Mild Smoker 1 week taste test.

Tonight I cracked open a bottle of Mild Smoker which has been conditioning for a week now, 8 days to be precise. I am quite happy with this. The smokiness is quite evident both in the aroma and the taste. It certainly is a mild so that worked out as expected also. The only thing so far as that the body is quite thin. I would say another week and more conditioning will fill it out a little. It seems to be a very drinkable brew, well for me that is and since I am the one who has to drink it, that is all that matters. Being a smoked beer means it is not for everyone. Will be interesting to see how it develops when I tap the keg and even more interesting to see what other people think of it.

Old Tom Strong Ale

This is the first beer from Frederick Robinsons I have had. It is called Old tom and I swear I did not buy it just because it has a cat on the front. It is quite strong at 8.5%. It pours a dark brown and there is very little aroma, perhaps a little dried fruit.
The taste is all dried fruit, malt, a little woody and a port finish. Surprisingly for a strong ale there is little in the way of sweetness and it is refreshingly bitter. This beer is surprisingly simple, it is not a complex brew at all. I think that is a strength in this case but there are many strong ales I would rather be drinking. It is a sold strong ale but Ola Dubh it is not.

Stout face off - three countries - everyone's a winner

The first stout is a porter and is my third beer from the Williams Brothers Brewery in Scotland. Midnight Sun is the name. There is a slight twist to this beer in that it contains a "wee bit of fresh root ginger". The smell is of a typical but rich porter/stout. Chocolate, coffee etc but the ginger is hiding in the background and like a ninja it makes itself known at the last moment before you know its there.
In the mouth it acts like a typical good quality stout. Roast coffee, a little toffee and maybe some caramel but the roast grains dominate and the finish is a lovely roast and bitter affair with a little ginger spice. The ginger is very subtle, subtle in the way that you can barely tell it is there but the question I ask myself is, would I miss it if it was not there at all? It is hard to say but I think it might add just a little bit of something to the end that turns this good porter in to a fantastic porter.

I love it. More please.


From Scotland we move south to England and a stout I have hear a lot about. I enjoyed many other Hook Norton beers so I was looking forward to this. As a stout, and as the only stout to drink on a given day this is fine. However this did not live up to the Midnight sun, this did not live up to what I had been told. Don't get me wrong, there was little if anything wrong here but it was just, well normal. There was nothing double about it. I enjoyed it a lot but there was nothing that jumped out at me and made me want to track some more down.


A very different affair is the Victory Storm King. For one thing this one comes from the US. This is an imperial stout so the 9.1% is to be expected. I actually have had this before at the Deveneys Charity beer tasting night hosted at the Bull & Castle. This time around I have a full bottle and am not surrounded by 200 people so I can see the beer and smell/taste it properly. What a beer it is, even better than I remember on the night. The first thing to notice is the colour, it is black and no light makes it through the beer. It looks like treacle but it has a much lighter consistency than you might expect from looking at it. The aroma is the next thing. It is in your face American hops, Cascade to my nose but could be one of the other Citrusy hops. It smells like a cross between a stout and an American IPA. Coffee is also evident as you would expect.
From the first sip you are warmed by an alcohol heat which moves on to coffee, toffee, liqourice and then finishes off with the citrus character from the hops.
Since two of my favourite styles of beer are Stouts and American IPA's you can understand that for me, the marriage of the two here produces a beer that is indescribably good. I know this will not be everyone's cup of tea (or coffee) but for me this is one of the finest beers I have ever tasted.
I must get some more.

Out of the three, the US wins with Storm King, then comes Scotland with Midnight Sun and in last place, but a deserving runner up comes England with the double stout.

Fullers Old Winter Ale & a Victory for monkeys.

Here in Ireland, Winter is gone and February 1st is Spring. Why? Because we still follow the Pagan Calendar here. Actually from February buds start appearing on trees etc so there is probably a little Science behind it too.

Anyway I felt it time to get rid of the Old Winter Ale since it is no longer winter. I am a fan of many Fullers beers, not all are good but most of them are and some are exceptional like London Porter on Cask.
The Old Winter pours a light reddish amber. There is a nice big white head too. There is little aroma but sweet malt, toffee and a little orange is noticeable.
More obvious is the taste. It starts out very malty and an upfront sweet toffee with orange and a little spice but not much. Then the bitterness kicks in to balance it out and it does more than balance, it gets rid of much of the sweetness leaving a rather bitter beer. There is enough residual sweetness to balance the bitterness making this one of the types of beer I enjoy most. Dry, bitter with a hint of sweetness in the background to balance the bitterness. Carbonation is perfect giving you an almost chewy mouthfeel.

Excellent beer and the 5.3 % will warm you in no time.
Excellent pairing with the strong white cheddar I am eating.




Victory Golden Monkey
Pours a pale golden yellow. There is quite a bit of yeast at the bottom and as far as I am concerned that gets poured in to the beer for the extra flavour.
This Tripel Belgian style ale comes from the Victory brewing company in Pennsylvania USA. It reminds my wife of Belgium when she sniffs it. To me it also reminds me of Belgium but in a muted sort of way. It in no way reminds me of an average Tripel that is actually from Belgium. That is not a bad thing because I find many Belgian beers to be too sweet for my liking and this is sweet but not overly so and is balanced.
The 9.5% of this beer comes through but not in your face alcohol so this is quite drinkable, well as drinkable as any beer of this strength.

Brewday Disaster

Yesterdays brew, the Red Ale started out normal. However while the wort was boiling I took the opportunity to take my spare carboy filled with starsan (sanitiser) and sanitise my keg. Unfortunately my fingers slipped and it fell to the tiles smashing. It spread sanitiser all over the place as well as huge chunks of glass and even worse, small ones. Also it tore two of my fingers open.

Finishing brewday with the loss (of the use) of two fingers on my right hand (right handed) was a challenge. Also since I had lost my ready prepped fermenter I had to wait until I transferred the smoked mild to the keg, clean the carboy out and then transfer it. To make matters worse, my hop strainer clogged and I had to slosh the beer around with a paddle for 30 minutes to transfer the beer. The beer was sitting there for a long time before I got the chance to add the yeast. Also the yeast rehydration process was put on hold after the accident so I pitched it dry from the packet meaning even longer with no yeast activity.

I just hope that even after all this, that the beer turns out ok.

On the other hand, the smoked mild I kegged did not reach its intended gravity. It does however have a strong smoky flavour and I think I like it so should turn out pretty well when conditioned.

Brewday born of Boredom - Brew # 18 Seeing Red

I woke up this morning and realised I had nothing to do. I contemplated going to Dublin for some Cask O'Hara's Red at the Bull and Castle as it was tapped yesterday but in the end I decided I was too lazy. So after exhausting what I could look up on the web I decided to make today brewday. I already have my Smoked Mild to keg.

What I decided upon was a sort of Irish Red ale but of the very malty veriety. Perhaps a little like Clotworthy Dobbin but I am not trying to clone that beer. If it turns out anything like it though I will not be complaining. The original recipe I put together had to be altered as when I checked my Beer Tools inventory I did not have enough base (pale) malt so I altered it and decided to use all of my remaining Pearl malt as well as the rest of my Munich malt.

So here is the recipe and feel free to try it out yourself, though perhaps wait a few weeks until I report back on how it turns out.

Oh and as you can see from below, Beer tools updated today.

Seeing Red

9-D Irish Red Ale

Author: Reuben Gray (Saruman)

Size: 24.16 L

Efficiency: 75.0%

Attenuation: 75.0%

Calories: 170.96 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.051 (1.044 - 1.060)

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Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (1.010 - 1.014)

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Color: 36.19 (17.73 - 35.46)

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Alcohol: 5.05% (4.0% - 6.0%)

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Bitterness: 25.5 (17.0 - 28.0)

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Ingredients:

3548 g Pearl Pale Ale Malt

1191 g Munich Malt

500 g Crystal Malt

200 g Wheat Malt

100 g CaraPils Malt (brupaks)

100 g Chocolate Malt (pale)

50 g Black Malt

12 g Challenger (6.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min

12 g Northern Brewer-Hallertau Hersbruck (10.9%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min

25 g Cascade (7.6%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min

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

1 ea Fermentis US-05 Safale US-05

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.7

Two from Scotland - One Fruity and the other Hard.

Ever heard of a Tayberry? I never had until I picked up this beer. Hailing from the Williams brothers brewery this beer is called Róisin pronounced just like the Irish version of the name such as Róisín Murphy and for non Gaelic country inhabitants is Row-Sheen. Apparently a Tayberry is like a cross between a Blackberry and a Raspberry. Also the beer, like the label is supposed to be pink, although this is not true. It is more an amber brownish red.
The head is non existent, the Tayberry flavour though is anything but. This reminds me of any English ale though with very little bitterness and instead it has a tarness from the tayberry. Quite refreshing if a little odd since I am not used to the fruit. My wife enjoyed it so I will get some more in the future.


Also from the same brewery is an absolutely fabulous beer called, well 80/ after its style. The malt is in your face from the beginning. There is a beginning of caramel and toffee before the roast grains kick in then a lingering spicy bitterness leaves you wanting more. It reminds me a lot of Clotworthy Dobbin actually. I loved this beer and want some more.

Water wastage on brewday

People who follow this blog will know that during the deep freeze in December/January I was without water for a week as well as having water turned off at certain times before and after the new year. This prevented me from brewing any beer. The other week I brewed my smoked Mild and I noticed that our water pressure was down. I still had fresh water coming in from the mains but it was unable to make it to the water tank in the attic so bathrooms were offline. Thankfully it was all back by the evening but while I was brewing, to be on the safe side I decided to keep the water that was used during the cooling phase.

I better explain this for those who are not brewers themselves. When you are finished boiling the wort, you need to cool it down to room temperature as quickly as possible before you pitch the yeast. If you left it to cool naturally it would take hours and chances are you would get an infection before the yeast can take hold.
To cool it quickly most brewers will use a simple wort chiller. This is basically a copper or aluminium pipe that has been made in to a coil. One end is hooked up to a water supply and the other end expels the water. It works off a heat transfer principal. The water that comes out of the wort chiller starts off hot and as the wort chills it comes out cold.
Usually this water goes down the sink and is wasted, except what I usually did in the past was use the hot water from the beginning to wash dishes etc most of which are as a result of the brewing process in the first place.

Since this time I was worried about not having any water in my tank I decided to save all this water. I could not believe how much water was wasted. I filled up my two old fermening buckets which are 30 litres. I filled them up to about 25L and I also filled two Corny kegs which are 19 litres. The hot water I used to make my star san solution and the other three containers I kept to flush the toilets with. Even though the water came back that evening I have used the water from the buckets to flush the toilets so none of the water used during the brewing process went to waste.

I think I will continue this practice.

Brew # 17 Mild Smoker

Mild Smoker

11-A Mild
Author: Reuben Gray (Saruman)

Size: 25.00 L
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 117.3 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.036 (1.030 - 1.038)
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Terminal Gravity: 1.009 (1.008 - 1.013)
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Color: 23.25 (23.64 - 49.25)
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Alcohol: 3.47% (2.8% - 4.5%)
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Bitterness: 18.5 (10.0 - 25.0)
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Ingredients:

1700 g Mild Malt
2000 g Smoked Malt
100 g Chocolate Malt (pale)
250 g CaraPils Malt (brupaks)
100 g Rye Malt
15 g Challenger (6.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
20 g East Kent Goldings (4.0%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
15 g Fuggle (4.1%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1.0 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1.0 ea WYeast 1084 Irish Ale - No Irish Ale yeast so US04 used instead.

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3

It's brewday again after a few months of abstinence

The water issues are behind me, well not quite as it turns out. I started brewday and that is fine but I do not have a lot of water pressure so it took longer to fill my strike water for the mash than it should. As it turns out, the pressure is too low to make it up to the attic to fill my water tank. That will not affect brewday but will affect the bathroom supplies and shower water.

Anyway I am brewing a smoked mild. I enjoyed the one Al did over on fuggled when he first got in to brewing. We both got in to it at the same time, he however started off more on extract brewing. Sure he used a kit as the base but he steeped grains and got some great results with his smoked mild.

I do All Grain these days so it will be interesting to see how mine turns out.
I will post up the recipe soon.

So long and thanks for all the fish...

Last night I got home and opened one of the last two remaining bottles of Cloaked Stranger Stout and started watching The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie. I am a big fan of the books and the radio series and I even watched the original TV series. Hell I even played an old Dos text only game years ago.
I have to say there is nothing like watching a movie which brings a nostalgic tear to your eye and having some good stout. After the Cloaked stranger was gone I opened up two bottles of O' Hara's stout. I prefer my own actually but I still adore the O' Hara's.

Sorry about the lack of blog posts this year. Not only was I not drinking for a while due to soem dental work, I also have been without internet at home since January 14th. I sometimes get to log on using some cough... neighbournet.