had the oppertunity to re-create this delicacy while sober. It is my mission to do so.
While on the subject of curry chips, a great (sober) combination is Pizza topped with curry chips. It requires a trip to two take aways but trust me, its worth it.

The second time (a few months later) I went to a garden party with my friends. It was at a friends Auntie. Again we visit the off license and get beer, this time we decide to be a little more sophisticated and get a bottle of wine between us. Many beers and a lot of wine later while myself and my friends were sitting in a circle on the grass and all the older people like the aunties and uncles were sitting around the table the real fun began. My best friend (same one whose mother served the fruit cake) decided to take the bottle of wine and pour it into my shirt pocket. Then as I stupidly look down he slaps the pocket splashing wine in my face. Well needless to say I grabbed the bottle of wine and he jumped up. I went to throw the wine (not the bottle) at him while he proceeded to act like someone from the matrix and move in slow motion past me (but in reality faster than my alcohol dulled reflexes could comprehend) and past the table of mothers, aunties and grandmothers. Well what happens next is pretty obvious. I missed my friend and soaked the table of elderly people! The next thing I know I am in his aunties kitchen and his younger sister comes in and says "If you can't handle your alcohol then don't drink!"

So that was the end of that, I listened to her and did not drink again until I was 24 and in Prague and had mulled wine for the first time.

The whole point of that story was to give you a little insight into the person you are reading about. I am now 29 (30 in August).
The other night I was on twitter and I had Mature red cheddar cheese and O' Haras Irish stout. A lovely combination and I said as much on twitter. I also had sitting on the shelf in my office (home) a jar of chocolate spread that I use to coat plain biscuits like rich tea or digestives. I had some chocolate spread covered biscuits after I had finished my stout and all of a sudden I noticed I had three little blocks of cheese left so I popped one in my mouth and had a sudden revelation. There was a little chocolate left in my mouth and the addition of the cheese was magic. I could not believe it, so I coated he remainging two squares of cheese with chocolate spread. My wife refused to even try it. It was heavently. After a google search it seems I am not the first to try this of course.

I love trying weird combinations of foods. The cheese and chocolate are not too weird when you consider that they are both dairy products.

Well thats it for now, have a great weekend and I will have more to write about (beer related) perhaps tomorrow.

Lightning in summer?

I had this Summer Lightning the other day, I can not remember where I found it.
I do not have too much to say, its a Bottle conditioned 5% *Golden Ale but reminds me of a Czech stlye pilsner from an English brewery called Hop back.
It is pretty nice and very drinkable, not my usual style of beer but I would have no problem drinking a few of these.

Worth a try, seems to be an award winner.

*Added the Golden Ale bit to avoid confusion, the style is Golden ale but to me tasted pretty much like a Pilsner.

Brew #8 - Razzamatazz - Raspberry ale

Today I did two things. Firstly I transferred my IPA into the secondary. In this case it was a glass carboy. I was to dry hop it with some East Kent Goldings. Unfortunately I did not take into account how narrow the neck is. I boiled my only hop bag in water and was forced to push it through the neck with my fingers. I hope nothing bad came of this.
Oh and also, I read somewhere about using a microwave on your hops to kill any little nasties. Me being an idiot decided to give that a go and set my hops on fire which burned a hole in the bowl. I had to measure out more hops, though I did use some of the first batch that did not get burnt. I half thought about using them, might have given me a smokey flavour but probably would not have worked out well.
One thing I can tell is that the smell of this is wonderful and also that the tiny bit I tasted from the bottom of the bucket was lovely stuff. I did not bother taking a gravity reading as I will wait for a week or two and take my final gravity then.

Anyway since I had used my only hop bag it occurred to me I had nothing for my grains in the next brew. I ended up opening a box of my wifes tights. It worked very well actually. The grains created a long grain saussage which was interesting.
The recipe I formulated is a simple ale that is not very bitter as when the raspberries are added in the secondary fermenter they will sour the beer and make it more bitter.
Everything worked out very well, apart from time the power tripped. Turned out while I was boiling in my boiler & kettle for sparging my grains my wife had the dishwasher going which I knew about but I did not notice the dryer was also on. Once I got the dryer turned off I could reset my trip switch.

I knew I would not have enough wort to get my final volume so I had a pot of water on the boil to add near the end of the main boil to replace the volume lost during the 60 minute boil. I managed to get my expected OG of 1.058.

Here is the recipe I put together. The amount of fruit might change.

Razzamatazz

20-A Fruit Beer

Author: Reuben Gray (saruman)

Size: 23.84 L

Efficiency: 75.0%

Attenuation: 75.0%

Calories: 191.59 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.058 (1.026 - 1.120)

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Terminal Gravity: 1.014 (0.995 - 1.035)

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Color: 20.9 (1.97 - 98.5)

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Alcohol: 5.66% (2.5% - 14.5%)

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Bitterness: 13.5 (0.0 - 100.0)

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Ingredients:

3000 g Dry Light Extract

500 g Dry Wheat

200 g Crystal Malt

100 g CaraPils Malt (brupaks)

150 g Munich Malt

15 g Saaz (2.1%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min

12 g Cascade (Morgans finishing hops) (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min

15 g Saaz (2.1%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min

10 g East Kent Goldings (4.0%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min

10 g Fuggle (4.1%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min

1500 g Raspberries (frozen) - added dry to secondary fermenter

1 ea Fermentis S-33 SafBrew S-33

1 Whirflock (irish moss) 15 min

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

Chocolate stout face off & a few other beers to mention.

On the left we have Youngs double chocolate stout and on the right is my own Chocoholic stout.
Now these are two slightly different styles. Mine is a higher gravity sweet stout, almost like a foreign export.
The first difference is obvious from the picture, the head on the youngs is quite small where as mine was massive, possibly due to a little over carbonation for a stout. Eventually mine dies down to a similar size as the youngs but it does stay with the beer all the way down.
When I tasted it last week I found it a little lacking in body but perfectly acceptable and hoped another week would fill it out, well it did exactly that and I found it had a very nice body.

Youngs
sight - Black with small tan head.
smell - roast coffee & chocolate
taste - dry, little bitter, chocolate
sweet - 2/5
bitter - 3/5

My own
sight - Black with large tan head.
smell - Strong chocolate and slight roast coffee.
taste - As above but with a background sweetness as well as a nice bitterness.
sweet - 3/5
bitter - 3.5/5

I am quite happy with my chocoholic stout. In the end I preferred the youngs for the simple reason that I prefer a dry stout to a sweeter/stronger style but mine was an experiment to see what I could do.









Monty pythons Holy Ail is from the Black sheep brewery. I was curious about it but was not too happy with it. It was less an ale and more a lager to my taste and my wife agreed. She said it smelled like any Czech beer she had while she lived there for a year.
I did take more notes but I will not bother with them, if you like lager you will like this. I wold not bother with it again though.







My next ale is Bannockburn.
This was a very drinkable 5% ale, especially on a hot summer day as it was when I drank it.




sight - Dark cloudy amber
smell - some honey and hops
taste - nice balance of sweetness and hops
sweet - 2/5
bitter - 3/5





Finally comes the Fullers Golden pride. I usually enjoy fullers beers but I found this one a little too sweet for my taste. If you like sweet beers then you will probably like this. Now don't get me wrong, I did not dislike this beer at all, it is a very complex beer but I would not drink this very often. It is almost a barleywine so when treated as such it is wonderful actually. As a special occasion beer to be sipped then it goes down a treat. On the hottest day of the year in the sun, it did not go down as well as its not refreshing.

sight - Clear amber, light head.
smell - Pineapple?
taste - some honey and nice hops
sweet - 4/5
bitter - 2/5

Galway in the sun

I spent yesterday in Galway with my wife and dad. My dad is a sailing enthusiast these days and is currently getting his skipper training so he can sail/deliver boats. He picked me up at home and drove us to Galway. I live almost half way there so he has to drive by my house anyway.

Once we arrived and got parked I directed us to The Kings head where they serve good food and more importantly, have Galway hooker on tap. I had some lovely fish and chips.

After this we made our way to the docks and looked at the boats. There were some very interesting food stalls along the way so it was almost a shame I had just eaten.



I had hoped to get in to Sheridans on the docks as they have great beer there but they seemed to be closed and were only serving beer from the door. Its good to see a queue outside such a fine beer establishment.