Pasty Pom

Rather than tucking in to my latest brew as soon as the two weeks was up I decided to give it a week's
grace before trying it this time. Just that little bit extra to get it going. Can't really tell what it was going to be like by looking at the outside of the bottle. Only way to find out was to open it up and pour it out. The benefit of having used the smaller bottles is that I can pour into a normal sized glass in one go and it all fits. It came out a medium brown colour. Probably not quite as dark as I was expecting for an English Pale Ale, but I guess it just comes out as it comes out. The taste is what it all comes down to though. Unfortunately the taste was a bit plain. I was expecting a bit of hops in there, but was a bit disappointed that the malt flavour still seemed to overwhelm the hop flavour, which was only slight. Not that there is anything wrong with it. It is certainly drinkable, just not what I was expecting. Guess next time I put a brew on I might need to invest in some hops.

Caps On

Sufficiently inspired after my trip around a real brewery I decided it was time to get my latest brew into the glass bottles I had rescued from the recycling bin. I had spent the morning scrubbing away at the bottles before arranging them on the workbench ready to be filled. I dropped in the carbonation drops, pulled the barrel to the edge of the bench and I was ready to go. This time I had the filling tube working properly so that the valve stopped the beer rushing out the bottom until you put the bottle over it and then the beer got flowing. A lot of my friends reckon that filling small beer bottles takes too long so I started with the big ones but before long all I had left were the small ones. I had washed all the brown bottles I had so hoped it would be enough. It was also a good chance to try out my bottle capper. You drop the cap on the bottle, bring down the capper, lower the handle and pop the beer is sealed nice and tight. I carried on with this for a bit over an hour and before I knew it the barrel was empty and all of the bottles were full. Fortunately there were just enough bottles. That leaves me with all my plastic bottles which I can use for another brew. What to do next?

Tour-atara

It was an exciting day. My friend Hamish had organised a tour around the new Tuatara brewery in
Paraparaumu. After the dilemma of how we were going to get there and back (thanks for agreeing to drive Andy, although five burly lads packed into a Toyota Corolla is pretty tight going. Lucky we are all friends.) Suitably situated in an industrial area we pulled up to the wood paneled warehouse which serve as the new Tuatara brewery. After years being up at owner Carl Vasta's farm in the hills above Paraparaumu they finally ran out of room.

We all started out with a pint of the Aeotearoa Pale Ale before seating ourselves around the big table to listen to Fraser McInnes, one of the founders of the brewery and former owner of bar Bodega, tell us all about the history of Tuatara and the history of beer. Not sure about the factual accuracy of it all but it was pretty convincing that beer is the reason we have civilisation as we know it.

That was the right amount of time to finish our pints before making our way out the back to where all the magic happens. It being the weekend there was no work underway but it meant we could comfortably walk through without getting in people's way. Fraser showed us how they make their mash, the tanks for brewing, the freezer where they keep a dizzying array of hops and the big bottling machine which filled, labelled and capped leaving the "Oompa Loompas" to fill the boxes at the end. He also revealed that they do some contract brewing for some of the smaller Wellington brewers, like Yeastie Boys.

After that we were out the front again, each with our tasting rack filled with fou little glasses. We had selected the Pilsner, the Tripel, the Aotearoa Pale Ale, and the Double Trouble. Suffice to say it was very pleasant sitting outside in the autumn sun sipping on our beers. I won't talk about all the different beers. Can save that for another time, other than to say Fraser said that he thinks the Tripel (the current seasonal brew) is a bit sweeter than they had hoped, but if you buy some now and put them away they should be tasting just right by the end of the year.

Sufficiently lubricated we decided to finish things off with a bit of shopping. Must have gotten a bit excited by the whole thing as I walked away with a t-shirt and a half gallon flagon of APA. Apparently you have to drink it within 24 hours of opening. Might need some help with that one....

All Fine and Dandy

Next day, readings are still the same so must be just about time to bottle. Don't want cloudy beer though so off with the lid of the beer barrel (phew, it's pretty fumey) and tip the finings into the top of the mixture. Now all to do is let it do its magic and another brew will be ready to put into bottles. Hopefully my diligent collecting of beer bottles after I have drunk from them will do the trick.

Special treat for the next blog entry. Some proper beer fanboyism to come.

Frothy

A week has passed since I put the pale ale on to brew. The bubbling has stopped on the air lock which is a good sign. I'm not sure all is well though. When I ran the tap to fill the testing jar the beer was brown but it had a weird frothy head on it. Hope I cleaned the soap out properly. Anyway readings as follows.

110, 32, 0.5%, 22º