Beer update

Time for a bit of an update on the beers made over the last few months:-

Coopers Kit wheat beer. This was my re-entry into the world of homebrew - just following the instructions on a kit, using wheat malt instead of sugar. I did mess around with some adjuncts in the secondary though.

Straight wheat beer - a bit plain and overly clean tasting, with that familiar homebrew yeast overtone.

Dry-hopped wheat beer - this added a bit of aroma and initial bitterness, but didn't affect the taste too much. Very much a 'session' beer

Orange & Coriander wheat beer - this was the best of the three, although it took a couple of months for the flavour to smooth out. Lightly fruit flavoured, with almost a cider overtone. Went down well with people who weren't beer drinkers, and left the ladies in the office asking for more.

Pendle Witches Brew. This was my first attempt at part mashing. Made a few mistakes, most importantly boiling up & fermenting the torrified wheat which left a very husky bitter aftertaste. I managed to limit that by mixing in some gelatin to the secondaries before bottling, which grabbed hold of the tannins and dragged it to the bottom of the demijohn.

The huskiness faded over time, and this has probably been my favourite beer so far. Liked by those who like English ale without any over-the-top flavours. Will make another batch once it cools down, and even leave some to sit for a few months.

Sage ale. At this point my natural urge to experiment surfaced. I'd read a lot about no-hop beer and plan to experiment with 'gruit' at some point (malted barley boiled with mugwort, bog-myrtle and yarrow). This was an alternative version using sage and liquorice. I also brewed 10l instead of the usual 23l, and used only malted grains - no extract.

Unfortunately things didn't go well - I initially bought marjoram instead of sage, and my maths went a little awry so I ended up adding double the amount of liquorice root. I also figured out that if you're going to try to brew all grain beers, it takes so long that you may as well go for a full fermentor load.

Reactions have been mixed. Some people hide their grimace behind a cough and say that it's unusual. Thanks Laurie. Others spit it out and declare that it's puce. Thanks Nikko. And it's got such a distinctive smell that you can't quietly pour it out in an attempt to spare my feelings. Thanks for trying Gordy.

I'm still curious as to how it tastes with the right amount of liquorice though...

Traditional IPA. Back to the English ales, but I thought I'd up the hops on this one. Also tried a traditional technique called 'first hopping' which adds to the bitterness & flavouring of the beer. It certainly worked.

This beer appeals to the hopheads, and I think it will mellow over time. It also tastes very similar to some of the 'hardcore' hop beers like Punk IPA, so although it's not entirely to my taste I think it was a success.

Watermelon wheat beer. Another experiment - the idea this time was to ferment out a wheat beer, and then add watermelon juice to the secondary to give it a subtle fruity flavour. I also bottled a few bottles prior to adding the watermelon.

I overdid the malt on this one which has produced a very strong beer (around 7%) and the alcohol skews the flavour. Not as much as the watermelon juice though, which has added a subtle backflavour of....well, stale watermelon. So a bit of a fail all round. I'm hoping that the watermelon will slowly back off over time, but that may be optimistic.

Belgian Saison. This is still at the brewing stage but is smelling lovely. It's also still bubbling 9 days after pitching the yeast, and with ambient temperatures of 32 - 34 degrees C. That's just weird yeast.....