Bathed in Blood a Red IPA

Saturday was an interesting day, I transferred the Empire of gold over to secondary for lagering.
I also brewed up an american amber. It's slightly out of style guidelines for bitterness and OG, based on the recipe, although the eventuating day didn't bring about the numbers i was looking for.

Here is my red IPA Recipe. Dubbed Bathed in Blood.
Brew day itself went ok, and i hit an extra litre again, and a slightly lower OG because of it.
The numbers I hit are as follows:
OG1.061
22 Litres into Fermenter.
Mash temp 67 degrees, Choc malt added with 15 mins to go.
609 min Mash time.
strike temp: 74deg c
I added 2g Chloride and 7g Sulfate to the mash.
Fermenting at 18.5 degrees for 48 hours ramped to 19 degrees this morning.

FG of the Empire of gold has turn out to be around 1.011 and currently lagering in my second fridge. It will sit in there at low temperatures until I bottle the Red IPA. they will then be bottled at the same time.
Then it'll be onto my last NHC recipe... An American Pale Ale. I'm not entirely sure of a name yet I'm still working on that.

This is my Empire..... of Gold

Hi Everyone, another beer brewed, another fermentation under way... Despite a couple of small issues.

Firstly, the Beer:  this beer dates back to one of my first  Extract batches, which had not real fermentation control, and as such the temperature got a taqd warm, causing some flavour issues to start with. The resulting beer at 4-6months, was actually rather tasty. A nice malty blonde ale, no real hop kick to speak of. i was initially disappointed with the beer, but in retrospect, it turned out to be a good beer. a nice entry into craft beer.

Here is the original recipe from the first time I did it: Ska Tru Blonde Ale

followed closely by the new updated recipe, Empire of Gold

As you can see theres a couple of changes to the recipe, mainly to keep it within style and a nice light summery type beer.

The only real issue to speak of was the yeast starter, I used WYeast 2565, Kolsch (another change to the recipe) The pack I had was actually considerably older than I had anticipated, meanin a slightly longer lag time on the beer beginning fermentation. I'm hoping it won't crap out early. But other than that it went relatively smooth, Hit gravity, and 1 litre under volume, which I'm ok with, Given I pitched the starter direct into the brew.

There aren't that many commercial examples out there, because everyone like big bold flavours. this will be a nice light, simple true to style beer. Beer number 2 into NHC2013.

Lastly  Beer#1 into NHC, my Sons of Liberty Porter, Finished a tad higher than I expected, but its tasting mighty fine, and Theres a good Hop aroma on it, taste wise dark roasty, and smooth. finished at what turned out to be 1.019, which is acceptable. 

New Beers...Some Tasting Notes and a Good Weekend All Around!

Hi everyone.

the weekend just been was a pretty good one, We spent most of the weekend drinking and tasting beers.....

I could have asked for worse  :)

Heres a list of beers I tried and tasted over the weekend: List from best to Worst

1. Behemoth - Celia Wade Brown Ale (Best of the weekend)

2. Green flash West coast IPA

3. Kakariki - Goldilocks Blonde ale

4. Green Flash - Hop Head Red

5. Epic - Comet

The Celia Wade Brown Ale had to be the pick of the weekend, for me. Here is a review of the beer

Appearance: Dark Brown, Nice and clear with a good off white head., lacing round the glass to the end.

Aroma: smells of  roasted malts and minor ash, with a good chocolatey hit.

Flavour: Dark and roasty, superb, poured at room temperature. off the hand pull. nice and sticky, qwuite creamy.

Overall: Superb beer, shame its not more common around Christchurch, would be interested to see how it tastes off the tap./bottle.

Worst; well not so much worst but most disappointing, Epic's New Comet. As a Hop Head I was bitterly disappointed...'so to speak' good aroma and flavour, but it tastes.... just. like,. the rest of them. Zythos and Mosaic I mean. I'm a bit over the whole Epic craft beer thing I guess, there are so many new breweries doing so many exciting things out there, and it just seems like another Pale Ale, and not alot of thoughts been put into it.

A Beer of note while a the twisted Hop, is the Kakariki Blonde Ale. Nice for entrants into the craft beer scene, I reckon it has some Honey malt in it, even though its not generally available in New Zealand. big honey taste, very sweet. no real hop aroma to speak of.

And speaking of Blonde Ale; I've got a Re-brew of one of the original recipes from my early days, transferred to all grain, from extract. and some little tweaks. Watch this space for the recipe on Brewtoad.

Wish me luck.