January 16th, 2010
Over the past two days I’ve bottled two beers – an Imperial IPA and a Belgian Brown Bitter that I brewed just prior to the holidays. I’m a little disappointed that the IPA has finished out with a gravity of 1.030 (it had an OG of 1.084). I tried to bring it down a few points with some Danstar Nottingham, but to no avail. Tasting it before bottling I found it a bit sweet (as you might expect), but not cloyingly so. There’s definitely a pronounced hop presence, so we’ll see how it is after a few weeks of bottle conditioning.
The Belgian Bitter Brown seems to have turned out well. I used Wyeast’s Flanders Golden Ale yeast, which I gather is often used as the base yeast for a sour ale or a lambic. I decided to go for something brown and moderately hoppy (see the recipe below). This was also the first time I tried brewing using decoction and I think that process has resulted in a beer with a maltier backbone than I’ve been able to achieve in the past. Again, it will take a few weeks of bottle conditioning to really see how things have turned out.
Belgian Brown Bitter Recipe
8 lbs. pilsener
1 lb. special B
1 lb. Vienna
0.5 lb. Munich light
2 oz. black patent
0.5 oz. super styrian @ 60 min.
0.5 oz. super styrian @ 30 min.
1 oz. hallertau @ 20 min.
1 oz. saaz @ 10 min.
0.5 lb. brown sugar @ 10 min.
0.5 oz. coriander @ 5 min.
0.5 oz. orange peel @ 5 min.
0.5 tsp. grains of paradise @ 5 min.
1 tsp. Irish moss @ 15 min.
Yeast: Wyeast Flanders Golden Ale (from starter)
OG: 1.052
IBU: 45
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January 5th, 2010
Over the holiday season I was lucky enough to be invited to try Scotland’s Brew Dog Tactical Nuclear Penguin. At 32% ABV, this is the strongest beer ever brewed, surpassing high-octane brews like Sam Adams Utopia and Dogfish Head 120-Minute. Brew Dog has been getting a lot of press in the UK of late, where they have raised the ire of health and safety types for (allegedly) encouraging over-consumption and other delinquent behaviours.
All hype aside, I wondered if a beer this strong would be palatable. At this strength did it still have the characteristics of beer? Would the flavour be dominated by the burn of alcohol? In short, was it any good?
What I can tell you is yes, Tactical Nuclear Penguin is definitely beer. It’s thick and black and there’s basically no carbonation. You don’t need to bring the glass to your nose to pick up on the intensely smoky aroma. Yes, you do feel the warming of alcohol as it goes down, but it does not dominate. It packs a real wallop for the first sip or two but, baby, you are in flavour country. Billed as an “über-imperial stout”, this tastes like a smoked stout that has been reduced to its very essence. The flavours – and the warming effects of the alcohol – come at you in waves. By the end of the 1/3 glass that I drank my gums were numb and my tongue was tingling. Talk about mouthfeel!
Sadly, Tactical Nuclear Penguin is not (yet?) available for sale in Ontario. I’ve read that it may make it into the U.S.A. sometime in the spring. If it does, don’t expect it to be cheap, as a 330 ml bottle goes for 35 UK pounds (about 70 CDN). But even at that admittedly high price tag it would be worth tracking down to share with a couple of close beer lovers or to greedily savour on your own on a cold winter night.
In the meantime, local beer agents Roland & Russell have brought Brew Dog’s Punk IPA into the LCBO as a winter seasonal. I strongly recommend it to any of you out there who love hop-forward beers. Here’s hoping that they can bring in more from this UK upstart that appears to have shown that extreme brewing is not strictly the domain of American craft breweries.
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December 9th, 2009
Dry hopping my black IPA
I make no bones about my love of hoppy beers. Since I live in an a part of the world where over-hopped beers are something of a rarity (yes there are excellent local examples and, yes, the LCBO has brought in the odd decent IPA lately) it makes sense for me to brew my own. Over the past few weeks I have brewed two very different IPA styles: a black IPA and an imperial IPA.
For the black IPA my grain bill was made up of two-row pale malt and chocolate malt, with citra, simcoe and cascade hops bringing my bitterness in at about 71 IBU. The yeast was Wyeast German Ale and I dry hopped for about a week on chinook leaf hops. This one has been in the bottle for about ten days so it is too early to sample, though it did have a chocolatey orange quality to it on bottling day. OG was 1.066 and FG was 1.008, so this one is fairly strong.
Stronger still is the the imperial IPA I cooked up last weekend. Clocking in at an OG of 1.084 this is the biggest beer I have made so far. Had to use DME to bump up the gravity, but I am expecting this one to finish out at around 10% ABV. The recipe and brewing schedule appear below.
Imperial IPA
14 lbs. two-row
1 lb. melanoidin
0.75 lb. carafoam
3 lbs. light DME
Mash at 154°F for 2 hrs.
Boil time: 90 min.
0.5 oz. chinook @ 60 min.
0.5 oz. chinook @ 45 min.
0.5 oz. simcoe @ 30 min.
0.5 oz. amarillo @ 20 min.
0.5 oz. simcoe @ 15 min.
0.5 oz. amarillo @ 10 min.
1 tsp. Irish moss @ 15 min.
Wyeast London Ale (from two starters)
OG: 1.084
Estimated IBU: 82
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