The Last Week and a half in Beer - September 22nd - October 1st

So after an extended hiatus, I'm back once again on my beer blog, decided that I should actually do some better commentary than my 50 words or less Untappd reviews. Also, my beer fridge is overflowing right now, and hopefully if I start blogging again I'll have an excuse to drink more of it

Literally overflowing with craft beer

So without further ado, let's start with a great beer from my Favorite Kiwi brewery, Garage Project. Their Pan Pacific Amber Ale sat in my fridge for a few weeks after I bought it. I was in the mood for hoppier IPAs, a few of which I'll review further down, and kept bypassing it because I assumed it'd just be a mostly malty affair with no real interesting hops. But a couple of nights ago I gave it a chance, and boy was I wrong.

Even the label is amber

Straight out of the bottle it smells super malty, real toffee aromas coming through, along with some solid coconut, but some tropical fruit is hiding in there as well. Pours a rich amber colour with a slightly browned head, as you can see above.

The initial flavour is of biscuit malt and oats, but then the hop bitterness cuts through to stop the malt becoming overwhelming. The blend of Galaxy and Motoueka creates a great tropical fruit flavour, and blends nicely with the hint of coconut that comes through at the end.

Overall a fantastic, interesting beer that I'm kicking myself for letting sit in my fridge for so long.

Next up, we stick with the tropical fruit theme, but double it, with the Liberty Brewing C!tra Double IPA

May have overfilled the glass a tad

Out of the bottle looks like your standard American IPA, a golden orange colour with frothy white head, but the hop aroma is overwhelming! Passionfruit, Citrus, and Grapefruit all come through leaving no room for any discernible malt character

The flavour follows suit, almost like drinking a tropical fruit juice rather than a beer at first, while the bitterness slowly catches up. Very slick on the palate, you do get a bit of malt character to help sweeten up the flavour, but the hops really do dominate.

A great showcase of what you can do with Citra hops!

Next, we take a sojourn away from the hoppy, and into the land of yeast driven beers with the Ommegang Hennepin - Farmhouse Saison

It had a cork!

In the glass it's a hazy straw colour with plenty of thick, off white head that smells somewhat of apricot, a little earthy and has a distinct hint of farmhouse funk.

The first thing I noticed on tasting was the mouthfeel, more like a champagne than a beer with plenty of tiny bubbles throughout. The flavour is citrusy and a tad grassy, with a definite note of funk, but it's not overpowering like in a lot of other saisons. Also definitely doesn't taste like it's nearly 8% ABV, it's hidden by the freshness of the flavours.

Overall an extremely refreshing Saison.

Finally, we head back into the world of hops with the Emelisse TIPA

Not pictured: 10% ABV warning

The phrase "Triple IPA" is always mildly intimidating, as you expect a beast in both ABV and bitterness, and the Emelisse doesn't disappoint. Clocking in at 10% ABV and a smidgeon over 100 IBU, she's an IPA to wrestle with.

Pours a deep reddy amber with sparse head, the aroma is a mix of grapefruit from the hops, a little caramel malt and a good measure of alcohol heat. On the palate it's similar, with the caramel of the malt dominating over the alcohol, allowing the hops to shine through with a bit of fruit to start, and a solid whack of bitterness on the followthrough.

Overall, a great TIPA that's not overpowered by alcohol heat, but rather a balanced mixture of malty body and strong hop bitterness.

That's all I've got time to write this week, but I'll try to make sure I write a new post at least once a fortnight, and hopefully I can write about some of our upcoming beers from work!

This Week in Beer - October 14th to 20th

Hey everyone, and welcome to another "This week in beer". In preparation for Sydney Craft Beer Week, Melo and I branched out and headed to a new Bottle-o we hadn't been to before, Sydney Wine Merchants, who not only have a great range of craft beers, but 8 growler taps too!

So to start off this week's lineup, here's what I got on tap there: The Ekim Berserker Amber IPA

Finally got myself a squealer!

Clocking in at 7.2%, we have a fairly heavy IPA on our hands. Intense sweet, passionfruit aroma, then a very full body, a mixture of bitter hops and a strongly sweet, malty body. A great combination IMO.

Next up, we have Red Duck's "The Gruitest", a beer made without any hops whatsoever. Rather, a mix of spices and herbs that together make "Gruit", a mixture that was previously used in medieval beers!

Tasted totally Gruit

The Beer itself tasted far from what you'd expect, something more like a mulled wine or cider than a modern beer. Very fruity and tart, with a dry, cider like finish. A very interesting experience.

Following that, we have the Renaissance Brewing "Elemental Porter Ale". Clocking in at just under a pint's worth, it's a smooth porter with chocolatey and aniseed notes, the closest flavour I can compare it to being that of dark chocolate licqorice bullets. Delicious through and through

Wish it came in a full pint

Next up, I tried one of Moon Dog's previous releases, the Black Lung 3, a "Rum Barrel Aged Smoky Stout". It certainly lived up to it's name, with flavour sitting somewhere in the middle of a triangle between a traditional strong stout, a dark rauchbier and a glass of smooth rum. A great combination that we hope to replicate something similar to in a couple of month's time.

After tasting this I'm immensely excited for the "Jumping the Shark"

And Finally, I tried the Brew Cult "Can't Fight the Funk", a "Farmhouse IPA" that I'd say had more in common with a summer saison than any other variety of beer. Golden coloured and smelling distinctly of horse blanket, the CFtF is a great, funky saison, with all kinds of complex yeast flavours backed up by a reasonably malty backbone. Highly recommended.

Harvested the yeast from this, might try a clone

I did try a couple of other beers this week, but these were definitely the standouts. One other thing I did try this week was the Brew Dog "IPA is Dead" 4pack, which I'll be doing a full review of in the near future. Tune in next time for either the Brew Dog Review, or writeups of various events from Sydney Craft Beer Week!

This Week in Beer - October 7th to 13th

Hey everyone, welcome to another "This Week in Beer". Didn't get time to brew anything this week, so all I have to show is some of the beers I tasted, and what I thought of them. Lets get started. 

First up, we have something that you can find in a lot of Bottleos nowadays, 4 Pines' Kolsch.

Drinking said beer in a pool strongly recommended

I actually spent a day this week in at 4 Pines, helping one of their brewers do a 5000L batch of the Kolsch, and it left me with a hankering to drink a couple of them, so the next day (a horrendous 38 degree day) on the way to a mate's for a BBQ I grabbed a 6pack of them. 

Sweet and slightly floral, the nose doesn't give much away about the flavour. A light, crisp body with just enough hop fruityness to make it very pleasant gives you a great beer for a stinking hot day.

Next up, we have something very different to the normal beers I drink, a Hite Ice Point

Appropriate match to Korean BBQ

Can't say much about it other than it was served cold, and was... crisp? A think, watery lager that was only ordered because it brought back memories of being in Korea.

Next, a couple of beers from Jamieson brewery that I bought all the way back when Melo and I were in Melbourne. Found them down the back of the fridge and decided they needed to be drank ASAP.

Both were fairly solid, although neither was particularly hoppy. Not sure if that's age, or if they weren't meant to be very hoppy to begin with. 

Finally, the Vintage Cellars round the corner from my place recently got in a couple of cartons of Founders All Day IPA. I happily went down and bought one of the cartons, as I knew from previous experience that the All-Day is great.

As per expectations, the All Day is great. Really fruity and crisp, it's also not too high ABV wise so you can sit and work your way through a number of them. Really great stuff

Thanks for reading guys! It's looking like I'll finally get around to reviewing the Brew Dog IPA is dead collection this week, so stay tuned for that!

Homebrewing - Down the Hatch Pale Ale

Hey everyone, posting about the brew we did today, and doing a write-up about our (moderately) new all-stainless steel system!

Seeing as Halloween is in a few weeks, that means it's time for a party in a few weeks... Which in turn means it's time to brew up another big batch of beer!

Enter ridiculous amounts of malt

We decided as usual the best party beer should be interesting enough that we're happy to drink it, but not hoppy enough to melt the average beer drinkers' face off. Melo devised the "Down the Hatch", a nice simple American style Pale Ale with lots of Simcoe, Chinook and Nelson Sauvign hops. 

Some Grain, some Hops and some Potplants. Perfect

Started our brew nice and early this morning, deciding we'd try out a new brew spot because the weather was too good to be under cover. Set up in a little rock alcove next to the house. Set up our new system, heated the mash tun up and started the mash.

Mashy Goodness

Left the mash to sit for a minute and checked on our hops out the back. They're growing like crazy! Melo is going to write a blog post on them once they're a little more grown, but here's a sneak preview of their progress in the last 3 weeks:

They're climbing!

Once we finished the mash, sparged from the tun into our kettle, a process that sadly ended up with nearly 2L of wort stuck in the dead space in the bottom of our Mash tun... We've since attached a new piece of tubing to the false bottom, in the hopes that it'll reduce the dead space to near 0. We can only hope

Sparging steadily and soaking up some sun

Next up we got a solid boil going, threw in the first hop addition (along with some gypsum for extra snap), then took a break to enjoy the sun and have some lunch while the kettle boiled away.

Again, look at dat weather

A couple of hop additions later, we popped the cooling coil in, turned the burner off and chilled the beer down to about 30 degrees.

Pretty "Cool". Hah

Finally, transferred the sweet sweet wort over to a fermenter, pitched in some yeast, recited the required prayers and whatnot and left her to ferment for a couple of weeks

Obligatory pic of the fermenter in the garage

And it's as simple as that! Now that we have a solid, sessionable pale ale made for the party, our next big brew will probably be something a little more... out of the ordinary. But what exactly remains to be decided. We will see.

Next time: We drink IPAs and talk about them. Or maybe we brew another beer. Or we make the world's worst pumpkin beer. It is a mystery

This week in Beer - September 30th - October 7th

Hey all, just a quick roundup of the Beers I've had and what we've brewed in the last week.

First up, homebrew. This week we decided to do something a bit bizarre. Enter the "Rauch around the Clauch", a beer comprised mainly of smoked malt, with a whole lot of cracked pepper added for some extra spice

The whole house smelt of pastrami after the boil

We currently have 5L bubbling away in a demijohn, hopefully to be ready in the next couple of weeks.

In terms of drinking this week, we have four standout beers that definitely deserve to be talked about. 

First up we have two beers from the latest class of beers released by Moon Dog. Fresh out of the postage carton from Melbourne we have the "Mummy Have a Bite" Toffee Apple Amber Ale, and the "Bock Naked" Chipotle Dark Lager.

Excuse the mess, the brewing process going on the background lent itself to messiness

The foamiest of head

Both are fantastic in their own right, the amber with it's fantastic flavours of toffee and apple that are perfectly balanced to give a beer that's not too sweet, despite what it sounds like, and the Bock Naked with a good bit of chipotle chilli coming through, but not too much to turn it into a gimmicky Chilli Beer. 

Next up, we have a Mikkeller, the "Wheat is the new Hops", a hoppy, bretty wheat beer

I may have poured it slightly terribly

Sweet and fruity, evoking a flavour that I decided was closer to Gummi Bears than anything else in recent memory, it's a very unique beer that's definitely a recommended pickup if you can find it!

Finally, I got my hands on some Delirium Nocturnum

This was fantastic, as expected. Tremens is a great strong Belgian pale, and Nocturnum is a fantastic strong dark Belgian ale to match it. Fruity and Caramelly, with a well-rounded mixture of herby and spicy notes under the main body create an amazingly complex ale that you could nearly have as a dessert beer!

Overall, a great week of beer, with one brewed and a number more drank. Hopefully we'll be doing a full sized batch of Saison on Monday, when I can give a write up of our new brewing system in Action!

Homebrewing - New Brewing Rig Sneak Peek

Courtesy of Melo, a sneaky preview pic of our new mash tun/keggle, made with a keg courtesy of the boys at Moon Dog!

Ooooh Shiny

In action! Check out the sweet brick stand, courtesy of Melo's back fence

And it only took 3 melted drill bits and several moderate cuts to various body parts to make! Success! 

I'm not dead, I promise - The last 2 months in Beer

So it turns out I haven't written on the blog for a long time... Roughly 6 weeks. Didn't really plan to stop writing posts, just got busy with having a full time job and suddenly the time where I used to write posts having to be rationed out to seeing people and going out. The horror.

Anyway, lunch breaks at work toward the end of the week are very quiet, so I figure I can write blog posts in them. So what's happened in the last six weeks that I haven't written about?

The answer is: A fair amount. In that time, we've made our own Candi sugar, brewed 4 or 5 beers, drank a good number of unique and awesome beers and purchased even more than were drunk. We also attended a beer festival, although the whole 'being in Willoughby' thing meant I had to drive, so not too much beer was had that day.

So I figured the best thing to do now would be to simply make a post about some of the awesome beers and beer events I've experienced in the last month or two, and promise that I'll write about our latest brews and the new brewing system we're building in the (not so distant) future.

So going in chronological order, back in early August, I discovered Founders Brewing, courtesy of Melo selling me a couple of their beers at Beer Cartel. While I enjoyed the IPAs and the Pale Ale I got, the real standout was the Breakfast Stout

Warning: Don't actually drink for breakfast

Coffee and chocolate flavours in a velvety smooth stout make for an eminently drinkable beer, a great warming beer and a fantastic beer to end a night on. Or start a night on. Up to you really.

Next up, we have a crazy Thursday night in Newtown, that involved not one, not two, but three beer events. First up, stopped into the Taphouse for their Pink Floyd themed dark beer night

Next stop was the Royal Albert Hotel, for the Illawarra Brewing Tap Takeover, which I didn't manage to get a single picture of, and finally to the Union Hotel for the 4 Pines 20-Tap-Takeover!

Overall a thoroughly enjoyable night, although I think next time, Three beer events in a single night might be slightly excessive.

Next up we have another beer, or rather a pair of beers, the Rogue "Voodoo Donut" series.

Big Pink Bottles that now live atop my beer-shelf

Although the bottles look near identical, the beers couldn't be further apart. The Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Banana Ale was a delicious sweet, dark beer that matched up amazingly against a bowl of icecream with raspberry sauce. The Bacon Maple Ale... An overly sweet pale ale with smoked malt and artifical bacon flavour that was... Lets say not fantastic. But still interesting and quite bizarro.

Next up, a blast from the past, Hahn's Millennium Ale, brewed all the way back in 1999 (when I was 8 years old...).

Still in the original box!

I managed to acquire 3/4 of a case of this beauty, and had to taste a bottle to make sure she'd aged well. The answer is most definitely. Will do a full writeup of it later, it definitely deserves the attention.

Other great beers from the last two months include the Moon Dog Skunkworks IPA

Aged in Cognac Barrels, you can definitely taste it!

The Rogue Imperial Pilsener,

My Aunt wasn't as impressed with it as I was

And the Brewfist "Fear" Milk Chocolate Stout

Not sure what there is to Fear, the beer is tasty as anything

All three of which were fantastic beers that I'd recommend to anyone looking for something fun to drink.

Lunch is about to finish, so I'll wrap the post up. I'll be writing more regular posts again over the next few weeks, covering our new brewing system, the Brewdog "IPA is Dead" IPA series and more!