Alt Pott's Landbier

Pott's is a smallish brewery not too far from Munster in a town called Oelde. They're based in a Naturpark area, and they market themselves as such, with their advertisements featuring the likes of a farmer with his prize winning pigs, and a horse that likes getting its belly rubbed (I think! Brace yourself if you click that link above!). Their "Old Pott's Country Beer" was one of the first local beers I had after moving here, at a lovely barbeque at a friends house out in the sticks, so I should really have posted a little tasting note earlier.

I posted before about a couple of Franken Landbiers that did not go down well. I tend to like this subclass of beer, so I was disappointed then, but this makes up for it and shows you can't write off an entire sub-group of beer on a couple of bad experiences. Alt Pott's Landbier has a fruity aroma of the dark, dried type, with a touch of orange zest and chocolate thrown in. The flavour is plummy, with a slight acdity that cleanses the palate. There are roasted malts in here in just enough quantity to give a chocolatey edge. Malt and that slight tartness means it takes a long time for the hops to show themselves, but when they do it's as a gentle, floral/herb-like bitterness. As the beer warms it does get a bit sticky, and the full flavour and warming sensation feels stronger than its 4.8%. Feels good and homely, like a country beer should. And no hop extract!

Amber, Gold and Black review

Over on Irish Craft Brewer (a site a friend and I co-founded in early 2007, and which I still play an admin/editorial role in - isn't the Internet great!), we've just published my review of Amber, Gold and Black, Martyn Cornell's (Zythophile's) book about the history of Britain's beers. I won't repeat the review here, but suffice to say it's a fascinating read and well worth the small price.

Christmas Beer Update #1

You can tell I am home alone by the increased frequency of posts. That'll end next week, as no sooner was I in the office this morning than I was told I'd be making another trip to Bayern next week. Every cloud though. I'll get to try the rest of the beers at that nice little biohotel.

My reason for posting however is that tonight I split the Christmas beer into three demijohns for secondary fermentation, something I don't generally bother with unless I'm leaving a beer for an extended period. The main reason this time is that I wanted to try maturing some of the beer on oak chips. I got two types, a light toast and a heavy toast which, even based on the smell, will give different characteristics. I hope good ones! In the picture below you'll see, from left to right, 10 litres plain, 5 litres with the lightly toasted oak chips and 5 litres on the heavily toasted chips. I used 20 grams of each, which is a tad more than the recommended maximum dosage of 15g on the packaging. I steamed the chips for 20 minutes to sanitise them, so my kitchen still smells like burnt wood!




The gravity is down to 1.030 from 1.072, so there's a way to go yet. And the taste? The bitter orange dominates actually, and it already has a "Belgiany" taste, probably thanks to the curacao peel and the T-58 yeast, which I have never used before. The ginger peeps its head out after a bit, but it's early days yet. I'll leave it in a 20C zone for a couple more weeks and then transfer it to the cellar for a month or so. Tomorrow is another brew day. Make hay and all that...

A quick trip to Bayern

I'm just back from a short trip to Bayern, where I and a group of super duper colleagues stayed in a little hamlet called Hohenbercha, about 28km north of Munich, while we attended a training course in a sister office close by. Unfortunately our busy schedule didn't leave time to look around which is a shame as it's been about 11 years since I was last in Munich. We were also close to Freising, home of Weihenstephan, but maybe I'll get there next time.

As it was, we were staying in the nice litle Gasthof Hörger, or to give it the full title, Hotel Hörger Biohotel und Tafernwirtschaft, a family-run hotel where all the food comes from certified organic sources and the owner is also the head chef. Very nice food it was too, all on a very Bavarian theme, which happens to appeal to me anyway, especially the likes of the wild boar (although maybe not the calf's head, though I was told the lips are a delicacy). Hohenbercha is a tiny place, but the restaurant seemed to do a good trade on both nights we stayed, so I got the impression that it is very well regarded locally. The hotel is mix of very traditional (with the old building and decor being pleasently old world) and very modern, with a new all-wood building in a very modern, minimalist style alongside an old orchard. It looked like we would be sleeping in large wooden boxes at first, but the details in the room were really cool. I don't know what the rooms are like in the older building.

With a couple of exceptions, the beers on offer were all from the Hofbrauhaus Freising (est. 1160). I didn't take very detailed notes as I was in company, but here a few notes.

Little cards on each table drew my attention to their Kirchweih Markt Fest Märzen, a light amber, low carbonated beer. This has a juicy sweet malt with toffee, dark bread and vegetable undertones and a slightly spicy finish. It's slightly chewy and rich, and quite satisfying. It was probably a mistake to start with this, but it had been a long day!

The Dunkel is a dark, dull, mahogany brown. It's sweet, but not overly so, leaning more towards fruit, figs, vanilla with a slight roasted accent. The finish is relatively dry considering the sweet fruity flavours. I wasn't sure if it was too fruity, but despite that it's reasonbably easy drinking. I managed a couple anyway!

The Hofbrauhaus Freising Graf Ignaz Pilsner, with its impressive whipped cream head that I can never get, is a bit more like the Pils of the north than the examples from Franken I have been trying recently, with a clean, prominent noble hop flavour, but with a mild bitterness. This is on top of a nice bready maltiness. A simple, refreshing beerwhich was a good palate cleanser.

The Helles, as I recall, is pretty much what you might expect from a Helles, with more prominence on the bready, biscuity malt flavours, but with a nice lemony twist. A good opener after another long day, and I could have had another couple but opted to return to the Dunkel for another test drive.

Being a biohotel they do of course offer eco-friendly beers. With the Bioland mark displayed on the bottle, in the same way as Pinkus Müller, the Viva Bavaria Festbier from Riedenburger was a flatish, dull, malty beer that I just couldn't take to. Sure, it started off ok (see the photo), but it quickly collapsed into a sweet watery soup. Maybe it was a dud bottle, as even a colleague commented that it looked more like cider, and it made no "pop" when the bottle was opened, but as it was, the flatness just made it too sticky and boring.

There were more beers on offer including the Hüber Weisse beers from Hofbrauhaus Freising (in Hell, Dunkel and alcohol free varieties), another fest beer, and a couple more alcohol free beers and radler.

Overall, a nice place to stay if you like it quiet and simple, and I look forward to my next visit. Oh, and I was told that there is an excellent beer shop in Kranzberg, where the office is. Another one for next time!

Brewing a Christmas Ale

My wife left me yesterday and brought our son with her.

She'll be back though. In about a week after she finishes visiting her parents. So what do I do when I'm left home alone? Brew!

I had been planning to make a pumpkin ale, as I'd never made anything like it before, and I wanted to make something that was well outside Rhineheitsgebot territory, while possibly being innocent in appearance, unlike those sinful Belgian fruit beers. Unfortunately I'm still in the process of building a mash tun which I reckon I'd need to use to do a proper job on a pumpkin (after roasting it), so I said screw it and modified the recipe to use malt extract and a bunch of other stuff, but keep the spices I planned on using for the pumpkin ale.

For those who care, the recipe, which I named Gremmendorfer XXXmas Ale, is as follows, for 22 litres:

• 3.3 kg Dry Light Extract
• 330 g Dry Wheat
• 550 g CaraCrystal
• 330 g Special B
• 110 g Chocolate Malt
• 37 g Challenger (6.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
• 32 g Ginger (fresh) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
• 15 g Bitter Curacao/Bitter Orange (Peel) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
• 1 Cinnamon stick, crushed - added during boil, boiled 15 min
• 5 Allspice berries crushed - added during boil, boiled 15 min
• 5 Cloves crushed - added during boil, boiled 15 min
• 1.5 tsp Grated Nutmeg - added during boil, boiled 15 min
• 250 g Honey - added during boil, boiled 15 min
• 30 g Styrian Goldings (3.6%) - added during boil, boiled 15 mins
• 26 g Styrian Goldings (3.6%) - added during boil, boiled 2 min
• Fermentis SafBrew T-58

I ended up with 20 litres in the fermenter, as planned (leaving crap behind in the boiler), with a gravity of 1.072. The ginger is defiitely prominent, and it smelled and tasted pretty nice. I'm going to split this into a few secondary fermenters in a few days, one as is, one with a "light toast" oak chips and another with "heavy toast" oak chips. One way to learn what they do!

So I'm wondering how my colleagues will take to it. I'll keep it stashed still Christmas anyway, and release it as a kind of Gluhbeer (not as strong though!).

As a reward I opened a bottle of Lowen Bräu (of Buttenheim) Ungespundetes Lagerbier and had it with some bauernbrot I made the night before, old gouda, ham and hot hot mustard. I often drink while brewing, but if I'm alone I'll wait till the work is done, as there's nobody around to call an ambulance if I drop 25 litres of boiling liquid on myself while under the influence. The Ungespundetes Lagerbier is a clear amber, leaning towards the orange part of the amber spectrum. It has a clean aroma, almost classic "nobel" hops with a citric twist and slight herbal note. The citric notes come out again in the taste on top of a gentle caramel base. It's a little thin, but simple and refreshing, and just what I needed.


After that I popped open a bottle of Bolten's Ur-Alt, I'll return to that another time, as I just gobbled it without thinking too much about it. Following that though was my own Munster Mulligan Porter, a brew I made in the middle of July. My how time flies! The Mulligan moniker has been attached to pretty much every porter myself and a friend have made on account of the first one we made being based on left over ingredients, probably far too many, in true Mulligan Stew tradition. This was the first porter I made solo since moving to Germay. I used loads of Special B in it, so it has a distinct raiseny/plum flavour profile backed by wadges of chocolate malt, and a very slight roasty bitterness from a touch of black malt. Gently carbonated, it's a shockingly easy drinker and leaves a plum like sweetness after it.

Pints of the Valkyries?

I got a little group of beers from Brauerei Wagner, Merkendorf, in my Bamberg Box (ok, so it wasn't all Bamberg), along with six of their Dunkels, named Richard Wagner Dunkel. How could I resist? I do quite like Wagner, though admittedly mostly the pieces used in John Boorman's Excalbur (of course I like Orff too!). Anyway... I have been dipping into the Wagner Beers occasionally, and the other night I tried the last one so thought I'd describe the collection.

The Brauerei Wagner Pils didn't exactly jump out at me in the aroma stakes, but certainly looked the part with its pale straw colour and brilliant white head. It's fairly dry, with a slight tingle that is a mixture of a light carbonation and a pleasent hop spiciness. Definitely not challenging, but the almost buttered-white-bread flavour with the spice undertones makes it a smooth and easy drinking beer. I'm beginning to like the Franken interpretation of pils considerably more than the northern versions!

The Wagner Lagerbier - Ungespundet, a yellowing-amber affair, has a toasty sweetness and grassy hops to the aroma . This was only the second time I'd had a beer tagged with this term and, unlike the Mahr's Brau offering, this did feel like the carbonation was more gentle and restrained. This left a residual carmel-like sweetness intact on the tongue, with a slow build-up of hop bitterness that never really takes off. Nice enough, but to be honest I would have preferred more carbonation as halfway down it was completely flat and began to taste like malt-sweetened weak tea.

Their Richard Wagner Dunkel pours a clear chestnut brown. It has a fruity, bready aroma with hints of almond. There's a medium body with toffee and slightly overdone toast notes. I had begun to wonder whether it might be a one-trick-pony, but after a few mouthfuls the hops came out from the background to cut what could otherwise have been a too sweet beer with an almost apple-like bitterness and slight roasted undertones making it apparently drier feeling. There's certainly stuff going on in the mouth, but the the toast and bitterness provide the longer finish. An interesting Dunkel that manages to be refreshing while acceptably sweet.

The Märzen is a bronzed amber with a billowy white head. It has a warming effect that feels like more than its 5.5%. When reading Roger Protz's descriptions of beers I never understood what he meant by "juicy malt". I do now! This has a mouth-watering malty sweetness that makes you want to gulp the whole thing down. The hops provide a drying effect with a pepper-like finish which compliments a hazelnut roastiness. It's reasonably well carbonated too, but not bloating, and I think this helps keep it from becoming cloying. I don't want to say it is complex, but there's lots of different aspects to like about this beer. I wish I had another (but I have a couple of Dunkels left to fall back on).

Bolten's Alt

A colleague said he wanted to give me a few bottles of his favourite beer (mind you, this was before he tasted my last home-brewed IPA!) as "payment" for helping with some party invitations. That beer was Bolten's Alt from Bolten Brauerei in Korschenbroich, a few kilometres west of Düsseldorf. Bolten's proclaims itself to be the oldest Altbier Brauerei in the world, being established in 1266!

Bolten's Alt is a clear, rich, deep copper-mahogany brown with moderate carbonation. It has a sweet, malty and slightly floral nose. The flavour is in your face malts with an almost malteaser-like tone. Luckily it's not just a sweet sticky malt mess. There's a slightly salty bitterness that builds up to a nutmeg-like spiciness. This is very easy to knock back, and gives a nice tingle on the tongue. Despite going down easy, it leaves a long, warming finish. I'd prefer a little more carbonation to lift the hops out a bit, but this is nice!

I'm looking forward to trying their Ur-Alt.