Sparch 2016

As you can see the beer puns are already pretty poor but I will continue. Any suggestions welcome...

I did get to try my porter this month. Good news is it didn't froth up like the APA did. Bad news is that doesn't mean it came out right. I believe the best way to describe it is faulty... As previously noted the colour is more a dark brown than an almost black, which is what I was hoping for. That is not the biggest issue though. The biggest issue is the sour taste. A porter is not sour. I understand this means my beer has an infection. I have tried a few over the month and my initial hope that it was just a couple of faulty bottles is quickly fading. I will continue to see how it goes but this is another batch that may again remain unshared.

On the plus side I didn't go thirsty. I still had plenty of beer left from my birthday present and trips to New World and Moore Wilsons kept me well stocked. Beers this month include Lazy Hazy Crazy Days and Citronomy from Yellow Box Brewery, Dales Brewing Co Pilsner, Baylands Rock Solid, Garage Project's Lack of Faith, Baylands Party Pils, Harrington's Yankdak and Galbraith's Rurik. Check them out on Untappd.

Feb-beer-ary 2016

The omnibus continues...February is a big beer month for me.

The main reason being because it is when I celebrate my birthday. I was lucky enough to receive a a box of random beers from the Beer Cellar. Always a welcome gift. I now have a great selection of beers that I might otherwise never have tried. At the rate I drink them this will last me for ages.

With it being my birthday it is also an opportunity to have some drinks out on the town with Wellington. Family duties mean heading out to the bars doesn't rank high on my list of priorities these days. What that also means is that, with a preference to head to craft beer bars, a few drinks can knock your head off a bit easier than it used to. Craft beers typically come in around 6% plus ABV so it takes a lot fewer beers to become a lot more drunk. A trip to the Bruhaus and Hashigo Zake made sure I would be in less than stellar form the next day and not remember what I had to drink the night before. No time for logging your beers on Untappdhttps://untappd.com/user/marcusmcmillan when spending time with your friends. Nonetheless I am developing a healthy respect for mid-strength beers...

Unfortunately it looks pretty definite that my APA is broken. Every bottle that I open froths uncontrollably till half the bottle is gone and the rest is a mixed up mess. Even leaving a bottle in the fridge for a couple of weeks will not help. I will continue to try in vain but I have learnt a lesson about having too much muck in my brew.

However, I did get my porter bottled. It wasn't looking quite as dark as I would have liked but I guess that is from having too much water in the liquid. Hopefully the taste is all good. At least the sediment looks to be much less than on the APA so hopefully we can avoid frothy messes.

I would also like to use this months blog to give a shout out to what has been my go to beer this long warm summer. Tuatara Sauvinova has been a tasty refreshing treat at BBQs and other outdoor activities. It comes in a six pack, its single hop (Nelson Sauvin) has a tasty flavour without being strongly hoppy and it has a funky compass design in its logo. It is just very drinkable.

I have also continued to listen to the beer diary podcast. It makes me smile when virtually every podcast starts with an apology for it being so long between releases. It makes me feel better about the fact that my blogging is hardly what you would call frequent either.

Beers I remember having this month include some beers from my birthday present and some other ones too. I had Behemoth's Generous Sample IPA, Raindogs Perro Loco, Harrington's The Harry's Mid Strength and Liberty's Halo Pilsner (which gives the Sauvinova above a run for its money as beer for summer.) As always, check out my drinking on Untappd.

Photos can be found here.

Jan-brewery 2016

The omnibus worked for me so I might see if doing it this way will help me be a bit more regular in my blogging.

When I brew it tends to be a solitary exercise with me pottering around in the garage and kitchen. Don't get me wrong,  I enjoy it, but when you think about some of the best beer drinking you have ever done it is invariably a social experience with your good friends. So I was quick to say yes when my friend Ian (who has been in this blog before) invited me around to his place to help him brew some beer. He has more experience in full mash brewing than I do so I was keen to learn a thing or two. By the time I arrived mid-morning Ian already had his mash well underway and was busy measuring out hops in the kitchen. They were Riwaka hops. Ian was playing with a recipe that he had already brewed five or six times. In the past he had used a variety of hops but this time was going Riwaka all the way. He had it all set out in a nice clear pocket folder with details of the hops and ingredients he had used each time. He even had batch numbers. What a pro! We made our way outside where Ian had all his brewing equipment set up at the bottom of his garden. We were joined by our friend Ricky and Ian's brother in law and we proceeded to hang out, every now and then lending a bit of a hand but generally not adding much more value than company. It was good to see how they do stuff,  particularly, with the sparging where the water volumes were all worked out in advance to get the right volume at the end instead of my haphazard keep adding water until I can't be bothered any more. We also got to sample some of a previous brew, which was very tasty. Hopefully the camaraderie will make the next brew spectacular.

All this brewing got me inspired so a few weeks later I got out my copy of British Real Ale by Graham Wheeler. I had bought the ingredients to make a Fullers London Porter when I made the APA back in November. I chucked all the ingredients in the mash tun and got the pot of water boiling on my new butane canister burner. Probably better for camping (which I have in fact used it for) but it slowly got the water hot and saved me lugging the big heavy pot to the kitchen and back. Once my mash was ready I realised I needed my pot for boiling the liquid so had to transfer it into my fermenter. Looks like you can never have too many vessels. After pouring the liquid into the pot I added my boiled water into the mash, left it for a while and then poured it into the boiling pot. I didn't really measure anything so ended up with too much liquid rather than not enough like I usually do. It was a slow boil but I eventually got there adding the hops at the appropriate times. My cooling coil had a tiny leak in the hose somewhere so I repurposed some drain pipe and threaded the hose through it which seemed to stop water spraying everywhere. Eventually the liquid was about cool enough so I transferred it into the fermenter. Because there was too much liquid I ended up leaving a bit behind, along with plenty of sludge. I hope that doesn't effect the flavour. I had also invested in some fancy yeast. I think a real Fullers London Porter uses an English Ale Yeast but the place I bought my material didn't have any of that so I settled for a London Ale Yeast. It was all nicely packed in cooling packaging and so it was a bit hard to see exactly what it looked like. I warmed the packet using the baby bottle technique (put it in a bowl of hot water) until it was hopefully ok. You couldn't really test it because it was all sealed up. I chopped the top and expected it to flow into the fermenter but it sort of just glugged out in a few clumps so hopefully it was OK. Guess we will find out later. No instant gratification in brewing. Now we wait.

I also had a few tries of my previous APA too. It was tasting nicely balanced having reached its stride about the middle of the month, unfortunately after that things went downhill. Every bottle I opened would start to froth up and slowly froth its way out for a long time making the bottle undrinkable. A bit of Internet research suggests it could be a number of things from overcarbonation, too much sediment or even an infection. Pretty disappointing. A suggested way to deal with this is to make sure the beer is very cold. It has been pretty darn hot for Wellington so that may be getting things going so I need to make sure I have the bottles in the fridge for at least a week to settle things down. I will try that and see how it works.

On a slightly different note I listen to a lot of podcasts about all sorts of stuff. This month I started listening to the Beer Diary Podcast by Phil Cook and George Langlands. Now it is pretty old, starting in 2011, but it is a really interesting time capsule of what the Wellington beer scene was like when it was first burgeoning. Looking back and seeing how things have grown and fledgling breweries are now major players is pretty cool. Definitely worth a listen.

Beers I have had this month include Behemoth In Ya Face, Epic No Agenda and the delightfully named Behemoth Celia Wade Brown Ale. Check out what I drink on Untappd.

2015 Omnibus

So it appears I have been more than a little remiss in my blogging for the second half of 2015. The reality is I am never going to catch up so I figured I might as well just throw a summary of my beer activity out there and try and be a bit more diligent about it moving forward.

Some of the highlights (in no particular order) include trying my first full mash brew (an IPA which was pretty darn good), Beervana 2015 (which found its groove again), Beer no Evil, Pie No Evil (Spring & Fern's contribution to Wellington on a Plate) my first trip to Goldings Free Dive (heaven for beer nerds), trying beers made at the Occasional Brewer (home brew but good quality home brew), hanging out with beer commentator Neil Miller (turns out we have mutual friends), attending corporate beer events featuring Garage Project and Good George Brewing (who have very different approaches to the beer they brew), new glassware (gotta love a handle), putting down my second full mash brew (an APA this time) and drinking lots of different beers (some of which made it to Untappd, some of which did not.)

So this what I got up to beer wise. Some photos can be found in the gallery. There will be more to come, provided I get my act together. Drink up.

Tuatara Tu Rye Ay

Many a late night did I spend at Barney's after all the bars in Wellington had closed dancing (if spastically flailing around counts as dancing...) away to 80s hits from the likes of Bon Jovi, Dead or Alive and Dexy's Midnight Runners. Although there was actually only one song from Dexy's Midnight Runners. Come on Eileen, in all its denimy glory. I was therefore intrigued to see that Tuatara had released its own Tu Rye Aye a Midnight Rye Ale.

Leaving aside how you can have a dark pale ale (is it dark or is it pale?) the beer itself throws it's colour in the dark ring looking like a porter or stout, even with a frothy head. The taste is more difficult to pin down. It is fruity while at the same time being dark with a slight creaminess and then a hint of its West Coast hops to finish. It is an interesting tasting brew. I enjoyed it but think I need to have another before I really get it.

Also as well as being bottled in the cool Tuatara tail bottle the label feels like denim. It may be a gimmick but little tricks like that are how you attract people when there is so much choice out there these days.

Tuatara Black WCF Chocolate Stout

Every winter Tuatara rolls out dark beer for the dark nights with their Black Stout series. I have previously had (although not blogged about) the Black Light Stout but Tuatara replaced that last year with 3 new Stouts, one coffee Stout, one chocolate Stout and then a straight Stout. These are collaborative brews where Tuatara teams up with other Wellington businesses such as Mojo for the coffee and the Wellington Chocolate Factory for the chocolate Stout.

As a Stout this beer performs solidly. It is dark and rich and thick. But this is a chocolate Stout so I want it too be smooth and velvety and even richer. Unfortunately it didn't quite get there. There was chocolate but there could have been more to take it to that next level. As my wife says "More Chocolate Please."

Fullers London Porter

Cold weather is dark beer time. It got plenty cold when I lived in London but I missed a trick in that I never really got into the dark beers. Before the pale ale became peoples' drink of choice the drink to fill your pint in England was a porter (back in the 1800s). It apparently started life in London so what better brew to have than  a Fuller's London Porter? Fullers is a West London brewery that has been around since the mid 1800s but its predecessor dates back as far as the 1600s. It owns plenty of pubs around the UK and pours plenty of tasty pints, including its award winning London Porter.

It pours nice and dark. The taste is rich and chocolatey but it doesn't taste too burnt. Thick and creamy, although not quite to the level of a stout. Definitely one for a cold winter's night.

Moa Original Lager

Moa's take on a Lager is called the Original. Lagers have for many years been the standard of what people drink as a beer so to name your beer "Original" is a big boast. Of course what they are actually probably referring to is that this is their "classic" Lager recipe.

With so many strong flavours in beer these days it is hard for a humble Lager to compete. Nonetheless a refreshing beer that goes down easily is always welcome. The Moa Original Lager is certainly that. It's flavours are subtle but you can just taste the hops. The beer is crisp on your pallete, although the flavour could linger a little longer. An above average Lager. I won't be going out of my way to drink it but I wouldn't pass it over if being offered one either.

Kereru Karengose

I've talked a little bit about Kereru before. Based in Upper Hutt they have jumped from home brewers to commercial brewers. They like to try out some more natural and organic ingredients with their beer. One of their more different experiments is the Karengose, a blend of the Gose style German wheat beer and Karengo seaweed from Kaikoura.

The beer itself is cloudy as you would expect from a wheat beer. It is mildly sweet but that sweetness is balanced with a mild saltiness. The flavours are nice but they could probably afford to be a bit stronger. I think that would elevate this nice beer to something more special.

Yeastie Boys The Sun Before the Darkness

I have previously reviewed another member of Yeastie Boys Spoonbender range so you can check that out if you want the background. The Sun before the Darkness is a Belgian Strong Ale brewed with more of that wine sugar.

At 10% it is a mighty powerful brew. The powerful flavour of the Belgian Strong Ale combined with the powerful wine sugar makes for an incredibly intense flavour, the sum being even greater than the parts. I use the word powerful for a reason. It really is strong and the power of it all combined was a bit more than I could handle. It would probably work well in partnership with a rich meal but only try this one alone if you are up for a challenge.

Full Mash

So after talking about it for a long time I have finally managed to get my first full mash brew underway. After slowly collecting up brewing equipment and with a concerted push at Christmas and my birthday I finally had everything I needed to get started.

It all started out with a mash tun. I may post separately about how I built that (but basically I used this page as a guide). A huge pot, an auto syphon, a cooling coil and a recipe from Brewshop for American IPA, along with the ingredients to make it (not to mention a very rainy day where I couldn't do any painting) and there were no more excuses not to see what this full mash was all about.

Now, as with all brews, you  can't do anything until you have cleaned and sanitised your equipment. Unfortunately more equipment means more cleaning and sanitising so the morning was half gone before I could even start with making my mash.

Everything I knew about brewing was from reading about it or using common sense. I had never actually watched anyone brew beer this way before so there was a bit of feeling my way along. The old kitchen jug in the garage served me well for hot water. Even though the water boils at 100 degrees it is already much cooler than that by the time it hits the grain so as long as I used boiling water each time it was easy to reach the required 76 degrees. Once I had poured what felt like a fair amount of water in I closed the lid to the mash tun and left it alone for an hour.

After an hour I came back, coiled the outside tube into the huge pot I had received for Christmas and
turned the tap. A clear brown liquid made its way down the tube and slowly began to fill up the pot. After a while it reduced to a trickle and it was pretty clear that there wasn't going to be enough liquid to make up a full brew. However I had read that this was not uncommon and to get the most out of your grain you should sprinkle water over it in an exercise known as sparging. I didn't really have anything to sprinkle the water across the top but gently pouring more hot water seemed to slowly eke some more liquid into the pot. After a couple of hours spent doing this I was getting pretty bored so decided I would have to make the best of what I had.

I carried the big pot through to our kitchen  (unhelpfully at the other end of the house) and placed it on the stove top to boil. Before long the liquid was happily boiling away creating dirty looking brown foam that filled up the pot. I added the hops in the way described by the recipe and the brown foam started to take on a green tinge.

After an hour of boiling I took the pot off the boil and then back into the garage. I placed it down on the concrete floor  and lowered the cooling cool I had received for my birthday into the hot pot. Unfortunately the pipe was designed to screw onto an outdoor hose tap and I was using a normal indoor laundry sink. However ,a firm hand holding the pipe on the end of the tap did a fair job at keeping the cold water running through. I might have to see what I can do with the end of that pipe for next time. After quite some time the liquid was down to the required temperature of 20 degrees.

It was time to transfer the liquid into the fermenter. I could tell that there was a lot of sediment/muck in the bottom of the pot so I decided to transfer the liquid using the easy siphon I had also received for my birthday. It also seemed a way to avoid spilling it all everywhere when pouring the big pot into the fermenter. Unfortunately I couldn't really see what was happening at the bottom of the pot so ended up siphoning a lot of the sediment through anyway. I guess it adds to the flavour...it was also clear that there wasn't really enough liquid there to make a full batch. I few more jugs of hot water helped bring it up to volume although I assume it will dilute the final result. Last step was to throw in the yeast and the test the specific gravity. Still no idea what testing that all meant but at least it gave me a starting point as I left things to brew over the next couple of weeks. No hurry so might as well give it plenty of time to do its thing.

I emptied my wet grain out into my compost bin so hopefully the garden will benefit from the brewing goodness too.

Garage Project Summer/Sommer

Not only are they experimenters, Garage Project are also collaborators so as well as having beers for a purpose they also like working with others to create their beverages. One such collaboration is the long distance partnership with the Norwegian brewer Nøgne Ø to produce Summer/Sommer, a summery themed rye Ale. The idea behind the beer is something I can totally buy into. In the Northern hemisphere it is common to have special brews just for Christmas. They are generally darker and designed to keep you warm in the snowy weather. NZ Christmas isn't really anything like that so why not try to capture the best of both?

Summer/Sommer does just that with the sweet taste of honey and rye. This is all topped off with spices, just like a Christmas Ale. It is very summery although it is one to enjoy quietly and slowly on a summer's day as you might end up asleep in the sun after drinking too many of these 7.7%ers.

Garage Project L'il Red Rye

Another birthday brew from my brother was Li'l Red Rye from Garage Project. This one is a red ale crossed with a wheat beer. The name is of course a play on Little Red Riding Hood and as is the Garage Project way there is an artful but dark label to go along with it. It is also worth noting the wolfy origins of the hop plant.

It pours a lovely rich brown colour. The flavour itself is something I haven't tried before, with the sweetness of a wheat beer when you first drink it but then it finishes you up with a lingering hop taste on your tongue. I'm never sure about these dual variety mashups (a reliable beer pun)  and although Li'l Red Rye is a tasty enough drink I'm not sure whether I am drinking a red ale or a wheat beer. Need to try it again some time before I make up my mind.

Garage Project Burning Globe

I can always rely on my brother to get me something interesting to drink on my birthday. This year it was some brews from Garage Project. Garage Project likes to make its beers for an occasion. Burning Globe was first brewed to mark 400 years since the burning down of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on the banks of the Thames in London. The labels says it now marks 450 years since the bard's death, although I am unsure how that maths works....It was first served at the Southern Cross, from an oak barrel, as a part of an event for the Shakespeare Globe Centre NZ.

Not only was it brewed for a special event, there is also a story about how it came about, being the idea of Garage Project's brewer's daughter. The first batch was brewed by her and her father over a weekend in anticipation of the event above.

The beer itself is an English Ale. It is nice and malty with only a touch of hops, the sort of things you would be happy with in any London Pub. However, the "burning" comes at the end with a smokey finish in your mouth. I am not a massive fan of smokey beers, but this one gives you that smokey aftertaste without hanging around forever. The bard would assuredly be happy to quaff this ale.

Morland Old Crafty Hen

When I lived in London you could always rely on an Old Speckled Hen as a tasty reliable and widely available ale (as well as sponsor of nights on Dave). I was therefore pleased to see that my friends Ian and Amy had bought me an Old Crafty Hen for my birthday. Old Crafty Hen comes from the Morland Brewery in Suffolk, which is owned by Greene King who also own various pubs across the UK.

It has only been around since 2008 and is apparently a combination of the Old Speckled Hen and a discontinued Greene King beer called 5x. It comes in a clear glass bottle which is unusual when most of these sorts of beer come in brown. The Old Crafty Hen is an English Strong Ale.  At 6.8% it is pretty strong for an English beer but pretty standard compared to many modern NZ craft beers.

The beer itself has a strong malty taste to it. It continues with a fruity flavour across your tongue and then an ever so slight hop to finish it off. This might be one to try again on a cold winter's night to remind me of the way you warm yourself up from the cold in the UK.

Funk Estate So'phisticuffs

A distinctive brewery that I have seen offering its beers on taps at bars around Wellington for a while is Funk Estate. It's picture of a woman with a big afro stands out from the usual pictures of hops and brewery names. The three young guys behind Funk Estate look very different than their logo and seem to be a direct product of spending your formative University Years in a newly booming craft beer culture in Wellington. Long may the remain inspired.

Other than at the bars (which I am not at very often) I haven't really seen any Funk Estate beers for sale in bottles,  so in a chance look in the Craft Beer Fridge at New World Railway Metro when I was supposed to be picking up family dinner I saw an opportunity that was not to be passed up,  Funk Estate So'phisticuffs.

It is an IPA,  which is a competitive market in NZ. I have already said that I think sometimes the IPA seems to be a competition for how much hoppyness a brewery can pack into its beer. So'phistocuffs is much more balanced, with the malts and the hops working together to produce a very tasty beer. This is just what I like when I drink an IPA and I will happily track this one down again.

Croucher Pale Ale

Another beer that I feel like I have seen around a lot but haven't tried is the Pale Ale from Croucher Brewery in Rotorua. The Pale Ale was their first commercial release but they now have a variety of beers on offer. Theirs is a tale similar to many other NZ craft breweries. In the mid 2000s a passion for brewing turned into a commercial enterprise and a few awards later and they have gone from strength to strength.

I picked up a Croucher Pale Ale at the local New World. Poured it out and had a try of Rotorua's finest. Every NZ brewery needs it's take on the Pale Ale so there is a lot of competition out there and it's hard to stand above the crowd. Croucher's Pale Ale has a mellow blend of malts and hops. It is a fitting member of the crowd but doesn't really stand above it. I would happily drink it again though which is probably better than having a point of difference if people only try your beer once.

Regent 58 Pale Ale

Small breweries are booming these days and their beers are much more available with the craft beer wave washing over everything. That means you get ready access to beer which might previously only have been available if you visited the brewer themselves. With that in mind I decided to pick up a bottle of Regent 58 Pale Ale from the local New World.

Regent 58 is a pretty new brewery from Carterton started by a couple of long term home brewers. They want to do something a bit different than the standard heavily hopped beers which dominate the NZ brewing scene at the moment. I have a lot of respect for that as I agree that the market is probably too full of hoppy beers at the moment. 

I mentioned that Regent 58 was formed by home brewers and that is what you get...home brew. It looks like home brew (sediment and all), it has a home brew smell and it tastes like home brew. It is good home brew, but still home brew. I wouldn't pass it up if I was offered one but it has a ways to compete with the depth and range of the craft beer market out there at the moment.

Renaissance Stonecutter Scotch Ale

Since returning to New Zealand I have always noticed beers on sale from Renaissance Brewery, but for some reason I have never gotten around to trying them. A follow on my Tweeter account from Renaissance reminded me that I shouldn't be missing out, so I decided it was time to take the plunge. Renaissance is based in Blenheim, the heart of Marlborough wine country. It was founded by a couple of Californians who decided that beer needed the same dedication that wine does. You can tell that these guys are serious about their craft. Their bottles are not the usual longneck you get from a New Zealand brewery, but rather have the curved shape you see with many English beers. Nice touch.

My first Renaissance brew is the Stonecutter Scotch Ale. It already has a few rewards under its belt so someone likes it. They have used nine malts in brewing the ale and it shows. It is very smooth with a strong caramel taste. It is rich and sweet. With the sweet flavours and 7% alcohol I think I might see how it goes down during winter.

De Halve Maan Straffe Hendrik Quadrupel

You may have noticed that basically every time I talk about Belgian beer I make a comparison to a Bruges based brewery,  De Halve Maan and in particular their beer called Straffe Hendrik (also known as Strong Henry).

It was therefore with excitement that I received a box from my wife for Christmas delivered from the Beer Cellar and contained within were six Straffe Hendrik Quadrupels and two Straffe Hendrik glasses from which to drink them. I love the idea of the glass should match the beer. I am not sure if it actually makes any difference to the taste but it certainly shows a level of respect to your beer.

The first time I tried Straffe Hendrik was at the brewery itself on my first visit to Bruges. At that time their strongest beer was the Straffe Hendrik Tripel. However by the time I visited again two years later they had upped the ante and you could also buy a Quadrupel. These are the beers against which I measure all Belgian style beers (unless we are talking about Kriek...but that is a blog for another day.)

At 11% the Straffe Hendrik Quadrupel packs a real punch but you wouldn't know it from drinking it. The dark smooth malty finish goes down like velvet. For everyone who isn't Belgian and is trying to brew Belgian style beer the bar is high and, looking back, no imitator I have tried has reached it yet. If you consider yourself a beer drinker this needs to be on your "Must Drink Before You Die" list.