Posts Tagged ‘homebrewers’
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/
- In: Brewing
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Yesterday a bunch of Leeds Home Brewers paid a visit to Ilkley Brewery where we were given a detailed tour by Director Chris Ives and sampled quite a bit of their Rhubarb Saison which was on draft.
The brewery equipment, a major investment, was manufactured by Moeschle in Germany and installed by ABACUS Fabrications, Halifax.
The brewery currently consists of 5x 20BBL fermenters & one 30BBL conical DPV (dual purpose vessel), along with mash tun and copper of the same capacity, we hear that further expansion is planned too with lots of interesting beery ideas too 🙂
The Brewery is situated at the bottom of Ashlands Road in Ilkley:
Its a modern compact industrial unit:
Due to space constraints their Mash Tun sits directly on top of the Hot Liquor Tank, Chris explained that this caused some issues initially while getting used to the new equipment as heat from the HLT was warming the Mash Tun and making the mash hotter near the bottom of the Mash-bed:
Chris talking to Pete @pchindle at the bar, most of Ilkley’s beers are fermented using the Thwaites strain of yeast a very popular strain for many northern Microbreweries, their Saison is obviously not Thwaites yeast, it is instead fermented with yeast from Dupont:
A couple of their 20 barrel fermenting vessels:
Rob @Hopzine chatting to Matt @braukerl with the 30 Barrel DPV (Dual Purpose Vessel) in the background which was hissing away venting co2 while it fermented more Rhubarb Saison, above is the Malt Loft & Grist Case (Malt hopper), malt is transferred to the Mash tun via an Auger and Hydrated as it flows into the tun, if my memory serves they mash in at a ratio of 2.6-2.8 litres of liquor to every kilogram of malt and vary their mashing temperatures and liquor treatment for the type of beer they are brewing:
Myself, Ian @lugsy51, Matt @braukerl with his GF’s father sniffing beer… as we do:
More Beer Geekery now with @Broadfordbrewer:
I’m sure we all really appreciate Chris going out of his way to host a very interesting tour and taking the time to explain their brewing equipment and process, its nice to hear the commitment and excitement he brings to one of our most progressive (yet still traditional) local breweries.
Lets hope they enjoy judging our homebrewed competition entries, someone could be the proud winner of a Brewday at Ilkley, entries must be in by the 14th July – Leedshomebrew.blogspot.co.uk
Thanks for a great day and plentiful Siberia Rhubarb Saison!! 🙂
Photo Credits are all thinks to my Wife 🙂
