Posts Tagged ‘beer’
AG#99 – Boomstick
Posted on: April 20, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
BoomStick – I’m brewing this for NCB member Paul Bromley who runs a back-garden charity event, he asked me if I’d brew something pale for it, so here it is, its an evolution from my Chinook Blonde recipe, using some of the same hops (but more of them) and adding some Weyermann Munich Type I, and mashing at 69°c, fermenting with Safale us-05.
This time the name again comes from a line Ash says in Army of Darkness “This… is my Boomstick!”
Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This… is my boomstick! The twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart’s top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That’s right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. It’s got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That’s right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?
Fermentables:
Pale Malt – 70%
Munich Type I (Weyermann) – 20%
Flaked Oats – 5%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 5%
Hops:
UK Cascade – 5.7 % @ 60 mins – 21g (FWH)
UK Cascade – 5.7 % @ 30 mins – 21g
Chinook – 12.5 % @ 10 mins – 21g
Cascade – 7.9 % @ 10 mins – 21g
Chinook – 12.5 % @ 0 mins – 49g (94c Steep for 25mins)
Cascade – 7.9 % @ 0 mins – 49g (94c Steep for 25mins)
Final Volume: 25 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.037
Final Gravity: 1.009
Alcohol Content: 3.7% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 33 EBU
Colour: 9 EBC
Mash: 69°c for 70mins
Boil: 60mins
The malts, all pretty pale:
The hops:
Second batch sparge liquor going in at 78°c:
In go the Cascade & Chinook for the flameout steep:
I decided to rehydrate my yeast today to try and get things underway faster, I want a speedy ferment with time to put this beer in cask to condition before Paul’s event:
The money shot, I got 1044 and liquored back to 1037 with 4 litres giving me a total volume of 25.7 Litres, a goodly amount for filling a plastic pin cask:
No messing, done and dusted.
*25th Apr ’13 – Steady gravity reached, exactly as predicted FG, chilling down before casking this beer.
*Casked 27th Apr ’13 – with 20g white sugar and Allkleer finings, got a few 500ml bottles from it too which I give 3/4 Tsp white sugar each.
I’m going to give the cask a couple of days of warm then chill it down to cellar temps.
*1st May ’13 – Had a cheeky bottle of this, and its bloody good, plenty of juicy hops with a nice balance between the Cascade & Chinook, Chinook not overpowering just nice 
AG#98 – Robust Wheat Porter
Posted on: March 24, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 8 Comments
Robust Wheat Porter – The Pancake Day of Homebrews! I’m using up a load of bag-ends, so my base malts (Lager & Wheat) are now totally depleted.
I’m not too fussed if its something odd-ball, it should hopefully be entertaining and I can start from fresh malts for subsequent brews.
Fermentables:
Wheat Malt – 44.9%
Lager Malt – 26.6%
Munich Malt – 5.9%
Jaggery (Cane) – 5.5%
Brown Malt – 3.7%
Chocolate Malt – 3.7%
Rauch Malt (Weyermann) – 3.2%
Amber Malt – 2.6%
Peat Smoked Medium – 1.8%
Munich Type II (Weyermann) – 1.4%
Roasted Barley – 0.7%
Oat Husks – 3% (This works out at 103%, added after calculating recipe)
Hops:
Bobek – 4.5 % @ 60 mins – 408g
Saaz – 4.15 % @ 0 mins – 48g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.077
Final Gravity: 1.016
Alcohol Content: 8.1% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 70 %
Bitterness: 181 EBU – (This is going to be bogus, the hops are old and like confetti)
Colour: 148 EBC
Mash: 90mins @ 67°c
Yeast: Safale US-05 skimmed from last weeks brew before I dry hopped it
Liquor Treatment: General Purpose copied from AG#55
The Malts, I added a few Oat Husks as a precaution:
408g of Bobek Hops in the copper:
Recirculating the first few jugs from the mash tun until it runs clear:
Jaggery Goor, or Unrefined Cane sugar:
In go the late Saaz hops:
Quite a lot of spent hops left in the copper:
I ended up with 1079 so liquored back 0.54L to 1077, I feel a few things worked in my favor to get the right OG and 21.46Litres:
- Predicted Mash efficiency be set low.
- The 3.7L bellow the Mash Tun’s false bottom which I usually deduct from the first sparge.
- 80c second (technically first) sparge, I normally go for 78°c, and 15min rest before running off.
All cleaned up and yeast pitched, I expect it to kick off quite soon and spew all over the kitchen floor, the fermentation fridge is still full of Brown Ceas which I just dry hopped.
*25th Mar ’13 – The fresh yeast has taken off well, still in the bucket… just!
*31st Mar ’13 – Gravity at 1018 so this has been pretty fast at fermenting, and it tastes rather good with quite a bit of smoke and the Brown/Amber/Choc malts definitely playing their parts, bitterness is coming through but not overly
*7th Apr ’13 – Gravity at 1018 still so chilling it down before bottling sometime next week.
*Bottled 10th Apr ’13 – with 76g White Sugar, tastes bloody good too
AG#95 – WheatArillo
Posted on: February 23, 2013
WheatArillo – With 5kg of fresh Amarillo in the garage I’d be silly not to, I’ve also got a fair bit of Wheat Malt that I could do with using up too… 
I’d have preferred to brew a big bad Amarillo Wheat like I did back in AG#36 but I figure this could be my entry into the NCB/Saltaire Comp on 13th April, I’ll be brewing again next week so I’ll pick the better of the two to enter.
**Won’t be dry hopping, ferment-out & bottle as soon as possible.
Fermentables:
Wheat Malt – 69%
Lager Malt – 23%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 8%
Oat Husks – 5%
(You may notice the % don’t add up, this is because I added 5% extra Oat Husks after calculating the recipe in BeerEngine)
Hops:
Amarillo – 8.7 % @ 60 mins – 24g
Amarillo – 8.7 % @ 30 mins – 24g
Amarillo – 8.7 % @ 10 mins – 40g
Amarillo – 8.7 % @ 0 mins – 40g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.045
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 4.4% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 70 % (Reduced a little as I’m using a lot of wheat)
Bitterness: 49 EBU
Colour: 5 EBC
Mash: 90mins @ 68c
Boil: 60mins
Yeast: Safale us-05
Liquor Treatment: General Purpose copied of a previous Brewsheet of similar Mash quantity & OG.
The Malts, its pretty cold in the Garage today:
First Breakfast while the Mash is on, Red Jade Tea & Porridge with Golden Syrup:
Just adding the second batch sparge liquor:
The First Wort Hops in the copper:
I think you’ll agree that was a particularly poor photographic effort!
I wasn’t messing about and made this as easy as I could, it will be nice to have some Amarillo homebrew in stock again.
*2rd Mar ’13 – **I actually just dry hopped it with 1g/L of Amarillo Pellets I’d have regret it if I hadn’t, its should be subtle but add an element of freshness.
*Bottled 8th Mar ’13 – with 110g white sugar to 22 litres of beer, tasting good, should be drinkable as soon as its carb’d up
AG#94 – Hooded Embarrassment
Posted on: February 3, 2013
- In: Brewing
- 2 Comments
Hooded Embarrassment – Thought I’d try squeeze in a brew for the Revolutions Brewery ‘Competition’ so I’m going for something a bit different after reading something about a Mittlefruh IPA in Stan Hieronymus‘ new book ‘For the love of Hops‘. I could have sworn that I had a pack of Mittlefruh in the Hop-Freezer, sadly I didn’t but what I did have was a pack of Mount Hood hops which are an American grown relation of Mittlefruh.
Vienna malt for some added maltiness and lots of carapils to retain body and hopefully balance the bitterness.
I’ve had a nice bottle of Mallinsons Brewery ‘Aramis’ and I thought it had a good spicy bitterness to it so that is forming my bittering additions, I’ll dry hop with Mt. Hood as soon as its passed 1020-1015 in the fermenter, then try and get bottled in good time to allow for it to condition up and mature before it has to be judged.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt – 2880g – 60%
Carapils (Weyermann) – 720g – 15%
Vienna Malt – 720g – 15%
Wheat Malt – 480g – 10%
Hops:
Aramis – 8.9 % @ 60 mins – 32g (First Wort Hop)
Aramis – 8.9 % @ 30 mins – 32g
Mount Hood – 7.5 % @ 10 mins – 30g
Mount Hood – 7.5 % @ 0 mins – 30g (Flameout steep for 30mins)
Dry Hops:
Mount Hood – 40g
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.047
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 4.5% ABV
Total Liquor: 31.1 Litres
Mash Liquor: 11.5 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 58 EBU
Colour: 6 EBC
Mash: 68°c for 60mins
Boil: 60mins
Yeast: Safale us-05
The malts, a very pale blend:
Some liquor treatment and First wort Aramis hops in the copper:
Hops prep’d, the full tablet of Protafloc went in with the 10mins hops:
Steeping hops, Mt. Hood, just turned the chiller on for a few seconds to kill the boil before adding the hops:
Everything sanitised with Starsan:
Got a little over 1052, I liquored-back to 1047, I must make another Brewday Record Sheet that includes the liquoring back:
No mucking about today, the mash was on at 10.55 (68°c) and I’m all cleared up and typing this now at about 16.00, I could probably have been done quicker if I’d tried.
Turfed out last weeks brew from the fermentation fridge and put todays brew in there set to 20°c, I’ll increase the temperature after a day or two to 21-22°c and hope to have it finished fermenting by the weekend.
Check out Revolutions Brewing on @RevolutionsBrew
Hopefully my yeast is good and I will make better beer than my un-entered attempt last year!
*7th Feb ’13 – Dry Hopped at approx 20°c with 40g Mt.Hood, giving a good stir in through the yeast head, Gravity @ 1017.
*8th Feb ’13 – Gravity @ 1010.5 so gone a bit passed the 1012 predicted, again give the hops a good stir and squashed them against the side of the FV. Tastes rather good with a big woody/spicy flavour and spicy bitterness, I may well enjoy this
*Bottled 18th Feb ’13 – with 90g White Sugar.
*22nd Feb ’13 – Early taster, a little green and slightly grassy, has a really solid spicy bitterness.
*25th Feb ’13 – Taster tasting good, nice sessionable ale, no big brash hops just a balance of bitterness and spice with woody orange tones.
AG#92 – Klaatu Verata Nictu
Posted on: January 1, 2013
Klaatu Verata Nictu – The New Years Day BrewAthon 2013. It was a year ago that a few of us brewed an Imperial Stout on New Years Day, this year its a more free range of beer styles but people are pushing the boundaries a little with some funky yeast etc
The name for this beer comes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_Darkness quite the classic.
I’m making a big beer, 10% ABV with Amarillo & Delta Hops, I’d like to brew a beer that will evolve and change over a couple of years (hopefully it will last that long!) something with at least a hint of what my Imperial Amarillo Wheat had after 18 months.
Once I’ve fermented mine with US-05 I’ll be bottling half-ish and then using Brettanomyces Bruxellensis in a secondary fermenter.
Fermentables:
Lager Malt 2.5 EBC – 63.9%
Wheat Malt – 9.9%
Vienna Malt – 8.9%
Munich Type I (Weyermann) – 8.9%
Flaked Oats – 5%
Cara Vienna (Dingemans) – 3.5%
Hops:
Sticklebract Pellet – 11.7 % @ 60 mins – 90g
Chinook Pellet – 12.9 % @ 60 mins – 18g
Summit Pellet – 15.8 % @ 30 mins – 27g
Amarillo Whole – 10 % @ 15 mins – 50g
Delta Whole – 6.5 % @ 15 mins – 50g
Amarillo Whole – 10 % @ 0 mins – 50g – (80c steep for 20-30mins)
Delta Whole – 6.5 % @ 0 mins – 50g – (80c steep for 20-30mins)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.100
Final Gravity: 1.024
Alcohol Content: 10.2% ABV
Total Liquor: 37.5 Litres
Mash Liquor: 25.9 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 70 % – Reduced a bit from normal
Bitterness: 200 EBU
Colour: 19 EBC
Mash: 65°c for 120mins
Yeast: Safale US-05 x 3 packs
Liquor: GW Calc ‘Dry Pale Ale’
A very full fermenter full of malts, about 12kg in all:
Hot liquor at 82°c to pre heat mash tun, let cool to 72°c before mashing in, Temp-Controller construction is here:
The overview of my three tier home brewery, gravity fed system with Hot water from the House feed to fill the HLT at 50-60°c:
These NZ Sticklebract smell great, big pungent citrus character, bit of a shame they are just the bittering:
New Year Resolution is to brew my way thru some of this lot!:
After 2 hour mash I’m recirculating the wort for clarity, tastes good:
About OG 1090 give or take, a temperature corrected Hydrometer test showed 1083 a more reasonable figure, the mash was actually pretty text-book and the recirculation must have helped:
Boiling down the wort in the kitchen too so as to speed things along, I did this with some of the first sparge and again with the second sparged wort:
Amarillo and Delta 80°c steep hops:
Almost 1110 off the scale, this is going to be a fun liquorback:
Finally after a mega dribble transfer I have pitched 3 packs of yeast!:
Everything was going sooo well until I got about 10 Litres transferred into the FV when it ground to a halt (Dribble) and I started to try and find a way to make it speed up so cleaned a Solar Pump and pipework and tried pumping it… sadly I just got the same dribble but through a pump, left it to it and came back about 9pm to find about 20 Litres in the FV. I was over my OG so I liquored back to just over my target and gained an extra couple of litres, there must have still been 4-5 Litres left in the soggy hops in the copper, If it had drained properly I’d got that extra out and would have split the batch into another FV and left the Brett to do a full primary ferment.
My Method for brewing this 10% beer:
This is how I have done my Barley Wine and Abyss Imperial Stout, Over-sparge by 10 Litres or so and boil it down in a few pans before adding all back to the copper and boiling down until I reach the theoretical pre-boil Volume, then add the 60min bittering hops and so on until the end of a boil. The Mash and Sparges were; Mash with hot liquor at 73°c for 120minutes (65c Mash); recirculate entire mash via solar pump for approx 20mins; drain Mash completely avoiding malt particles at the end; Sparge with 13.4L Hot Liquor at 78°c recirculate and Run-off; Boil down in pans; Second 10L Sparge Recirculated and Run off with a further boiling down.
As I was saying above I was actually finishing the boil with a good few litres more in the copper and was hoping for extra in the FV… oh well!
I may have to look at improving my Mesh Hop-Stopper for brewing these bigger beers that include some Pellet Hops.
Twitter HashTag #NYDBrewAthon
This years brewers were:
Here is Barney’s on JBK – Monks Slipper
Here is Macca’s on JBK – Cliffhanger Oatmeal Stout
Here is Lugsy’s on JBK – Pseudo-Lambic (Lugsy started early as he’d learned from last year!)
Here is Leedsbrew’s Prep Blog and later Update
Here is Quadrangularus’ – Raspberry Sour Brown Ale
More as and when the brewers post up their Brewdays
*12th Jan ’13 – Gravity at 1019 so 10.9% ABV, dry hopped with pellets:
Nelson Sauvin – 29g
Motueka – 29g
Cascade – 29g
I decided not to go down the Amarillo whole hop route as they would soak up too much beer and I’ll be splitting some of the beer off into a Demijohn or small FV bucket to Brett so don’t want to loose too much volume.
*Bottled 20th Jan ’13 – with 65g White Sugar, dropped the lot into a Bottling bucket with primings then bottled half-ish in 330ml bottles then put the rest in an Oxfam bucket and pitched the Brett.
Syphoned thru a Teaball to guard against getting pellet debris in the bottles, the chill down to 8°c in the fridge had made it pretty clear anyway:
Brettanomyces Bruxellensis added to about 8L in Oxfam bucket:
Got about 32 bottles, tasting pretty good with a fair amount of residual sweetness which should fade in bottle as it conditions and matures:
*2nd Feb ’13 – Brett’d beer has dropped 2 points to 1017 from 1019, very slight speckled surface, think it needs more brett! Tastes just slightly different to what I’d expect from un-brett’d.
*2nd Feb ’13 – Had a taster bottle with Dave last night, has loads of residual sweetness which I hope will diminish as it matures, could have done with maturing in bulk then Dry hopping and bottling some weeks/months later.
*9th Feb ’13 – Just added a fresh tube of Whitelabs WLP650 as I was expecting more to be happening and wondering if the OG / Alcohol content is screwing the Brett Brux over.
*25th Feb ’13 – Gravity @ 1017 which hasn’t budged in the last 23 days! Tastes just on the edge of bretty-sour but very subtle. I’m fairly sure the High Alcohol has killed the Brett.
*31st Mar ’13 – Gravity @ 1015 so its creeping slowly and is now showing a more Bretty sour, it could be some time before this is finished!
Here we go again, its the end of another year of Homebrewing and I’ve rattled off a fair amount of brews which are edging me ever closer to my Centenary Brew (100th) All-Grain / Full Mash brewday.
Its been a mad year with Brewers & Home-brewers eager to get their hands on any and all new hop varieties, 2013 is going to be the same… Home-brewers are increasing in numbers along with new Microbreweries, diversity in beer and brewing has never been so great in the UK.
Homebrewers are using Hops from all around the world and an expanding range of Malts from the UK, Germany and Belgium are giving us an ever increasing pallet of flavours to meld together with an excellent range of yeast profiles.
It feels to have been ‘Year of the Dry Hop’ for the last couple of years, but thats not to say every beer should be made this way (Even if it is rather entertaining), some things work better with light hopping and leave a complex blend of malts or interesting yeast to do the talking as @Lugsy51 has been doing with his current fetish for Saison & Rauch Beers.
A few homebrew highlights for me were:
To start with the New Year’s Day Imperial Stout Brew-along was fun; then there was the Twitter #BlackIPAoff that a few of us did and met in MrFoleys, Leeds for a tasting and scoring to find a winner; the second NCB/Saltaire Brewery meeting and competition; the Homebrew highlight was attending the National Homebrew Competition in Bristol and helping out as a steward, it was a long but entertaining day. I seem to recall Vac-Packing quite a few kilos of hops too, though thats not really a highlight!
Here’s some of this years brews that I’m keeping in mind for 2013:
AG #89 – Big Malty Smoke Beer
This one requires another brew, tweaking for a little more smoke and maybe mash a degree cooler, then prime a bit heavier to give it a bit of extra sparkle in the glass.
AG #87 – Chinook Blonde
Just a touch more Chinook at the end with a little less Carapils and it should be about spot on.
AG #86 – Ta Moko II
I’ll brew it again! I hope the next crop of Nelson Sauvin has as much Catty-punch as when I brewed Ta Moko for the first time.
AG #85 – HopZilla IPA
I will do another Heavy on the Dry Hops double IPA, I feel Hop pellets are the way forward with these bigger hoppy beers so as to save on the wort-loss that you get with whole hops.
AG #84 – Liquorice Stout
I shall brew a similar beer without the Liquorice as I believe the base beer to be a very solid stout.
AG #83 – Ring of Fire
Re-brew with tweaks and also an IPA version with added Nelson Sauvin.
AG #82 – Hop Sap IPA
Well… There wasn’t much of this, and if you had a bottle you were bloody lucky, Massively Dry Hopped happiness.
AG #80 – Nit Wit
Yeah… you need a good Wit and I’ll do it again, maybe with a slightly different yeas as the WLP400 was annoying and had to be roused a lot to actually ferment!
AG #78 – Pioneer’s Gold
Ooo, Barleywine… and the Saltaire Yeast worked a treat, mouth-filling and satisfying, steady drinking and wholesome.
AG #77 – UK Cascade
I should do a re-brew as the yeast spoiled this one and I don’t think I got to appreciate the full hop character.
AG #76 – Steaming, Brown & Sticky
Oh yes… this is definitely on the cards, tweaked or un-tweaked this is a great beer.
AG#74 – Is it ‘cos I is Black?
I think there could be lots of Black IPA experimentation ahead with colour & roastiness being areas to keep a check on, it must be Black but the level of Roastedness is quite easy to turn this dark-but-not-dark beer into a hoppy Stout.
AG #72 – Toasted Oatmeal Stout
To do again and not toast the oatmeal, and not prime too much as I’m lead to believe the oats leave slow fermenting residual sugars… giving me Gushing bottles! Still this is going to make some great Beef Stews
AG #71 – Abyss Imperial Stout
Well, of course! Its nice to see how these strong dark beers develop over time.
Last years review is here it encompasses ’09-’11 and there are still things on that list that could be on the coming years brew-plan.
More for 2013…
I’ll finish off the 50Litre Keg Boiler I’m building and get the electrics installed in the garage to plug the elements into, this should allow me to brew a bit more of the beers I like and also fill a Firkin with one brew.
Things to Brew for: Thornbridge Homebrew Competition, the NCB & Saltaire Competition, the National Homebrew Competition.
We need to have a get-together for a last years Imperial Stouts, that has messy written all over it!
More beer to be drunk and flavours to be experienced
Buy a good few kilos of a few hops and spread the love….
AG#89 – Big Malty Smoke Beer
Posted on: October 27, 2012
- In: Brewing
- 3 Comments
Big Malty Smoke Beer – The name says it all, this is what I want, it has to be Big, it has to be Malty, and it has to be Smokey
I should maybe give it a smokey German name like Rauchfaktor / KraftWort or something….
Fermentables:
Rauch Malt (Weyermann) – 48.5%
Munich Malt – 20.8%
Munich Malt II (Weyermann – 13.4%
Oak-Smoked Pale Wheat Mal – 6.9%
Cara Munich Type I (Weyer – 6.9%
Melanoidin Malt – 3%
Carafa Special III – 0.4%
Hops:
Hallertauer Mittlefruh – 4.2 % @ 60 mins – 43g
Tettnang – 3.8 % @ 60 mins – 43g
Hallertauer Mittlefruh – 4.2 % @ 0 mins – 22g – (30min Steep)
Tettnang – 3.8 % @ 0 mins – 9g – (30min Steep)
Final Volume: 23 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.065
Final Gravity: 1.016
Alcohol Content: 6.4% ABV
Total Liquor: 35.5 Litres
Mash Liquor: 17.3 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 70 % (Reduced from usual 75% as unknown malts)
Bitterness: 34 EBU
Colour: 53 EBC
Mash: 90mins @ 69°c I want to keep this Malty & Sweet which I hope will display the smoke well or at least create a background to carry it.
Boil: 60mins
Yeast: 2x Safale us-05 (It was going to be a Whitelabs Kölsch starter but it didn’t start!)
Quite a heap of malts going into this one, most are fresh from @TheMaltMiller the other week:
12°c in the garage today, a good temp for all the beer in there:
The colour of the mash run-off was a deep straw colour, there was no first sparge so I did a decoction to achieve a good Mashout temperature before running off:
This was the second sparge, i did a 30g carafa steep for 15mins to adjust for colour:
Start of boil hops:
Flameout hop steep of what remained in the two packs of hops:
1079 with temperature correction, 4 litre Liquor-back required to hi OG and final volume, I actually got almost 80% Mash efficiency, the decoction obviously had a bearing on this:
Put to bed in the fermentation fridge with it set to 18°c:
Fairly straight forward brewday, new fermenting bucket cleaned and tap fitted my older (original) buckets are getting a bit chalky looking inside I need to de-scale them at work.
I think I may have let a load of fine malt particles through into the copper as the run-off from the Mesh Hop-stopper was feeble at best, but the cold weather helped.
I managed to chill the wort down to 17°c and then after liquoring back from the HLT I got 18°c which is pretty much what I was aiming for as I want to ferment this cool to try and limit any possible ester production and keep it clean, I’ll warm it up towards the end to let the yeast clean up its bi-products.
*12th Nov ’12 – Looks to have finished at 1021.5 @22°c pretty high though not totally unexpected with a mash temp of 69°c (5.6% vs predicted 6.4% ABV).
*Bottled 24th Nov ’12 – Primed with 100g White Sugar in about 20 Litres of beer… should probably have been bottled a week ago, hopefully some time in bottle and carbonation will bring out the smoke, there is a very slight sourness in the finish though could it be the Rauch or maybe the Melanoidin??? I shall be reserving judgement until its had a week or two in bottle.
*30th Nov ’12 – I had a sneaky taster of this last night, I didn’t detect any of the previous sourness, its smokey but not that smokey more akin to a smoked Cheese than my desired “Stood Next to a Bonfire”, its actually quite light to drink with enough Body and Sweetness which I suppose is a Bready Maltiness… If I re-brew, more smoke!!! Maybe even a bit of bastardization with a touch of Peat Smoked Malt. Schlenkerla’s smoke hit really must be down to a rapid succession from Maltsters to Smoke House to Milled & Mashed with a cool fermented clean yeast. Safale US-05 has done an admirable job even if it wasn’t my first choice yeast, I should get more Whitelabs Kölsch yeast for the next attempt.
I think there is scope to reduce the amount of body and increase my carbonation and maybe a subtle alteration on the hopping for ‘Less is More’.
- In: Brewing | Random
- 2 Comments
Will the 103,266 signatures be enough? http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/29664 Maybe we should all write to our MP’s its really easy to do http://www.writetothem.com
What follows is my my, probably somewhat badly written, bunch of thoughts on the matter to my MP… it took me 5 minutes to do this, do you think you can spare just 5 minutes of your time to tell your MP what you think to the government’s taxation of your beloved pint of beer… thanks
Dear Kris Hopkins,
Regarding the “Stop the beer duty escalator” http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/29664
I really hope all these signatures make a difference, didn’t the Govt already say they were not going to change the Beer Duty Escalator? It seems very odd to keep whipping the cash-cow until there is no cow left to whip, thought that may be a worst case scenario! In the spirit of fairness the Beer Duty Escalator is out and out defective and must be challenged along with the whole of the alcohol industry to bring all its sectors into balance with one another. Beer is made a scape goat far too often and blamed for problem drinking, all the beer drinkers I know drink socially and responsibly… as do I! Should I really be taxed on my enjoyment of diversity in beer, should I pay over the odds for this variety that the British Brewing industry gives me, why must I be judged in the same way as an alcoholic trouble causer for the sakes of pleasing the Health-lobbying contingent????
I’m not happy with the way the Govt want to bleed a growth industry in these times of austerity, they need to nurture that growth and keep all Britain’s Microbreweries employing people… think further to the Barley Maltings and the Farmers that grow the barley, each step of the path to a pint of beer has a trail of employment.I urge you to raise these matters and save our Pubs & brewing Industries from the extreme taxation that could drive them out of business.
Thank you for your time
Yours sincerely,
And here’s the ‘Dust me under the carpet’ reply…
Thank you for contacting me about beer duty.
The Government inherited the largest deficit in the G20 when it came to power in 2010 and the UK currently spends over £120 million every day on debt interest payments alone. This is clearly unsustainable and tough decisions are unavoidable. The revenues from alcohol excise duty make an important contribution to reducing the deficit we inherited, so the Chancellor had no room to change his Labour predecessor’s plans. We know that it would be unfair to place further burdens on pubs and on responsible drinkers, which is why we did not go further than the pre-announced duty increases at the Budget.
I recognise the vital role pubs play in community life and job creation. Ministers have already taken a number of steps to support British pubs. A community right to buy has been introduced, which will enable residents to save struggling pubs by taking them over rather than seeing them lie empty and derelict. We are also cutting red tape to make it is easier for pub owners to attract new business by putting on live music events.
As well as acting to reverse the last Government’s hike on cider tax, the Government has announced that it is going to introduce a new minimum unit price so for the first time it will be illegal for shops to sell alcohol for less than this set price per unit.
Groups such as the Campaign for Real Ale and the British Beer and Pub Association have welcomed the work that the Government has done to date, such as the review of alcohol taxation in November 2010. CAMRA’s figures also show that the net rate of pub closures has slowed dramatically over the past two years.
Please be assured that Treasury Ministers are aware of the broader concerns you raise.
Best wishes
Kris Hopkins
Do I reply…?
