Some Pleasing Feedback

It’s been an interesting day for the Fledgling Brewery today.

A little while ago a friend of mine who works for ‘Bateman's Brewery’ in Wainfleet, Lincolnshire knowing that I am a keen home brewer asked if he could sample my wares, he was duly supplied with a bottle of Big Kenny just before Christmas, he enjoyed that beer (I think he was a bit surprised!) and asked if I could supply another 6 bottles of the same beer so that he could present them to their "taste panel" at one of their monthly tasting sessions for their opinions. I duly brewed up another batch, and after letting the beer come into condition I sent him the bottles.

Today was the day that the 6 members of the tasting panel tried the beer....I was a bit apprehensive to say the least as so far my beers had only been tried by fellow all-grain brewers and a few friends and work colleagues, all of whom it could be argued would be fairly generous with their feedback no matter what they actually thought! I wasn’t expecting any such generosity today.

I received a phone call at lunchtime today to say that the beers had been very well received, of the 6 ‘tasters’ 5 were positive about it and only one of them wasn’t keen, although that apparently was because it wasn’t 'his sort of beer' not that there was anything technically wrong with it. I was told that the Head Brewer enjoyed it and I was over the moon to get the following email from him.

"Neil brought a few bottles of Big Kenny to our Beer Taste Panel this morning. We are always a little cautious of home brewed beer but it was a delight to sample Big Kenny. The most usual fault with home brew we have tried is a harsh flavour called yeast bite. Your Beer had no hint of this. The predominant flavour was of apple fruitiness. The balance of bitterness from the hops & sweetness from the malts was perfect. As you can imagine we get asked to taste a number of beers of this type but I have never had the pleasure of such a delightful example of the home brewer's art.

I must congratulate you on your skill as a brewer. If I was to recommend one home brewed beer Big Kenny would be the one. Keep up the good work."

I personally think that i'm more than entitled to be a bit smug about that for at least a few days!

Home Brew Review

On Wednesday I had the pleasure of sampling 2 bottles of homebrew sent to me by fellow all-grain brewers.

First up was JW's Lager sent to me by John This is the first homebrewed lager that I've tried so I made sure that I got the temperature of the beer right earlier in the day. To sum this up in a line: A great session beer to serve up at a BBQ.

I found it to be nicely carbonated and a light golden colour (the pic doesn't do it justice) I thought that it could have done with more hop aroma and flavour but that could be just my preference, it had a very clean/crisp and light taste and a dry finish, ideal I would say at a meat V's hot coals contest and I'm sure that John's going to be very popular this summer if he brews this again!

Following that was an Oatmeal Stout sent to me by Calum, I am not normally a stout drinker but i'd happily see a few of these off.

Carbonation was great, just enough to give the beer some life, it tasted really smooth and really gives your taste buds a treat with a full on roasted malt invasion, (I wonder, does the smoothness come from the roasted oatmeal?) It was nice and sweet with a pleasant finish not at all like the mass produced commercial stouts I normally avoid at the pub, I've also come to expect that a stout will be filling, like having a Sunday lunch after 3 pints but this wasn't like that at all. It would be easy to sit on a cold night in front of the fire and see a few of these down the hatch, i'll be looking for a brew to put away for Christmas, this will be on the shortlist.

Both of these brewers have 2 of my beers to try each, both have a Glasshouse Porter which I bottled back in December, Calum also has a bottle of Largs Thistle and John also has a bottle of Randy Sparrow. I'm looking forward to their feedback, it's the best way to improve your brews in my opinion.

Big Kenny - Turned out good

This is a pint of Big Kenny that I brewed back on 31st January, it's in perfect condition right now, and it's crystal clear. I think that this is my favourite of the beers that I've made to date, It's certainly going to be a regular in my tap (aka the garage). It'll be next on the to brew list after my SNPA clone which I now have all of the ingredients for, so hopefully that will be brewed tomorrow.

SNPA clone

I had been reading for a while about how nice a beer Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is so, last weekend I went out a bought six 330ml bottles, well it was only fair to give it a good test! I really liked it, I served it quite cold and found it to be wonderfully bitter with a really prominent hop aroma and flavour. After some research on Jims Home Brew Forum. I found that the hops used are Magnum, Pearle and Cascade.

I'm going to have a try at cloning this beer hopefully next week.

This will be the recipe, i'm just waiting for some of the ingredients to turn up.

Brewlength 25L
Estimated OG 1.056
Estimated IBU ~40
Estimated SRM ~9
66 Degree Mash - 90 Mins
Boil Time - 60 Mins

5400gm Pale Malt Maris Otter Grain 91.5%
400gm Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 7.0%
100gm Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 1.5%
25gm Pearle [6.90 %] (60 min) Hops 14.5 IBU
25gm Magnum [11.00 %] (60 min) Hops 25.6 IBU
30gm Cascade [6.80 %] (10 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep)
50gm Cascade [6.80 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep)

Fermenting at 18 degrees with US-05

Dragon Stout - Jamaica

I've tried a bottle of Dragon Stout tonight that I found in my local Supermarket, it's the first time I've tried it and to be honest I expected it to taste cheap and awful but I was pleasantly surprised. It poured with a good 1/2 to one inch fairly-tightly beaded head and tasted very sweet and light and refreshing, certainly not what I was expecting. It's Brewed by Red Stripe in Kingston Jamaica and comes in half pint bottles and weighs in at 7.5%. It gets the thumbs up from me!

There are some recipes here for cloning it which I might have a bash at and stick a few bottles away for Christmas I have loads of empty Leffe bottles that I could use.

Evening Brewing Again...

I'm pretty (no actually very) low on stocks at the moment, in fact the only home produced beer I have right now is no where near ready and has only just been put into the beer fridge to crash cool with 50 ml aux-fining's after fermentation finished. That Beer is Randy Sparrow the FG was 1.012 from an OG of 1.044 so using the formula (OG minus FG / 7.45) it should be around 4.3% it tasted great from the sample jar the Fuggles really stand out and there is a lovely aftertaste that I've had in other beers where Challenger has been the bittering hop. It's turned out a nice light copper colour, I'm going to be strict with myself and not tap this one until it's ready (about 5 weeks from now).

To get the stocks back up I'm going to brew another batch of Big Kenny there are a couple of reasons for choosing this beer, firstly I thought it was bloody good, secondly before Christmas I dared to take a bottle to a friend of mine who works for a very well established brewery and he's on their tasting panel, he tried it and liked it so much so that he's asked me to brew it again so that he can pass some bottles to their head brewer for his opinion and also present some to the tasting panel!! - Better make sure I get this one right! (Cheers Neil BTW)

Something to put away for Christmas

I like Christmas it's for the kids really and it's great watching them enjoy everything about the festive season, for me though when they have flaked out and gone to bed from a cocktail of over excitement, loads of racing around and loads of food I want to sit down with a good 'fireside' pint, some walnuts or some cheese and put my feet up.

This year thanks to fellow all grain brewer John, who's blog you must read (here) this Christmas my dark beer will be 'Glasshouse Porter' I knew as soon as I tasted and reviewed this beer that I'd have to brew it so tomorrow I am!

I have scaled & rounded the recipe up from 23L to 25L and replaced the First Gold with Challenger due to availability, this is what I'll be going with:

Grain Bill
4450gm Pale Malt (Fawcett MO) 74%
720gm Crystal Malt 12%
360gm Torrified Wheat 6%
300gm Chocolate Malt 4.5%
220gm Roasted Barley Grain 3.5%
Hop Schedule
40gm Challenger 6.8% (90 min) ~25 EBU
42gm Fuggles 4% (15 min) ~7 EBU
26gm Challenger 6.8%] (5 min) ~3 EBU

1 Whirlfloc at 10 min

Fermenting with Safale s04 (DFS stylee)

Target OG 1.053 at 75% BHE
Target EBU ~35
25L Batch
90 min 68 deg C Mash
90 min Boil

Brew Review - Glasshouse Porter

This evening I have been lucky enough to get to sample/review a beer which had been posted to me by a fellow homebrewer; John. The beer in question was his Glasshouse Porter.

It travelled very well, to say that it was bottled straight from Keg it kept it's life extremely well. It was a lovely coloured beer deep brown/red.

Great tightly beaded head which stayed to the end, I got lots of strong coffee and dark chocolate flavour a great big dry/malty aftertaste which lingers. Some hop aroma but not overdone, just about right for this beer I would say. Bitterness was perfect too. I'd describe this as a BIG beer.

I'd pay good money for this and will be brewing it myself - well done that man.

A brew from a fellow All Grain Homebrewer

This evening I had the pleasure of sampling a bottle of Porter which a fellow all-grain brewer sent to me by post. Here is what I made of it : To say that this was bottled from keg upon opening the cap there was a pleasing 'Hish!' which meant that the master brewer of this beer had done the business and it had travelled well and kept its carbonation, the bottle had been filled within a 1cm of the rim which I think helped. The immediate aroma was one of sweet coffee, when poured it had a nice head, much better than most commercial bottled beers, the picture above doesn't do it justice it had fallen by the time i'd fannied around with the camera. The beer is lovely and clear (when held to the light) very deep dark red/black. It was well carbonated, a little too much initially for my taste, but hey who am I! The flavours I got were a sweet coffee/liquorice a slightly dry aftertaste the flavour really lingers, I have a feeling i'm going to have this one in my throat in the morning. It tastes very 'clean' though and has a definate kick, but at 6.5% thats no surprise.

All in all, if this were a commercial bottled beer i'd buy it on a reasonably regular basis, it's a good old fireside pint this.