FERMENTwww.beer52.com / Issue #9

E x p E r i m E n t s i n t h E g l o b a l c r a f t a l c o h o l m o v E m E n t

Contents

Editor: Erin BottomleyIllustrator: Mica Warreninstagram.com/mica_warrenhttp://cargocollective.com/micawarren

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Proofreader: Jade Farrington Writers: Neil Walker, Laurie Black,

Natural Selection Brewing, and The Hungry Bears’ Blog

Bourbon Revival – Jade Farrington

6 Cans v Bottles

10Mikkeller – Rock ‘n’ Roll Brewer

14 Pilot Brewery

16Natural Selection Brewing: Into the stainless steel deep-end

18 Against the Grain: Weird Beer – Neil Walker

20The Hungry Bear’s Blog Recipe

21Whisky Corner

This month our box of beers is better than ever, including some amazing brews from Mikkeller, Brewdog, Buxton, To-Øl, Rose Brew, from the American craft beer big guns Sierra Nevada. Rounding it off are UK aficionados of beer canning Beavertown and Fourpure. As this is the first time we are including two cans in our box we thought it was only fitting to look into the debate of Cans vs Bottles. There has long been an association with cans as containing cheap, commercial beers but the craft beer world is slowly, but surely, convincing people of the benefits of using aluminum to store beer. We look at the benefits and pitfalls of canning to see if they really are the best way to store beer.

Our cover designer this month is Edinburgh based illustrator Mica Warren. Check out more examples of his work on his website and instagram: http://cargocollective.com/micawarren/ & instagram.com/mica_warren

We were lucky enough this month to visit Leith’s up and coming brewery Pilot. These guys are the real deal when it comes to brewing, doing everything themselves from building their brewery, to creating experimental brew recipes to designing and marketing their brand. They currently only bottle occasionally and in very small numbers so we will have to wait before they make their way into our beer boxes.

This month also sees the first in our new series tracking the progress of Heriot-Watt’s brewing and distilling students as they learn about how to set up their own brewery. We will follow them throughout this semester to see how they get on with their brewery Natural Selection Brewing. In the past the course has come up with some awesome beers so hopefully we will be able to feature a beer from these up and coming brewers in the near future.

We also have our first cooking with beer recipe from the Hungry Bears’ Blog. They have come up with a recipe which uses one of the beers from the box so you can also try out cooking with beer.

Enjoy!

editor’s note

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In the middle of 2008, Ivailo started up a company importing certified organic Bulgarian rose water and cosmetics

based on it. After a few years he decided to expand and began experimenting with food and beverages flavoured with rose water. In 2013 he met Andy - the head of Dominion and Pitfield breweries, formerly of London, currently situated in Moreton, Essex due to expansion. Although (or maybe because of) brewing professionally for over 25 years, he loved to experiment with the production of innovative beers that push the boundaries between the traditional craft and the new era.

It didn’t take long and in 2013 Ivailo and Andy launched Rose Brew, a project dedicated to the art of creating certified organic beers that uplift the spirits and promote the sense of well-being using only the best ingredients and enhanced by Bulgarian rose water.

sierra nevada

First, Black Rose chocolate stout was released and soon after its success White Rose wheat beer followed to round out the concept. Pink Rose Hibiscus IPA is on the schedule - the guys are working on it. Yellow Rose, Orange Rose and Ginger Rose are to enter the family shortly.

White Rose: An all year round beer which subtly blends the orange and coriander notes of a wheat beer with the fragrance and taste of roses into an exquisite brew which gradually reveals its complexity with ev-ery sip. It is a perfect accompa-niment to seafood, white meats and Far Eastern cuisine.ABV: 5%IBU: 26

rose Brew

Sierra Nevada is an extremely well established craft brewery first starting in 1980. With over thirty years of

experience they know what they are doing when it comes to creating awesome full flavoured beers. The brewery was dreamt up whilst owner Ken Grossman was out hiking in the Sierra Nevadas. He knew from that moment that he wanted to make big flavourful beers that stood out from the mainstream, the way the Sierras tower over California. This inspiration led him to create a brewery which was respectful of the environment and one which would help to preserve the planet.

Their first mission was to display the unique flavours and aromatics of whole-cone hops to make their beers distinctive and stand out from the crowd. You have to remember though that this was the 80s and big flavoured beer was not the movement of the hour so getting people to drink them would be a challenge. Luckily they persevered and the public soon

started to enjoy their beers. For them, Sierra Nevada beer is a labour of love - a combination of the finest ingredients, many years of experience and the quality, craftsmanship, and flavour that can only come from a handmade, all natural beer.

Sierra Nevada Porter: It is an all natural beer packed full of roasted malts which give it a rich, bittersweet and roasted toffee flavour. This medium bodied ale is perfectly balanced, with a smooth malty flavour and crisp American hops.ABV: 5.6%IBU: 32

If you’re anything like me then after a few beers your thoughts start to turn to the liquor shelf. With taste buds primed/

battered, I’m in need of something stronger to fully appreciate its flavour. My natural choice used to be a peated single malt, but the craft beer bars and accompanying American food are clearly influencing me and bourbon has become my go-to spirit. It’s surprised me how many of my fellow drinkers – knowledgeable about their beers and BBQ – don’t feel comfortable choosing or even ordering a bourbon.

The American spirit is made from a mash of at least 51% corn and must be stored in charred, new oak barrels for a minimum of two years. That may sound overly simple compared with those expensive single malts

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you’re used to sipping, but don’t be put off. Bourbon is a different – but certainly not inferior – spirit with its own flavour profile. In fact it’s starting to out-perform Scotch in respected contests.

When Americans first distilled bourbon in the 18th century it’s pretty unlikely they’d have foreseen it morphing into an $8 billion industry, nor the near-collapse distillers suffered just a few years ago. If anything, they’d have far more in common with the craft distilleries now springing up hot on the tail of the craft beer boom.

It’s difficult – and almost prohibitively expensive – to import most of the latest craft offerings to the UK. But, just as with Scotch, when it comes to bourbon, big doesn’t have to mean bad. If you’re new to bourbon there’s no need to fly to Kentucky or splurge hundreds of dollars on import fees as you can sample some great bourbon at affordable prices right here in the UK. Next time you’re out in a craft beer bar and you feel the urge to move onto something stronger, ask your bartender for a glass of their favourite bourbon.

By Jade Farrington

BourBon revival

BourBon’s a treat for Beer-Battered taste Buds

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For a long time there has been a stigma attached to the humble can as it is associated with cheap,

commercial yellow fizz with the ethos of stack’em high and sell’em cheap. But it looks like things are changing and more and more are seeing the benefits of using cans. Canned beer has taken off in the States with so many big breweries choosing to can their core range. The Colorado based brewery, Oskar Blues, best known for their Dale’s Pale Ale range, were the first to fully immerse themselves by canning their whole range over a decade ago. From there so many other breweries have jumped on the bandwagon and, as is common in the craft beer world, what starts in the States soon makes its way across the pond to the UK.

So why is canning better than bottling and what are the benefits for both the brewer and the beer geek?

Cans are on the rise across the craft beer world, and why wouldn’t they be? They are

easier and cheaper to produce and better for the environment. Canned beer is lighter to transport, ultimately saving the brewery money as more can be transported at once, you can get 108 trays on a pallet compared to 70 cases of bottles. This will then ultimately reduce the brewery’s carbon footprint in the long run. They are also easier to dispose of as their recycling process takes far less time than their bottled equivalent.

All this is well and good and we all want to care about the environment a little more than we do but when we buy delicious beer we want to know that it has been brewed, stored and packaged to preserve it in the best possible way. Again that’s where cans come out on top. The protection that cans give from light is far superior to that in bottles. Beer in clear and green bottles can easily be damaged by light which produces a skunky aroma which is not what anyone wants from their favourite brew. Skunk is one of the more common flaws or off-fla-vours that can occur in beer so much so that for a long time many Americans be-lieved that European beers were meant to give off that strong smelling aroma. It all depends on the colour of the glass, for example green glass allows green light par-ticles to make its way through in the same way that clear glass allows all light particles to pass through the beer, ultimately skunk-ing the beer everytime. This indicates that almost any beers stored in clear or green bottles will be skunked. Brown bottles pro-vide more protection for beer as they don’t allow nearly as much light to penetrate the

Cans vs Bottles

it has long Been a stiCking point among Brewers in the industry and a muCh Covered deBate But whiCh is Better: Canning or Bottling? why is there a stigma attaChed to Canned Beer? why do some think of it as an inferior method of Beer storage?

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beer but there is still some light getting through. So this is where the argument for canning beer comes in. Cans provide full protection from all light, making sure that the beer inside is kept as fresh and as tasty as possible for the customer to enjoy.

Canned beer also fits into the hipster image that is so popular these days. It is the idea of retro cool. On top of this cans give the brewery a different option when it comes to design. There is just something about a beau-tifully designed matte can that just feels good to drink from especially when you know the beer inside has been given all the protection it needs to preserve its flavour.

It would seem that all the evidence sug-gests that cans are the best way to pre-serve the beer’s quality from the brewery to the beer geek. Gone are the days of prejudice against a cheap tinnie as more and more well respected breweries are de-ciding to can and doing it well. The change

has really started to take shape in the UK with breweries who have always bottled converting to the can. Wild Beer have just launched their canned version of Wild Goose Chase and Bibble. Brewdog can two of their core range: Punk IPA and Dead Pony Pale Ale. Camden Brewery have always supported canning and are the first in the UK to introduce the ‘crowler’, a can/growler which seems like it can only be a great idea. So whether you choose to drink cans for environmental, practical or purely taste reasons it seems that more and more cans will be popping up on the shelves of your local bottle shop.

Two breweries who have advocated the use of cans from the beginning are Fourpure and Beavertown, both of whom are rocking the beer world with their amazing beers served up in beautifully designed cans. This month we have been lucky enough to include two of their spectacular beers for your enjoyment!

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They were the first brewery in the UK to fully can their core range. They canned from day one and although this was

high risk they were confident that they could drive the trend forward. As a brewery, their main focus has always been on quality. The name of their brewery pays homage to their appreciation of the four main ingredients of beer: yeast, hops, malt and water. They take pride in everything they do and always strive to produce world-class beers which surpass their customers’ expectations. Perfection is a word that is thrown around regularly. They have built up a strong reputation for technical and brewing innovation. They are made up of a group of people who are passionate about brewing but who also have many other practical skills to contribute. They recently built their own bar by breaking and welding an old grist hopper back together as well as constantly making improvements to their old English brewhouse.

Following in Camden Town Brewery’s foot-steps they purchased the same canning kit and hit the ground running. They decided to can primarily based on quality. For them it is the best small package method to get the beer from the brewery to the customer’s glass. There is no light penetration, it has a superior seal and locks in hop flavours. Canning also gives them better access to their customers. Firstly they take up less shelf space so out-lets can stock more. It also opens up a range of different venues such as swimming pools where glass isn’t allowed and festivals are also a huge opportunity for them.

Pils: Their reimagining of a classic German Pilsner. Generous hopping with Mittelfruh and Saaz gives this beer a delightful floral and spicy aroma. The finish is dry, crisp, and refreshing. Inspired by their cycling adventures through Germany and the Czech Republic.ABV: 4.7%IBU: 35

fourpure

Cans v Bottles

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Beavertown

Beavertown was established in 2011 by Logan Plant in the kitchen of Duke’s Brew & Que in Hackney, London. Their

mission is to produce fine beers driven by their passion for innovation and quality that stimulate the drinker and create an experience from the first sip. Their passion even extends past their incredible beers as they are pushing the industry forward by creating a new packaging standard with their Beavertown cans.

When they were packaging by hand and into bottles at Stour Rd (their previous home in Hackney Wick), the beer was tasting absolutely amazing and was totally ‘to spec’ fresh off the line. Within as little as two weeks they found that the beer was already changing, and oc-casionally the hoppier stuff became a different beer altogether. Looking for stability, they took their lead from American breweries which were already neck deep into canning and after fur-ther study into its benefits they decided to get a canning line for themselves.

For them, canning takes away all possibility of light strike, drastically reduces the oxygen leak at packaging and incorporates a double seam which is much tighter than that of a bottle. Together this meant it was a no brainer for keeping their beer as stable and fresh as possible. Those were the main reasons they decided to invest in canning but the added benefits include full artwork coverage for our branding; cans cool faster; they are lighter and have an insanely low carbon footprint for transport in comparison to bottles; and they are more environmentally friendly. Metal is a permanent material once created with a 60 day cycle from being put in a green bin to being back on the shelf.

Neck Oil: An all day every day session brew. This is definitely a go-to beer which will keep you com-ing back for more. It is a low ABV, ultra pale, crisp, light ale with a powerful punch of hops. ABV: 4.3%IBU: 45

Cans v Bottles

mikkeller

the roCk ‘n’ roll Brewer

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Back in 2006, Mikkel Borg Bjergsø was a maths and physics teacher who started experimenting with hops,

malt and yeast back home in his kitchen in Copenhagen. Nowadays Mikkel and his brewery Mikkeller export their micro brewed beer to 40 different countries. He is internationally acclaimed as one of the most innovative and cutting edge brewers in the world.

Mikkeller follows the ethos of phantom or gypsy brewing and has been called “cult”, “rock ’n’ roll” and a “gypsy-brewer.”

In the past beer was just something he drank to get drunk when partying with his friends – the cheaper the better. Studying to become a teacher, Mikkel got a job at a local café and here he was introduced to foreign beers like Chimay and Hoegaarden. He quickly developed a taste for the foreign drops and founded a beer club with some friends. As time went on he started to frequent a local pub and would often pop in for a brew on his way home from work. It was here he tried his first IPA from the Danish brewery Brøckhouse and got the idea that he would save a lot of money if he could brew a beer like that himself.

Soon after Mikkel and his childhood friend Kristian Keller started some ‘physics experiments’ with malt, hops and yeast. Inspired by the extreme hoppiness of micro brewed, stateside beer, they bought a few American books about brewing and started grinding malt in the basement of their apartment complex.

Their first experiment was a clone of the Brøckhouse IPA, which they served at their beer club gatherings. Eventually the clone won a blind test in one of their tastings, and the success got the two friends hooked on the idea that others also might enjoy the taste

of their beer. The kitchen experiments lasted for two and a half years and simultaneously Mikkel and Keller started brewing beer on a larger scale at the Danish microbrewery Ørbæk.

When another member of the beer club, Mikkel’s twin brother Jeppe, opened a beer shop in Copenhagen in the beginning of 2005, he started distributing Mikkeller’s beer to beer geeks and lovers around the world, and the rumours of Mikkeller’s kitchen experiments soon spread.

The breakthrough into the international market came about due to the clean and simple idea of adding French press coffee to an oatmeal stout. The resulting ‘Beer Geek Breakfast’ was voted number one stout on the international beer forum Ratebeer.com and kick-started Mikkeller’s international success. It wasn’t long before he was courted by American distributors and soon he had to start brewing at the microbrewery Gourmet Bryggeriet to meet demand. Keller left in 2007 whilst Mikkel went on to make himself known as one of the most respected gypsy brewers in the craft beer world.

Mikkeller don’t have a core range that is always available. Last year they released over 100 new beers so it’s hard to have a core range when things are ever changing but right now they try to keep up production of Peter, Pale and Mary, American Dream and Beer Geek Breakfast.

American Dream: A hazy golden body with a me-dium off-white head. Packed with American hops, it is great for a hot summer day. Aromas of apricot, grapefruit and peach with flavours of Earl Grey tea, passion fruit and grapefruit. This is light, refreshing and extremely enjoyable version of what a true pilsner should taste like.ABV: 4.6%IBU: 67

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Martin and James were bored of the industrially brewed lagers and stuffy ales that dominate the UK market.

They decided the best way to fix this undesirable predicament was to brew their own beers. Consequently in April 2007 BrewDog was born. Both only 24 at the time, they leased a building, got some scary bank loans, spent all their money on stainless steel tanks and started making some hardcore beers.

The beers they make at their Aberdeenshire brewery are now available in over 50 different countries and BrewDog is now the largestindependent brewery in Scotland.They are dedicated to making bold, contemporary and progressive beers showcasing some of the world’s classic beer styles – all with an innovative twist and customary BrewDog bite.

They want to make other people as passionate about great craft beer as they are.

Brewdog

Buxton

Opened in 2009, Buxton Brewery is celebrated as one of the best breweries in the UK getting a place

in RateBeers’ top 100 breweries numerous times in the past couple of years.

Based in Buxton located smack bang in the middle of the beautiful Peak District, their beers are at the cutting edge of the craft beer revolution and they produce world class beers on cask, keg and bottle. They have a strict emphasis on quality and know that to create good beer there is a lot of hard work involved. They concentrate on quality, innovation and attention to detail. Although they are a relatively small team they punch above their weight and distribute their beers all over the UK, to Europe, Scandinavia, the US and New Zealand. Their core range contains 20 distinct beers with some one off special reserve series and collaborations popping up now and again. Their most popular beer is

Axe Edge, a wonderfully full flavoured and hoppy strong IPA named after a Moorland plateau outside Buxton. They are just going from strength to strength and are making a well respected name for themselves in the UK craft beer scene.

Wild Boar: A delightfully well balanced hoppy IPA. It has aromas of spice and exotic fruits including pineapple and grapefruit. This is comple-mented by its subtle malty backbone. It is packed full of fruity flavours with a dry and bitter finish.ABV: 5.7%

Libertine Black IPA: Twen-ty first century black ale. Libertine Black Ale is a dark hop bomb combining the hop awesomeness of an IPA and the decadent and indulgent malt flavours of a stout with an insatiable drinkability that belies the punch that this beer packs. A Dark Knight amongst pale knaves. Taste the hops, live the dream. Learn to speak beer, love fruit and ride toward anarchy and caramel crazi-ness. Never forget you come from a long line of truth seek-ers, dreamers and warriors… the outlaw elite.ABV: 7.2%IBU: 65

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Sofa King Pale is the second installment of To-Øl in Ferment

and the second beer from their Sessions Series. The Sessions are a series of beers designed for sublime taste. Crafted to be low in alcohol To-Øl are hoping to define and reinvent craft beers at low ABV. At first glance these beer would seem to be simple in style but they can contain so much more depth if they are brewed properly. It is all about making these session beers flavourful whilst staying true to their delicate nature and making them available for all beer drinkers.

They use simple kiln malts and carefully selected hops used to showcase how intense these flavours can be even at a low ABV. Their design takes inspiration from an elegant and minimalistic Scandinavian aesthetic. The labels reflect a maritime environment with sea landscapes and amateur fishermen. When they all

yesterday were the days of extreme Brewing. this is the dwarfs standing on the shoulder of giants

“nanos gigantum humeris insidentes”

They were very fond of the name because of its double meaning. There’s a lot of extra pale – pale ales around, so why not make a so faking (The F word) pale? And at the same time it’s the perfect beer for sitting on your sofa, watching TV, listening to music or hanging out with friends.

stand shoulder to shoulder the focus is on the names and label but as the bottles are twisted, the label reveals more of the maritime theme as well as staying true to the To-Øl Sessions. Every beer from the Session Series is about creating these subtle beers that reflect To-Øl’s take on brewing but boiled down to a good session beer.

Sofa King Pale: To-Øl’s take on the perfect sessionable pale ale. Soft malty, with a few spe-cialty malts for a bit of mouth-feel and sweetness whilst still avoiding all the sugar/caramel load you can pick up in some pale ales. Brewing session beer is difficult since you at the same time want to make a flavourful beer but still want to make it balanced. You want to make it hoppy, but still keep it session-able. The most difficult beers to brew are not the imperial stouts but in fact a balanced, tasty, flawless low ABV beer. ABV: 4.6%IBU: 47

the brewing, recipe writing and, when they do, bottling and labelling themselves by hand. With Matt’s background in design they also created their brand and website, keeping their image clean and sharp using block colours to represent each of their different beers.

Beers

Their core range includes some impressive brews. Blond is a low ABV session beer which packs in all the body, bitterness and tropical fruit flavour of a much bigger brew. India is a classic IPA which is a far cry from new age American pale ales with toasted fenugreek and unrefined jaggery sugar which gives a maple and savoury spice complexity to balance the massive New World hop character. One of their most popular beers, the Mochachino Stout is an awesome example of how good a stout can be. It is a huge-bodied, full-flavoured milk stout, flavoured with coffee roasted to their exact specifications with raw and roast organic cocoa nibs and Tahitian vanilla. This pint is so good that it won them an award in their first year of brewing down in Leith.

Just off Leith walk, in an unassuming garage, there is magic happening. Behind the rolling garage doors lies

a treat for all beer lovers. Patrick Jones and Matt Johnson have set up Edinburgh’s greatest new brewery, Pilot. The first thing you see when you walk in are the old fashioned style mash tun and kettle with beautiful outer cladding indicating that quality is of the highest order for these guys when it comes to making beer. Both come from different backgrounds, one from finance the other from design, and met on Heriot-Watt’s Brewing and Distilling Masters course. They knew from the outset that there was something different that could be done in the craft beer world. They didn’t want to go down the line of real ale or follow in the footsteps of the American craft beer scene, instead they wanted to create something new and exciting that hadn’t been done before.

These guys don’t do anything by halves. They literally built their brewery from the ground up moving all of their brew kit in themselves on a mattress on the back of a lorry. They do all

pilot brEwing

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Each year Bow Bar in Edinburgh run a dark beer challenge. The customers are asked to rate each beer blind, only being given the percentage range and price. When name and marketing are taken out of the mix the customers can only go on appearance and taste. Pilot’s Mochachino stout with its intense coffee and chocolate flavours was a hit, winning them top spot.

Another experimental beer they created was their Parma Violet wheat beer, Ultraviolet. The idea came about when Cloisters – a local beer bar in Edinburgh – asked them to come up with a beer which would include the sweet. When the one keg they made sold out in a night they knew they were onto something, so they upscaled to produce the beer for the general public. The task truly became a mammoth one when they realised they would have to unwrap 12kg of Parma Violets by hand. But with purple stained fingers and the smell of flowers in the air, Matt and Pat came up with a beer which is now a favourite among many.

As well as brewing for themselves they have also been involved in some super exciting collaborations. Pairing up with Edinburgh’s other experimental brewers Elixir they came up with Sumac Me Feel Like a Natural Saison. This hazy pink beer was a weird and wonderful saison brewed with sumac, hibiscus flowers and lime leaves.

Future Plans

With demand firmly outweighing supply they are looking to expand so they can get their beers out to wider audience. One area they are looking into is getting a bottling system up and running. Currently all bottling and labelling is done by hand so it’s a time consuming process with only small numbers at the end. They are also hoping to get more tanks so they can brew more beers at once. Pat admitted they had some super exciting ideas and projects up their sleeves but even when pressed he kept his cards close to his chest and wouldn’t reveal a thing. If their current success rate is anything to go by then I would suggest you watch this space as these guys are going to keep getting better and better.

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Credit: Lynn Bremner

Credit: Lynn Bremner

Four brewing students from Heriot-Watt University have been chosen to develop and launch a new beer

UK-wide this July, the fifth year of Natural Selection Brewing – a collaboration between the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling, and Edinburgh stalwarts Stewart Brewing. Every month they’ll be reporting in on the evolution of their beer from blank slate to brew house. Sam Fleet tells us abouot his experience so far and introduces the team.

When I decided to pursue brewing seriously, I set myself a target: to brew more than I could drink. Not a race to the bottom, rather, a challenge to make sure I expanded my brewing experience beyond the boundaries of my kitchen. What I didn’t bank on was being pitched so soon into the 5,000 litre stainless steel deep-end. Thankfully, I’m not alone. As part of this year’s Natural Selection Brewing project, three fellow students and I will be getting to grips with the UK beer market and commercial-scale brewing – developing a brand new beer from scratch.

Sarah will be project managing, with time spent at both Barney’s and Edinburgh Gin, and Rich will be drawing on his experience at Innis & Gunn to make sure the beer is out on the market. Reade, our Texan brewer, will be bringing his experience from the Peticolas Brewery Co. in Dallas, and I’ll be bringing a continental twist from my adopted home of Brussels. For all of us this will be the first time we champion a recipe from the brewer’s paddle to the bar taps.

Like the team, the beer style changes completely each year. To date there has been a red ale, ‘Finch’, a summer wheat beer, ‘Anorak’, a New World Saison, ‘Origin’, and an all-British IPA, ‘Mutiny on the Beagle’. We’ll be drawing on the success of last year’s beer, but taking the project in our own direction.

The first two months have been spent researching, on the home-brew kit, and out-and-about in Edinburgh. We’ve already test-brewed a New Zealand pale, an Extra Special Bitter, a Black IPA and an Irish dry stout (across), with plenty of other ideas on the drawing board. We’ll narrow down to final style in the next month, test-out refined versions on the Heriot-Watt one-barrel pilot kit and then take the recipe into the Stewart Brewing craft beer kitchen for final tweaks. In June it’s onto the full kit at Stewart Brewing, all 5,000 litres of it, and then in July, your glass.

We’ve been talking to wholesalers and distributors, specialist beer shops and drinkers to find out what people want to drink, what’s popular, and what’s already out there. We’ve also been drinking in the pubs and bars where our beer might be served – taking advantage of our legitimate excuse to call drinking ‘research’.

There have been meetings with Stewart Brewing and the International Centre of Brewing and Distilling. This is in part to brainstorm ideas and to get to know the people we’ll be working with, but also to get to grips with the less romantic side of things – timelines, accounting, deadlines, and the practical limitations of the project. As one Instagram follower suggested tongue-in-cheek: “Why not an Imperial Flanders-style rye Kolsch aged on pink peppercorns?” Some things just won’t work when you have to brew on a large scale, fit in with a successful brewery’s schedule during peak-production, and sell it all.

So watch this space. The beer will be launched in Edinburgh at the beginning of July, but there’s plenty to do between now and then. Next month we’ll refine the recipe with pilot brews, experiment with some weird and hopefully wonderful yeast, project sales, kick-start the branding process, and experience our first taste of the UK beer scene from behind the kettle.

natural seleCtion Brewing: into the stainless steel deep-end

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what’s Brewing

Irish Dry Stout

Supposedly everyone’s Irish on March 17th, but that doesn’t mean you have to drink Guinness. Here’s a no-nonsense dry stout recipe, with a kick from some high-alpha American hops, care of our brewer Reade. Yours might not be ready by St Patrick’s Day, but you’ll know what we’re drinking.

Batch size: 19 litresBrew-house efficiency: 65%Original Gravity: 1.045Colour (EBC): 80Bitterness (IBU): 38ABV: 4.5%

Mashing-in:Best ale malt: 3.32 kilosFlaked barley : 490 gramsRoasted barley: 567 gramsChocolate malt: 139 grams

Single infusion mash at 64°C for 60 minutes

The boil:Galena hops (12% alpha-acid): 23 grams at start of boilEast Kent Golding Hops (7% alpha-acid): 10 grams at flame out

Fermentation:White Labs Irish ale yeast, at 18°C

Tasting notes:A very traditional dry Irish stout malt base, leaving hints of coffee and chocolate, and then an American finish, with a crisp bitterness on the tongue.

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There are two types of beer drinkers in this world: the type who hear a sentence like “Dry hopped smoked

sour wheat ale” and think “What the @>*k?” and those who think “@>*k yeah!” I’m firmly in the latter category, but I must admit even I approached this beer with trepidation.

As a fan of sour ales and of smoked beers I was intrigued by Smoke Signals, a collabora-tion between the truly outstanding Siren and Stillwater artisanal breweries - though I had no idea how, or if, the two opposing flavours could be married together.

One of my favourite beer writers Adrian Tear-ney-Jones recently wrote of his love of ‘dirty beers’, beers that are a little rough around the edges. With an abrasiveness, a lack of man-ners, a certain swagger to them that comes with a fullness of body or heavy dry-hopping. Beers which would never be described as clean but which are absolutely bursting with flavour.

I mention Adrian’s piece as it is exactly what I was expecting from Smoke Signals. A big, brash, boisterous beer which clashed togeth-er opposing flavours and was interesting in a heavy metal kind of way – all clanging hops, rasping sourness and rumbling smoke. But what Smoke Signals actually demonstrates is that weird beer can be beautiful.

It is clean to a point of genius and takes what could easily have been a failed science exper-iment and turns it into something which I can’t stop thinking about.

First of all it pours a surprisingly bright, only slightly opaque gold with a pure white head – not the murky orange I was expecting. It’s a great looking beer which gives little away as to its sinister intentions. The aroma kicks things off with lightly burnt rye bread, oat-cakes, cigarette smoke, and sourdough. So far, so weird.

The flavour is initially freshly sour, crisp and tart like a Berliner weisse before a lemon hop bitterness sweeps in to give a real lemon bomb sour sweet effect. As the sourness fades on your palate a faint smokiness creeps in just when you’re wondering whether it would make an appearance at all, finally the finish is tart and dry thanks to that dry hop-ping.

All in all it is a masterclass in balance and a beer that I would happily order again and again.

Let’s hope this weird beer is more than just a one-time fluke.

Written by Neil Walker of eatingisntcheating.co.uk and Member of The British Guild of

Beer Writers.

against the grain:weird Beer

neil walker delves into the weird and wonderful world of

Beer style Blending.

Ferment 19

20 Ferment

pork & Beer Casserole with roasted rosemary new potatoes from the hungry Bears’ Blog

Run by Rich and Sal from their little flat in Welwyn, The Hungry Bears’ Blog is a collection of recipes brought together to inspire other people with little kitchens (and little time!) to tuck into good, home-made food.

To some, cooking with beer may seem slightly ludicrous - I know when I’ve mentioned it to mates before that they can’t believe I’d want to waste the flavour - but beer has certain qualities that can really enhance a recipe, which no other ingredient can offer. This is particularly true of meats and stews where beer offers a real variety in depth and flavour. We truly love our food. And we really do love craft beer. So it only made sense to marry these two loves together in one blissful, tasty union. After receiving our first box of Beer52 shortly after Christmas, we set about creating some delicious recipes which would utilise the unique flavours offered within each individual craft beer, which not only would improve and enhance each dish’s flavour, but would show-case the beer’s unique qualities too. Watch out for our recipes in Ferment each month, or head over to www.thehungrybearsblog.com for more foodie inspiration.

Prep Time: 15minsCook Time: 1hr

Total Time: 1hr 15minsServes 4

500g Pork Tenderloin30g Plain Flour

200g Button Mushrooms200g Shallots/2 large onions

1 small clove of garlic1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp mixed dried herbs250ml Fourpure Pils or

Mikkeller American Dream250ml vegetable/pork stock

1 large leek1kg baby new potatoes

Small bunch fresh rosemary1 tbsp olive oilKnob of butter

Salt and pepper

1. Preheat your oven to 200°C. Add a dash of oil to a large saucepan and set on a medium heat.2. Dice the pork into inch square chunks. Put into a large sandwich bag along with the flour and season well with salt and pep-per. Shake up to coat all the pork pieces. 3. Add the coated pork pieces to the pan, discarding any remaining flour and fry on all sides until they start to colour. 4. Slice the shallots into quarters and add to the pan along with the mushrooms, garlic and mixed herbs. Cook until the onions have softened. 5. Pour in the stock and beer and stir in the sugar. Cover and simmer on a low heat for 40-50 minutes.6. While the pork is cooking put the po-tatoes into a saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer for five minutes and then drain. 7. In a large roasting tray add the potatoes and drizzle over the olive oil. Finely chop the rosemary and sprinkle over along with a good pinch of salt. Place into the oven and cook for 40 minutes.8. When the potatoes are starting to look golden and crisp on the outside shred the leek very finely and add to a saucepan along with the butter. Cook gently for a couple of minutes to soften but not colour.9. Serve up a layer of the leek on to your serving plates and top with the pork casse-role and a side of the roasted potatoes.

Ferment 21

We’re putting our ‘science hats’ on this month as we’re going to look at a crucial stage of the whisky

production process: distillation. Its pivotal role in the manufacture of whisky is demonstrated by the fact that ‘whisky factories’ are of course called ‘distilleries’. This has been a tricky article to write without getting too technical, but hopefully there’ll be a few interesting factoids in there for you to dazzle your mates with... At this stage I should state that I am not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, so it’s fortunate that the concept of distillation is relatively simple. The concept has been around for thousands of years, with evidence of distilling in the Middle East going as far back as 800BC. The premise of distillation is all about the separation of alcohol from a liquid. It was figured out many years ago that alcohol evaporates at a lower temperature than water, thus making it relatively straightforward to separate the two. After the fermentation stage, distillers heat the beer-like wash in the wash still to 78°C, allowing all the alcohol vapours to rise up, before being condensed (often by a metal tube submerged in cold water called a ‘worm’), before being distilled again by the spirit still. Scotch whisky is typically only distilled twice, whereas Irish whiskey (note the ‘e’) is almost always triple-distilled. This extra stage of distillation creates a lighter-

bodied spirit, but some of the full-bodied characteristics are lost to some extent.This is all done in a pair of copper stills, with the size and shape of the stills often having a profound impact on the final character of the whisky. If the distiller is looking to create a light-bodied whisky, they will look to maximise reflux. This happens when the alcoholic vapours are not light enough to rise all the way to the top of the still, and instead sink back to the bottom. Reflux can be induced by having really tall stills such as at Glenmorangie (who have the tallest in Scotland at 5.14m, the height of an adult giraffe – FACTOID) or by having ‘boil balls’ half way up the still as they do at Glengoyne (pictured). In contrast, if the distiller wanted to create a full-bodied whisky with heavy, oily characteristics, then it is unsurprising that short, dumpy stills will be used instead. This means that even the quite heavy alcoholic vapours will be gathered. Examples of this style include Macallan and the legendary GlenDronach. Vapour contact with the copper still will create chemical compounds called esters, which will give the whisky fruity characteristics. While we’re at it, the chemical compounds that create the floral notes are called aldehydes. FACTOIDS!Anyway, I hope that all makes sense and has kept you entertained for a few minutes at least. Cheers!

By Laurie Black, The Whisky Market Ltd

whisky Corner

Credit: Emli Bendixen

next month...

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our Best Box yet!

Ferment 23

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