A post about Scotland.

Traquair House ale: a great Scotch heavy for settling into burns night with its layered malt complexity.

As many of my readers are probably now familiar with my ramblings about the glory of Yorkshire, this time I have decided to cover Scotland, and this is for two reasons;

1: Last weeks episode of Drink of Britain covered both whisky and beer in Scotland. It was good to see the lads from Brew Dog being featured drinking with Oz and James on a park bench. I myself have met both of James Watt and head brewer Martin Dickie (I have his autograph) as well as visit the brewery.

2: Its Burns night. But sadly I will be saving my McEwans Scotch ale and dram of single malt till tomorrow night as I will be getting up incredibly early tomorrow to drive to work.

But anyway, for people who know beer know Scotland is traditionally famous for its heavier, stronger, malt accented ales by comparison to English counterparts. However of recent times the brewers of Scotland have diversified their products and much more can be sought after than the classic 60/, 70/, 80/ etc. In fact the country seems to brew many of the most full flavoured and creative beers the UK has to offer, from the likes of Brew Dog and Williams brother with their ‘new world’ beers approach to Broughton ales and Traquair house with classic masterpieces of the Scotch ale style. So if you go be sure to hunt out some beers, because there’s plenty on offer.

A New year… Of more beer.

The beginning of this month I got round to finally bottling my very own Vintage 2008 ale after just over 4 months of aging. At 11.7% a.b.v (and that’s after the primary fermentation) this is indeed the strongest beer I have home brewed, and a very attenuative yeast strain was used to enhance the potency. The interesting fact with this brew was that it was not originally intended to come out at such a high gravity. Some miss-judgement concerning my mash tun extract efficiency turned a target gravity of 1.092 to the immense 1.112! Anyhow my first tastings were promising, and I shall be conducting vertical tastings on this one for years to come.
Further good news comes in the form of another T.V series, in the form of Oz and Clark Drink of Britain, finally a T.V series covering beer that isn’t pandered with gimmicky disrespectful, beer degrading, immature rubbish like last years Morrisey Fox series. In fact from what I have heard and seen Oz Clark is very much a professional beer taster. OK at times he seems to over emphasise the traditional aspects of British brewing, but lets not forget that these days craft brewing can be as much about innovation as tradition, both here and abroad. None the less I sense the brewing force is strong with this one.
However off the screens not much seems to have changed since 2008 yet. I have tried a few interesting beers from Leeds brewery and despite Christmas and new year have managed not to consume all of my cellared/special occasion beers. Admittedly quite a few will probably be consumed at my wedding in December, where I am planning to home brew my very own wedding ale which will be racked into an actual cask borrowed from my work the Daleside brewery. The downside of this plan maybe that I will have to do my own cellarmanship work before the day, and due to my capacity shall have to do a ‘double brew’. I.e. brew two 5 gallon batched of wedding ale in the same day to fill a 9 gallon cask. Given a few extra demi-johns and a hot liquor tank for my birthday this should not be a problem but will probably still mean a 10-12 hour day of home brewing. Brutal stuff.

Home brew: Back from the days of living and brewing at my parents. Having plenty of free time as a student, a higher turnover was achievable with batches being brewed at a time. Sadly much of it lacked quality.

Having a very merry (Samuel Smiths) Christmas

Greetings once again readers, or should I say seasons greetings? As it is still officially Christmas. As I have mentioned in earlier posts much as been expected from this years Christmas day beer session and indeed it was successful. As with last year the Christmas turkey was well matched with the savory character of Samuel Smiths Winter Welcome ale whereas the real gamble came with the match of Christmas pudding and Chimay Grand reserve. This match seemed to work well as the rich fruity flavours of both harmonised well. The afternoon also brought some excellent tastings, including Samuel Smiths Imperial stout and the very rare, oak aged Samuel Smiths Yorkshire Stingo at 8% abv. As a beer I have hunted for some time I found this prestigious offering completely fascinating. As a rich amber ale one would expect rich fruit and malt and possibly toffee nuances, and although this was present the beer seemed to possess and extra dimension (probably from American oak) that brought an unorthodox strawberry and vanilla like tang that bounced off the malt intricately balancing the beer. What was also interesting was how this beer matched Wensleydale cheese (matching Yorkshire with Yorkshire) and I could immediately tell that Wensleydale with cranberry would have matched better.
Sadly the session seemed to deteriorate in the evening as I fell asleep unexpectantly, maybe I'm getting old? But overall it was a great day mainly highlighted by Samuel Smiths and its masterpieces. As a long favourate of mine I have noticed how not only are Samuel Smiths arguably one of the best brewers in Yorkshire but are highly reputable on a worldwide stage with big followings in America and various other countries. But lets not forget the other great brewers of Yorkshire, such as York brewery with its sublime session bitters with cascading hop characters. Acorn with its full bodied chocolaty award winning old moor porter. Black Sheep and Theaskstons with true classics, and not to mention the mighty Daleside brewery with its wonderfully structured malt masterpieces such as Monkey Wrench and Morocco Ale.

Winter Update

Greetings again readers and a seasons greetings to all with only 12 days to go till the big day. Tragically it is sad to say that my 'operation winter beaver' mentioned in a previous post has had to be restricted due to financial problems. Although some good winter warmers were found most have now been consumed, and as a backup plan I have asked for a range of exciting seasonal beers from my good lady for Christmas. This should ensure that Christmas day should bring a mighty all day session of ale similar to last years December 25th session which started at 11:15am with the Christmas dinner appetiser beer.
From memory Christmas dinner was matched with Samuel Smiths Winter Welcome Ale, a classic winter beer. Following this I would have normally matched Christmas pudding to the obvious Youngs Christmas Pudding ale but due to its unavailability went for a more chocolate based dissert matched with Meantime Coffee porter (this was a very memorable experience) . Feeling rather full a very large bottle of Chimay Grand reserve saw me through most of the afternoon before a range of medium to heavyweight beers filled the evening.
This year this list is probably alittle different but should still be good. But dispite this quite a few things have changed since last year. For example the recent news that Carlsberg-Tetley is closing its Leeds site (also its original site I belive), more evidence of the bigger brewers struggling. Sources say craft brewers are surviving well, and this is reflected at my work where demand is heavy at the Daleside brewery over the winter season. Another positve factor is that the the world hop shortage situation seems to have eased off. Interestingly from what I've heard the world hop shortage was not just due to crop shortages, but was worsened by a loss of interest by hop growers (since prior to the shortage the price of hops was very low).

Tribute to Heriot Watt

As many brewing student readers may know last month saw the graduation of all MSc and Diploma students of the Heriot Watt University. Because of this would like to dedicate this post in tribute to all the folks on the MSc Brewing coarse, congratulations to all. Its been an amazing year doing truly unimaginably awesome theory work, and some very helpful practical stuff as well. Here are some pics from the best bits.

Inside the mighty Blue Blazer, the pub that quickly became our adopted local.

Me Edd and Brian, at the Blue Blazer.

This was me in the taxi home with simon. I think this one was taken during one of my enthusiastic Clubber Lang (from Rocky 3 the movie) impressions. At this time I belived Simon was taking the highest degree of interest to my ramblings.

A quiet review of some cask ale during a session with the Canadians.

Anyway as things have gone I have heard my fellow students have fell to a variety of different fates since leaving Heriot Watt. Some have moved into big brewing corporations, some (like myself) have went into smaller breweries. Whereas others are still looking for work or are working in a completely different industry. None the less, since December is a month to reflect on the year just gone, it is always good to look back on the sucesses that have been made regardless of the failures to give a positive outlook for the year ahead.

What is also exiting is the up and coming bottling of my very first vintage ale on December 30th. After 4 months maturation, this Panda & Frog Brewery Vintage ale 2008 at 11.7% a.b.v will be bottled from its two 1 gallon demi-johns under the kitchen tables into the smallest beer bottles I can find. The beer was formulated from pale, crystal and cara malts, four hop varieties including challanger and goldings alongside a highly attenuative ale yeast. In fact this beer will be served to selected guests only (maybe just the best man) at my wedding in approximatly one years time, now that will be something to celebrate.