Brew Day, July 21st: Spoons Festival Ale

Originally I wanted to call this beer something like Hop Monster IPA, Alpha Attack or something cool like that and amp it up to say 60 or so IBU but the powers that be wouldn't allow it. None the less being let loose to make your own commercial beer on a 20 barrel brew plant is definitely a privilege. Even if these 10 barrels of IPA will be sold only and exclusively to the Weatherspoons Spoons beer festival in Leeds running from the 20th to 29th of August. As the second beer I have designed for Daleside, the difference this time was I wasn't watching someone else do most of the work (as with Autumn Leaves) as my brewing training is now long complete. So the day began with a steady mash in. The 65.3oC mash was followed by sparging to collect 12 barrels of IPA wort, rich golden, bulked out with Munich and caramel malts. The hops were weighed out carefully. As usual a nosefuly was taken from each... Summit, Amarillo, Centennial (you can guess the last two)... Feeling them, rubbing and sniffing, I just couldn't wait to get these into that rich aromatic wort with its heady rich, juicy, bready aromas.

Much thought went into the recipe, and knowing that the likes of Leigh and Zak Avery may even be trying it (both Leeds bloggers) means more pressure. Then we have the Leeds Weatherspoons Managerial team who popped down for the day (a great bunch a lads), who had some photos taken and some complementary beers and pies. My hope was to maybe get them scooping the masses of hops out of the copper at the end of the day or doing some tedious labour, but it didn't happen. But since the brew size was small for our capacity not a huge amount of hops or malts were actually needed.

Transfer to the fermentation vessel

At the end of the day our extracts were sufficient to achive our 5.8% abv target, and we also got some photos taken for the Weatherspoons magazine. Apparently all the Weatherspoons folks are coming back early next month for and IPA tasting. I'm planning possible escape routs from the building now so if it does not go well I can avoid all conflict. But at least that means if I can't make it for the festival I can try it cask conditioned.