Emersons 1812 - Hoppy Pale Ale.

*Please note, its a pale ale, sure its "hoppy" but it doesn't claim to be an IPA.

I probably wasn't the only one to rush out and buy some Emersons today. The big news in craft beer today is that Lion has bought Emersons out 100%. Not an investments stake, but full on, bought the whole shebang.
I am in two minds. A part of me is sad, Lion has a history (macs anyone) of destroying a good thing. However this reminds me of the software business (bare with me). Its a good thing when a small software company is bought out, they get a nice payday! I hope Richard Emerson got some nice cash, he deserves it after 20 years. Also publicity and distribution that a bigger company can offer. Maybe I'm naive and optimistic to hope that Lion will use its clout to promote Emersons. I also think that it's a sign that the big guys recognise the force that is growing in craft brewing. They want an in, they want a share of our dollar. Long term maybe this can only be a good thing for craft brew. Some may want to abandon Emersons seeing as for some, supporting craft brew isn't just about flavour, its about ethos and supporting the underdog. For example, Hashigozake have their own ethics to follow and this means saying farewell to Emersons.

Emerson's are not my stand out special favourite, but this bottle is a stand up tribute to quality and balance in a beer. Beautiful amber pour with off white large bubble head. Sweet hop aroma, spicy caramel malts and lingering tasty citrusy finish. ABV 5% which is lovely bang on alcohol content for me. This would be a great restaurant beer, it refreshing moorish and not too dominating with alcohol or hops. It would pair nicely with a lot of meals and even some desserts.

It was a good run Emerson's. Here's to the future, I'll be watching with interest.

John Bull London Porter - Vanilla Bomb

So I'm still extract brewing and my IPA is still in the fermentor, but I have second barrel so I couldn't help but lay another beer down. This time in the style of a London Porter.

I read the web page about how to kick up your extract kits to the next level so I bravely did a mini mash of 500g chocolate malt, 250g smoked and 250 carapils cause I likes it! And of course two cans of malt, john bull london porter and Muntons medium malt extract. 

My mash tun is just a medium sized pot with a towel wrapped around it but I think it did the job okay. Temp didn't drop too much. Then I boiled my wort and added 100g of lactose at the end (unfermentable for a bit of sweetness).

I've also got two vanilla pods soaking in a wee bit of Bowmores legend whisky to add in at some end stage.

This will be my fifth batch of beer and I haven't followed instructions to the letter since the first batch. It may have been more sensible to postpone experiments till I had mastered making a basic kit. But wheres the fun in that!? Also, these kits, some of them are pretty bland. They need some jazzing up. AND MORE HOPS!

4/11/12

OG 1.0575 (1.058 corrected for temp) whoops a bit high but there is bound to be some unfermentables in mix. Sitting at 22C need it to cool a bit before I add yeast.

9/11/12

SG 1.025 or 1.0275

11/11/12
SG about the same as last time, so sitting on 4.4% ABV

14/11/12
SG 1.025 or 1.0275 man my hydrometer sucks. I want a better one.

25/11/12
SG 1.0225 Bottling day! 30 bottles, 750ml

Second batch underway
500g Chocolate malt
300g Smoked Malt
200g Carapils
100g Lactose
1 John Bull Porter kit
1 bucket (1.8kg) of muntons medium malt extract
1 sachet of yeast rehydrated and proofed. (Safale s-04)
2 vanilla pods soaking in 1/2 cup of whisky till bottling day

8.12.12 OG 1.0525
13.12.12 SG 1.0200
23.12.12 SG 1.0175
27.12.12 SG 1.0175 add clearing agent

Three Boys Brewery - IPA

To Christchurch I go, via a sample of beer anyways. Three boys brewery is run by a scientist, Ralph Bungard, PhD no doubt. An expert in plant physiology. As a scientician myself I cannot wait to sample the brew.

On popping the cap I get instant fresh hops aroma, not hops that smell fruit or tropical flowers or what not, but nice oily authentic hops.

It pours with a generous head of foam, ah I may have um..er....... over poured it, the last few beers have needed a bit of coaxing so too heavy a hand with the pour. But the head is a nice off white, full of bubbles of all sizes, the smaller ones lasting down to the last mouthful. I like the staying power!

Colour is a not too bright amber and as it goes down I get load of lovely lacing on the sides of my glass.

Excellent mouthfeel, biscuity malty goodness. 5.2 percent alcohol, so just a little extra oomph to give a nice warming finish along with those resinous hoppy notes.

Its weird, but I want to say something in this reminds me of tobacco, a sweet dried leaf type aroma. So not an ash or burning, but something a little edgy. Maybe its weed? After all Hops are of the same family as marijuana. Whatever it is we'll say its a hard to describe hop flavour. It certainly adds to the complement of flavours and pleasant in nature.

The empty glass aroma reminds me of home made ginger bread. There is something lovely about the grains in this beer. They are nicely balanced with the bitterness for a truly enjoyable easily sessionable beer.

Baroona Original - Waiheke Island brewery

Its an odd name for a beer, but its named after an old ferry that serviced the island.
There's also another oddity in the label. Its called a Pale Ale, but the Waiheke brewery website says its actually a kolsch style beer.

On pouring its a lovely golden hazy colour with a thin white head. Carbonation is fairly light.
First aromas are sweetness, citrus and cereal. Its made with NZ grown saaz hops which apparently give lots of citrus flavours.

After a hectic 30 minutes of weed pulling I was eager to taste and its an excellent post gardening beer. The body is light and bitter crisp with a pleasantly dry hoppy finish which really reminds me more of a pilsner.

It feels like an everyday quality beer, the alcohol is 4.7% so you won't be too incapacitated after just the one and can head back to the garden for more tedious weed pulling.....yay. :-/

While not the massive hop bomb I usually like to drink it was still very pleasant after some hard yakka.

8 Wired - Hopwired

As a reward for actually finding some sort of costume for tonights dreaded halloween party ( I find costume parties immensely stressful) and also for cleaning up the kitchen after last nights brewing I have shouted myself 8 wired's hopwired.

So this brew has all New Zealand malt and all New Zealand hops. Plenty of local flavour to be had then.

The beer pours with an almost syrupy consistency into the glass and forms a nice white head. I love the way the higher alcohol brews pour. I'd describe the colour as dark old gold, hint of amber, beautiful in the spring sun. First aromas are surprisingly sweet with passionfruit, fruit salad, ripe pears and honey. This is the New Zealand hop aromas really shining. I'd say the Nelson Sauvin is driving a lot of these fruity aromas. It's wonderful.

Taste is quite different, the bitterness tingles the back of the tongue straight away. Very full mouthfeel, sweet malt, loads of bitterness all at the same time, finishing quite sweet then evaporating to dry bitterness. This is an extremely pleasant beer, some of the malts have a caramel or candied? sweetness desperately trying to balance the hops and the interplay is blowing my mind. I love complexity of flavours!

As the brew goes down we get some lovely lacing and more sweet malts coming through as it warms up. Temperature seems important for this beer, it goes from being hoppy to balanced to almost sweet as it warms up.

Very drinkable for a friday afternoon. Would definitely buy again.

Making the best IPA I can

Okay, time to stop bouncing around with styles. I LOVE IPA's,  bitterness, yum, floral hops yum, massive  biscuity malt base yum. Thats my idea of the perfect beer.

So while I am still a lowly extract brewer I have decided I will do my utmost to brew what I like and to make it awesome. No more bouncing around different style just cause I can. time to brew with purpose!

I professed my inexperience to the kindly gentleman at brewers coop and he said that the mangroves jacks british series produced a very nice IPA. Plus instead of brewers sugar (blah) I got directed to some light malt extract.

I recommend everyone to try malt extract at least once in their lives, its god damn delicious! whoops I spilt some on my hand?! oh noes, I better eat it! nom nom nom.

I used my lovely spring water and a little bastard mashing of carapils malt. It never ceases to amaze me how sweet the liquid gets. First time I mashed in a bag and I got a dry spot in the middle. I sampled. wow can still taste the sugar. Tonight however with my slightly modified bastard method I had no dry spots and now more sweet grain, got all those lovely sugars out. And for the first time eye witnessed the hot break. The magical moment when the boiling wort foam suddenly breaks down. I almost  feel like a real brewer!

I stirred for HOURS (minutes really) to nicely aerate so to give my yeasties a good head start in life. Sniff, those poor bastards will be giving their lives, and THEIR childrens lives in honour of making my beer. (yeah I don't recycle yeast yet.)

So while I lust after 30L stock pots, copper wort chillers, chilly bins with a bung for mashing, unlimited litres of gas and three ring burners from bunnings, extract brewing will be my main stay.

my wort a chillin

25/10/12
OG 1.05

29/10/12
My brew is downstairs where the temperature is constant and cool. Read out says 18 degrees all the time. Nice. Keep bubbling little yeasties.

30/10/12
SG 1.02 woo its fermenting fast, just a few bubbles now, few more days ought to finish it off. Taste test, hmmm we will see. Not quite the hop bomb I'm aiming for, but Its a good base to work from.

1/11/12
SG 1.015 nice, sitting at 4.58% alcohol. Tasting good, been kept nice and cool.

3/11/12
SG 1.015 excellent, fermentation is pretty much done. Might leave till next weekend to bottle. Another week for yeasties to work their magic.

6/11/12
Good god, I've split the batch. I am dry hopping one to extremes. 30g zythos. 30g, cascade, 30g hallertau wakatu and 15g amarillo. Jeebus.

11/11/12
Bottled. 17 days in the fermentor. Not enough? Bulk primed with DME. Messy scary stuff.

This is what happens when singles are on sale at the supermarket. For $2 I could buy a beer I've never seen before. Shiney gold can!

Investigation of the label reveal this to be brewed by no one, but a little internet digging leads me to DB breweries.

It pours a nice amber colour with a little head and moderate carbonation. Time to inhale the fine aromas... Its  a little musty, maybe a hint of egg. Definitely a grainy smell sort of like raw yeasty dough. This is a malt monster.

In the mouth its nothing  but sweet maltiness. Complex it is not. But it is beer and could be a standard DB brew under a different label. I don't drink enough to really recognise anything. Feels ale-ish with a few top notes, not really crisp enough to be a lager, but what do I know?

So I'm halfway through and its terribly blah. Its got a rank finish that makes you feel like you've already drunk half a dozen of them and you're ready to start drinking water now. The sweetness gets cloying as the beer warms in the glass. Can't say I'm enjoying the last mouthfuls.

Meh so a fairly average almost terrible all malt beer with not much going for it.

Coronado Brewing CO. Islander IPA

Another Californian IPA. I can't help myself, this style of beer is my absolute favourite. Coronado Islander IPA lets go.

Oh look, you could almost pretend its warm outside!

I can't find a production date on the bottle, bit disconcerting as I like my IPA's to be fresh but the importer has dated arrival in the country as September 2012 so can't be too old. The label is sweet because everyone likes topless mermaids with jugs of beer. I really like the printed on the bottle style of label too. Classy.

It pours a hazy dark orange/amber, theres a bit of munich malt in there. A lovely head, though not as creamy as the green flash ipa or as long lasting. The second pour with a little extra warmth provided a slightly higher head and loads of aroma popping from the foam.

The aroma is beautiful, its initially very sweet, which threw me for a bit, with memories of honeysuckle bouncing around I headed in for another waft, citrus, honey, flowers, slight hint of grapefuity floral bitterness, but otherwise a very sweet nose. The malt aromas come drifting through, theres some excellent malty biscuity goodness hiding under all those hops.

At 7% the alcohol is very warming, driving all those malty flavours in. It sits nicely in the mouth with a good malt biscuity body but is quickly overshadowed by a bitter finish. On the finish we get more grapefruit and pine notes which are not expected from the sweet aroma. It feels like the malt needs to hold a bit more of the limelight here, its good but so quickly overshadowed. Its a fantastic beer but a fraction more body would seal the deal for me.

Overall its a very good, complex IPA. Buy a big bottle to linger over.

Plus theres a nice little kiwi connection to Coronado.

Hallertau Maximus Humulus Lupulus Review

Its the long weekend and Auckland has put on some fine rain. So with all gardening activities cancelled (YAY cause I fuckin hate it) its time to sample some beers. Time to turn the tardis on and put my feet up.

I've purchased Hallertau Maximus Humulus Lupulus, if you feel like you need a latin lesson to decode that you're not alone.Hallertau is the name of the brewery and also a variety of hops. The "maximus humulus lupulus" means loads of  common hops. And loads there is. At 50 IBU it could challenge some new to the craft beer movement as most beer sold in New Zealand seems to be fairly bland lagers.

To be honest though I'm not getting totally blown away with hoppiness. Maximus pours very cloudy and with little head, though does leave some nice lacing. Very orange in colour with moderate carbonation. Hop aroma is not overpowering but I get malt and maybe a little unripe apricot. In the mouth its a completely different story. Its starting to reveal its bitterness, its an almost chewy bitter, some grapefruit there and a floral bitterness that reminds me of jasmine tea. A hint of pine on the long finish.

I'd say the finish is where the flavour is on this beast. Deceptively chewy malty hoppiness going down, then a long lingering bitterness with heaps of flavours revealing themselves. This makes for an excellent sunday afternoon drop. Lots to ponder and enjoy in this complicated little bottle. I'm a little sad thats its all gone. As long as I don't drink anything else I can continue to enjoy it....trust me, it really does have a loooong finish.

330ml
5.8%
50 IBU
Purchased from Liquorland Forest Hill, the best craft brew source on the shore.

West Coast IPA - Green Flash Brewing Co.

So I've been living in the land of home brew lately, my first batch was in the lager style and I've been missing my hops so for the Holiday weekend I shouted myself a hoppy import.

When you think of Californian beers hops spring to mind, and Green Flash doesnt disappoint  Before I even pour I like to deeply inhale from the bottle and I got a noseful of resinous tropical hops. Yum. It poured beautifully forming a fine bubbled creamy head with astonishing staying power. Its hazy a orange/gold, not crystal clear that for sure, but with all those hops, how could it be. Not overly carbonated, after the initial pour we get a few rising bubbles. Spectacular lacing and resistant head make it an aesthetically pleasing beer to drink.

It describes itself as "Extravagantly hopped", and maybe I would say decadently hopped. The resinous hops coat your tongue and biscuity malt wafts around the roof of your mouth, though its quickly replaced with almost piney and slightly grapefruit hop afternotes. A beautiful bitter finish that makes this beer so drinkable.

A few more mouthfuls reveal a spicy peppery note amid the floral aromas. Grapefruit bitterness still dominates but a lemon zest is trying to squeak through. After a while the malt struggles a little to compete with the oily hop flavours  but the beer has such an excellent hop finish we can easily forgive this.

The high alcohol content (7.3%) makes this a one bottle tasting/appreciation per evening. A full pint is a generous bottling size much appreciated and easy enjoyed over a couple of pours. The richness of flavour makes it easy to stretch out the enjoyment with slow considered mouthfuls. So while its about $12 here in NZ its certainly worth it.