Summers here ....

Summers here….

Eight Degrees  Mandarina Bavaria (Single Hop):

From the bottle it pours, bottle amber-orange in the glass with a good head. The aroma starts of with some light fruits that then opens up to candy-citrus orange, ending with a pleasant herbal finish.  A beer I would very much like to try on draught and I suspect one you could easily let slip down while out with a few mates. 

Yellow Belly Beer (collaboration) Castway:

Kettle sours have been on the rise in the Irish craft-brewing scene and something I think they are something to seek out, see Kinnegar Brewing range for example.  I had some rune the castaway collaboration beer with YellowBelly, Hope brewery and Shane smith as something to get hold of.  Aroma was up front this topical fruit leading towards a big passion fruit, ending with a slight sour note. I did not detect any acetic acid on the nose, which is usually and indicator of a good kettle sour.

Taste wise upfront pleasant sourness, following with lots of passion fruit all mixing to give a fruit pastille effect. A very good beer and could well be my beer of 2016. 

Through the door: The Open Gate

Through the door: The Open Gate

I was cordially invited to The Open Gates for their Taste of Beer. This event featured a few of the vendors (Shuck London oysters, The Cupcake Bloke, Cúlcow artisan ice cream, The Little Milk Co, Natural bakery, Asian market) that will be at the Taste of Dublin next weekend (https://twitter.com/TasteDublin). The event was a food and beer pairing with the emphasis on using some of the Open Gate beers in their produce.

Cúlcow artisan ice cream:

A scoop each of the Strawberry porter and Special Export stout ice cream from Cúlcow. Stout ice cream was a first for me, very different but good.  The Strawberry porter was my favorite.

Natural bakery:

Keep with the stout theme, I opted to try there two brown breads that were on offer. With the special ingredient been either the Strawberry porter or Special Export stout. Again like the ice-cream I favored the porter bread over the stout.

The Little Milk Co:

The pairing of cheese and beer is an ancient one and I have yet to find a beer and cheese that did not get along together. However, on their recommendation their blue cheese did really match well with the Special Export stout.

Strawberry Basil Porter:

Interesting beer this, probable best describe the strawberry contribution as subtle. It was there but hard to pick out.  The basil on the other hand was a little more pronounced on the finish.  One that  enjoyed even if the strawberry where a little stage shy. 

Special Export (Belgium version) rum barrel aged:

Much improved on the first version I had and on a visit back before Christmas 2015. Now boasting an extra 4% abv coming that has leached from the rum barrel. A lot of the initial Special export stout flavor had been stripped out buy the barrel, but in its place there was big sherry and rum aromas on the noise. For a 10-11% beer, the alcohol was remarkable well hidden.

Tropical IPA:

A pint at The Open Gate:  Dark golden to amber in color, medium body with a tannic hop finish on the palate.  There look to be a good dose of some sort of dark crystal malt, leaving me to consider it more of an English style IPA or strong bitter. The aroma was of mango-ish hops, which were surprising some of the reviews I have previously heard, also considering it’s filtered and pasteurized to boot. Overall, not in your face hop bomb as one might expect given the name.

At the end of the night, we were present with a growler of it to bring home. It had four day in the fridge before I got around to it.  Sadly, those tropical aromas had departed, reinforcing the suggestion of traditional English ale that one from the US west coast. But  enjoyable no the less. 

Review: “The Blue Bolix” Malt Mill

There are couple of big leaps a number of brewers go through as they delve deeper into home brewing. Going all grain, fermentation temperature control and crushing your own malt. The last was something I had put on the long finger for years. I was always very happy with the crushed malt I bought from the homebrew company since I started all grain brewing.  Thank you to Shane at The Homebrew Company for the chance to review the infamous “The Blue Bolix” malt mill.

With only a small bit of assembly required that of the hopper. It can be a little fiddly works but it is no huge effort. A couple of minutes invested and it’s completed. Therefore, with that done, the first job was to calibrate the two rollers for optimal crush. The consensus is the distance between the rollers should be enough to all a credit card to pass through. This turned out to be an easy process to set and lock in with the clamps at the back of the mill.

A view down the hopper, the design allows the grain to funnel down on to the mill rollers.

The hopper holds around 2kg of malt comfortable; I opted to use the hand crack to crush this malt. However, you can also use a drill for a less strenuous malt crush.  

Nice crush on the lines of what I got from me brew buying pre-crushed malt from the home brew company. The grist by the way as 2kg Pilsner and 2kg Munich malt.

Mash in under way at 66c

Wort happily boiling away, as the gist was 50% pilsner malt I went with a 90-minute boil, to avoid a possible DMS issues. Mash efficiency was 70% bang on what I was working, well done to the Blue Bolix on perfect crush.

Here is the fermentation temperature profile that I went with. It starts with the classic Narziss method, pitching WLP820 two or so degrees below your preferred fermentation temperature and then allowing it to free rise or slowly be heated. Fermentation temperature is maintained for 5-7 days or until 50 %, attenuation is reached. After this period, the fermenter is slowly heated around 2 degrees every 12 hour until 18-20c is reached. Hold this for four or so day 

 and slowly ramp down by 6 degrees every 12 hours to 1c.

A quick check of the FG at kegging, 1.010 right on the number I was hoping for and no stalling fermentation that can be associated with this yeast. Force carbonation and let it sit for a few weeks to lager.

So all in all a very successful début of the "The Blue Bolix" malt mill, easy to use and assemble. A big thank you again to Shane at The Homebrew Company for a use of the mill.  

Vegan Friendly Irish Craft Beer Part 2.

"The list below I would not be surprised to see grow over the next few year"

Well it did and much faster than I was expecting. Here we are 24 hours later with 43 independent Irish craft breweries across the island that are vegan/vegetarian friendly! With a massive range of beer and style there is certainly something for everyone. Again this list will only grow over the next while. 

St.Mel's Brewing Company

DungarvanBrewing Company 

Western Herd

Simon Lambert & Sons 

RyeRiver (McGargles, Grafters, Solas, Crafty) 

O Brother Brewing

Galway Bay Brewery*

O'Hara's

Wild Bat

Black Donkey

N17

Independent Brewing Company

Wood Key Brewing

8 Degrees Brewing

kelly's Mountain Brew

Galway Hooker Brewery

9 White Deer Brewery*

Mountain Man Brewing

Radikale ale

Drew Fox  

Mescan Brewery

Barrelhead Brewery 

JW Sweetman 

Boundary Brewing 

Otter Bank Brewing 

Blacks Brewery  *

Pokertree 

Treaty City Brewing 

Rising Sons Brewery 

Walled City 

MetalMan  Brewing 

Ards Brewing  

West Mayo Brewery  

Four Provinces  

Elbow Lane 

Donegal Brewing Company 

White Gypsy 

Munster Brewery  

Torc Brewing 

Manor Brewing 

The White Hag 

12 Acres Brewing Co 
Tom Creans

*Exception GBB: Buried at Sea, contains lactose.

*Exception 9 white Deer: Cask ale


*Exception Blacks: some old bottles

Vegan Friendly Irish Craft Beer

Well Diageo has finally bowed to pressure from the vegan/vegetarian community and has declared that the pride of St James gate will be vegan friendly. With the removal of isinglass, a product derived from the swim bladders of fish and is expected to happen sometime around mid-2016. Isinglass is a fining agent that clarifies the beer. Where it's positively charge and binds the negatively charged yeast and which then falls out of solution, leaving a clear beer. There has been plenty of debate over the years of whether its use is needed in modern brewing. But probably its biggest use of isinglass still is within the cask conditioned ale of England. Obviously since it’s an animal product this has raised objections from vegan/vegetarians. But there has been a counter movement over that last few years with “Unfined beer", where Moor Beer has been leading the charge in the UK. 

"We are at the beginning of the project to install the new system. It’s a complex project and will take many months to install and test before it goes live and is used I the production of Guinness.” A company spokeswoman said via The Journal.ie 

But as ever, it’s the Irish craft beer sector that has been quietly been leading the charge for the last few years. A number of breweries have confirmed that their beers are Vegan friendly. The list below I would not be surprised to see grow over the next few years. 

St.Mel's Brewing Company

DungarvanBrewing Company 

Western Herd

Simon Lambert & Sons 

RyeRiver (McGargles, Grafters, Solas, Crafty)  

O Brother Brewing

Galway Bay Brewery*

So all is not is not lost, vegans can enjoy an Irish craft beer in many places around Ireland while supporting small indigenous independent breweries. Now that’s something worth raising a pint to. *Exception Buried at Sea which contains lactose.

Road Trippin

To celebrate their 20^th anniversary in business the good people at Mc Hughs have teamed up Kinnegar to release a special beer. Road Trip a 6.2% American inspired pale ale. I am a big fan of Kinnegar, their Black IPA is one of the best around.  Therefore, I had high expectations of this beer and the early word was this was a beer to try.

 Colour:  Amber in the glass with a good firm head.  Its darker than most pale ales, but it is a big field to play in anyway. A little hazy, but you are warned of that on the label and in my experience it a help hold some of the more delicate hop aromas. 

Aroma: Big hit of perfumery hops with a touch of an herbal note to it. Underpinning this was candy/caramel sweetness with a dash of maltiness. All rounded off with a very pleasant dank/ piney C hop finish. Very American centric so far as one would expect as the hop listed are Chinook, Summit, Cascade, Simcoe, Centennial and then dry-hopped with a healthy dose of Amarillo, Centennial, and Citra!!

Taste: What hit me initially was the sherbet and grapefruit pith along stick hop oils, that all played very well together.  Bringing up the rear was malt backbone. That did not overplay its hand and overpower the hop flavours. A good but not over carbonation helped meld these entire things together. All in all, a well brewed beer. One I really enjoyed tasting and I would love to see re-brewed again.  Let’s us hope this is just the start of a beautiful relationship between Kinnignar and Mc Hughs. For disclosure, Cathal McHugh very kindly offered to send me a bottle for me to review. 

The Great Woods, Blanchy Spoons

Yesterday saw the opening of the third pub in the latests instalment in the Irish portfolio of JW Wetherspoons. The name that was chosen via a reader pole in the Northside people was “The Great Wood”. The Great Scaldwood is the woods proper title and was old rements of old growth Irish forest. Part of the forest would have been in the area of where the Blanchardstown centre now resides. The old Irish forest that was maintained by the local lords till the coming of Cromwell. With the removal of the local gentry wolfs proliferated, which became a danger to man and beast Which resulted in great cull in 1652. 

While I was out for a walk I decided I would pop along and check it out. The site that was chosen was a form night club. Pure drinking establishment in the Blanchardstown area have not fared to well over the years. But I suppose if anyone can make a go of it, it’s probably Wetherspoons. Targeting the pub, cafe/coffee shop, restaurant and general leisure spend. The same day of the opening of  The Great Wood. Wetherspoons in Ireland decide to increases price, somewhere around 33% on selected products. But that didn't appear to put the punters of, the place was packed on both floors. Even with the price increase it’s still cheaper than any pub in the area as far as I am aware of. Although this increase was not applied to any real ale product’s and remained at 2.50 per pint. But that maybe down Tim Martins tipple of choice. The choices currently are all English real ale Hobgoblin, Doom bar, Ghostship etc. I am hoping over time that we will get to see some Irish micro’s getting some space on the beer engines. I wasn't eating but the  food orders did appear appeared to be moving. There is a good bottle selection of Irish craft beer from 8 degrees, Bru and McGraths. Given the proliferation of pubs offering Cute hoor and Hop house as their "craft "options in the area. An as I was told in one new local pub "that's what Diageo/Heineken offered"! The spoons offering is possibly one of the largest selection of Irish craft beer in the area. But why did it take an English pup chain for this to happen?

Adnams Ghost ship (cask): 

Amber in the glass with a good head and lacing.  From been served though a sparkler as God intended. The aroma was mildly hoppy with citrus lemon and finishing with some lemongrass. Taste wise it started with bready malt, citrus fruit and with a very nice tang hop bitter finish. A beer in very good condition and easy drinker to boot. Its great see some cask ale available in the local area and hopefully some from Irish brewery in the not to distant future.