Funky Beer Swap

[kook]

Kabooby - I must apologise. I took your beer along to the WA case swap, so I don't have any tasting notes. I do recall everyone who tried it enjoying it though! It was certainly a tasty beer, with quite restrained funk, but it worked really well on the style.

TB - Tasted your stout today. Impressive. Poured a deep dark black colour with ruby highlights when held to the light. Short tan head. Aroma of coffee, burnt toast, chocolate and big berries in the nose. Perfect mouthfeel for a big stout in my opinion. Nice smooth feel, decent body but still dry in the finish. Some can be too cloying - this was not in any way Flavour was a good blend of dark chocolate, roast coffee and raspberry coulis. A great dessert beer, but still enough bitterness to keep it balanced and quaffable. Not a lot of acid from mine, but I think the level was perfect for the beer. Cheers!

 

[neonmeate]

cracked my first funkswap beer of many in front of the criggit...

pmolou's brett c

nice clear copper, with a head that fizzled out to a white ring. definitely in funkytown once you smell it. chickenpoo, baked apple, sweat, burn ointment, orchards. no pineapple. surprisingly sweet in the mouth but acidic too, malt coming through underneath once the acidity dies away. juicy and highly drinkable. some interesting tropical fruit overtones retronasally, not pineapple so much but more papaya or mangosteen? or a really overripe pineapple. no acetic flavours at all. very interesting!

i've thrown some of this into my pedio infected altbier... will add a drop from everyone's beers into it

 

[Stuster]

I've had a couple more of neonmeate's beers. The lambicised supersaison I'd had before and thought it was delicious. Nice malt notes, very dry with what I was thinking of as some good brett notes. Then over Christmas I had Lindemans Cuvee Rene (yum). And tasting neon's beer again I was struck by the same smell. Those dregs really seem to have given some of the same character there. Lemon peel for me, but my wife said more grapefruit.

Then had a side swap beer from neonmeate, a kriek on a brown ale base with the old ale blend 8%. A really distinctive sour cherry smell (real or juice? I was thinking it might be the Turkish juice.) Anyway, very dry, alcohol well hidden. I didn't really notice any caramel/toffee tastes or smells but the cherry was pretty dominant and pleasant. A really drinkable beer that I was sorry to share.

 

[neonmeate]

glad you liked those stuster, i can report that the cherries i used were frozen sour cherries from frozberries.com.au, i used 4kg of them in about 17L of beer!

cuvee rene gueuze is great stuff.

i had jon's orvalish thing last night. wow. tasted exACTly like orval. except with a fresher hop aroma - hersbrucker/styrian as for orval i assume? lovely balance of malt, herbal hop resins and leathery funk. did you give the story of this brew in a thread somewhere jonw?

 

[jonw]

i had jon's orvalish thing last night. wow. tasted exACTly like orval. except with a fresher hop aroma - hersbrucker/styrian as for orval i assume? lovely balance of malt, herbal hop resins and leathery funk. did you give the story of this brew in a thread somewhere jonw?

Glad you enjoyed it. Here's the recipe (which should be exactly as it came from the Jamil show)

Weyermann Pilsner 5.500 kg 78.6 %
Weyermann CaraMunich I 0.850 kg 12.1 %
Sugar - White Sugar/Sucrose 0.650 kg 9.3 %

I used CaraMunich I for this batch as that's all I could get, but I've made this before with CaraMunich II (per Jamil's recipe) with better results. Mashed at 67deg. Sugar added at end of boil. Missed my gravity by a few points on this batch, but you don't notice that too much - should have been around 1.058, but was actually about 1.050.

Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
German Hallertauer Hersbrucker 5.8 % 60 g 30.5 Loose Pellet Hops 60 Min From End
Slovenian Styrian Goldings 4.6 % 45 g 9.0 Loose Pellet Hops 15 Min From End
Slovenian Styrian Goldings 4.6 % 45 g 0.0 Loose Pellet Hops At turn off
NZ Styrian Goldings 4.4 % 90 g 0.0 Loose Whole Hops Dry-Hopped

Fermented with Wyeast ardennes in primary down to about 1.014, then transferred to secondary with Brett Brux for (in this case) six months until it hit ~1.000. Added the dry hops for a week before bottling.

Cheers,

Jon

 

[Quintrex]

Hey JonW

I shared a bottle with Voota the other day and thought it was delicious too. Nice work, brett character was nice and restrained with a nice level of hoppiness.

Neonmeate, I loved the lambic supersaison.... I'll report back once I taste the second stubby but I think I'll definitely brew something like this asap. I'd be in trouble if I had access to lots of that.

and just a question about the extra beer you sent me, the label was a bit disfigured but I think it says maibock de garde. is that right?

It had real complexity, hadn't knowingly tried a decocted beer before, plus the caramelization probably gave extra melanoidins etc... Really interesting beer, thanks for sending it.
Just one question it had a farmhouse kinda smell, did you use a saison yeast or anything?

Cheers
Q

 

[Thirsty Boy]

oh yeah - more props for Johnw

This stuff is superb mate - I could drink it all day (or at least till I fell down anyway) I like it at least as much as I like Orval... maybe more.

Its a touch sweeter and with a fraction more body than most orvals I have had.. but pretty damn close to one I got once which was "fresh"

Lovely fruitiness, strawberries, cirtus, maybe a little mango and gentle brett leather/horse/flowers/funk. Dry, but not thin and with a lovely firm balancing bitterness.

... its a reasonable sized call, but I reckon this might well be the best homebrewed beer I have ever had; and in the top 5 or 10 beers I have ever had period.

In the near future I shall definitely be attempting something that I will be pleased with if it is half as good

Astoundingly good work.

Thirsty

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Just to prove to myself that I wasn't over praising Johnw's beer - I have just poured myself an actual Orval that I happened to have in the beer fridge.

It drier, less because of any real mothfeel and more because the Orval is more minerally, quite noticeably minerally after John's beer actually. The brett character is at about the same level, but a little "harsher" somehow because this beer lacks the touch of sweetness and the fruitiness that John's has. Nothing like the citrus and fruit in the Orval as in John's, but the Orval has a spicy peppery and anise character that Johns beer does not have.

I love Orval... I love this Orval --- but I would take Johnw's beer first.

awesome!

 

[neonmeate]

and just a question about the extra beer you sent me, the label was a bit disfigured but I think it says maibock de garde. is that right?

It had real complexity, hadn't knowingly tried a decocted beer before, plus the caramelization probably gave extra melanoidins etc... Really interesting beer, thanks for sending it.
Just one question it had a farmhouse kinda smell, did you use a saison yeast or anything?

yes that's a "maibock-de-garde", tried to get as much colour and flavour out of 100% pils malt as physically possible. yeast was euro ale (WLP011) which perhaps has a bit of mild fruitiness but not much farmhousiness. might be the tettnang, it has a bit of a wet-wood aroma. either that or the whole batch is about to get more "farmhousy"... havent had one for a week or two so will check




interesting to see your recipe jonw, that's more caramunich than i expected. and plenty of hops!! great stuff. the NZ styrian was a nice idea for dryhopping and might have helped give your beer more fruitiness than orval.. or maybe it was the ardennes yeast. i will be making one of these for sure. did you keep a bottle of the pre-brett beer?

 

[jonw]

... its a reasonable sized call, but I reckon this might well be the best homebrewed beer I have ever had; and in the top 5 or 10 beers I have ever had period.

Wow, praise indeed. Thanks TB. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's really made my day to get that sort of feedback! You can imagine how much trouble I'm in when I have a keg of this beer in the fridge ;-)

interesting to see your recipe jonw, that's more caramunich than i expected. and plenty of hops!! great stuff. the NZ styrian was a nice idea for dryhopping and might have helped give your beer more fruitiness than orval.. or maybe it was the ardennes yeast. i will be making one of these for sure. did you keep a bottle of the pre-brett beer?

I think it was on the Jamil show that they talked about the hops used for Orval. Apparently they use pellet hops throughout, except for the dry hop which is flowers. I think Jamil's recipe is something like 100g dry hop to a 5 gallon batch (although my memory could well be wrong there), whereas my recipe is for 28L, but a 90g bag seems to do the job. They also had quite a discussion about how long the beer should sit on the hops - apparently one week is the go, which is what I did.

I don't think I've ever had a fresh Orval, as I imagine most of the stuff you get in Australia has sat on a boat for a few months. I recall hearing that the brewery fresh stuff is less funky (purely because it's not as old.) You'd think the dry hop flavour would be fresher too.

I didn't keep any pre-brett samples. It tastes like an ordinary (and not very exciting) Belgian ale out of the fermenter. I probably should just to compare.

Cheers,

Jon

 

[bconnery]

Q's Flanders Red
Slight malt aroma with a hint of vinegar / acidity in the nose, but in a pleasant way.

Caramelly malt up front which fades nicely into a strong acidy sour note at the end. I don't notice the cherry a lot but that's not a criticism, just an observation, and perhaps I'd need to taste the base beer to know the real difference.
Body is on the medium to thin side but fits with the beer.

Whatever the case I really like this beer. The malt and sourness if in balance to my taste at least, which leads towards the sourer end...
Another very good beer in a case of very good beers...

 

[pmolou]

tryed JonW's orvalish beer the other night and was greeted with a large head which mellowed to a very good looking dense creamy head which left a beautiful Belgian lace... Smelt of hops and definite funk... tasted immediatly of a blend of hops and malt that then was quickly dominated into a smokey horsey brett flavor (i think mines brett might have developed more as i left it out of the fridge when i went away) a very good and highly drinkable offering, not exactly as I remember orval but in the same style... good work :beer:

 

[pmolou]

kook's Flanders Red_ had a classic aroma similar to Q's and stusters and a very well balanced taste which blended flavours reminiscent of red wine and balsamic, I also picked up some dark malt flavours... this was a very refreshing beer to drink, but if i was too be really picky its possibly a little dark for the style (in appearance not quite a bright red) and might need a little more time for the malts to blend in a little more... but overall very impressive_ how long was this one aged for? have you posted the recipe already?

 

[kook]

It was a blend of two FRA's varying in age (18+24 months old if I remember right). I'll try and find the recipes and blend percentages over the next few days and post them. It also had another few months (6?) in the bottle.

 

[Fents]

neonmeate...can i just say a massivebiggups. im not in this swap. in fact i ahte fuunky beers. up until an two hours ago that was. i was just at quintrexs house for a meal and some top beers. your super saison bretts best mate was one of them. 9.5% and i can defianlty say im not typing so good (after ipa's american whetas, Imperial lagers and yours). its true what they say a purposley infected beer should not taste like ana infected beer. top notch neonmeate

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Flanders Red - Think its Kooks (white paper label on lid "Flanders red ale")

Poured a dark amber, nearly the same as the bottle it came out of, clear (nearly completely) but even with a very strong pour, almost no head formed and there seems to be little to no carbonation in the beer.

Smells intriguing - v'light vinegar, perfume (rosewater) and wood.. but not oak really. More like sandlewood or maybe incense? It reminds me a bit of christmas pudding. Fruit, spice, a decent hit of vanilla (could be oak) and some sort of intangible that I can only describe as "like cake"

On tasting - its flat as a tack, just barley enough C02 to give it a little carbolic bite. Its got more acid than it smells like it does, but its lovely and restrained. Its really very spicy. Kind of like a curry but in a non hot way. there's little tantalising hints of cumin, cardamon, safron, turmeric - and the sourness is almost tamarind like. And there is still a hint of bakery in the flavour... its got cookies, or bread, or cake or something like that in it.

The flavours come off the tongue well and fade down to just pleasant acidity - the bitterness int ehfinish is bugging me a little though. Its more like a medicinal/herbal bitterness than a hop bitterness. Kinda like agnostura bitters or quinine. If the other flavours were hanging about being a pain in the arse, I would say that was OK.. but its kind of isolated because the finish is otherwise quite neat. So the bitterness is building up on me a little.

I like this beer a lot. I will have had enough for one sitting by the time I finish the bottle (the bitterness) ... but I will regret that there isn't another bottle to have down the track. Beautifully complex beer that is a real pleasure to drink.

TB

 

[neonmeate]

thanks fents - all i can say is you should taste some of the other beers in this swap. pretty amazing standard of wildness.

bconnery's berry lambic - holy shit is this extreme! burning a hole through my gut and singing off nosehairs. reminds me a lot of cantillon beers. great crabapple and nappy and barnyard aroma, like freshly deposited horsepoo. piercing sourness and cheesiness in flavour, with nice strong berry flavour. after your mouth gets accustomed to the acidity you notice more and more. long finish, extremely dry and complex. impressive and fun, although perhaps a bit on the raw side, how old was the lambic?

 

[neonmeate]

voota's "KLA" kriek
wow beautiful deep red colour and a pink head that fizzles away. aroma is lovely cherries mainly with some homeless man's pants and a hint of oxidation. in the mouth much much milder than bconnery's, tasting mainly of cherries, but a deep, almost bitter, green appleskin sourness rolls out slowly to finish, which fades to reveal some faint maltiness. flavours are very well blended together - much more drinkable and homogenous than bconnery's, but also less complex in a way. really interesting to taste a blend of old lambics after a younger straight lambic. classy stuff!

 

[bconnery]

thanks fents - all i can say is you should taste some of the other beers in this swap. pretty amazing standard of wildness.

bconnery's berry lambic - holy shit is this extreme! burning a hole through my gut and singing off nosehairs. reminds me a lot of cantillon beers. great crabapple and nappy and barnyard aroma, like freshly deposited horsepoo. piercing sourness and cheesiness in flavour, with nice strong berry flavour. after your mouth gets accustomed to the acidity you notice more and more. long finish, extremely dry and complex. impressive and fun, although perhaps a bit on the raw side, how old was the lambic?

The beer is now around 15 months old.
The fruit went in at around 9 months, and the beer was bottled at around 13 months.
It hasn't been blended or anything, so it is on the raw side.
Your not the first person who's tried them to make mention of it reminding them of Cantillon which considering they are my favourite lambics makes me feel pretty good.
Long term I'd love to have some really old ones to blend but for now I'll be happy to consider my first foray into bug territory a success...

 

[kabooby]

I am about half way through my swap beers now and think all the beers are great. Thanks to everyone for making this happen.

A very happy Kabooby