Some tasting

Kolsch II

I tasted this just after a Flensburger Pilsner, so it's interesting to pull out some of the contrasting tastes between a very clean pilsner and a relatively clean tasting kolsch.

Pours with a generous creamy white head, which dissipates and leaves no lacing. Pale coloured, though not quite as pale as the pilsner. Good level of carbonation for the style. Some very slight green apple (possibly acetaldehyde but slightly different I think). Other noticable 'white wine' type flavours. Little to no hop aroma on this one. Bitterness is clean and at an appropriate level for the style. Dry finish.

A good beer, reasonably well brewed. I am very sensitive to acetaldehyde and I think I can possibly detect it here, but only a very tiny amount. I've gotten this with both Kolsch yeasts I've used (WLP029 and WY2568), but with other yeasts any acetaldehyde tends to disappear with time.

I would like to see a better head and lacing on this and some of my other beers. I wonder if no-chilling influences this. I think I've noticed a correlation here, but I need to keep track of things a little better to know for sure.

Kolsch II

Brunswick Pride

This beer is almost simultaneously a triumph and a disaster. With eyes closed it is a really fine example of a drinkable, sessionable english bitter ale. However with eyes open it's a mess. It has a serious haze problem, which cold conditioning has had no effect on.

If you can recall the brewing notes on this one, the grain had been sitting in my garage crushed for 9 months before I got around to using it. A taste test seemed to confirm it was in reasonable condition, but I think it's extremely likely that it's the cause of this haze. I have found a few examples on homebrew forums where brewers found the same haze problem with very old grain. I don't know how to explain this scientifically, but empirically there does appear to be a strong connection.

This is a shame, as usually any beers I ferment with WY1968 are extremely bright. Also I place a lot of importance on having my beer reasonably bright, and this haze is annoying me. Still, it's a really nice beer to drink, so not a total mess.

Got down to an FG of 1.012 on this, so I think the O2 injection at yeast pitching time is having the desired effect. Also this beer was ready to drink (tastewise) a little quicker than I would have expected. I think I'm sold on O2 for aeration.

Dead Guy Clone

This beer had me very confused for a while. Kegged after 3 weeks, I tasted it quite regularly over the following three weeks. It began with some harsh phenolic type notes, little to no hop character, poured with no head, and displayed a slight haze. This changed slowly at first and then rapidly to a beer with beautiful toasty, buiscuity notes and a spicy hop character. The rapid change seemed to coincide with the haze disappearing, so I think perhaps some of the particulate in suspension was causing the phenolic type tastes.

Dead Guy Clone

Dead Guy Clone

Unfortunately, the balance of this beer was off by a little, missing perhaps 10 IBUs of bitterness. Also it would have benefited from a little more late hop character. I can't blame the recipe for this, as the hops I used were lacking in AA% and my attempts to make up for this on the day with some high AA% hops I had stored were unsuccessful. This was probably due to the age of the high AA% hops.

Rebel Rising Tasting

Rebel Rising Red

Update: 31-Aug
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This is almost gone, only a pint or two remaining. Over the past two weeks those strong dark flavours have started to mellow, and are now allowing a little of the spicy hop aroma through. It's finished up a wonderful brew, and as usual I'll be very sad to see the end of the keg. The changes I suggested will probably still be implemented next time round, just to compare and contrast, but this was by no means a 'miss'. In fact it's one of the beers I'm proudest of, having come up with the recipe myself.



Original Post
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So we're nearly four weeks in with this beer, and once again I haven't been able to leave it alone. I kegged this about 10 days ago and have been tasting every day since. I always find it fascinating to taste the dramatic flavour changes in my beer as it transitions through the conditioning phase. This one was severely lacking in mouthfeel and maltiness at first, but now has bucketloads of both. It's almost fun to start worrying about what looks like a bad beer, only for it to turn the corner to malty heaven.

My aim with this recipe was to have a go at creating a beer of my own, loosely based on the irish red ale style. I chose some of my favourite malts and hops, my favourite yeast, and put them together with some invert sugar to see what I could come up with. I gave the grist in weight in a previous post, but here it is in percentages:

Simpsons Maris Otter      83.1%
Simpsons Dark Crystal      7.1%
Simpsons Roast Barley      1.7%
Invert No. 2                        8.1%

I wish I had looked at this a bit more carefully before I started! Really I shouldn't have gone past 5% dark crystal. It's a malt I really love but it's flavours are quite intense (rum, raisin etc.), and it takes away from the sessionability of the beer. The invert no.2 is also adding flavours like this, and so some of the malt flavours become overpowering by pint number three.

Pints number one and two, however, are inspiring. This drinks really well, with a full mouthfeel and some interesting yeast derived flavours. The WY1968 has done a fantastic job here, and I will certainly stick with it for future versions. In the end it's the heavy dose of dark crystal which stops your session, which is a shame as making a really sessionable beer was one of the key aspirations for this brew. I'm relatively happy though, for a first go it's really good, and promising.

I think the following would make a good version 2:

Simpsons Maris Otter       84.7%
Simpsons Dark Crystal        3.5%
Simpsons Light Crystal        2.4%
Simpsons Roast Barley        1.2%
Invert No. 2                          8.2%

I have dialed back the roast barley a little. This is a colour consideration. Currently the colour is a deep ruby red, beautiful in it's own way but perhaps a tad darker than I was aiming for. Cutting back a little on the roast barley and dark crystal will cut about 10 EBCs and should result in a nice bright red.

On the hop front, I'm happy with the bitterness level, but I think I could aim a little higher with the aroma level (currently almost non-existent). I may consider trying cube hopping again with this one. Again I'm probably heading out of style, but who cares?

I'll be having another double brew day next Sunday, which will be a "Can you brew it" Fuller's ESB, and a Beamish. I've got a nice washed WY1968 yeastcake from this red ale for the ESB, and a recently procured packet of Pacman yeast for the Beamish.

Brakspear Special Tasting

Final Update 10.08.12:

I finished this keg last night. Things I have learned:

1. I need to give my beers more time, 2 weeks from yeast pitch is not realistic for 4.5%abv beers. This beer got much better towards the end (finished keg after 30days from yeast pitch)
2. I need more than 113g of specialty malts when using highly attenuating yeast like WY1275, this beer ended up very dry with little 'maltiness'
3. Following from 2 above; underattenuation, something that's cursed my brewing since day one, is actually a lot easier to deal with than overattenuation, and underattenuated beer tastes a lot better than overattenuated. 
3. Attempts at fancy ways of capturing late hop character in no-chill beers have been largely unsuccessful. Better to stick to the obvious - a slightly increased dose of hops at flameout, whirlpool, then leave them behind in the kettle.
4. Invert no. 1 is highly fermentable, if you use it don't depend on it to impart much flavour.
5. Don't neglect gypsum. I had convinced myself it was having little impact on my beers, and didn't use it here. The result was quite a harsh hop character. Gypsum seems to help soften the hop bitterness.

So there you go. I learned a hell of a lot on this beer. It is far from the best beer I've ever made (in fact it may have been the worst), but it was well worth any effort and will make me a much better brewer I am sure.

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Update 6.08.10:

I'm writing this another week on, so the beer is almost 4 weeks since yeast pitching old. The unpleasant yeast character I mentioned last week has completely disappeared, though there is still the faintest hint of acetaldehyde. This beer has really improved, and I think it will continue to improve if I can stop drinking it. One thing I would consider changing is the bittering level, it is quite unbalanced in my opinion, and I would drop the IBUs by at least 5 or maybe up to 10. I may be tempted to give the WY1275 another chance if something suitable comes up.

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 Original post:

I've had this on tap for nearly a week, but a slight acetaldehyde issue prevented me from giving it a proper test until now.

It pours quite clear, with a straw gold colour. The first thing you notice here is the hop character, both the overall bitterness and the pleasant styrian goldings aroma. It is quite bitter at 42IBUs, much more so than any English style bitter I've made before.

Unfortunately this beer has what I call the 's-04 tang'. This is a kind of faint peppery yoghurt aftertaste which a lot of people notice when using Safale S-04 dry ale yeast. I had this issue with the session bitter I brewed a while back with this same yeast (WY1275 Thames Valley), so along with S-04, WY1098 and WY1099, I'll be adding WY1275 to the list of yeasts I will no longer use. I have read that certain fermentation regimes can increase or decrease this yeast characteristic, but I'm not prepared to look into it any further, as I can't see any characteristics that this yeast brings that is worth striving for. Here's a mention of it at perfectpint. Will seems to think it might be from underpitching or too warm a fermentation, but I don't think either of those were an issue for me this time around.

Aside from the 'S-04 tang', there is a distinct mineral character which interplays with the bitterness. As with the session bitter I find that this works quite well with food, but less well when drunk on it's own.

Overall this is a drinkable beer, but far from memorable.

Next up is my rebel red, currently at 1.016 and dropping. Fermenter samples are quite promising, though I think I may be well off the mark in terms of cloning rebel red. That wasn't really what I was aiming for this time, so it doesn't really matter. The reason for this is of course the yeast - WY1968. I'm quickly finding that the English yeasts I have used over the past year all seem to dominate the flavour profile of the beers they ferment.

I'm tempted to think that it is likely that two beers made from completely different worts, but fermented with the same English yeast, would in some ways have more in common than two beers from the same wort fermented with different English yeasts. Perhaps an experiment is due!

Landlord and Session Bitter updates

I now have both the Landlord and Session bitter on tap. I guess it's time to report on them. Let's start with the session bitter.

First off, let me say that this is exactly what it's supposed to be - a session beer. It can be drunk in quantity without tiring the palate or becoming overpowering. There is a subtle malt backbone, which I think come's more from the maris otter backbone than the victory malt. The hop aroma is quite subdued too, and I may need to look at how I dry hop as it seems to have made little difference to the beer based on earlier fermenter samples. Certainly there is a detectable late hop aroma from my 'method argonoise' experiment, and this was present too in fermenter samples. This is a recipe I will return to, though I will modify it and play with it to see what else I can tease from it. A negative is the yeast character. I'm not crazy about what the wy1275 brings to the beer. On it's own, the beer is quite pleasing, but when I've had it with certain types of food (spicy in particular), there's a sort of mineral character I don't care for.

session bitter

The Landlord is a triumph - there's no other word for it. My housemates remarked on brew day just how good the mash smelled. Very early fermenter samples were sublime - and indeed fermenter samples were taken quite frequently I was enjoying them so much. Luckily I still had enough beer left to fill the corny. The final product is just wonderful. I have to admit that I have never before used Golden Promise, thinking that any difference between it and Maris Otter wouldn't be worth mentioning, but I was wrong. The malt flavour in this is just spot on for Landlord, and must be derived from the malt, with Golden Promise forming 97% of the grain bill. It's the interplay between that malty backbone and the beautiful hop character that sets this apart. If you have ever eaten pure heather honey, the delicate floral character of this beer is quite similar. I'm also impressed with how much other people have liked this beer. It's a beer with serious flavour, and I don't think the lager boys would be too impressed with it. I can only assume that most of my friends are now firmly on the craft beer bandwagon here in Melbourne, and can take strong flavours and aromas. There will be tears when this keg runs dry.

landlord (with stephen fry in the background!)