Alternative Münster

The homebrew has been disappearing rapidly over the past two weeks, what with four BBQs in the space of a week and some thirsty colleagues at tasting evenings, I could have gone into business. On the right is my recent Klosteiner Pale Ale during an impromptu BBQ with the neighbours which I am also guilty of imbibing a little swiftly. So, time to stock up. I fancied something a bit darker and maltier this time, so thought I'd do a modification of my last Altbier recipe, sticking with a proportion of roasted malt for colour, but switching to 2% Carafa (dehusked black malt) to give a slight roasted edge without the burnt bitterness that can come through from scorched husks on regular black malt. At least that's the theory! I also switched to CaraMunich rather than regular Munich Malt, just to see if I can get more of a toffee edge to it. And of course the hops are different, hopefully getting closer to the real deal.

It's been a busy week, so I split the brewday in two, mashing one night and boiling the next. Here's the recipe:

Alternative Münster



Size: 23.75 L
Efficiency: 84.05%
Attenuation: 75.0%

Original Gravity: 1.045 (measured)
Terminal Gravity: 1.011 (estimated)
Color: 35.98 EBC
Alcohol: 4.41% ABV
Bitterness: 37.8 IBU

Ingredients:
3.75 kg Pilsner Malt
0.75 kg Caramunich Type III
90 g Black Malt 1200 (Dehusked/Carafa)
17 g Northern Brewer (11.4%) - boiled 60 min
19 g Northern Brewer (11.4%) - boiled 15 min
1 tsp Irish Moss - boiled 15 min
19 g Hallertauer Perle (9.3%) - boiled 5 min
K-97 German Ale Yeast

This was infusion mashed for an hour at 65C and mashed out at 80C. Unfortunately I don't have the facilities to lager this baby, so it'll just ferment coolish down in the cellar for a couple of weeks.

This morning, I'm off to San Diego for a week to attend a conference. I'm hoping to get some good beer geekery in between evening meetings, and what better place to do so! Expect updates and Tweets during quiet times.

I gotta work Suspect Device into a beer name next!

BrewDog Zeitgeist

After reading TheBeerNut's comments on BrewDog's Zeitgeist, I felt compelled to crack open the bottle the brewer's sent to me while I was brewing this week.

A deep, dark mahogany with ruby red hints, very clear and with an apparently low carbonation, this wafts off thick toffee and plum jam-like aromas. So far, so mouthwatering, and it doesn't stop there. I like my Schwarzbiers, and here in Germany beers of that type vary wildly from over-sweet to plain tasteless, but with lots of really excellent, clean-tasting blackness to choose from. This is a bit different. It has a rich chocolatey, toffee and marzipan thing going on with a good dose of roasty bitterness in the finish. Bitter chocolate. The bottle I had was almost flat, but it fitted the chewiness quite well, enhancing the full mouthfeel. Very tasty and moreish, although I'd like to have a few more to really make up my mind. Today, Evan Rail told me, via Twitter, that this was inspired by a Czech Schwarzbier called Herold Bohemian Black, so I'd love to try that too!

A few fellow bloggers have broadcast that BrewDog have created a Zeitgeist site through which people can buy discounted Zeitgeist (by entering the discount code "SHEEP" while ordering) and can then contribute content to the blog section of that site. I commented over on Impy Malting that I thought it was a bit ironic that BrewDog -- while extolling non-conformity on the label --is tempting the drinkers of Zeitgeist to all gather in one site, forming a flock of sorts, while possibly cheekily getting said users to baa SHEEP while ordering the beer.

I think I'll be placing my order soon. Baaaaaaaaaa!!!

Edit: Well, I was disappointed to find that overnight, or possibly during the day, the delivery cost for 24 bottles of Zeitgeist to Germany had risen from £20 to £35, raising the price per bottle from €1.30 to €2.05 (with that wonderful 70% discount). Looks like I won't be bothering with that tasting session here after all...

Erdinger Urweisse

Back to German beer, and what better way to return than some Erdinger? Ok, I jest. It's everywhere now. Perhaps not the best of the Weissbiers, but nevertheless, a gateway beer for a large number of people. I guess I still have a soft spot for one now and again, but when I spotted the Erdinger Urweisse while on a Weissbier shopping spree recently, I had to give it a go of course.

Very highly carbonated, I got a glass full of foam even after a very gentle pour, so this took time to fill the glass. It's rich looking, with amber shades leaning towards what I describe as a burnt orange look, kind of like burnt sienna. It has a good spicy aroma redolant of cloves stuck into a fresh orange. So far, so good. The flavour gives warming, earthy cloves, bitter orange, sweet maramalade and a slight touch of pepper. Hmm, So far, so better. It has a dry finish, adding to the moreishness of it. A very tasty weissbier.

The Urweisse hut looks like a fun place to be.

BrewDog Punk IPA

I've a few bottles of BrewDog beers left from my secret stash. The two bottles of Paradox are waiting for a specific occasion, but I'm popping the rest as the muse takes me. So here's another; BrewDog Punk IPA. A crystal clear pale amber with a tight white head, the aroma is mouthwatering, suggesting great big wadges of grapefruit. This of course made me expect masses of grapefruit on the tongue, but I found the hops presented a more floral effect. It's pretty perfumey, admittedly with snatches of sorbet-like grapefruit, and it leaves a bite at the back of the throat. The finish is a lonnnng pithy bitterness but, again, with a lingering perfume-like character. Certainly not something I'd have as a session beer, even though at 6.1% the alcohol content wouldn't put me off having a load of such beers, but surprisingly, for me, I just don't think I'd like that perfumey character all night. So far this has been my least favourite BrewDog beer, but then it has pretty stiff competition.

Porterhouse Celebration Stout

Last November I visited the Old Country and was gifted a bottle of Porterhouse Celebration Stout by TheBeerNut (he's a generous soul). I drank it around Christmas (as the best before date said it was best before Christmas 2008) but just realised it had been lurking, forgotten, in my notebook. Shame on me! My recent adventure with the O'Hara's Celebration Stout jogged my memory, so here it is:

Despite the warning of containing yeast sediment on the back label, I didn't seem to get any, but then, with a beer this dark, would it really bother anyone? It's almost black, with rich mahogany tints around the edges when held to the light. A mouthwatering aroma of light, vinous fruit and, for some reason, I kept getting hints of spices like cumin. Taking a mouthful is like having your tongue rubbed with (blue?) velvet; a full and soft mouthfeel. This is a complex beer, no doubt, with lots of dried fruit, blackberries and a dryish coffee-like bitterness. My overall impression was of something verging on a liqueur, possibly something to do with the 10% alcohol. It's sweet, but in a cake-y way and balanced by a warming alcohol. A sipper for sure! A slight cardboardy dryness came out in the finish, but nevertheless, a lovely brew that would make a welcome permanent addition to the Porterhouse fold.

Well, I'd like more!

Let Loose the Goose

Or, Goose: stepping into Germany.

Some time ago, my friend Mike sent me a six-pack of Goose Island IPA, one of my favourite beers it must be said, and in relation to which I have been accused of coining the call to "Let Loose the Goose!" in the Bull and Castle, Dublin, when I was introduced to the joys of GIIPA about three or four years ago. The six-pack Mike sent has been languishing in my cellar for about six months, waiting for an opportune moment. That moment came in two parts, last Thursday and this evening, combined with the unveiling of my very own Klosteiner Pale Ale, custom made for Markus who delighted in the citric stylings of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on a recent trip to Palm Springs.

I was curious as to how my German colleagues would take to the Goose, but also anxious about my own Chinook and Centennial-heavy Pale Ale; and with some C-hop virgins in the audience, it was going to be a tough crowd.

First, the Klosteiner. As a home brewer I'm quite happy with this. It hits the right level of citric hoppy aromas and has a crisp hop bite while having a reasonable malty body. Love that colour though! For some of my colleagues it was a culture shock, however, in general, the reception was positive. My colleague Rupert (from Franken) first commented that it was very different from the beers he was accustomed to, however after a few mouthfuls he thought it was something one could get used to and seemed to enjoy the play of the foreign hop flavours. The ultimate test was of course Markus, Mr. Klosteiner himself, and this evening it seems to have passed the test. Perhaps not with flying colours, as I don't think I have hit quite the same level as Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, but he did say it had the right level of Klostein. Rafael, out IT guru, seemed a little unsure first time, but today he explained that he hadn't tasted a beer that gave that amount of finish before. He said it was like a good red wine in the sense that it gave "two tastes", referring to a long finish, which I can only take as a compliment. He suggested it'd go great with fish, so that's something to try at the next BBQ. My old reliable, Ingo, appreciated it as ever.

Goose Island IPA is one of my favourite beers, and although some of that may be nostalgia -- I think it was the first really memorable American super hoppy beer I'd ever had, indeed it converted me to the joys of the hop -- I do think it stands on it's own with a wonderful combination of chewy, and I mean chewy, maltiness with a big slice of citric goodness pervading the taste. I can hardly describe the joy I get from the aroma of a fresh Goose Island IPA.

I think Rupert put it best when comparing it to my effort of a Pale ALe. He said, it tastes darker. And indeed, I love describing beers in shades and moods, but I try to avoid it as I think people might think I'm weird. But that chewiness presented in the rich mouthfeel of GIIPA does indeed make it feel dark and luxuriant. I often feel there's a chocolatiness to it. The bottles were 324 days past their bottling date, and the label proclaimed that it would be brewery-fresh for 110 days, so as expected, the wonderful aroma was more muted than I remembered. However, that rich caramel, toffee base remained and the orange-pith bitterness was not to be beaten my time.

Some people preferred the rich flavour of GIIPA, while some preferred the crispness of my fresh pale ale, but that's just fine. I was glad that, overall, my colleagues also enjoyed the beers I liked, and as a home brewer, that's all I can ask for.

Thursday evening's tasting session melded into an after-work BBQ that, for some of us, ended at 1:30am. I had bought the beers for the evening, and although I had intended on buying a 15 litre cask of Alt, there was none in stock so we had to make do with 5 litre mini-kegs of Frankenheim Alt and Hasserroeder Pils, a mixed crate of Pinkus Muller beers, a half-crate of Duckstein and some leftover bottles of Becks. All in all a great evening interspersed with several courses of wurst and schweinefleisch. Although I did run the risk of becoming a total beer bore as the remaining group gathered round a secret stash of my home brew that my former boss had accumulated and let loose towards the end of the night.

O'Hara's Celebration Stout

After trying Carlow Brewing Company's Leann Folláin during the week, I got a sudden desire tonight to open the bottle of their O'Hara's Celebration Stout which TheBeerNut very generously gave to me last May. Probably good timing too, as the best before says last month, not that these numbers usually affect my willingness to try something at least once.

A beer made to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Carlow Brewing Company, it's an impressive package really. An elegant 750ml (25.3 oz. for those in imperial lands) swing-top bottle, and although the label looks a bit lost on it and doesn't look very celebratory, there's a kind of decadence about opening 750ml to drink on your own (apart from a sip for my darling wife of course).

The aroma is a bit of a party though, providing powerful, sweet chocolate-toffee, slight dark berries and a good dose of vanilla down the back. Reminds me of a country fudge on steroids laced with chocolate. The flavour isn't as sweet as the aroma suggests, as there's a lovely roastiness that dries things up while still allowing a rich, velvety mouthfeel with a vinous edge supporting a rich chocolate and malty juciness. A nice touch of bitterness lingers, suggesting dark chocolate and a twist of pepper. This is a rather nice beer. Thanks for the opportunity to try it TBN!

I can understand why it is said (has it ever been confirmed?) that Leann Folláin was a batch of Celebration that went wild somehow, as there are some shared flavours deep down.