Jo's Beer Blog

Brewed for BrewDog’s inaugural flight across the Atlantic this little fella has brought a few little questions down upon itself.

Transatlantic IPA is the tagline – yet at 4.5% this beer is not strong enough to be called an IPA. Have BrewDog managed to calculate the exact differential of why people get more pissed up at altitude? Possibly.

It’s transatlantic title seems to come more for the flight itself rather than hops used – which have been reported as being purely American (not really fair is it?) whilst descriptors like white grape make it sound like this beer is more international than it lets on – Nelson Sauvin much? With the largest contract in the UK for this NZ green gold it wouldn’t be surprising if they’d snuck a bit in. And speaking of green gold, is it not German Hallertau that is lauded for its fresh cut grass aroma? To be fair to them – it could well be that British beauty Fuggles – but to extract enough flavour from a hop like that (to compensate for the apparent lack of taste and smell that humans experience at altitude) you’d need a helluvalot of Fuggles – and a protracted boil or the excessive use of such a chlorophyll rich hop would contribute as surely to the grassy flavour as the hop itself. It would also explain why the bitterness levels in this beer have a suspiciously tannic astringency rather than that fresh IBU bite. But hell – bitter is better when you can’t taste much anyway!

Following on from this – it seems that the beer was brewed to taste more bitter to compensate for the lack of sensitivity but this completely contradicts the common perception that senses affected by altitude pretty much exclude bitterness (please see http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150112-why-in-flight-food-tastes-weird)

Finally, and I’ll keep this short, there’s a sulfuric whiff to this little can, possibly because they wanted to use the phrase ‘resting on a malted fuselage’ which admittedly is quite a happy little descriptor, although I fear that using the pilsner and extra pale malts they seem to have used, DMS seems to have taken to the skies, and despite the brewers best efforts to boil it all off, it’s built a little Flying Fortress and found a home.

It does look and sound cool – but that’s also a bit of a problem – first rule of this flight club seems to have been to talk about it as much as possible – which is how you can find the complete and accurate rebuttal of everything you’ve just read, here: https://www.brewdog.com/aw_blog/post/view/post_id/99/

Cheers 🍻

I feel a bit like a well poured pint: everything got a bit lively at the beginning, with a lot of bubbles and exciting froth but perhaps not so much body and substance. Mouthfeel ay?

However, left a little while to settle, that foam begins to condense into something solid in its own right, trapping volatile aromatics (and the occasional volatile of other sorts) and building the foundation of a perfectly drinkable beer.

This second year has not had so much of the excitement of the first year but it’s had some absolutely solidly golden moments – Oktoberfest, Imbibe, Ardennes homebrew (thank you Rudi!), a Wiper and True collaboration and the list can, and will, go on.

So to begin!

We left the story in June, when I had just started working for a Craft Beer Giant. Through sheer good fortune, timing and a huge amount of beer geekery, I finally got myself promoted to management level in their Bristol bar. Yay! (Obvs no mention of names here!)

It was a whirlwind adventure – leaning how to actually speak craft beer to customers who actually wanted to talk about it and being able to stock breweries like Mikkeller, ToOl, Brasserie de la Senne and even Orval at one point, made me realise how little I still knew about the beer world, its heritage and the giants who built it.

I was starting from scratch.

June came with my first ever talk on beer – presenting a series of IPA’s for National IPA Day, a woefully unprepared speech and the repetition of words such as awesome, delicious and bloody bitter attempting without avail to hide my shameful ignorance – looking back on it I’m surprised that the people who came to the event still talk to me – thanks for having faith and sticking with me!

July – Bristol 24/7 In July some absolute trollop wrote; with conjecture and ignorance to rival even my own; an article damning craft beer as the reason Bristol was going to the dogs, drawing out the my very mild competitive edge and forcing my hand to pen a counter argument https://www.bristol247.com/opinion/your-say/craft-beer-can-be-a-great-career-bristol/ and create a meme which remained glued to the back of my phone for at least 6 months…which upon reflection was probably a bit excessive.

September – Bristol Beer Festival (august)

What an absolute cracker! The very first Bristol Craft Beer Festival (https://bristolcraftbeerfestival.co.uk/) was a roaring success and I wangled my way in each day to enjoy beers from all over the world – that imperial stout from La Debauche (France), that sour Heather Ale from White Hag (Ireland) the ever incredible BA Bearded Lady from Magic Rock (Huddersfield) to name a few.

October – What would a beer lovers Autumn be without Oktoberfest? We did it in style, driving through Belgium (see our epic Orval experience and beer journey here) and attempting to maintain a sense of dignity whilst slopping steins of beer down our merry bellies.

Also – the most epic AirBnB with Rudy, an avid homebrewer, distiller and maker of magic elixirs who’s boundless enthusiasm and incredible collection of homebrews (some with his own face printed on the bottles) will remain cherished in my memories for ever.

November – The Wiper And True collaboration Brew

December – Wine vs Beer

Held my dream event – a Wine Vs Beer pairing night where we pitched the likes of BA Albino Squid Assassin (oaky and spicy imperial rye IPA) against our heftiest Carmenére and care to the conclusion that Nelson Sauvin hops are startling reminiscent of Sauvignon Wine #terroir (https://www.beavertownbrewery.co.uk/new-take-terroir/)

Also launched Local Tap committing to support local breweries with a dedicated tap line.

January – Visited the timeless Tuckers Maltings (https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/beerwineblog.wordpress.com/2017/01/19/take-us-to-tuckers/amp/) and developed an almost embarrassing passion for floor malting and a definite (hopefully temporary) Somerset accent.

February – Got to go and brew with my favourite brewer in the world and experience the less is more principle of rauchmalt in the divine Black Angus which was then aged in an @independentspirit whisky barrel.

March – With my favourite day of the year but a few hours ahead of me, I fell off my bike and broke my foot in time for Paddy’s Day – tragically this meant that all I was able to do all day was sit in the bar and drink epic Irish Craft Beer. *sob*

April – East Bristol Brewery Trail should be one of the top 10 tourist attractions in Britain. What can be better than lush local beer, live music, basketball in the sun and all the pop up food stalls you can ask for? And there’s no such thing as too many dogs and beer photo opps.

May – Great honour bestowed upon me by Imbibe magazine – so proud to have been a part of their judging panel in an IPA taste competition which left me only slightly wobbly after the 49th beer…

June – My first visit to Barcelona and the beginning of my love affair with the European Craft Beer scene…as well as finding a rogue can of Death by Coconut in the BrewDog Barcelona fridges..

Plus of course…

And so my second year of beer ended – with the promise of more beer to come..

Cheers 🍻

Jo x

So! Friday night! I know exactly what Friday night off calls for – Brasserie de la Senne ‘Bruxellensis’ going head to head with a Fleurie Beaujolais – both paired with offerings from the excellent Bristol Cheesemonger.

So, to begin!

First we have a wonderfully rich, creamy and slightly earthily sweet Jersey semi-soft cows cheese – Ogalshield – with a washed rind that I would suggest be avoided (sorry). The cheese itself is deep buttercup yellow and silky smooth. It has a slight tangy acidity and a surprising funk which, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, is an absolutely impeccable match to the funky, silage reminiscent Brettanomyces Bruxellensis fermented Bruxellensis. The wine here really doesn’t stand a chance – the sweet cloying butter of the cheese brings out the worst in the bitter tannins and the whole event sticks to the roof of my mouth like curdled peanut butter. Sorry wine!

Second we have my absolute all time favourite – Sharpham Brie, made in Devon from tasty tasty clover fed cows milk. Its at it’s absolute best – ripe to the point of being liquid with a stickily honeyed texture and a mushroom like umami rind. It’s fucking delicious. Bring it on! The rich ripe fruitiness of the wine smashes this baby back and smooths it along with a well rounded embrace of juicy red fruit and subtle spice just seasoning the cheese. Perfect. The beer, delicious as it is, overpowers the soft cheese and something in the powdery rind brings forward a not very pleasant hop bitterness and slight astringency all too evident in the now bubbling carbonation of the beer. Definitely wine for winner here now! Seriously though this cheese has to be the best brie on the British market. Just saying.

Third and final we have the famous Cropwell Bishop Stilton, Garrett Oliver’s famous barleywine pairing cheese, which, absolute slut that it is, actually tastes delicious with both the wine and the beer although I have to say, flaunts it’s creaminess unashamedly with the highly effervescent beer whilst bringing it’s strong earthy funk more to the forefront with the juicy wine. Who wins? You decide!

As for me, I was feeling pretty man flu’y at the beginning of all this and I have to say I feel pretty bossman right now. Here’s to reckoning that beer/wine/cheese are simultaneously the best remedy for unwelcome illness.

Bottoms Up!

Jo x

So Matt, Molly and I took a little day trip down to Newton Abbot to do a massive amount of geeking out about all things barley. I actually managed to take some notes despite the 6am train journey! 

Tuckers Maltings was established in 1831 which makes it fairly well established! It’s one of only four traditional floor malting works left in England. Contrary to conventional malting which can be completed in a matter of days, Tuckers take 10 days to process a batch of malt using traditional practices and a lot of heavy lifting! 

Gareth was kind enough to take us through the whole process from start to finish and we were pretty astounded by the care and hard work that goes in to every batch. 

Tuckers process 1500 tonnes of malt per year – primarily Pale and Lager Malt although they do buy in Crystal and other speciality malts to supply to brewers. 
They process two main types of barley – spring and winter. 

Winter varietals are sown in October and spring varietals generally sown after Christmas.

Winter Varieties include the ever popular Maris Otter: an old variety, highly regarded for flavour and ease of use in brewing. Robin Appel owns the rights to Maris Otter. Extract is quite low and grain size quite small but Maris creates a good grain bed and filters well so is popular for use in brewing as it makes it easy to avoid a stuck mash. Brewers also swear by its complex flavours. 

Spring Varieties are generally bred for better yield and extract. They also boast better disease resistance. New varieties are continually developed and are being experimented with Propino being very popular currently and Concerto, Westminster, Oddessy and Irina all having had their time in the limelight in the last few years. 

When arriving at the malthouse, the moisture content of the grain kernels is usually at 16% total mass with a target of 12% moisture for storage. Tuckers drying drum will eliminate 1% of moisture content per hour and as such is very gentle and will not negatively impact upon germination – which used to be a problem for maltsters who would dry grain for storage by using their kilns. 

Grain size sorting. Grain is passed through a hopper to a barley screen, made up of a series of sieves which shake and vibrate the kernels. 

Screenings, thin and half corns, are separated and bagged off, as uniform grain intended for the germination floor passes over these sieves. Waste and screenings are then used for animal feed. 

FUN FACT: Barley grows best with warm wet weather early on and sunny weather later on with the odd shower = optimum harvest. 

Steep tanks

 

These hold 8 tonnes of barley with 1500 gallons water. Some lighter grains will float to the surface and run off, leaving the more suitable kernels behind.

The grains are soaked from 12% to 45% moisture content.

The process is fairly straightforward: fill with water, soak for 12 hours, drain, sit for 12 hours, drain. It generally takes 2.5 days to soak and reach desired moisture content. 

The kernels are now drained through this perforated bottom – which is 117 years old! 

The barley then spends 3 days on the germination floor. 

The winter floor will be spread quite thick ly (up to 25cm) and the summer floor thinner (approx. 15cm) to maintain an optimum temperature for germination (not above 60F). 

The germinating malt is then turned twice per day and ploughed twice per day. 

Heating up the floor in winter can be difficult and space heaters are sometimes used – if the floor is too cold (for instance after the Christmas break) the barley will not germinate properly. 

Temperature control is used throughout the malthouse – in the past they would stop malting for summer. The buildings walls are at least a foot thick throughout both to maintain internal temperatures and to support the weight of the equipment and grain. The windows here are also boarded up so that sun can’t get in and warm the place up too much.

As there is a lot of humidity in the germination floors, damp control is necessary and routine. 

Tuckers use a mechanical winch (Reddler Power Shovel) to move grain from the germination floors to the kiln. 

This grain barrow is used to dump malt and spread over the germination floor. 

A chain and bucket elevator then carries grain to the kiln.

Tuckers used to have four kilns but now use only two – freeing up space for storage and loading pallets. 

Originally fueled by anthracite coal, the kilns changed to oil in the 60’s and to gas in the 80s. Samples are regularly sent off for laboratory tests as this kiln is direct fired. Particularly important is the identification of NDMA (nitrosamines) which are known carcinogens.

FUN FACT: Maris Otter has smaller kernels than most spring varieties. 

Green malt is now spread to an even level (about 30 – 45cm) in wedge wire flooring above the spark chamber and the kilns are switched on. 

Lots of steam is produced on the first day of kilning as moisture within the malt is evaporated. Because of this the roof vents are left open for 12 hours. 

On the second day the roof vents are closed. The 1984 recirculation system saves thousands of pounds by reusing the heat produced by the kilning process

Lager temperatures in the kiln start at 60F, 2nd day steps up to 70F. 

Pale starts at 65F and steps to 70F for 2nd day. Steps to 76-78 for drying off. 

EBC units for lager = 2-3 and Pale = 3-4

Tuckers used to make Munich malt for St Austell’s Cornish Gold. The process required firing up the kiln and running it for 6 hours before shutting off. The malt would sit warm and damp and sweat. Through this process it picks up more colour and gains richness. Then the kiln is fired up to over 90C to finish off the process. 

An aluminium power shovel is used to save floor from scratching. 

After kilning, malt is sent over these sieves in a tumbling motion, breaking off and separating the fat kernels from the rootlets and dust (culms). 

Malt culms contain 27% protein. They are usually sent off for animal feeds.

Malt dresser – this awesome old piece of perfectly functional equipment consists of a series of brushes to remove rootlets or dust from the grain.

The finished malt is then bagged up and sent out! 

FUN FACT: Tuckers building was electrified in 1915. It used DC electric motors until 2006. 

 So THIS just happened. 

I bloody love Beavertown. I love their beer, I love their branding, I love their attitude, and yes, I love Logan Plant. 

Beavertown are one of the most widely recognised craft breweries in the UK, their beers enjoyed by aficionados, enthusiasts, novices, and cider lovers alike.

Their meteoric rise to craft beer fame is often attributed to their founding father having invested an enormous sum of money in top notch equipment – in my frank and ever humble opinion, this is utter bollocks. Some of the best brewing equipment I’ve ever seen has been hand built as a hobby in a garage. Any fool with a few thousand to spare can buy a custom  built fermenter but it takes true artisanal vision to craft beer as consistently delicious as Beavertown beer. 

That said, I have to admit that my favourite Beavertown beers are those inspired by the Yanks. The rise of the American style IPA has, without a shadow of a doubt, brought beer back to life in the UK. (The campaign for real ale ‘CAMRA’ has done a fab job in keeping it on life support but the rise of kegged craft beer has been brought, kicking and screaming, into the national spotlight thanks to the Americans. Cheers guys! ) 

When IPA began its revival, it started in the US, after prohibition, and in a country dominated by consumer demand for light, drinkable, and pretty flavourless lagers – and the Americans did what they do best – started a revolution. 

Some of these homebrewers went on to found the most successful craft breweries in the world.  

Crossbreeding a pretty standard English hop with a native varietal came up with citric, floral, and overwhelmingly bitter Cascade. From here on in IPA’s were no longer a British phenomenon – the USA had cracked the IPA code – and the drinking public were fully engaged!

It was time to up our game. 

One of my favourite (and much disputed) attributes of English IPA’s is their absolute drinkability – at 6.5% they slip down entirely too easily! Americans tend to add a relatively hefty dose of speciality  malts to their brew – often caramalt to add a bit of body to the otherwise highly attenuated and definitely hop forward beer. Here in the UK we make no effort to hide the bitterness and power of that awesome US hop bill – our IPA’s are bitter, tropic spiced, citrus and pine fucking awesomeness.

So, compare these two beers – Beavertown’s Lupuloid IPA and Ironfire’s 51/50 IPA – with the weight of history bearing down upon me?

Nah. Go compare them yourself.

Cheers!

Jo

One year ago I sat down to interview for a job with one of the UK’s top craft beer bars. In my blog at the time I described my astounding lack of knowledge of anything even remotely beer related. As far as I was concerned, craft beer wasn’t a ‘thing’. 

I thought it was probably time for a reckoning – so here’s my first year of craft beer! 

June: the journey begins! Started learning about beer; talking to craft beer enthusiasts and CAMRA representatives; and perfecting my pour. Read Randy Mosher’s ‘Tasting Beer’ and watched Garrett Oliver get geeky about beer and food pairings on YouTube.

July: donned the pink wellies and accompanied the head brewer of a gypsy brewery on a 7.4% IPA brew. This IPA was under a huge amount of scrutiny as its predecessor had come out as 7.6% and had therefore been 1% over the national limit for low ABV beers – costing the brewery a ridiculous amount in tax! On the bright side, it could be marketed as the UK’s only 7.6% beer (any other brewery would’ve watered it down to save money) and the brewery gained a reputation for quality over quantity! 

August: went to the Great British Beer Festival hosted by CAMRA in London’s Olympia exhibition centre. Drank far to much Belgian sour beer (plus a not very yummy polish smoked lager and copious amounts of British cask ale) and was unable to chew my food for the next week. Brewed a low ABV pale ale with American and New Zealand and Australian hops (no fuggles here!). 

September: Trans-Atlantic Rainbow Project was hosted at my bar with collaborations from the likes of Beavertown, Wild Beer, Siren, Magic Rock and Buxton on our side and Dogfish Head, Crooked Stave and Firestone Walker representing the US. Pretty much every single beer was a tribute to the sour beer frenzy sweeping the craft beer world at the time. 
October: Sat my CBS (certified beer server) exam with great trepidation and passed with 97%!
November: Brewed a milk stout and realised that my views on beer had changed. From my Irish heritage of drinking Murphy’s and Murphy’s only, I realised that I now preferred hoppy pale ales to rich stouts. I was a new woman!
December: hosted my first home beer and food pairing with 10 different West Country cheeses from an awesome local cheesemonger and probably too much St Fueillon Saison. Realised that I preferred beer to wine. What was happening to me? 

January: started working as the brewery representative and realised that it wasn’t only my bar manager who runs away from sales reps. Silver lining being that I sniffed out pretty much every decent bar in the West Country (plus a few pretty dodgy ones!).
February: went to Belgium for the Bruges beer festival, drank Le Garre Tripel and visited several Trappist breweries to buy out their stock of Patersbier and branded glassware. Toured the Cantillon brewery and saw their open topped fermenters and incredible collection of wooden barrels. 

Did a collab brew with my favourite Cornish brewery – Verdant! 

Beavertown held their 4th birthday bash – which I wasn’t missing for the world! 

March: worked a vegan beer pairing event and gorged myself on chocolate torte and cider brandy barrel aged old ale. Caught whooping cough and was then unable to drink for 4 months! (I snuck in a few snifters of strong ales – purely to strengthen my constitution?) 
April: unable to drink I hosted a beer dinner and cooked 8 courses paired with at least 2 beers each. (See previous posts for recipe and pairing ideas.) Saddest dinner of my life. 

Also visited Wild Beer Co’s brewery!
May: began working for the UK’s most successful breweries in one of their most popular bars! 
June: decided to sit my certified cicerone exam and can now say with full certainty that I do, indeed, love beer! 

It’s been an epic journey! I’ve gone from knowing nothing and caring not at all for this wonderful beverage (from believing wholeheartedly that I was fated to invent enthusiasm every day!) to absolutely bloody loving it!

Bottoms up! 
Jo