VIC 2013 July Case Swap - tasting thread

[insane_rosenberg]

12. Midnight Brew - American Brown Ale (Wy Greenbelt) - Drinking fine. Bottled 12.7.13

Brilliant clarity through the dark brown brew. Small dense head that fades quickly.
Undeniable American aroma and flavour, with prominent bitterness. Malt flavours are enjoyable, the only thing that hit me was the dryness for a brown ale.
After looking at the guidelines it's probably not far from style.
Very enjoyable beer, well worth the wait

 

[Midnight Brew]

[SIZE=12pt]17. GrumpyPaul - Cherry Ripe Porter bottled 19/5 well and truly ready to drink now.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt]Laces the glass nicely. Aroma for me was more burnt then chocolate or cacao. Medium body with high carbonation a little too much for me. I got little flavour from this beer, more just a roasty character then chocolate. Perhaps the cherry flavour was to come through when it was younger. [/SIZE]

 

[Midnight Brew]

12. Midnight Brew - American Brown Ale (Wy Greenbelt) - Drinking fine. Bottled 12.7.13

Brilliant clarity through the dark brown brew. Small dense head that fades quickly.
Undeniable American aroma and flavour, with prominent bitterness. Malt flavours are enjoyable, the only thing that hit me was the dryness for a brown ale.
After looking at the guidelines it's probably not far from style.
Very enjoyable beer, well worth the wait

Cheers mate! With a little more tweaking its going to be a house ale. The aim was to get good flavour and aroma from the hopping that I've been tweaking in all my beers. Theres a bit of a dark horse hop in there, Super Alpha/Dr Rudi which gave it the clean bitterness and resin character, thought it might play well with cascade. Glad you enjoyed it. Cheers

 

[Grainer]

3. Fikuss – Dunkelweißen - Ready to drink

Agree with the carbonation comments
Drank easy enough nice flavours
Still good lacing around the glass

Im gunna leave this longer and cross my fingers

 

[GrumpyPaul]

17. GrumpyPaul - Cherry Ripe Porter bottled 19/5 well and truly ready to drink now.

Laces the glass nicely. Aroma for me was more burnt then chocolate or cacao. Medium body with high carbonation a little too much for me. I got little flavour from this beer, more just a roasty character then chocolate. Perhaps the cherry flavour was to come through when it was younger.

thanks for the feedback...wih the aim of making better beer i have a few questions.

Is the burnt aroma a bad thing?
Does it come from the grain bill or technique?

I was worried about over carbing. I tried one a while ago and it was a gusher. I cracked the tops on the swap bottles everyday for a week before to release some of the gas.

I do know where I went wrong though. When I racked onto jarred cherries in the secondry I threw the liquid in too. Which in hindsight was virtually sugar water. I let it sit at ferment temps for 2 days then crash chilled. I reckon I didnt let the extra sugar ferment out properly.

 

[breakbeer]

6. breakbeer - Black Nelson IPA
Pours nice and dark with a nice creamy off white head that sticks like **** to a blanket to the glass, creating a work of art with my glassware.
Aroma of raisin, crystal and stone fruit (at least to my nose), very sweet smelling and lovely to put to the nose.
Taste is typical of the dark toasty beers, but with the added pounding of truly tasty flavour hops, a bit winey, like coffee and a sav blanc mixed together. Let's just say I like a good sav and love a good coffee, this is best of both worlds plu its beer!
Body is quite light, I mostly prefer a little more body but the balance in this beer is fantastic!
A big thank you to you glen

Thanks for the feedback mate, I'm just sorry your wife didn't offer to get naked for this one

 

[Edak]

Thanks for the feedback mate, I'm just sorry your wife didn't offer to get naked for this one

K'noath mate, me too!

Edit: she said that it had a liquorice like after taste, I didn't pick it but I guess liquorice doesn't do it for her.

 

[Midnight Brew]

thanks for the feedback...wih the aim of making better beer i have a few questions.

Is the burnt aroma a bad thing?
Does it come from the grain bill or technique?

I was worried about over carbing. I tried one a while ago and it was a gusher. I cracked the tops on the swap bottles everyday for a week before to release some of the gas.

I do know where I went wrong though. When I racked onto jarred cherries in the secondry I threw the liquid in too. Which in hindsight was virtually sugar water. I let it sit at ferment temps for 2 days then crash chilled. I reckon I didnt let the extra sugar ferment out properly.

The burnt aroma isn't always so bad can play a good role in complexity but as far as flavour goes its not really appropiate. Depending on which style you look at you do want some chocolate, coffee, toffee or caramel but nothing overly burnt or acrid. A touch of roast may be good for adding complexity. I would put it down to grain bill. Had a similar beer a few years ago when I was first experimenting with grains and put too much roast barley in an amber ale, had the same problem but mine was far more undrinkable.

Just taking a stab that the cherries faded over time and never came through. It could have caused your carb issue if the extra fermentables never fermented out, or perhaps some wild yeast or bacteria got in and chewed it up stripping it of flavour.

What was your process to carbing this batch? And what was your grain and hop bill?

 

[Wolfman]

#9 Wolfman - Malty Skunk Fart Ale

Highly carbonated, pours with about 6cm of head. Deep red/brown in colour, good lacing on the glass.
Aroma is crystal with a hint of roast but very slight.
Flavour is smooth but as it warmed up it dulled heaps which surprised me. Could be the carbonation, usually dont drink em that high.
Bitterness is smooth through and through. I didnt get anything from the yeast but could be overshadowed by the malt profile. Cold though is quiet sessionable.

Is this a brown ale? Also what inspired the name?

Thanks for the feedback.

Here's the recipe:

Malty Skunk Fart Ale (American Pale Ale)


Original Gravity (OG): 1.057 (°P): 14.0

Final Gravity (FG): 1.014 (°P): 3.6

Alcohol (ABV): 5.60 %

Colour (SRM): 13.5 (EBC): 26.6

Bitterness (IBU): 40.8 (Average - No Chill Adjusted)


45.27% Munich I

45.27% Vienna

4.73% Caramalt

3.16% Melanoidin

1.57% Chocolate


0.2 g/L Magnum (13% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)

0.4 g/L Perle (7.5% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil)

0.6 g/L Centennial (8.3% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)

0.2 g/L Simcoe (12% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)

0.6 g/L Centennial (8.3% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)

0.2 g/L Simcoe (12% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)

0.6 g/L Centennial (8.3% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Boil)

0.2 g/L Simcoe (12% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Boil)



Single step Infusion at 62°C for 60 Minutes. Boil for 60 Minutes


Fermented at 18°C with Wyeast 1272 - American Ale II

The final gravity was 1018. I carbed the beer with this in mind. From memory I carbed it to 2? allowing for the high FG. The spare I have are not overly carbed so you may have just got "One of those bottles".

I have made this beer a few times from the recipe database, so the name is not mine, it's meant to be super hoppy.

The colour comes as I changed the malt profile. I wanted to see if the malt would make a difference to a hoppy beer. You feedback may suggest that. I also CC'd the beer for about a month. This is why the clarity is so good, but I think a lot of the hop profile may have went with it.

Yeast was 1272 which was a slurry from a Skunk Fart that I made for myself. This could also be the reason as to why the yeast stalled. Although I have never had this happen in the past. The ferment started BIG so I am surprised that it didn't drop as far as I hoped.

The rest of you may want to drink it while it's cold.

Cheers

 

[meathead]

6. breakbeer - Black Nelson IPA

Awesome
This is the type of beer I want to brew and drink
Congrats man

 

[manticle]

Had this a few nights ago and made hand written notes - betwen a phone and a doodgy old laptop with missing keys, I haven't felt like trying to type it out but here goes.

Six: Breakbeer: BIPA

Pours with a massive, tight off white head. Good lacing and retention throughout.

Hop aroma of melon, grapefruit.
Malt aroma of light chocolate milk, coffee beans.

Strong orange/citrus hop flavour, tropical fruit, some coffee.

Cab is medium/low, mouthfeel is full.

The concept of black IPAs (looks black but doesn't taste black) I find a bit gimmicky so even if it might not be stylistically blah, blah, I much prefer a dark beer that has a touch of roast, choc etc. I enjoy the coffee/choc supporting the fruity hops so for me this is a delicious beer. Cheers

 

[Edak]

Very informative Fikuss...

 

[insane_rosenberg]

15. Edak - Pirates American IPA

Doing this one from memory, but they're happy memories.

Great hop aroma and flavour, backed up by clean malt backbone. Well polished example.

Dem hops...

 

[insane_rosenberg]

11. Yob - English something bastardised
Following on from the Pirates IPA this one was much more earthy, very cloudy with an almost green tinge. I probably did not give it the care it deserved.
That said I found it very enjoyable. Cheers Yob.

 

[fikuss]

Very informative Fikuss...

Thanks mate that was a mis-post. Hehehe. Okay here goes..


breakbeer - Black Nelson IPA

Drank this one the other night and really enjoyed it Glenny.
Nice hop nose on it. I agree with Charst that I like a bit of a fuller boddy to a black IPA but this one certainly hit the mark that it was aiming for.

Thanks again for having us BB.

 

[fikuss]

forgot to say - that sticker on the front of the bottle was awesome.

just need to get some mini ones made for the caps now.

 

[fikuss]

Got stuck into a few too many of these swap beers on Friday night, so these come through these haze of memory.

3. Fikuss – Dunkelweißen - Ready to drink
Flavour and colour great but unfortunately it was flat as a tack.
This is one of my favourite styles but you missed it by that much *holds thumb and forefinger a German head height apart*
Get the carbonation right and it'll be bang on.

Thanks for the feedback Shane.

Yeah the keg of it we did tasted great so I'm pretty disappointed.
We usually keg our beers and do a few bottles at the end.

Must have used the 500ml scoop instead of the 750ml for the dextrose. Bummer.

 

[Yob]

11. Yob - English something bastardised
Following on from the Pirates IPA this one was much more earthy, very cloudy with an almost green tinge. I probably did not give it the care it deserved.
That said I found it very enjoyable. Cheers Yob.

A bit out to left field with me as I dont usually brew English style beers (often) but I guess thats what these things are for, if I was to brew an AIPA for every swap it'd get a bit dull so this one was a good learning experience for me with trying to brew something more subtly than the shovel in the face reaction I usually get from my beers B)

Cheers

 

[Edak]

15. Edak - Pirates American IPA

Doing this one from memory, but they're happy memories.

Great hop aroma and flavour, backed up by clean malt backbone. Well polished example.

Dem hops...

Cheers Shane, nice words.
Yob, technically I have brewed an AIPA for every swap consisting that this was my first. Next time I will do something else.

 

[Yob]

BTW, just ran a few glasses out through the Sparkler tap of the swap day Stout... very nice gentlemen, very nice indeed. I suspect it wont last long at all.. just out of the FV tonight and force carbed it so if it had time (which it doesnt) it'd settle right down nicely.