Posts Tagged ‘American Pale ale’
Northern Craft Brewers American Pale Ale Competition at Saltaire Brewery
Saturday 13th April
The day started before 10.30 with a few jobs and setting up to do in the brewery, around 11am people started arriving the sun was shining and the pints were starting to be pulled. By 1pm all the competition beers had been signed in and entry fees paid so judging could start, our panel of 6 judges was pretty similar to last year with Zak & Rob beer-writer & beer-blogger a couple of CAMRA judges, a National Guild judge and of course Tony the Head Brewer and owner of Saltaire Brewery.
We had around 44 (42 turned up on the day) beers entered into the competition, thats no mean feat for a single style homebrew comp, entries from as far afield as the far North East to the South Coast & Plymouth… this year really has drawn together a great group of like-minded homebrewers, its been good to meet new people, put names to faces , catch up with old friends & swap and taste a few exceptional homebrewed beers.
This year we had 9 Handpump beers across two of the bars in the brewery, each handpull having a beer donated by a homebrewer… Now we’re not certain, but does any other homebrew event in the UK offer 2 fully stocked bars like this, we’d like to think not and we’d like to thank all of our brewers for brewing and getting their beers to us for the day… Fantastic Work!
Each brewer using American Hops in a range of beer styles from light to dark and 3.5 – 5.5% ABV.
All the beers were given for a donation, we suggested £2 a pint inline with what the Brewery normally charge on its BeerClub nights, we raised a massive £640 for the charities below:
- The Alzheimers Society
- Water Aid
- Yorkshire Donkey Sanctuary
- Macmillan Cancer Support
- Cancer Research UK
- Make-a-Dream
- Beagle Welfare
- Yorkshire Cat Rescue
The Hop Talk
While judging was underway we had lined up Andrew Whalley of Charles Faram Ltd to come along and keep us entertained with an interesting talk about hops. These are exciting times for hops and hop growing and Andrew had brought along a variety of hop samples, needless to say we made a big mess of rubbed hops all over the floor and got sticky hop hands 🙂
Andrew started out at York brewery so knows a thing or two about brewing. Thanks for the talk, I know a lot of us are keen to try the new English varieties in the Farams Hop Development program, Cheers
CharlesFarams on Twitter
@BritishHops
After much deliberation the results were announced for the American Pale Ale:
Kevin Bagshaw from Doncaster took first place:
2nd – Andy Black from Leeds
3rd – Steve Syson from Derby
4th – Giles Strother from Oxford
Louis Cowdroy from Harrogate got the Highly Commended
42 Beers entered Judges stated all were of a very high standard & they found it very hard to split 1st and 2nd place.
The Best Cask results, voted for with a show of hands:
‘Pray for Mojo’ by Matt Darcy from Harrogate took first place:
2nd Neil Gardener from Guisley
3rd Zak Avery from Leeds
Louis Cowdroy got the Honorable Mention
Sincere thanks to all who took part, brewed beer, entered the competition, turned up to drink beer and talk brewing… we have done our 8 charities proud, well done 🙂
Major thinks also go to Tony Gartland for yet again letting me organise a ‘Piss-up in a Brewery’, Shane Swindells for sorting all the competition entries, our excellent team of Judges, the brewery staff, our Barmen Dave & Neil (Even if Neil didn’t have the power of speech by the end of it!), and my wife Emma for running the upstairs Bar, Thanks for a cracking event and here’s to next year! Cheers
The full photo gallery is here…
Northern Craft Brewers APA Comp Saltaire Brewery 2013, a set on Flickr.
I’m still editing and updating this post… so hold yer horses, let me know what I did wrong 😉
Scans of Charity reply letters here – http://www.flickr.com/photos/pdtnc/sets/72157634103463615/with/9035519874/
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 🙂
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On the Saturday 13th of April 2013 the Northern Craft Brewers & Saltaire Brewery will be holding a Competition and Meeting as we have done for the previous two years 2012/2011.
The Competition will be to brew your best American Pale Ale (Full Details Here) a bit of give or take on the style but American Hops are essential, NCB Prizes & Engraved Tankards will be given for First, Second & Third and no doubt a Honorable Mention or two, So get your Brewer/Brewster hat on and get mashing, its open to all who can get themselves & their beer here on the day, One entry per person.
| Vital Statistics: | OG: 1.045 – 1.060 |
| IBUs: 30 – 45 | FG: 1.010 – 1.015 |
| SRM: 5 – 14 | ABV: 4.5 – 6.2% |
Entry is 3 500ml-1Pint Brown Bottles with no labels or Identifying Marks any colour crown cork closure allowed.
Entry fee is £5.00 per entry, payable on the day, £2.00 Entry fee to the event on the Day for non competitors.
Cash Prizes for 1st-4th amounts will be announced nearer the event as size will depend on entries received but minimum £25 for 1st place plus Trophies & certificate presented on the Day.
To enter the Competition please email Shane Swindells @ competitions@northerncraftbrewers.co.uk
Please provide Name Address and a preferred contact email when emailing Shane
You will receive a confirmation email on application and any further information/updates will come via email, closing date for entries is midnight on Sunday 31st March 2013 no entries will received after this date.
Bring Your 3 Entry bottles on the Day & we will issue Tags with your entry number to be applied to the bottles on the day of the event.
The Brewery will be open from 11.00am to accept entries, all entries must be in by 13.00
Now… seeing as you are coming to Saltaire Brewery we have a couple of bars that will be needing stocking with beer… not any old beer mind… Homebrewed beer 🙂 We’ll be asking a few of you to brew a beer to be served on Handpull (Bag in Box) and the proceeds will be split between the brewers chosen charities, last year we raised £400 I’m sure we can beat that!
We’ll be giving the peoples choice Cask beer an Engraved Tankard too, the beer to brew for the bar is to be pretty open but it would be good to stick with the American theme and within 3.5 to 5.5% ABV. (Info for invited cask Brewers)
Oh… did I mention we are working on giving you guys a talk on Hops too, thanks to Andrew Whalley of Charles Faram.
And……. we’ll do some Brewery Tours, as if the beer wasn’t enough to keep you busy!
Bring your homebrew, swapping and tasting is very much encouraged 🙂
If you need food, bring your own as its a 10 minute walk to the nearest eatery as is Shipley Train Station, here’s the Google Map for the Brewery. Their is an Ibis Hotel 10mins walk away too and local Aagrah curry house not too far either 🙂
