My gaff, my rules.

Bottled Landlord is described as 'strong' pale ale on the label which is a little curious because it is only 4.1% and far from strong in my book. A recent trip to Doncaster sheds some light on this somewhat unusual nomenclature because I had the pleasure of drinking with a group of bone fide northern English blokes who loved their bitter. All the bitter I drank while over there was around 3.5% abv and very malty, with an almost total lack of late kettle hops, except for the beer at hand this evening: Timothy Taylor's Landlord. This is set apart from other Northern English ales primarily because of the more aggressive hopping and slightly stronger alcoholic strength. I must also add that I enjoyed this beer more than the others I tried that weekend mainly because I am a fiend for hops and find malty bitters without the addition of richer malts to add a bit of compexity a little unsatisfying.

While in London last week I chanced upon a bottle of Landlord and jumped at the chance to try it because I was fascinated to compare this award winning cask ale with the bottled version, which is filtered and force carbonated. There can be no doubt that it is a very different beer, arguable less enjoyable but still very good as bottled ale goes. My admission that it is inferior to cask will be music to the ears of the CAMRA member who engaged with The Beer Nut recently in a debate on exactly why CAMRA exist. He sees no real value in force carbonated beer, even if it is excellent, and makes me wonder just what CAMRA are up to. TBN makes the point that it would be better to fight the predominance of bad beer rather than worry about where the CO2 in the beer came from. There is plenty of awful cask and bottle conditioned beer out there. I have quite a lot of it inflicted upon me by the CAMRA beer club each quarter. They feature little on this blog because they just don't stir me sufficiently to write about them. Filtered, force carbonated beer on the other hand is very common on this blog, mainly because it is the most available form of beer I consume and also because it many cases it is outstanding in flavour and quality. What concerns me most about the discussion is the CAMRA member's opinion that every artificially carbonated beer he has tried is inferior to cask. Perhaps he has a point when comparing two indentical beers; often filtration and over carbonation will kill a flavourful beer - I have experienced this a number of times, but to suggest that all artificially carbonated beer is inferior is just rubbish. From my old pages here we need only look at Big Daddy, Stone Imperial Russian Stout, Sierra Nevada Stout as examples of outstanding filtered, force carbonated beers. These beers are world beaters in my opinion and deserve as much respect as real ale. They simply cannot be dismissed and anyone who would do so should question their ability to appreciate good beer.

Getting back to the beer in hand, it is an excellent ale brewed very well with mouth watering foam, full body and perfect carbonation. The hop aroma that I enjoyed from the cask is not there and I have at last experienced the harsh bitterness that The Beer Nut has decried. The bitterness is indeed rough and I can't say I have experienced this from the cask, but what makes this beer for me is the action of the yeast used in the Timothy Taylor brewery; it really gives this beer an extra level of complexity that has made this strain so sort after by home brewers. Wyeast offer it on a seasonal basis and I would rate it up there with the stubbornly flocculant Fuller's or Brakespeare house yeast which make their beer so wonderfully complex and chewy.

Not as enjoyable as cask but certainly not to be dismissed.

More Whisky Ale

My last encounter with an ale matured in whisky casks was very pleasant but left me with a few questions about this style of beer. I outlined a bit of the chemistry involved in whisky maturation, particularly the aromatic organic compounds produced during the toasting of old bourbon and sherry casks. I was still left with the question of where the tart character came from and whether or not the beer would be better without it. Fullers Brewer's Reserve has the same lactic like tartness so I am leaning towards the notion that clearly microbes can reside in ex whisky casks quite happily and impart their own character to beer that is matured in it. This ale is more complex than Tullibardine 1488, the darker colour suggests richer malts and there is a definite English hop character about it. The whisky flavour really kicks in at the end along with warming alcohol. As a bit of a experiment I took a dram of scotch with the last quarter of the bottle to see what this might do to my perception of the flavour. I was glad I did because the scotch reset my palate's perception of the whisky in the beer leaving a complex, well hopped English ale.

Brewdog have fully taken on this style of beer, offering three different stouts matured in whisky barrels that I am aware of. I picked up this Paradox Speyside Cask Matured stout in Edinburgh last year, much to my delight. My recent conversion to smoky beer leaves me hankering after some their Paradox Islay which I happily learned today has turned up in Ireland. I hope that it has more whisky character than this stout because there is little in this beer. There is no doubt that underneath it all a superb imperial stout is a work, giving rich roasted notes and pleasant warmth but it carries none of the tartness or whisky depth of the Fullers or Tullibardine 1488. Speyside scotch is renowned for its easy going nature, often touted as a good introductory malt for those starting out in the very rewarding adventure of single malt appreciation and perhaps this might explain the very mild whisky character to this stout.

London

My first pint in London during this trip didn't exactly go as expected. The plan was to dump the cases at the hotel and make the 30 second walk round to the nearest boozer for a much needed pint of something on cask. Unfortunately I was misled by a London pub guide that stated that the Carpenter's Arms did decent pub grub. I was politely informed by the barmaid that it does no such thing. Luckily for us right next door was a sparsely decked out establishment by the name of Imbiss Austrian Beer Food. It was a superb second choice, and we tucked into wurst and leerkase washed down with Hitter Morchl for me - a rich roasty dark lager, and a more lady like measure of Stiegl Goldbrau for my wife.

After this very satisfying meal we struck out on a bit of sight seeing which took us to Knightsbridge and the excesses of Harrrods where the only beery piece of news I can relate is a bottle of Harrods own brand lager that turned out to be bloody awful. It was produced in Germany and I have no doubt it tasted a great deal better when it left the brewery. There is no way the German's would allow a beer as bad as that pass quality control. My guess is that it had been mishandled quite badly in the interim, resulting in oxidation and a general funkiness.

With the pavement pounding done for the day we headed back to the Carpenter's Arms to sample some of the six casks on offer. The first and best was Cooking from the Grain Store Brewery - session ale at its very best giving plenty of flavour, begging you to drink pint after pint. I moved on to Titan which proved to be one of those overly malty sweet ales that I just don't enjoy at all. To get the taste of Titan out of my mouth I opted for a pint of Between the Posts Whippet Special Ale, a malty pale ale that for some strange reason tasted of chocolate. A strange sensation because the colour of the beer did not hint at this type of flavour at all.

On the way back to the hotel we opted for a final drink in the Mason's Arms, a nearby pub that only stocked Badger's ale on cask and gave me the chance to try some First Gold in its most natural form. The bottled version of this ale has let me down badly on more than one occasion, the carbonation is far too high and the single show case hop does not get the chance to shine. On cask it is a different ale, completely dominated by the hop choice and tastes very earthy indeed, much like mouthful of soil, but not in a bad way, if you know what I mean. The second Badger ale on offer was Hopping Hare, 'thrice hopped', one of these hops was Stryian Goldings I reckon, giving the beer a very typical citrus golden ale flavour.

Finally, for a little hotel refreshment I chanced upon some Marks and Spencer ale that M & S in their infinite wisdom have deemed unsuitable for the Irish market. The Cornish IPA is wonderful stuff packed with American hops including Chinook, Willamette and Cascade. It is a crying shame that this ale has been withheld from the Irish Market. Please M & S, take back the metallic Yorkshire Bitter and give us this one instead! The second ale withheld from Irish shores is a Welsh Honey Bitter, once again featuring a favourite hop of mine - Challenger. It is ferociously carbonated, attempting to jump out of the bottle upon opening, but for some reason the prickle on the tongue works rather well with this beer, giving a zing of refreshment to the golden ale. The honey doesn't really feature much, except for perhaps a slight sweetness, but no real honey flavour to speak of. I always enjoy a trip to London, but my next may well prove the best. I have been invited for a tour of the Fuller's brewery by the guy in charge of the laboratory there. It should prove very interesting indeed.

Single Malt Cascade Challenge(r)

I like challenger. I like cascade. John suggests this combo in an ale is excellent so at the earliest opportunity I wanted to test this out. I'm off work this week so grabbed the chance to do some midweek brewing, something I never get the chance to do. The recipe looked like this:

4.3 kg Maris Otter

Challenger 40g 60 mins
Challenger/Cascade 20, 10, 5, 0 mins

Mashed 66 C

1.5 litre British ale yeast starter

OG 11 Plato

The most important thing about this brew was ensuring that I had removed all the alkalinity from the water because a grist composed of entirely pale malt will not tolerate much alkalinity and cannot produce enough acidity to counter the buffering effect of carbonates. I took care of this with an acid blend solution and the mash went well. The beer will be golden in colour but perhaps not as light as it could be due to some inevitable darkening during the boil. The beer is appropriate. The sun came out today and a distinct spring warmth was in the air and this beer will be a refreshing golden ale, slightly lower in alcohol than the beer I brewed over the winter and well suited to drinking in quantity.

No smoke without, erm...

I transferred Old Smoky to secondary during the week. A new name might be required though. No Smoky might be appropriate because I can't detect any smokiness in it, and this is disappointing because I have just come round to the way of smoke. On the plus side it is the best beer I have ever tasted out of the primary fermenter with a balanced roast character and satisfying fullness that can be put down to the large amounts of calcium chloride and the high mash temperature. Time will tell on the smoke front, but I am not hopeful.

Today I had some spare time so I racked off my latest ale for bottling. Usually I put 10 litres in a barrel and bottle the rest, however this time I plan to bottle all of it with the intention of bringing it to Cork for Ireland's first home brew expo. This will hopefully prove to be a great opportunity to put home brewing into the consciousness of the average Irish punter and perhaps make them realise that great beer can be brewed at home, in many cases this beer can prove far more flavourful and satisfying than the macro produced beer on offer in most Irish pubs.

As a just reward for my hard work today I settled down with a generous bottle of Stone Smoked Porter and a plate of various meats, olives and cheese provided by my thoughtful wife. The porter is wonderful; full in the rich American dark beer sense with satisfying malt complexity, balancing bitterness and perfect carbonation rendering the beer superbly drinkable. The colour is alluring, as is the rich foam that settles upon it and it has the same spiciness that the Stone Imperial Russian Stout develops upon a little warming. All in all a wonderful beer, but not a hint of smoke in it. Perhaps I'm searching for the wrong type of smokiness, like the kind found in Bamberg style smoked ale, if so, it's just not present. No matter, it is a thoroughly satisfying pint and makes me feel a little better about the lack of smoke in my own porter.

I'm converted

Last week a tip off from The Beer Nut had me scampering to an off license knocking out Schlenkerla at 2 quid a bottle. TBN has a thing for smoked beer. It's not quite decent and worries me a little, but he's a grown man and a free agent. I'm not sure the average rehab centre knows how to deal with this particularly pernicious addiction though.

Smoked beer and I haven't got on in the past. My most recent beer was a nod towards this style with a small addition of smoked malt mainly because I had developed a taste for phenolic Islay scotch. In the past Schlenkerla tasted to me like smoked bacon in a glass and I struggled with it, but being a tenacious beer lover I was confident that at some point in the future I would come to appreciate this style of beer. It had happened with other beers why not with this one? Well tonight my conversion occurred. The key to this conversion is the change in my perception of the beer. It now tastes more of smoke than bacon, much like Islay malt and I find this very pleasant indeed. It still smells of bacon but this doesn't put me off and without the flavour overpowering things the malt and roasted aspects of the beer have appeared. I did find it a little disconcerting that the beer slowly started to resemble flat cola as I let it linger in the glass for quite a while, but no harm. It has begun. Will I end up in rehab trying to kick this smoky habit?

The Daddy

I missed this member of the Jonathan Spielberg import collection first time round. I feel cheated because it is by far the best of them. I said before that Big Daddy from Speakeasy just wasn't sufficiently different from Prohibiton Ale because the amber ale just gives so damn much. Double Daddy is the beer that I hoped Big Daddy would be. It is an amazing beer and as reported by The Beer Nut, a great many hours could be happily passed sniffing the potent hop aroma stemming from the glass. Mango hit me in the face when I tasted it, really proper chewy, stringy sweet dried mango. I love mango and loved this beer just as much. I could smell citrus hops five paces away from the glass, not that I wanted to stay away from the glass for very long; it has the most wonderful golden colour with the rich foam and lacing I have come to expect from highly hopped ale. The most striking aspect to this beer is the almost total lack of any unpleasant cloying often found in other Imperial IPAs. Yet it is full bodied, and the heavy hitting 9.5% abv warms you from the throat all the way to the belly. Fabulous.

Old Smoky

I have avoided using smoked malt up to now because I find the phenols a little difficult to deal with. The Bamberg type smoked ales are like smoked bacon in a glass to my mind and a little hard to stomach. Recently however I have developed a taste for Islay single malts which are very high in peat smoke phenols indeed. As a result I decided a hint of this in a porter might not be a bad thing. There are problems with this because I had no idea how much smoked malt to use to get the hint of smoke I wanted. Anyhoo, the recipe looked like this:

Maris Otter 3.8 kg
Smoked malt 500g
Chocolate malt 250g
Black malt 200g
250g Muscovido dark sugar

Pilgrim 40g 6o mins
Pilgrim 15g 20 mins

Mashed at 67 C

OG 12 Plato

1.2 litre British ale starter

In the end I just added all the smoked malt I had. It didn't smell that strong from the pack and didn't dominate the wort in any way, so I shouldn't have to worry about an imbalance. I think my brewing software overstated the extract from some of the malts because the gravity fell short and I also took off a bit more sparge than intended, but I didn't want to boil for longer to concentrate the wort so threw in some rich brown sugar. It should add a little more complexity and brought the gravity up to a respectable level.

I also loaded the liquor with calcium chloride to make up for the poor levels of calcium in my water and add some fullness. I am interested to know just how high a concentration of various salts brewing liquor can bear before it starts to have a negative effect on the beer. Burton brewing water has around 700ppm sulphate which is very high indeed and makes for very hard water. Burton ales have always been known for excellent clarity, but it took an understanding of brewing chemistry before it was established that the very high levels of calcium in the brewing water was contributing to excellent break formation and yeast flocculation. I plan to play with water treatment over the next few brews to see what improvements various salts may add to my beer.