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.