Preparing for the SC

It's been a hectic week but we are finally done with the preparations for the Swedish Championship in Homemade beers. The last thing I did was bake a bunch of bread from the malt we used while brewing the two beers we participate with. It resulted in 3 kinds of bread. First a couple of loafs of DBH3 malt made with regular (wheat) flour. I also made some heavier bread with the Nalle Puh malt, using rough rye flour and graham flour. Here are some pictures:

As stated before we (me, my father and Chrille) will participate with 2 beers. A DIPA named Death By Hops 3 and a honey porter called Nalle Puh Porter. Chrille and Erika will also participate with a Mild called Gullefjun. I haven't had a chance to try that one yet so really looking forward to it. We will also share some chocolate-honey-trufels (thanks Lina!), malt bread and honey (used in the Nalle Puh Porter) at our table.

For those interested I will bring a couple of bottles of DBH3 in case you want to trade a bottle.

My father is already in Göteborg and I plan on leaving tomorrow morning. Me, Per (my beer drinking sidekick) and his brother will drive by car early tomorrow morning. Chrille will drive from Örebro early Saturday morning. I also have allot of friends coming to Göteborg. We usually go on a cruise at this time of year to celebrate Andy and Johnny's birthdays. But this year we are trying something new.

I can't wait for the festival this is going to be great. :)

Belgian Blizzard

Belgian Blizzard (33 cl bottle) 9,4%
This is a Rochefort 10 clone that my father, Peter the chef and Erkki brewed at Källarknut during a raging blizzard.

Style: Belgian Quadrupel
Cost: Homebrewed not sure what they paid for the ingredients.

Bitterness------Sweetness-----Sourness-----Intensity-------Body

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Appearance: 3/5
It poured a very dark and very hazy amber liquid with a small dirty white foam.

Smell: 8/10
Fruity, berries, yeast and sweetness.

Taste: 8/10
Fruity, berries and yeast.

Mouthfeel: 5/5
Smooth and puckering mouthfeel. Thick body and medium carbonation.

Comment:
I should start by saying that Rochefort 10 is one of my favourite Belgian beers. This clone is very good but doesn't taste exactly like the original. I will have to test this at a later date, I actually have a bottle of Rocherfort 10 but didn't think of opening it.

That being said lets take a look at what we got. It's a very nice belgian quadrupel and extremely easy to drink. I didn't feel the high alcohol at all. The only thing I might complaint about is that I would have love some more complexity. It felt a bit one-sided but I got a feeling this might change over time. The beer is quite young and should probably sit for a while to mature.

Total: 4/5

Nalle Puh Jul Porter

Nalle Puh Jul Porter (50 cl bottle) %
Me, Chrille and my father brewed a honey porter a while back called Nalle Puh Porter (Vinnie the Puh Porter). We plan to bring it to the Swedish Championship in Gothenburg at the end of April. When we divided the beer between us we noticed that we would get 3 small 9 litre kegs of beer. So we decided to experiment with those kegs, each person was tasked to spice their keg and we would later try the results. This bottle is from my father and he decided to add saffron and some extra honey to his keg. I have a completely different plan with my beer, but I will keep it to myself for now.

I tried the original Nalle Puh Porter a while back, see review here. I wasn't overly impressed and it had a very noticeable chemical taste to it. I later found out it came from the honey. I used some of the honey in my cooking and noticed the same flavour. So I think it comes from heating the honey. Hopefully this off-flavour will disappear over time.

Style: Porter
Cost: Material cost of around 9 SEK/litre.

Bitterness------Sweetness-----Sourness-----Intensity-------Body

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Appearance: 5/5
It poured a pitch black liquid with a big brown head. The foam slowly receded and left allot of foam on the side of the glass.

Smell: 8/10
As I started to pour the bottle I could smell the saffron and sweetness of this beer. A closer sniff also revealed some chocolate and a dash of coffee.

Taste: 8/10
Very sweet with lots of saffron and honey. Also some chocolate, coffee, nuts and toasted bread.

Mouthfeel: 5/5
Smooth, creamy and mouth coating mouthfeel with a thick body and low carbonation. Great mouthfeel.

Comment:
Wow! This sure was something special. Very sweet with lots of honey and saffron, allot more then I expected. I honestly don't think I've tried something similar before. It's also extremely easy to drink and I keep interrupting my writing with a sip. The chemical flavour is also completely gone which is very happy news, hopefully it's gone from the original as well.

If I where to give any constructive criticism it would be about the high sweetness and almost overpowering saffron taste. I personally like both, but maybe it will get old over time. It would be interesting to lower the amount of honey and saffron a bit to let the other flavours of the beer come forward a bit. Not sure if it would improve the beer, but could be worth a try.

I say have this with most deserts and you won't go wrong. But it should be fantastic with chocolate.

Total: 4,3/5

Nalle Puh Porter

Nalle Puh Porter (tap) 8%
This is the beer me, my father and Chrille brewed during Christmas. It's a strong honey-porter at 8%. We used honey from a local producer called Puh Honey (think Vinnie the Poh). It's probably a bit early to try this beer so this is a sneak preview, it still has about 2 months until it is to be served at the Swedish Championship in home made beer.

Something worth mentioning is that we each have a 9 litre keg that we plan to experiment with. We are going to add something to the beer and then try it together. I got a plan for my keg but I will keep it to myself for now.

Style: Porter

Cost: I think it cost around 9 SEK/litre to brew.

Bitterness------Sweetness-----Sourness-----Intensity-------Body

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Appearance: 5/5

Pitch black liquid with a big dirty white foam that has lots of craters and left a nice lacing. Looks great!

Smell: 7/10

Some sourness, coke, chocolate, vanilla and a hint of coffee.

Taste: 6/10

Not overly intense. Chocolate, nuts, coffee, musty, roasted, dark bread. Some sweetness and coffee bitterness. A hint of chemicals (aceton).

Mouthfeel: 4/5

Smooth, creamy, just a bit harsh. Dry and medium body.

Comment:

Not a very complex porter, but well balanced and easy to drink. It has the usual flavours that you would expect from a porter; chocolate, coffee and so on. The alcohol is well hidden. I'm surprised I didn't find any honey flavour.

However it did have a chemical after taste that I relate to acetone. I suspect this off flavour has its origin in the honey. Since I've tried using the honey in cocking and gotten similar results. Thankfully it seems to disappear over time, while I was eating the food as leftovers the acetone flavour was gone. I just hope the beer will mature enough for the Swedish Championship.

I tried this with some chocolate and it was a good match. I plan to make some chocolate honey truffles and bring it to the Championship.

Total: 3,5/5

Beer charger

Drinking from a keg can be great, it's also fairly easy to handle when you have it at home. However if you want to bring your keg to a friends house or similar it can be a pain to lug a big tube of gas with you. My father has been searching for a way to fix this problem. He found the solution in a beer charger. It's basically a small plastic device with a small tube of gas inside.

Here is a link to the site where we bought it and refills.

Here is a picture of it:


My father then bought a plastic connection to the keg from Humlegården, which you can see in the below picture:

However he didn't use the beer charger to get initial pressure into the keg. He used the big tube at home to get pressure into the keg at first and he took it about 1-1,5 points higher then usual. Then just used the beer charger to get some more pressure into the keg as we started tapping beer out of it. He also used a very thin 5 meter pipe that you can see in the below picture. The reason he uses a very thing and long line is because of the high pressure in the keg. With a shorter pipe the pressure would have been to high.

Chrilles Extra Special Bitter

Extra Special Bitter (50 cl Bottle) 5,2% I got this beer from Chrille, which he made a while back.

Style: Extra Special Bitter

Cost: Gift from Chrille, so..... free of charge :)

Bitterness------Sweetness-----Sourness-----Intensity-------Body

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Appearance: 4/5

Hazy amber liquid, medium dirty white foam, groups of foam sticks to the glass.

Smell: 6/10

Fairly weak. Caramell, knäck, bread, grassy hops, milk??, hint of butter scotch and a hint of iron or maybe copper.

Taste: 5/10

Mild taste. Caramell, bread, malt and a hint of iron, copper coins to be exact.

Mouthfeel: 5/5

Smooth with a medium body. Very creamy and feels nice in my mouth. Very low bitterness. Very low carbonation.

Comment:

A very english bitter, easy to drink with a smooth mouthfeel and very low carbonation. It's very mild in both taste and smell with caramell and bread being the most dominante.

It has one major flaw and that is the copper or iron that breaks through in both taste and smell. Could be the pipes or maybe a by-product of the malts. Besides that I'm not sure how to fix it.

I would have loved some more hops in this, not allot but some more bitterness and aroma would be nice. I couldn't find any hops in the taste, but a hint in the smell. However the hops might have disappeared over time, I'm not sure how old this bottle is.

All in all this is an easy to drink beer. I can definitely imagine drinking a couple of pints in this in any English pub. Thanks for the beer Chrille!

Total: 3,2/5

Belgofest 2010, part 2

As promised here are the pictures of the winners of the peoples choice competition:

3rd place, came 'Chimney' a dark strong belgian ale. Brewers where Per Dahlkar, Ari Vallius, Håkan Jihansson and Henrik Jakshöj:

2nd place came 'Balétwo' brewed by Leif Andersson and Mats Österdal. Both of which have won this competition before.

1st place came 'Motley Ale', a strong dark belgian ale, brewed by Henrik Ihre and Claire Pitois. Who participated in the competition for the first time.

They had a nice sticker as well:

Here is the full list from the peoples choice competition:

Brew nr., Brewer(s), Brewname, Points
16, Henrik Ihre, Claire Pitois, Motley, 93 --- GOLD
19, Leif Andersson, Mats Österdal, L&F Balétwo, 81 --- SILVER
20, Per Dahlkar, Ari Vallius, Håkan Johansson, Henrik Jakshöj, Chimney, 76 --- BRONZE

34, Jakob Carlström, Niklas Stenlås, Mon Dieu Rosé, 73
43, Mats Hellman, Bo Eriksson, Robin Blond, 59
23, Niklas Stenlås, Starbo Cuvée de Noël, 59
25, Ulrik Strandberg, Ulf Henryson, Spelivink Saison, 43
35, Karl o Oskar Andersson, Torpet Oud Gueze, 39
22, Leif Andersson, Mats Österdal, L&F Baléett, 38
39, Håkan o Peter Hultén, General Gedda, 37
9, Peter Nilsson, Deliriduck, 37

The result from the judges competition:

35, Karl o Oskar Andersson, Torpet Oud Gueze --- GOLD

25, Ulrik Strandberg, Ulf Henryson, Spelivink Saison --- SILVER

21, Leif Andersson, Mats Österdal, L&F Baléett --- BRONZE

I'll end this report of the Belgofest with a picture of some happy beer drinkers:

Cya at the next festival!

Belgofest 2010, part 1

Yesterday I visited the Belgofest in Uppsala. It's a home brew festival focusing on Belgian style beer. This year they had moved the festival to a much bigger building. It seems like the number of guests had gone up with the size of the room.

43 brews participated in the festival. The most common styles where all represented like, double, triple. quadruple, blonde, Witt and so on. But there where also some beers that stuck out, for instance a beer with elder berries brewed with champagne technique. Also some cherry and raspberry beer. The quality of beer was overall very high. With very few exceptions I rated all beers between 3,3-4,3, which are all great scores. Felt like several beers could have won prizes.

Belgodeli was there and sold some cheeses. My father bought one of each with only one exception. I also bought a couple of cheeses but skipped the Blue Chimay and only had a small piece of the green Chimay (Grand Cru).

The green Chimay (Grand Cru):

Here is a picture of what different Chimay cheeses they had on sale:

We had a really good time at the festival and I got to try some Vallon beer again. It's a beer that the Vallon's brought with them when they migrated to Sweden. They have used the same barrel for ages and when they have drunk half of it they just brew some more and add to the barrel.

I ran into another beer bloger at the festival, Gjölen. He had been part of a brew course lead by Ulf Henrysson in december 2009. It was the first brew he had made so he was participating for the firs time. They had brewed a pale strong belgian ale called 'Bövel' at 8,2%. A very tasty brew that I gave 3,9/5.

I'll post some pictures of the winners in the peoples choice competition tomorrow. Hopefully I have managed to get my filthy paws on the winners in the judges competition.

Belgofest tomorrow

Tomorrow I jump on the train to Uppsala to visit the Belgofest. It's a homebrew festival that focus on belgian beer and is usual helt this time of year. It's one of my favorite festivals due to my love to belgian and homebrewed beer but also that it's quite small.

I should have some pictures up on sunday, depending on how many beers I sample on saturday ;)

Brewing Death By Hops 3

During the weekend me, my father and Chrille meet up at Källarknut to brew another beer for the Swedish Championship in Homemade beer. We plan to participate with two different brews, a honey-porter and a DIPA named Death By Hops 3. We brewed the honey-porter during Christmas and on saturday we brewed DBH3.

We started out early and where at the brewery at 08:00. Well it felt very early due to spending all friday evening in the jacuzzi. So I was pretty tired and dried up when we started warming the water.
My father was brew-leader here you can see him and Chrille discussing the recipe.

When the water was warm we poured in the malt...



... and stired the thick mash to seperate lumps and push out the air.


We then circulated the beer to get the particles to rest on the top of the malt that creates a natural filter. Above you can see how we let the vort pour into a small container to then be pumped up and into the mash tun again.


Here you can see how the vort is being pumped back into the mash tun. The vort is being divided into four different streams through a cross section at the end of the pipe.


We then pumped the beer into the cooking barrel. In this picture you an see the vort coming in at the bottom of the barrel. The chain mail looking thing sticking out of the vort is a hop filter. The thing sticking in from the right is an electrical heating cartridge (in lack of a better word).


Ths is the hops we use while brewing the beer, you can see Amarillo, Chinook, Centenial and Simcoe in this picture. We also add some hops for dry hopping later on.


A huge amount of hops in this beer. Think we ended up using more then a kg of hops. The smell in the brewery was amazing.

Since my father was the brewleader he keept bossing me and Chrille around....

... and after a while I snapped :)

The beer is now fermenting nicely in the brewery and I can hardly wait to try it out when it is done.

Brewing Nalle Puh Porter

Me, my father and Chrille plans to participate in the Swedish Championship in Home made beer. So after Christmas we started brewing for the competition. Our first brew is a strong honey porter. The honey is locally produced and called Puhs Honung (Puh's Honey). So we named the beer Nalle Puh Porter (Vinnie Puh Porter). Here is some pictures of the brew, for those that want to know more about the beer (and want the recipe) come visit us at the SC in Gothenburg in the end of April. Here are some pictures:

My father stirring the malt.

Looking down into the big bucket of honey. My father bought 10 kg so we will bring some to the SC.

Hey buddy, point that thermometer somewhere else!

Cooling the beer of and pouring it into the fermentation buckets.

The beer is ready to ferment. Chrille reported that they where fermenting nicely and that they tasted yummy.

After brewing the beer we walked over to Närke Kulturbryggeri where we attended their Christmas party. We meet some interesting people and had allot of beer from the brewery. Unfortunately I had to leave early and missed out on both Kaggen and a wedding. But it was allot of fun to be there and see the brewery that makes that magical black liquid.

Ass Warmer

My father brought out two kegs of beer just as we where getting ready for the Christmas ham. It was one keg of Death By Hops 2 and another of Ass Warmer. It's a Christmas Ale that my father and Chrille brewed a while back.

Ass Warmer (tap)
It poured a very dark brown liquid with tones of red, with a big beige foam that left some lacing.

It had a very herbal spicey smell, I smelled some cinnamon and what I thought was wormwood, or cloves. But must have been something else.

The mouthfeel was quite stingy and dry. It had a medium body and a high herbal bitterness that lasted quite a while. It had a very herbal spicey taste and I found some cinnamon, but there where more spices that I couldn't quite distinguish. It didn't have any sweetness at all.

At first I was quite sceptical about the beer as I thought it was to spicey. But after a while it grew on me and got better.

I tried this both before, during and after Christmas dinner and I think it worked best with the chocolate and sweets afterwards. Since it was so herbal and dry it didn't work perfectly with the food but once you added some sweet chocolate it balanced the brew out allot better. Some sweetness added to the brew might have made it a better dinner partner. But as it is now I think it worked well as an after dinner delight ;)

Total: 3,4/5

A Christmasy Weekend

We started our christmas celebration this weekend. On friday I made some christmas ham, oven baked just as it should be.

On Saturday we went to Stockholm to look at some christmas markets. We started at Sergels torg where they had a nice variety of food stalls. I personally tried a couple of churros but I could have had more.
I had heard from other beer blogs that Monks had an interesting christmas beer this year. Since we where close I quickly jogged over and tried it.

Monks Saffron Ale (tap) 7,1%
It poured a hazy dark orange liquid with a medium sized dirty yellow foam.

The most noticeable smell was saffron, I could feel it as I got served. There where also some oranges and sweetness. A very intriguing smell.

The mouthfeel was smooth with just a little bit of sting from carbonation. After swirling it around for a bit it got allot better. I also held it in my hands to warm it a bit since it was to cold to start off. It had a medium thick body with a low bitterness.

It tasted of saffron as well, but not as strong as the smell. Also oranges, yeast and dried fruit.

A very nice christmas beer, felt complex and interesting. I also noticed that it was very popular among the other customers. The majority was drinking it and there where people coming up and asking for it, including myself. A final question, was this beer based on their orange ale?
Total: 3,7/5

After visiting Monks we walked past the window decorations at NK. But the place was so crowded it was hard to see anything.

We walked through the market at Kungsträdgården and then continued to Skansen. It feels like I should buy a season card at Skansen since I tend to go there so often. But the christmas market is starting to become a tradition and the most important part of this market is eating a kolbulle. It's like a thick panncake made with pork on an open fire.

After finishing off our kolbulle we walked around and looked at the stalls.

Just as last year the home brewing club was there showing people how to brew beer and sharing some 2% christmas beer. It was smooth and nice, a bit thin but very good for this kind of beer. Here you can see the bottle they poured from and the kettle being cold off after brewing.

At 16:00 the market closed and we headed on home for some christmas beer, which I will post about later on. I have about 6 posts of christmas beers lined up and will try to try most of them before christmas.

Angusa Swedish Pale Ale

This is one of the beers that I exchanged with JoeG from Good Morning Beer Lovers, he got a bottle of DBH2 in exchange. It's a Swedish Pale Ale or SPA. Now to start of I don't have allot of experience with this type, I've only tried it once at the Swedish Championship in Homemade Beer.


Angusa SIPA (Bottle)
It poured a hazy amber liquid with a medium sized white foam (small bubbles) that left very little lacing.

It had a weak but fresh smell of hops, malt, fruits and citrus.

The mouthfeel was a mix of both smooth and stingy, but mostly smooth. The body was light and it had a medium bitterness. The most noticeable taste was yeast, but also malt, white bread and a hint of hops and banana.
Total: 2,9/5

Now lets see if I can come with something constructive:
I think this beer could benefit from some more aroma hops. The bitterness feels just right it's just the taste of hops that feels a bit low. It might just be a result of the hops, but a possible solution could be to switch some hops from the start to the end of the boiling.

Another thing would be to get a slightly thicker body, possibly by switching malt. We did this when changing the recipe from DBH1 to DBH2 to get a thicker body.

Thoose are the only things I can come up with at this point. Good job on the brew Joe, looking forward to trying your belgian ale.

Beer switch

Yesterday I meet up with Jocke from Good Morning Beer Lovers and exchanged some homemade beer. He got two bottles of Death By Hops 2 and I got one bottle of Angusa Grumpy Lion Belgian Ale and a bottle of an unnamed Swedish Pale Ale. Here is a picture of the bottles:

I got to say that sticker looks pretty damn good.

By the way I still have some Death By Hops 2 if anybody is interested in a switch. Would be fun to get more people tasting it so we can make improvements for the next time we brew it.

While waiting (waiting might be the wrong word, I went straight for the taps) for Jocke I tried one of Monks newer brews:

Monks Café Angie Brown (Tap) 5%
The beertap sticker said it was a brown ale and I was quite suprised when I got a beer that looked more like a pale ale. I was expecting something allot darker, but I might have missunderstood the type.

Anyway, it poured a hazy dark golden-orange liquid with a medium sized foam that had allot of craters in it. Looked pretty nice, like an american pale ale.

It had a fresh smell of citrus, oranges, peaches, passion fruit and hops. Very fruity and when I check the sticker I see they have Simcoe in it so that explains several of the flavours.

It had a light body which made it feel a bit watery. The mouthfeel was smooth with just a little bit of carbonation. The taste wasn't as strong as the smell but there where fruity hops.

A pretty decent beer but I'm still suprised by the looks and the smell. Was expecting something different. Something darker and maybe with tastes that drew more towards caramell and chocolate.
Total: 3,3/5