Feel free to leap right over this one. (brew #41)

Pin It Now! Since today is practically a non day, and will not happen again for another few years, this special filler post can be ignored. Unless you like reading about my homebrew.

Actually I just wanted to post my recipe for the International Homebrew Project 2012. The recipe is posted on Fuggled but this is what I put together. Needless to say when using a recipe not of my design, things did not quite go according to plan. The main thing is that it's a stupidly high gravity beer. To do my full 30l batch would have required more grain than my mash tun can handle. I could have used DME to make up the difference but I did not have any and figured I would see what I could do without it.

For some reason I thought the mash time was 90 mins. I actually did 100 mins because I was watching 6 nations rugby. Ireland was thrashing Italy after a slow start. So I only missed out on 20 mins of mash time.

Beer tools said I should have my expected OG of 1.114 but at the end of the 90 minute boil I ended up with  an OG of 1.082 so it will be interesting to see what the windsor yeast drops that down to. I started the yeast on the day with some of the wort from the mash and it set off like a rocket. Even though the carboy had only about 17l in it, the blowoff tube had all kinds of foam within a few hours.

Since it was such a high gravity beer, I did a second mini mash and rinsed out the grains giving me about 10l of wort so I boiled that in a stockpot for an hour and added some Northern Brewer to bitter and cascade to finish. The OG was 1.04. I poured that into two 5l water containers and lightly screwed the lid on so the co2 can escape. I split a pack of S04 between them so I am interested to see how this small beer will turn out.
The expected ABV is 4% with an IBU of about 43. At the very least it should be beer. With luck it might be a somewhat decent beer.

And hopefully the same might be said of the main beer. The gravity might be wrong but hopefully the ABV will be more or less correct.

IHP 2012

19-B English Barleywine
Author: Reuben Gray (Saruman)
Date: 25/02/2012

Size: 16.8 L
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 385.94 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.114 (1.080 - 1.120)
|=====================#==========|

Terminal Gravity: 1.029 (1.018 - 1.030)
|======================#=========|

Color: 21.09 (15.76 - 43.34)
|===========#====================|

Alcohol: 11.45% (8.0% - 12.0%)
|=====================#==========|

Bitterness: 91.4 (35.0 - 70.0)
|================================|

Ingredients:

8,600.0 g Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt
88.0 g East Kent Goldings (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 90 m
51.0 g Fuggle (6.1%) - added during boil, boiled 20 m
35 g Fuggle (6.1%) - added dry to primary fermenter
1 ea Danstar Windsor

Notes

Mash 2 litres per kilo, for 100 minutes at 65.5C.
The boil should last 90 minutes.

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.20

American Winter Ales

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Winter might be officially over in Ireland and the weather getting warmer but it can still be chilly enough to want a winter warmer. So here are 4 of them from the US that I had last month.

Starting with Goose Island, the first of their beers that I've had since AB-InBev bought them. It pours a murky brown with little to no head. It's called Mild Winter which thankfully this winter was. The aroma was interesting, it smelled of Ryvita (a rye crispbread) as well as nuts and caramel. It actually tasted like liquefied ryvita as well. Now I rather like Ryvita and thought this worked rather well. A strong caramel base with lashings of brown sugar make up the body. I can't say that this bottle was produced pre or post AB-InBev but if it's post; they have not let the accountants near the place as of yet as this is a cracking beer.

Moving from the Mid West to the East Coast now and Broklyn's simply named; Winter Ale pours a lighter murky brown with a hint of red. In all respects, this is actually very similar to Mild Winter. There is one major difference in that this does not have any of the Rye character the Goose Island offering had. Instead it whacks the ABV up to 6.1% and adds a more brown sugar. The extra alcohol is not obvious but I could feel the warming effects so they are not lying on the label, it is 6.1%.
Personally I preferred the Goose Island but this was also very tasty.

Back to the West Coast and Anderson Valley have their Winter Solstice seasonal ale. It would have been nice to actually drink it on December 21st but I doubt the beer tasted any better that day. Of the three so far, this is the weakest. Well in terms of flavour because at 6.9% it's the strongest. Like the others, a strong and sweet caramel base makes up the body but it seems a lot thinner, not quite watery but just a lot thinner. Perhaps some sugar makes up some of the gravity as that would explain the lack of body for such a high abv beer. Some dried fruit redeemed it a little so the beer itself is rather nice but I would think twice about buying it when faced with the competition.

And lastly we move a little North East but stay in California and head to Chico, home of the infamous Sierra Nevada and their Celebration Ale. There are certain things one comes to expect with Sierra Nevada and primarily I find that most of their beers are generously hopped and usually with citrusy pacific north west  hops. This is the 2011 edition and I reckon it needs another year to mellow out a little. It seemed to be lacking something and that something was probably just conditioning. That said, it's still a lovely citrusy beer with heaps of grapefruit etc. It did feel a little thin and certainly leaned more towards the bitter end of the scale so a little more sweetness to balance that hop bite might be nice, again the conditioning will take care of that I suspect.

Now roll on the spring and summer beers!

Can't read my poker face

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I picked up some random beers when I last dropped in to drinkstore and I have never had beer from either brewery.
Hailing from Manchester is Joseph Holt Sixex, a beer that I don't quite get. Not the beer itself mind, just the name and spiel that goes with it. I don't know what a sixex is, perhaps it has something to do with cards if the picture is anything to go by. Described as:

A TRADITIONAL BEER FOR REAL PLAYERS

It does not really give me an impression of what to expect, and why any poker player would drink pints of 6% beer and expect to win anything I don't know.

Anyway the beer itself pours like a porter. A very dark brown which borders on black and a massive foamy white head. Burnt toffee and raisins dominate at the start moving towards a sweet finish with very little hop bitterness. Perhaps a little chocolate and coffee mixed in but the beer does not seem to have a defining characteristic, unless having little to no bitterness is a characteristic. All in all I enjoyed the beer and I suppose I would gladly drink some while playing poker. Since I don't know how to play the game, perhaps the beer is aimed at people like me?

Off to Germany now for a bit of a mouthful. Augustinerbräu münchen dunkel. I love dark beers and I love Dunkels as a result but this did not seem like any dunkel I have had before. Even how it looks is different. It's not very dark, in fact it looks like a red ale. On the nose I got chocolate, toffee, brown sugar and a strong whiff of prunes. When I tasted it I was immediately struck by the prunes, so much so it was like someone had put prune juice in a soda stream and carbonated it, and then shook it so it was not too fizzy which is odd. Chocolate, toffee and caramel were also evident.
I enjoyed this beer very much, perhaps because it was so different to what I expected. I might have been drinking a so called "Irish Red".

Anderson Valley Imperial IPA

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Some people might be inclined to shout out "Not another Imperial IPA" but I am not one of them. Then again, I don't live in the US so I am not exposed to the plethora of IPA, DIPA, SDIPA and all other acronyms.

Anderson Valley's Imperial IPA is an anniversary brew to commemorate their second decade of brewing. At 8.7% and 100 IBU it certainly ticks all the right boxes of a beer that deserves some respect. On tasting it I decided that respect is well deserved for this is a smashing brew. The strong orange hints that there is probably Amarillo used in the beer at some point though all I know for sure is they have 20 additions of pacific northwest hops. Other citrus such as grapefruit and a hint of lemon also shine through. This is exactly what I expect a top notch double IPA should taste like and also feel like because I love the chewy caramel mouthfeel and was quite happy with the sweet malty backbone to counterbalance those 100 IBUs. A little brown sugar was a pleasant and unexpected surprise.
Sure; there might be better double IPA's out there but there are a many more worse ones so a fantastic brew to sink your teeth in to, almost literally. At least this one is easy enough to get hold of.

Unertl Weisse Bock

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My wife is a big fan of the regular Unertl wheat beer which we have had many times so I was excited to finally try another of their range.

Without straying too far from the wheat beer specialty, Unertl Weisse Bock is a dark, almost porteresque (dark muddy brown) 6.7% beer packed full of banana, clove, yeast, toffee, brown sugar, caramel and plenty of fizzy pizazz.

While the regular offering is pretty good, this is actually a very impressive and beautiful beer and compares favorably with others in the style.

So What's A Landbier Again?

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Since TheBeerNut just did a writeup of a Landbier I figured now would be a good time to mention this while still fresh in peoples minds.. He asked the question, what is a Landbier? The answer is either a German session beer, or else as as Felix (A German) said:

the term "Landbier" describe a traditional type of beer. It is not a typical type of beer, but it is traditionally brewed. The term "Landbier" is rather a term used for advertising :-)

Schlapppeseppel Landbier is a 5.3% yellowish amber coloured lager with almost no head to speak of. It's as cloudy as a heffe though. The aroma is one of straw and orange with orange evident in the flavour as well. There is little in the way of hop character and almost no bitterness either. Instead the caramel malts seem to dominate but not at the level you might get in a Bock.

All in all, it's a nice beer but not something I can see myself drinking.
Since the Landbier I had is pretty much different in every conceivable way to the one TBN had, I can only conclude the Felix is right and Landbier is less a style and more a term used for advertising a traditionally brewed country beer of miscellaneous style.

Do The Can-Can

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Beer in cans has always been seen as something the big multinationals do and smaller breweries like craft breweries and regional breweries bottle exclusively. So canned beer =  shite beer. That is no longer the case as a number of US micro breweries have been canning for years and more recently some UK brewers have started to do so. Brewdog for one and also Fullers as I found out.

I had seen the London Porter in drinkstore a number of times but I recently made the decision to try it for; eh... research purposes.

In theoretical terms, a canned beer should not only be just as good as its bottled counterpart, it should actually be better. Draft beer is not served from big glass carboys, it's served from a stainless steel, or sometimes aluminium keg. The Aluminium ones tend to have a lining inside them to keep the beer away from the metal and that is usually the case with canned beer as well. If you think there is a metallic taste off canned beer, stop knacker drinking it from the can and pour it into a glass like a civilised person. Since it's a can, there is zero potential for light to interact with the beer. Apart from shipping and weight advantages, you can actually bring this to a beer festival.

London porter is a beautiful beer in bottle, on cask it might bring a tear to your eye as it's perfection in liquid form. I am happy to report that the same is true for the canned product. No fancy nitrogen widgets in this and none is needed. If anything, it is quite possible that the canned version is better than the bottled version, but that's only because it's fresh in my mind. I would be curious to try them side by side in a blind taste test. The espresso and milk chocolate off this beer is just astounding. I have had milk stouts that taste less milky than this does.

It's time to get over our canned beer snobbery methinks.

We interrupt this program....

Pin It Now! Just a very quick post to let people know about this years International Home-brew Project organised by my good friend Al over on Fuggled.

The details for IHP 2012 can be found here.

Essentially we take a predefined and usually classic recipe that was brewed commercially. More info on the recipe and where it came from can be found here.
While simple in terms of ingredients, we are aiming for a very high ABV beer.

I just thought I would mention it here just in case I have a reader that does not actually read fuggled for some inexplicable reason.
Last year was the beautiful milk stout which I made a balls of at first but I got it sorted in the end and it was fantastic.



Oh and yes I said Program, it's one of the few American spellings that I prefer and is quite possibly more correct to be honest.

Ringing The Bells On Shandon Hill

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The second bottled beer from Franciscan Well is Bell Ringer and is also presented in a massive 1 Litre swing-top, just like Shandon Century stout. Unlike the stout though, Bell Ringer is not quite as impressive a beer, though it would be unfair to take that to mean there is anything wrong with the beer. Don't look for this to be available either, it's not part of their core range and instead is a seasonal and possible one off in bottle format. If you do come across a bottle, buy it though.
There may not be a whole lot going on but what's there is very tasty indeed. It puts me in mind of a strong English ale, packed full of bitter orange pith, squeezed mandarin juice and other fresh fruits, a rich malty backbone full of caramel and toffee as well as a slightly spicy, lingering hop bitterness.
It's not complex, but either is it a session beer to down before moving on to the next one. It is simply a beer to be enjoyed and considering the size of the bottle, one to be shared and enjoyed over dinner or on its own.

On a related note, I spent a very enjoyable weekend in Cork and attended The Franciscan Well on Saturday for the second Winter Ales and Cask festival. It was a little different to last year in that it seemed to be smaller. I think perhaps less breweries were there but on the other hand, there was a similar number of beers. Also all the beer was consolidated to one small bar area in the beer garden. This left more room for tables which is always a good thing at a beer festival.
I decided not to take pictures or do a full festival write up this year because essentially I would be repeating myself somewhat when I report on Easterfest in April. All I will say is that I loved it and will of course endeavour to make it back again next year.

The highlight beer for me was 8 degrees howling gale on cask. They dry hopped it to hell and it tasted like hop tea, full of tannins which for some might not sound very good but I loved it.

The only beer worth avoiding was from White Gypsy, which is rare for Cuilan to brew something bad unless the flavour that came out was his intention but it tasted like blue cheese and I am not a fan of blue cheese.

Look out for the festival next year and more importantly for Easterfest over the Easter weekend.

What good is wood?

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I often love wood aged beers. There is something very comforting about it that I can't quite describe. So when I noticed that Great Divide had a 17th anniversary (odd age to celebrate but why not?) wood aged, double IPA, well I just had to buy it.
One thing I am thankful for is that it's only 10% so it's not going to leave me unable to drink anything else unlike some double IPAs.

The beer pours a clear amber-red with a large fluffy white head that dissipates pretty quickly.The aroma is decidedly winey. A hint of vanilla and the slightest hint of alcohol.
When I tasted it, I immediately decided that it's a beautiful  beer. The vanilla comes out amongst the dark fruits and strong malty backbone. There is a lot of the 10% showing itself but no acetone alcohol burn. Oh and don't forget the hops, plenty of citrus throughout and a lovely tropical fruit finish.
More please.

Life And Limb

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This is a collaboration beer with Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada* called Life And Limb. It's an incredibly sweet beer, well it would be because they put maple syrup and Birch Syrup in it. I don't even know what Birch syrup is but I imagine it is essentially the same as maple syrup, just a different tree. I wonder does it taste any different?
The beer is designed to be aged they say, I drank mine fresh  so it will be interesting to how this batch turns out in a year or two. It's also what they call a small beer, which is a beer produced from the second runnings of a stronger beer. They also age it on two different types of wood chips.
I have one very minor, ok major gripe with the description on the website. It says:

Life and Limb is an easy drinking "session" beer-an antidote to the heavy sippers-that begs for another glass.

Now on what planet is a 10.2% ABV, 750ml  bottle considered a Session Beer? To be sessionable in my book, it should be between 3% and 4.5% at the most in my book. 5% would be over but still a little sessionable if you are careful but 10.2%? Not even close.

So griping aside, how is the beer? That's the most important thing. Well if I had pancakes available, I might have poured it on them. In fact that sounds like a very good idea to be honest. Actually it might be pretty cost effective as well because the 750ml bottle is €15.99 at drinkstore. Maple syrup on the other hand is about half that price, but for a tiny little bottle, about the size of a bottle of hot sauce, perhaps 200ml and probably less. So pouring this over your pancakes might be more cost effective. Of course that's only over here, maple syrup is much cheaper in the US and Canada so pouring it over your pancakes there would only be for the added benefit of alcohol early in the morning.

The beer is packed full of fruit, mostly dark fruits like prunes, raisins, plums but also cranberry and cherry. It is also pretty obvious that this is a strong beer. Hiding somewhat is a little chocolate that comes out as the beer warms a little. Throughout the whole thing is a syrupy sweetness and unlike most Sierra Nevada beers, it's not hopped to hell so there is nothing to counteract it. If you like sticky sweet beer then this is perfect for you.
For me, it is simply a novelty beer that I might not try again or I might; but I have no intention of stocking up.
I enjoyed it but that's about all I can say. I was not blown away but it was interesting to see what the two breweries came up with, that is the point of collaboration brews after all and I am glad I tried it.


* Two of my favourite breweries.

Meoww - The Session #60

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This month the session is all about growlers and is hosted on the Washington Beer Blog. In Ireland, a growler is a rare sight. I have heard that in Cork, the Bierhaus now has a growler service. In Dublin, the Bull and Castle was looking to get branded growlers and getting a refill service but there is no sign of them yet.

My own growler is this 2L of Hopus that I got late last year. Part of the swingtop is a carry handle. After I drank all the hopus, I had nothing to put into it. Maybe some day I will get it filled with some beer but in the meantime I can always use it for bringing homebrew to meetings.

John pretty much hits the nail on the head as to why we don't have much in the way of growlers in this country and that is probably because of public transport and our pub culture. In fact the only real use for a growler that I can see is for special beers that are rarely available. For instance it might be nice to go to one of the upcoming beer festivals and see if Barrelhead will fill my growler with their pale ale or one of the other breweries with specials that I am not likely to see till the next beer festival.

This weekend I am planning on heading in to Dublin to visit the new Black Sheep pub, owned by the people behind Against the grain, Oslo etc. I will not be bringing my growler.

When Hops Kill

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A great premise for a B movie; Rampaging killer hops shooting Alpha Acid that melts their victims... or maybe not....

Hops Kill? Nazis* is a bold name for a beer, a name that demands something to backup it's claim. This beer should level your taste buds in a bitterness black hole. Sometimes, Brewdog can be all talk although they do tend to back up their talk with a good product. Hops Kill is an imperial red ale so I am expecting a lot of chewy caramel and am not disappointed. Also various forest fruits along with pine and grapefruit on the nose. In the mouth, there is a lovely subtle, smooth carbonation. It's a melting pot of various citrus notes, plenty of sweet malt and quite a lot of hops.
It's not much of a hop bomb as the name might suggest but it is an absolutely gorgeous beer.

* When it was a prototype beer, I think it was supposed to be called hops kill nazis.