VIC 2013 July Case Swap - tasting thread

[breakbeer]

#6 breakbeer - Black IPA - The Host

Black. Black. So incredibly black! Has a great aroma the cuts through the colour. Fantastic flavour that has layers of chocolate, roasty bitterness but not over the top, american hops (cascade possibly?), and a slight very slight sweetness. Then it hit me, only got one longneck so best make the most of it. Wish I consumed this straight away I can only imagine what it would have been like fresh! I also love how its IPA-ish when cold stoutish when warmed up. Loved it mate cheers.

This really is a great beer for winter. To me it ticks all the boxes of:
Stout colour - tick
Slight roastyness - tick
Roast bitterness - tick
IPA Flavour - tick
Aroma - tick
Sessionable - tick

It's only appropiate by my forum name that I buy some midnight wheat and give this one a crack.

Thanks for the feedback MB

Here's the recipe:

Batch size 21L

5.3kg Pale Malt
300g Victory
350g Wheat
250g Crystal 60
200g Midnight Wheat (50g in mash & 150g thrown in at mash out)
200g Pale Choc

32g Nelson @ 60
10g Cascade @ 60
21g Nelson @ 10
10g Cascade @ 10
1/2 a Whirfloc & 2g yeast nutrient @ 10
30g Nelson @ 0
10g Cascade @ 0
50g Nelson dry hopped
20g Cascade dry hopped

Mash: 60mins @ 68d
Mash out: 10mins @ 78
Boil: 75mins

Strike water: 35L
Sparge water: 8L

OG: 1.064
FG: 1.016
ABV: 6.3%
54.9 EBC
67.8 IBU

1L starter of US 05
Pitched & fermented @ 20d
Dry hopped after 5 days
Ferment: 14 days
Cold condition @ 1d for 7 days

 

[Wolfman]

4. DSGA

Interesting take on a golden ale! Might have been a little to much midnight wheat in there to add to the colour! Hahahaha.

Whatever it was it was a tasty beer.

 

[meathead]

It's a stout with the wrong labels, thanks for the feedback
Did u think it was under carbed?

 

[user 25501]

4. Stout. Delicious....but yeah maybe slightly undercarbed for my tastes but I reckon others will disagree. I'd go back for more.

 

[Wolfman]

It's a stout with the wrong labels, thanks for the feedback
Did u think it was under carbed?

Maybe a little. Still a very enjoyable beer though!

 

[meathead]

Ive got 3 left, should I open them and throw a carb drop in?

 

[Wolfman]

Bar wouldn't bother. Drinks great like it it is.

 

[user 25501]

Ive got 3 left, should I open them and throw a carb drop in?

It would be overcarbed if you drop a whole drop in. I'd leave it. I agree it drinks good as it is. You may fk it with fizz.

 

[Midnight Brew]

#3 Fikuss - Dunkelweizen

Maybe it was the pourer but poured with no head. Taste carbonated though so forgive me if my glass hated me. Crystal clear deep copper/amber colour really is a well matched time as the sun was setting when I poured this one. Aroma is slightly estery (my palate and nose is yet to develop the clove and phenol flavours) sorry for lack of description. After the first mouthful I get that Schofferhoffer taste which I havnt had in a long time but love so much. The malt profile is sweet but rounded out with that grainy type of flavour :icon_drool2: . Not over the top plays well with the yeast and your bitterness level.

BJCP outlines the following for Dunlelweizen and I couldnt agree more for your swap beer.

Overall Impression: A moderately dark, spicy, fruity, malty, refreshing wheat-based ale. Reflecting the best yeast and wheat character of a hefeweizen blended with the malty richness of a Munich dunkel.

Great beer mate! I'm gonna culture up some of your bottle yeast and brew a wheat sometime soon. Recipe please!

 

[meathead]

7. Vitalstatistix
 - Black Massss Extra Stout
Nice creamy head on pouring which dissipates quickly (perhaps I should have left longer)
Thick mouth feel, chocolate notes
A bit sweet for my taste

 

[meathead]

18. Shane S - Sparkling Pale Ale with Galaxy

Nice foamy head just like a bought one
Good lacing around the glass
Hint of passion fruit not too bitter
Very sessionable
Great beer recipe please

 

[Edak]

7. Vitalstatistix
 - Black Massss Extra Stout
Nice creamy head on pouring which dissipates quickly (perhaps I should have left longer)
Thick mouth feel, chocolate notes
A bit sweet for my taste

I agree with everything you said. Really tasted alcoholic, so much sweetness.

 

[Edak]

My bottle of dark fairytale (red blob) came out like balsamic vinegar, sorry but that was a no go for me tonight. Really sour, maybe I got a bad bottle?

 

[fikuss]

#3 Fikuss - Dunkelweizen

Great beer mate! I'm gonna culture up some of your bottle yeast and brew a wheat sometime soon. Recipe please!

It's basically the Dunkelweizen from Brewing Classic Styles
I've done it twice. Both delicious. This one however, I mustn't have got my spoon size quite right for the dextrose going into the bottles.

I love the dark raisiny fruityness of a good Dunkel.

Gross Dunkelweissen

OG 1.056
FG 1.014
Colour 15.8 / 31.2 (SRM / EBC)
16.2 IBU
5.5%

All Grain BiAB
23.0 Litres / 6.1 Gal
90.0 min Boil
Mashed at 67º C

Wheat Malt 2.0 3.13 Kg
Munich I 7.1 1.36 Kg
Pilsner 1.7 0.90 Kg
Crystal 120 0.21 Kg
Crystal 40 0.21 Kg
Carafa II malt 415.0 0.09 Kg

Hallertau 4.3% 31.00 g Boil 60 mins

Irish Moss 0.50 g Boil 15 mins

Wyeast 3068 - Weihenstephan Weizen Yeast
Fermented at 17º for 2 weeks

Crash chilled for 3 days at end of fermentation.

 

[DarkFaerytale]

My bottle of dark fairytale (red blob) came out like balsamic vinegar, sorry but that was a no go for me tonight. Really sour, maybe I got a bad bottle?

sorry to hear, i hope it was just a one off bad bottle

 

[manticle]

My review is a couple of pages back. Not sour.

 

[meathead]

11. Yob - English something bastardised (WY1318)

This is a serious beer
By that I mean big flavours and well balanced, holds its head we'll in the glass
Congrats Yob nice work

 

[meathead]

As I write I'm staring at my first yeast starter in my new heat/cold proof flask (cant spell erinmeyer) to go in the swap day stout
Great hobby we have
Home brewing an expensive way to make cheap beer!

 

[fikuss]

15. Edak - Pirates American IPA


Nice golden colour, thick white head and a great floral / fruity nose.
Tastes a bit like Centennial or something hop wise?

Really solid beer Edak. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

[Yob]

11. Yob - English something bastardised (WY1318)
This is a serious beer
By that I mean big flavours and well balanced, holds its head we'll in the glass
Congrats Yob nice work

Thanks mate, not my usual style so glad I seem to have pulled it off

Cheers

 

[Edak]

15. Edak - Pirates American IPA


Nice golden colour, thick white head and a great floral / fruity nose.
Tastes a bit like Centennial or something hop wise?

Really solid beer Edak. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks Fikuss, it's mosaic, cascade and citra on a base of golden promise. I love that combination.

 

[technobabble66]

Hey
Finally back from holidays.
Big thanks to manticle, breakbeer, midnight brew & fikuss for the reviews & positive/constructive feedback. :beerbang:

I tried a bottle of my #22 with a friend on the weekend. Not totally focused on a full analysis at the time, but i remember noting the tight head i got in the glass with fine lacing throughout.
Is this something that could develop/improve in the bottle??
I only ask as the head sounds like it might have been a bit underdone on some of the bottles tried earlier by others. Whereas mine was tight, thick, & persisted for the entire glass. I have to admit i was actually kinda super impressed with it, if i do say so myself, because all of my previous brews had weak, fading heads and the carbonation tended to be lemonade-like for the first few minutes. I did a 10 min step at 76°C for this, but i'm not sure if that would've helped, given manticle's previous mention of 72°C being the golden point of Great Head.
Flavour-wise, it seemed pretty good, which i was also stoked about, but i'll need to analyse the exact malt/hop flavours a bit more next time (great descriptors from manticle!). I think the mouthfeel was the best of mine so far. Medium level of malts, Medium-to-low level of hop flavours/aromas. Medium-to-mild level of bitterness. i think about mid-point between dry & sweet. Seemed about right for the mid-range of a Golden Ale. Have to say, i prefer a stronger level of hop flavours, but for a golden ale i guess this is more sessionable. I suppose i could say it had a more subtle hop flavour - definitely there with a bit of New World complexity, but not your face-slapping, ball-grabbing hop flavour; like certain IPA's brewed by certain hop dealerz h34r: . Colour was a golden copperish, which i liked; and as cloudy as hell, which i didn't like. Not happy with the cloudiness, but its really just an aesthetic so i'm not going to lose sleep over it.

Apologies for being a bit ego-centric & reviewing my own first. However, i did that on the fly, whereas i want to sit down with a pen & paper & try to review everyone else's properly (asap). :icon_cheers:

... & i was also so greatly relieved after cracking mine & finding that it turned out OK, even if it is a relatively simple brew to swap. :lol:

 

[Midnight Brew]

Hey
Finally back from holidays.
Big thanks to manticle, breakbeer, midnight brew & fikuss for the reviews & positive/constructive feedback. :beerbang:

I tried a bottle of my #22 with a friend on the weekend. Not totally focused on a full analysis at the time, but i remember noting the tight head i got in the glass with fine lacing throughout.
Is this something that could develop/improve in the bottle??
I only ask as the head sounds like it might have been a bit underdone on some of the bottles tried earlier by others. Whereas mine was tight, thick, & persisted for the entire glass. I have to admit i was actually kinda super impressed with it, if i do say so myself, because all of my previous brews had weak, fading heads and the carbonation tended to be lemonade-like for the first few minutes. I did a 10 min step at 76°C for this, but i'm not sure if that would've helped, given manticle's previous mention of 72°C being the golden point of Great Head.
Flavour-wise, it seemed pretty good, which i was also stoked about, but i'll need to analyse the exact malt/hop flavours a bit more next time (great descriptors from manticle!). I think the mouthfeel was the best of mine so far. Medium level of malts, Medium-to-low level of hop flavours/aromas. Medium-to-mild level of bitterness. i think about mid-point between dry & sweet. Seemed about right for the mid-range of a Golden Ale. Have to say, i prefer a stronger level of hop flavours, but for a golden ale i guess this is more sessionable. I suppose i could say it had a more subtle hop flavour - definitely there with a bit of New World complexity, but not your face-slapping, ball-grabbing hop flavour; like certain IPA's brewed by certain hop dealerz h34r: . Colour was a golden copperish, which i liked; and as cloudy as hell, which i didn't like. Not happy with the cloudiness, but its really just an aesthetic so i'm not going to lose sleep over it.

May have been a time of drinking in terms of the head because mine was fantastic. It may have just needed to condition a tad longer. In terms of chill haze it is aesthetic but for what its worth I used to get it all the time. The only thing I have changed recently on my brewing methods is step mashing. In the mash schedule there is a rest at 55C and at 72C both for 10 minutes with the rest of my mash. It seems to have disappeared so far so pretty happy with how its working. Only adds in an extra 30 minutes over the whole mash versus single step. Could be worth doing a bit more digging.

 

[user 25501]

2. Charst – Saison : Whew, what a beer. Never had a saison till this crate swap. It reminds me of a few belgian beers I've had. This beer is first class, I imagine it would age well. I'd love to have a crate of this that I could chisel through over spring/summer. Not a sessionable beer more a biscuits & cheese in the afternoon sun for me. Thank you.

 

[fikuss]

14. Damn
 - Belgian Strong

Big creamy head, pale golden to straw in colour, slightly cloudy.
Aroma is sweet without the Belgian yeast funk that you get in a lot of Belgian beers.
Drinks sweet initially with a drier finish. Medium hop bitterness and very little hop flavour/aroma.

Nicely carbed up.... Looking at the style guidelines now you have gotten this one pretty much spot on.
Good beer.

Be interested to see what types of yeast and hops you used on this? I'm assuming that it was mainly pilsner malt.

 

[user 25501]

Thank you.

Brewed 26/3/13,

Lots of help from Manticle with the recipe. (He's the chef, I'm just the cook)

One of my last partials. Will try a AG conversion, with some help of course.

Batch size 20l
2.0kg Pilsner Malt
2.0kg Briess CBW Pilsen LDME
.8kg Dextrose

60g Saaz (45g 60min, 15 0min)
60g Styrian (45g 60min, 15 0min)

1 Wyeast WY1388

 

[GrumpyPaul]

Hi All

I am organising a "Beer Tasting" night with my eldest son and a few of our mates. The plan is to taste our way through the swap meet beers.

I aim to take notes as we go and get their input as well so i can feedback here for you all.

I am trying to work out an ideal drinking order - what do you think of the following order?

( I am not familiar with some styles -never had a Saison or Dunkelweisson - so I am not sure if i have got everything in the ideal order).

I have already drunk mine and grainers - but i left them in for the sake of an overall order.

[SIZE=12pt]Beer no. Name Beer (name/style) Drinking order[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]19 Grainer Hoegarrten wannabe 1[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]21 JB -Polite Czech Pils 2[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]20 micbrew Stone & Wood Pacific Ale 3[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]18 Shane Sparkling Pale Ale 4[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]22 technobabble66 - Two Fat Ducks Ale, DSGA 5[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]4 Meathead - DSGA 6[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]2 Charst Saison 7[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]10 Shane R - Black Saison[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]
[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt] 8[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]3 Fikuss - Dunkelweißen 9[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]15 Edak - Pirates American IPA 10[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]6 breakbeer - Black Nelson IPA[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]
[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt] 11[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]11 Yob - English something bastardised (WY1318) 12[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]12 Midnight - American Brown Ale 13[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]1 Manticle - Brown Porter 14[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]17 GrumpyPaul - Cherry Ripe Porter 15[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]13 DarkFaerytales - Belgian Dark Ale 16[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]14 Damn[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt] - [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]Belgian Strong 17[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]5 Whiteferret - Oatmeal Treacle Stout 18[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]7 Vitalstatistix[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt] - [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]Black Massss Extra Stout 19[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]9 Wolfman[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt] - [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]Malty Skunk Fart 20[/SIZE]

edit/edit - had to RE-post again - I dont seem to be able to post a table from excel or word in here and maintian the formatting. And the pic of the table looked crap too. So I ended up typing it in manually

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Looks pretty good. I'd group the Hoegaarden, Saison and Czech Pils together. Plonk the Black Saison with the Dark Ale and Porters and the sparkling Pale as the start of the Ales, with S&W next, then progressing through the DSGA and onto IPA. Dunkelweizen and Black Saison to start the Dark Beers.

Reason - if you go dark malty then hoppy, you may lose it and if you wreck your palates with IPA, then you won't taste something subtle like a Hoegaarden.

I reckon the BJCP guidelines will help you with grouping like beers. The order of each group then is the thing to sort out from subtle beers to strong beers.

 

[GrumpyPaul]

How does this order look.

Taking into account LRGs suggestions I have;

• Moved the Saison and Czech Pils to the top of the line up
• Moved the Black Saison after the porter.

I am not sure if I have Yob's English bastard in the right spot?

I assume it would be in the middle withthe malty ones - but should it be after the hoppy IPAs

I read back through some of the comments to date and see the Malty skunk fart is meant fairly hoppy - so I moved it after the IPAs

[SIZE=12pt]Beer no. Name Beer (name/style) Drinking order[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]21 JB - Polite Czech Pils 1[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]2 Charst - Saison 2[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]18 ShaneS - Sparkling Pale Ale 3[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]20 micbrew - Stone & Wood Pacific Ale 4[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]22 technobabble66 - Two Fat Ducks Ale, DSGA 5 [/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]4 Meathead -DSGA 6[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]3 Fikuss - Dunkelweißen 7[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]11 Yob English something bastardised (WY1318) 8[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]15 Edak - Pirates American IPA 9[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]6 breakbeer - Black Nelson IPA[/SIZE] [SIZE=12pt]10[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]9 Wolfman - Malty Skunk Fart 11[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]12 Midnight - American Brown Ale 12[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]1 Manticle - Brown Porter 13[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]10 Shane R - Black Saison[/SIZE] [SIZE=12pt]14[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]13 DarkFaerytales - Belgian Dark Ale 15[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]14 Damn[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt] - [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]Belgian Strong 16[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]5 Whiteferret - Oatmeal Treacle Stout 17[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]7 Vitalstatistix[/SIZE][SIZE=12pt] - [/SIZE][SIZE=12pt]Black Massss Extra Stout 18[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]19 Grainer - Hoegarrten wannabe (already drunk it)[/SIZE]
[SIZE=12pt]17 GrumpyPaul - Cherry Ripe Porter (already drunk it)[/SIZE]

 

[Edak]

I just want to say that I had Meatheads WTF DSGA. Poured with a nice cara smell and with a creamy foam that very quickly dissipated and then seemed a bit flat. Was meaty indeed so it lived up to the brewers name. The Mrs thought it had a liquorice aftertaste but I didn't get that, she identifies roasted malt as this flavour and isn't a fan. Lets' just say I had the whole bottle in about 15 minutes, even though I had completely forgotten what others said about it so was a bit shocked when I poured a GA and got a DA.

Thanks Meathead for the beer

Grumpy, be aware that with some of these beers you won't want to share How many mates does it take to go through 18 longnecks?