Double Brew for St. Pattys Day

Rather than be a part of the demand side of beer this St. Pattys day, I contributed to the supply side by brewing two beers on Saturday.

The first, by style, was somewhere between and American IPA and and Imperial IPA. It should be 7% alc/vol and 64 IBUs. Here is the recipe:

Condescension IPA
Size: 46.36 L
Efficiency: 86.98%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 315.37 per 1 pt

Original Gravity: 1.071 (1.056 - 1.075)
Terminal Gravity: 1.018 (1.010 - 1.018)
Color: 15.0 (6.0 - 15.0)
Alcohol: 6.99% (5.5% - 7.5%)
Bitterness: 66.6 (40.0 - 60.0)

Ingredients:
5.9 kg Standard 2-Row
5.5 kg Maris Otter Pale
0.7 kg Toasted Pale Malt
0.5 kg Crystal 75
0.1 kg Chocolate Malt
73.1 g Centennial (9.5%) - added during boil, boiled 90 min
37.2 g Cascade (5.8%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
36.5 g Centennial (9.5%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
37.2 g Cascade (5.8%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
20.7 g Centennial (9.5%) - steeped after boil
26.3 g Cascade (5.8%) - steeped after boil
26.3 g Fuggle (4.8%) - steeped after boil
500.0 mL Alley Kat ale yeast

Schedule:
Mash in at 60 C, raise temp to 68 C and hold for 1 hour.
Mash out at 78 C

Notes:
Toasted malt: soak malt in water for ~ 1 hr, then put in oven at 350 F for 1 hr

The second beer I made was a smaller batch of a brown ale I've been working on several times before, I just can't seem to get the flavour I want... I'm looking for a complex malty beer with a sweet and chocolatey start with a dry finish. I'm using the WYeast 1928 London ESB yeast for this which does have a distinct dry finish I noted on the last beer I made with it. I had some problems with the extract calculations on this one, so this recipe doesn't make sense on paper...

Brownrock Brown Ale I
Size: 32 L
Efficiency: 103.9% (obviously this is wrong)
Attenuation: 74.0%
Calories: 190.19 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.057
Terminal Gravity: 1.015
Color: 22.4
Alcohol: 5.54%
Bitterness: 29.26

Ingredients:
5.0 kg Mild Ale (Dextrin Malt)
0.5 kg Victory® Malt
0.4 kg German Dark Munich
0.3 kg Crystal Malt 120°L
0.2 kg German CaraAroma
0.2 kg Chocolate Malt
0.07 kg Roasted Barley
30.4 g East Kent Goldings (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 65 min
30.4 g East Kent Goldings (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
10 g Fuggle (4.8%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
10 g Cascade (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 5 min
500 mL WYeast 1968 London ESB Ale from starter


Schedule:
Mash for 60 min at 67 C, mashout at 78.



Yep, thats it!
Cheers

2007 Old Deuteronomy

Yes, thats right, we've released the 2007 Old Deuteronomy Barley Wine. Its quite a good vintage this year, and I had the pleasure of taking care of pretty much the whole thing from brewing to filtering, the only thing I didn't do was bottle it. So I'm quite proud of this, since we only do this once per year!
This years is 9.9% alc/vol and about 100 IBU in bitterness. I really like the flavour myself, the hoppiness lasts for almost half an hour in your mouth!

The bottle I'm holding in the picture isn't the size we sell it in, we just happened to have that cool bottle and filled it for ourselves :)

Come by the brewery and pick some up.

Cheers!

Heriot-Watt Campus

I was thinking I'd show some of you where I'll be going to school in October for my MSc in brewing in Scotland.
The university is called Heriot-Watt, and its located at the google maps link below:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=l&hl=en&q=heriot-watt+university&layer=&ie=UTF8&near=edinburgh&z=12&ll=55.927471,-3.277702&spn=0.088286,0.279808&om=1&iwloc=A

So the school isn't really in Edinburgh, its actually just outside. Which isn't quite as fun as being in the city. But its not too far of a bike ride or bus to pubs in the city. I was thinking about living in the city, but staying on campus has the advantage of being able to walk to classes without having to bike or bus in. And I'm pretty lazy in the morning. Plus I'll be living with other post-grads, who are in the same situation as me most likely, which makes people easy to meet.

The main website is http://www.hw.ac.uk/home/ and the site for my program (with all the courses, etc) is http://www.postgraduate.hw.ac.uk/course/118/.

Cheers!

Ordinary Bitter Review

So as of tonight (Monday) my Ordinary Bitter has been in existence for exactly two weeks. This is a great style to brew quickly, as I cracked the keg open at the monthly meeting for the Edmonton Homebrewer's Guild and it tasted great! Its definately a lighter beer (only 3.3% alcohol) but has a decent but not overpowering bitterness with some hop flavour on the finish. I received many positive comments on the beer, even from experienced beer judge gurus, which makes me quite happy.


I think I'm going to try to brew one of these per month, as its a great quaff beer... I can get home from work, have a couple of pints, and its only really like having a pint of beer. Plus I get the health benefits from moderate alcohol consumption, the vitamin B + a bazillion other nutrients & minerals in the yeast and beer mixture.


Yep, stop by and try some!
Cheers

English Premium Bitter Brew Night

Well, since I was off Thursday and Friday this week I decided to do a homebrew batch in the evening. I got a little busy... so I didn't actually end up starting the brew until midnight... which means I didn't get out of there until 6 am! But I'm kind of a night owl.

I've always really liked Fuller's London Pride, so I wanted to make something similar (but not the same). I found a clone on BYO, but I didn't really like the recipe. The recipe I used is below. Unfortunately, when I used the BeerTools recipe generator I left the mash efficiency at 75%, when I usually get 85% or so... thus, I had a hell of a lot more extract than I expected. I had to stop the runnings at 7.6 P and top up with a lot of water. I could have made a barley wine out of this! But thats not what I wanted. So I just got a very full boil kettle :)

I've decided to call this "London Self-Esteem"... ;)


Recipe:

Brian's "London Self-Esteem"
8-B Special/Best/Premium Bitter

Size: 48 L
Efficiency: 85%
Attenuation: 73.2%
Calories: 223.44 per 500 mL

Original Gravity: 1.048 (1.040 - 1.048)
|=======================#========|
Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (1.008 - 1.012)
|===========================#====|
Color: 13.6 (5.0 - 16.0)
|====================#===========|
Alcohol: 4.56% (3.8% - 4.6%)
|=======================#========|
Bitterness: 31.27 (25.0 - 40.0)
|==============#=================|

Ingredients:

7.6 kg Maris Otter Pale
0.8 kg Carastan 25
0.4 kg Crystal Malt 120°L
0.2 kg Carawheat®
0.2 kg Honey Malt

70.5 g East Kent Goldings (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
64.5 g East Kent Goldings (5.5%) - added during boil, boiled 20 min
22.5 g East Kent Goldings (5.5%) - steeped after boil
45.5 g Fuggle (4.8%) - steeped after boil

600 mL WYeast 1968 London ESB Ale
--------------

So as you may be able to see its just barely within the style guidelines, but I don't really care. I've also decided to not use the standard Alley Kat Ale yeast and try the London ESB yeast that is apparently used by Fuller's. Its very highly flocculant, so apparently it needs rousing now and then.

Anyway, the brew went pretty good otherwise. Just a couple of pictures below. Cheers!





Running into the kettle... nice and clear!

English Bitters

I've been more fascinated with the concept of the low alcohol, high flavour style of traditional English bitters of late. A week and a half ago I brewed an ordinary bitter (link to recipe), which ended up being 3.4% alcohol by vol. Its got very little malt flavour (its kind of "aqueous" actually, which is like being watery but a little better), but decent bitterness and hop flavour. Next time I'll probably up the flavour and aroma hop additions.

But why drink a low alcohol beer?? Doesn't that not get you drunk as fast?? It sure doesn't. But thats the point. At 3.4% having 2 pints of beer is like having one pint of strong beer... you get a good amount of flavour, plus the healthy aspects of beer, without getting drunk. I can come home from work, have a pint or two, and not be half drunk like I would be drinking a 8% Belgian.

So the ordinary bitter should be on tap here by the weekend, just waiting for it to carbonate in its "cask" (just a 20L sankey keg).

I'm now developing a recipe for a 4.5% premium bitter... I want to get a lot more body and malt flavour into it so as to get away from the aqueousness possible with a lower alcohol beer, so I'll be putting a bunch of carastan and dextrinous malts into it. I'm also going to try the Wyeast 1968 London ESB yeast. I'll post the recipe later when I finalize it.

Anybody want to try and ordinary bitter?
Cheers!

Beer Launching Fridge!

Below is a link to this crazy beer launching fridge some guy with lots of time came up with. Its very cool, theres a link to a video too. Check it out:

http://www.duke.edu/~jwc13/beerlauncher.html

If only the beer was better...

Cheers!

Hop Tasting, Session One

Today with several other brewer and homebrewer types we had a "hop tasting". Basically, each of the following varieties of hops were dry hopped into a bottle of Coors Light for 5 days. Coors Light was used because it basically has very little other flavour (being the "coldest" beer available... and whats with that marketing crap anyway? Coldness isn't a property of the beer... its a property of the fridge its in. Guh). Of course this only gives the dry hopped flavour and aroma of the hops, but its still pretty interesting.
In this session we tried Czech Saaz, German Tettnanger, US Tettnang, German Tradition, German Hersbrucker, German Hallertauer T-45, New Zealand Organic Hallertauer, German Spalt, US Santium, German Northern Brewer, French Strisselspalt, US Ahtanum, US Glacier, US Amarillo, US Galena, US Chinook, and US Warrior.

I found that the traditional noble hop types (basically the first 9 or so in the list) had very tea-like characteristics, with spicy, lemony citrus, and sometimes mint. I want to make a pilsner with Hersbrucker from flavour & aroma hopping. It was a very nice hop. My favorite was probably amarillo, which I have never knowingly had before. It would make an excellent dry hop, its very grapefruity and strong. I was surprised by warrior hops, they are very high alpha acid (16%) but don't have the harshness and bad flavours associated with other high alpha hops. Warrior is slightly citrus with some tea and floral notes. It doesn't have a lot of flavour either... I believe I will be using these for bittering hops for many an ale in the future.

The bad hops... Chinook is horrible, its a high alpha hop, but has a harsh and somewhat metallic flavour. Maybe a lot of that would boil out if boiled for long enough, but I'm not going to take that chance. Galena was pretty bad too... one guy described the aroma as "new plastic garbage can". At best, it would be used for bittering... but not by me.

I was surprised to find that Saaz didn't seem to have as strong of a flavour or aroma as I thought it would have compared to the other noble hops. Although it is a famous hop, you really would have to use loads of it in any application, be it bittering, flavour or aroma.

Cheers!

Ordinary Bitter

Planning on brewing a simple English Ordinary Bitter on Monday. The style is interesting because it is low alcohol (this one ~3.5-3.7%) but still has plenty of flavour. Thus, I could have a few pints after work without getting drunk but still get all the benifits of the yeast, hops, proteins, and carbs that beer includes. Really, 4 pints are like 2 and a bit!

Here is the recipe that I'm pondering right now:

Ordinary Bitter

8-A Standard/Ordinary Bitter

Size: 40.0 L

Efficiency: 83%

Attenuation: 74.9%

Calories: 169.72 per 500 mL

Original Gravity: 1.036 (1.032 - 1.040)
|================#===============|

Terminal Gravity: 1.009 (1.007 - 1.011)
|================#===============|

Color: 13.2 (4.0 - 14.0)
|======================#=========|

Alcohol: 3.56% (3.2% - 3.8%)
|=================#==============|

Bitterness: 32.74 (25.0 - 35.0)
|====================#===========|

Ingredients:

5.3 kg Canadian Craft Brewers Pale Malt
0.3 kg Extra Dark Crystal
0.25 kg Crystal Malt 120°L
0.15 kg Torrified Wheat

65 g East Kent Goldings (5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
28 g East Kent Goldings (5%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
28 g East Kent Goldings (5%) - added during boil, boiled 1 min

300 mL Alley Kat Ale Yeast

Schedule:

00:03:00 Mash In - Liquor: 12.0 L; Strike: 76.2 °C
01:03:00 Saccharification Rest - Rest: 60.0 min
01:04:00 Mashout - Water: 8.61 L; Temperature: 98 °C
01:49:00 Sparge - Sparge: 33.44 L sparge @ 78 °C, 48.05 L collected, 45.0 min; Total Runoff: 48.05 L

Yep, thats the plan!
Cheers!

Beerfest Wrap-up

The Edmonton International Beer Festival this weekend worked out pretty well. I had seen most of the beers/vendors at other festivals so most of it was "same old" for me. However, there were a few new things for me:

First was the presence of Paddock Wood Brewing from Saskatoon. I've only just recently seen their products on Edmonton liquor store shelves. Its good to see another craft brewery on the scene! So far they seem to make some really "big beers" with lots of flavour and alcohol. I haven't had as much of a chance to try all of their beers yet, but I did have a few Bête Noire Oatmeal Stout last night and they were pretty good... although quite a "thick" beer that takes time to drink.

I was also surprised by Molson's "craft" branded beer Rickards' who is now producing "White", which actually wasn't a bad attempt at a Belgian Wit style. Its fairly subdued in flavour, but it does have some of the coriander and orange notes you'd expect in a wit. It also appears unfiltered, or at least not filtered tight enough to remove the haze found in the wit style. I bet this will be a big seller in the summer.

There were several imports represented as well. It looks like product from Brooklyn Brewery is here to stay, which is awesome since they make some pretty good beers. I tried some "He'brew" barley wine which contained some pomegranate juice... quite tasty! Its very subtle, if I hadn't been told there was pomegranate juice in it I would have thought it was a yeast character perhaps.

Noticeably absent was Maverick Brewery from here in Edmonton... they had a booth reserved but didn't show up. Apparently they didn't pay either. If you ask me, it seems like their operation may not last too much longer...

As for us, Alley Kat, we had a pretty good showing. People devoured our Aprikat (a wheat ale with some apricot in it... a "beer cooler"). We had a great booth location which helped for sure.

The event in general was pretty good, although I never have much patience for retartedly drunk people. The first evening wasn't so bad, but the second night seemed a lot rowdier... dumbasses getting kicked out as early as 7. I heard somebody got pushed down some stairs and there were maybe 3 fights. And the end of the night is never fun when you cut people off... they always want more beer. But I guess thats the business... luckily I just spend most of my time making beer and not selling it :).

Cheers!

Edmonton Beerfest!

This weekend I'll be serving up our fine Alley Kat beers at the Edmonton International Beer Festival, which is being held Feb 9 & 10 at the UofA Dinwoodie Lounge. Come down and chat with me about beer for awhile!

You can also check out the booth that the Edmonton Homebrewer's Guild will have set-up. The guild is one of the best in North America and have some of the beer-nerdiest people you can find!

It should be a pretty good event, although I worry that with it being held on campus there will be a lot of "drink to get as drunk as possible" types attending, which gets annoying. But hopefully lots of "beer nerds" show up, I love talking to beer nerds :)

Cheers and see you there!

Perhaps Brewing Sunday

I'm thinking of brewing at least one beer this weekend on Sunday, but I'm not too sure yet. If you're interested in helping out, let me know.
I'll probably brew the fourth in my series of Amber style beers, not sure what to do differently this time.

Cheers!