Vic X-mas In July 2009 Tasting Thread

[hairofthedog]

25 Bennys Lemon Ale

easy drinking mate a good footy beer i could drink 10 of these while watching the pies smash hapless opposition :super:

 

[Quintrex]

10. Q - "Mildly Challenged" dark mild
pours a medium brown with low fast disapearing head
some sweet malt on the aroma, and another (molasses ?)
first sip, there's something, highly astringent, that really pounces on you here
not sure if it's the black malt, or the pacific gem, or there's a fermentation issue somewhere.
kind of a see saw going on, between sweet and astringent.
there's almost a smokey characteristic there somewhere
overall - a curious beer, not sure what I think, think i'm still on the see saw.

There definitely is a curious taste, I think it's overhopped and it's the challenger flavour that doesn't mix well with the malt character.
I've found it become more of a complete package drinking it at warmer temps, I probably won't hop further milds to this level.

 

[Maple]

25 Bennys Lemon Ale

easy drinking mate a good footy beer i could drink 10 of these while watching the pies smash hapless opposition :super:

Winning by a single point hardly constitutes a "smash"

Not a bulldogs fan, just not a birdwatcher either.

 

[Wardhog]

6. Sappas Better Red than Dead Irish Ale.

Possibly the beer of the swap for me so far. A bit cloudy, but I can easily overlook when I taste this. Big malt aroma promises big malt taste and it delivers, and is balanced nicely with smooth bitterness. I was thinking of making something like this originally, and I'm glad I didn't now.

Great work Sappas. I think I might just tuck the printout you included in my recipe book.

 

[Wardhog]

Winning by a single point hardly constitutes a "smash"

It does if you're a Collingwood supporter.

 

[Maple]

It does if you're a Collingwood supporter.

LoL, nice wardy. Hey this brings me more to the point, CM2 brought your beer around today (had a double batch, double brew day). Absolute ripper! So clean, nice malty back to it, carbonated to a good level, not sweet or bitter, just huge malt driven lager. Really top shelf work. loved it, thanks (and to CM2 for sharing the experience)

Chris Taylor - Big Red Banana - what more is there to say than that really. Huge banana, I really liked it, and that's exactly what I was aiming for in my last roggen attempt, but fell short of this... Interesting beer, malt wise, maybe a bit sweet, but not to the cloyingly side.

Rook - tribute to Wazza's 3 shades. First up I got roast, heaps...then biterness, did i just chew a dandelion? then came the roast again. it seemed pretty sharp, like the bite of soda water, but with a really rich tone. totally not what I was expecting. having said that, after a few more sips, it really began to grow on me. my opinion, and for my taste: maybe a touch bitter, but a really good beer,

Sappas, well except for the floaties in the glass, a nice beer. poured with a huge head - talking icecream style, and retained all the way through. can't say I can pick the style, but if shooting for an irish red, not a bad go, maybe a touch more brown/black to redden it up.

 

[hairofthedog]

point taken maple but i was refering to the last 7 games in general not any one game in particular :lol:

 

[Wardhog]

12. mcook - American IPA

This is a bloody good beer, too. I'm a bit spoiled tonight.

Only thing I can say against it is style quibbling and nothing more. The hopping level seems to be more in APA territory than IPA. That's not to say it isn't a really good beer though.

 

[Wardhog]

21. Driveitlikeyoustoleit - Oatmeal stout

This is a potentially great beer. It probably needs some more bitterness to offset the massive amounts of roast, there's too much favour towards the blackened malt. Sort that out, and you've got a really good stout on your hands.

 

[scott_penno]

17. Brewmeister70 - Kolsch
Pale straw color, quite clear. Small head (maybe 1cm) which grew smaller while drinking but never disappeared. Subtle malt aroma. Upon tasting, I wasn't sure what to think so I kept drinking. Subtle malt flavor, combined with subtle bitterness and finishes quite dry. Words like subtle and delicate keep appearing in my mind. Never had a Kolsch before so not really sure what to compare it with. Great beer that I could see being drunk in copious amounts on a warm summers day.

15. Fourstar - American IPA
Now, here's the beer at the other end of the spectrum. Open the bottle, hmmmm I suspect there might be some hops in there. Pours an almost deep golden color with a nice creamy head. The aroma of hops dominates. The first mouthful as someone has previously written is an assault on the taste buds - in a good way though. And I do mean mouthful. I expected that the hops flavor would have been one dimension but it's not - it is a true mouthfull of hops which I suspect comes from using multiple varieties - but there's a reasonable amount of malt flavor there to hold it up. Finished the bottle and there's the long-lingering bitterness - again a well rounded bitterness - rather than a one-dimensional bitterness. Wasn't convinced I would enjoy this but it definitely exceeded my expectations although I'm fairly sure a bottle (or two) is all I could drink in a session.

 

[scott_penno]

6. Sappas Better Red than Dead Irish Ale.

Possibly the beer of the swap for me so far. A bit cloudy, but I can easily overlook when I taste this. Big malt aroma promises big malt taste and it delivers, and is balanced nicely with smooth bitterness. I was thinking of making something like this originally, and I'm glad I didn't now.

Great work Sappas. I think I might just tuck the printout you included in my recipe book.

Thanks for the positive feedback. As a relative novice brewer, I'm always looking to improve things. If anyone could help with where the cloudiness comes from and I what I can do to remove it, it would be appreciated.

Sappas, well except for the floaties in the glass, a nice beer. poured with a huge head - talking icecream style, and retained all the way through. can't say I can pick the style, but if shooting for an irish red, not a bad go, maybe a touch more brown/black to redden it up.

Thanks Maple. Style is supposed to be an Irish Red Ale using the Better Red Than Dead recipe from the RecipeDB. The test drive I did left me thinking there was too much of a roast malt flavor and the color was more brown than red so for the case swap I halved the roast malt and doubled the CaraRed. I have yet to taste this after it's been carbonated so I might sit down and do this this afternoon. I still have a pint or two of the original Better Red Than Dead to do a side by side comparison with.

Re floaties, was it just yeast floating around or something else?

 

[Neill]

Don Mateo's Hefeweizen

I haven't had one of this style before so was very interested to try this.

Fantastic aroma, bananas! love the smell. Poured a bit hazy with reasonable head, which settled quickly (i think my glass needs a good clean, nothing holds a head in this thing).

First impressions were sourness. Tasted nice on the tongue but after swallowing i got this unusual sour tang in the back of the palate. Mixed into it were strong banana flavours.

After having had 3/4 of the glass now the sour notes have receded leaving me with lots of banana flavours, the second half of the glass was much more enjoyable.

I have no idea if this is "to style" having never had a hefeweizen before but it's obviously not my type of beer. Is the sour note that i can taste a feature of this beer?

 

[Fourstar]

Thanks for the positive feedback. As a relative novice brewer, I'm always looking to improve things. If anyone could help with where the cloudiness comes from and I what I can do to remove it, it would be appreciated.

for the case swap I halved the roast malt and doubled the CaraRed.

Hey sappas, you made a decent beer mate, mine had marginal haze/cloudyness so id say it may have been yeast in suspension (i had yours in the fridge for 3 days). Time and chilling for extended peripods helps with this. if its bottle conditioned, not much you can do about having yeast in there unfortunatly unless you filter to a secondary fermenter.

As for the colour. Just a little tip/hint. the specturm of colour for crystals and roasts are different to 'the eye' per SRM. see below

<= 10 SRM
Crystal - Light Orange/honey to Copper
Roast - Tan
<= 20SRM
Crystal - Deep Copper - Red
Roast - Red - Brown
<= 30SRM
Crystal - mahogany
Roast - Black

Basically you want to balance the crystals and the roasts to give you the correct colour and the correct palate profile. for irish reds its 9 - 18 SRM. I'd be shooting for around 16-17 SRM to get a middle of the roasd deep copper/red. if you use all crystals, the beer will be too sweet, too much roast and its too 'roasty' which will throw it out of balance. I'd go for around a 40-60SRM cyrstal, or a trade off b/w two crystals e.g. 1/2 each addition of 10-20SRM and a 80-120SRM crystal. balance this with 1 part roast barley to your 2 parts of crystal. Use these additons until you get the colour into that srm and you are probably on the money. if it was just crystals, it would probably still look orange-copper, if it was just roast it will look red to brown (but it would be more like a scottich than an irish if there was no crystal.) I'd say the colour for yours was close to being spot on.. a little too dark IMO. but the crystal was good! its obviously a tried and true recipe, theres no need to re-invent the wheel i suppose, just modify it to suit your needs.

here is an exmple of a recipe i just whipped up to explain the above (i hope i made sense).

cheers! :icon_cheers:

Irish Red
Irish Red Ale

Type: All Grain
Date: 12/07/2009
Batch Size: 23.00 L
Brewer: Braden
Boil Size: 30.90 L Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: My Brew Pot (40L) and Frosty Cooler (38L)
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68.0

Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 91.7 %
0.15 kg Carared (20.0 SRM) Grain 2.8 %
0.15 kg Crystal, Dark (Joe White) (86.7 SRM) Grain 2.8 %
0.15 kg Roasted Barley (Joe White) (412.9 SRM) Grain 2.8 %
35.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00%] (60 min) (First Wort Hop) Hops 21.5 IBU
1 Pkgs London ESB Ale (Wyeast Labs #1968) Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.051 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.6 %
Bitterness: 21.5 IBU
Est Color: 16.7 SRM

Mash Profile
Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Mash In Add 14.20 L of water at 72.4 C 66.0 C 60 min
Mash Out Add 7.95 L of water at 95.1 C 75.6 C 10 min

 

[Leigh]

1. Peels - black beer

Yep, definately BLACK. I think seemax had it right when he called it "used motor oil"! Thick brown head that reduced down, but kept a tan 1mm foam until the last sip. Fairly low bitterness, and nice choc/roast flavours. A little too much crystal (sweetness) for mine but still a good beer!

[edit] hmm, just read your recipe and there is no crystal? what is giving the big sweet flavour?

 

[Hutch]

27. Vienna Lager

Don't know if it's true to style, but it is an easy to drink beer. Low hop character in all aspects, but nice toasted malt - fairly happy with this beer.
I'll be interested to see if anyone else thinks there's a slight solventy edge to it as if I haven't pitched enough yeast.

Wardy, I found it pretty easy-drinking (as did my wife), very low hops, slightly sweet, probably underpinned by the low IBU's. No hop character to note - seems like Millennium is a good bittering variety.

I didn't find any solventy character - quite clean ferment in fact, thought there is some very slight Acetaldehyde (being ultra critical here). Carbonation good, but fairly large bubbles, and head didn't last very long.

I started drinking this one without checking the recipe thread, so didn't know what it was. First impression was a slight extract sweetness, leading me to beleive it was a very well made partial. Probably a character of the 50% Vienna in the recipe.
I probably would up the IBUs if it were me (though it does fit in the lower end for a Vienna Lager). I'd also back off the Vienna slightly to reduce the residual sweetness for a drier finish.

Nice job.
Thanks Wardy!

 

[[email protected]]

Long weekend away at Phillip Island...

Session 1-

#2 Fents - Bitsa Pale Ale - Strong hoppy flavor matched by bitterness. Really nice beer, left me wanting more.

#7 Rook - Stout - Rich Roasty chocolate like aroma. Clean balanced malty flavor and bitterness. Guy on the label could be vampire, outta get that checked out. Quite dry on the palate, very approachable.

Session 2-

#24 Don Mateo - Weizen - Pleasent weizen-like aroma & flavour (clove/bubblegum). Not too harsh. High carbonation. didn't get much banana, not as creamy as some weizens can be. Easy drink, nice beer.

#9 seemax - Real Ale - Not much aroma, clean taste. Mild bitterness. Full bodied. Does the job, but maybe needs more hop character and/or maltiness.

#13 CM2 - Dunkle - Quite pleasent. Drinkable. Clean. Maybe lacks a bit a character, as not much malt flavor as expected seemed to be evident.

Session 3-

#4 Hairofthedog - Dortmunder export - Some faint hop aroma. A bit fruity on the palate, for style. Nice malt flavors in the background.

#14 Hutch - California Common - Pours nice, tastes nice, finishes clean. Lovely beer. Nice well balanced malt flavor. Could drink this any day of the week.

#22 Lucas - Smoked Porter - Perhaps the beer of the swap so far for me. Subtle smoked roasted malt aroma. The taste was a fantastic mouthful of roasted chocolate, yet clean finshing with a nice amount of underlying bitterness. Taste was not unlike a bottle of Youngs Double Chocolate Stout I had recently, though for mine your's was a bit better.

Unfortunately that's stumps for this weekend.

:icon_cheers:
Cheers
Mal

 

[donmateo]

Don Mateo's Hefeweizen
--cut--
First impressions were sourness. Tasted nice on the tongue but after swallowing i got this unusual sour tang in the back of the palate. Mixed into it were strong banana flavours.

After having had 3/4 of the glass now the sour notes have receded leaving me with lots of banana flavours, the second half of the glass was much more enjoyable.

I have no idea if this is "to style" having never had a hefeweizen before but it's obviously not my type of beer. Is the sour note that i can taste a feature of this beer?

Although I was happy that some bananas came out, there seemed to be a few other 'added extras' with this beer that
I really found difficult to figure out what they were. Interesting that you got some sour tang, I suspect this may have been one of the added extras that weren't necessarily ment to be there, or is not there for all the right reasons, but if you want to try a Hef that does exhibit the light-sour tang that you might expect, I recommend the Schneider Weisse Hef, a little hard to get, but a fantastic example.

 

[Neill]

You know i was thinking about this last night and i reckon my bottle may have been a bit skunked, maybe being left outside after the swap until the next morning turned it a bit "off". Aside from that i'm not really sure what could have caused this flavour, unless it was supposed to be there!

 

[donmateo]

9. seemax - Real Ale K&B
pours a copper brown, reasonably dense head
some malt sweetness and something fresh on aroma
first sip, smooth malt flavours, though very quickly some earthy hop bitterness and flavor dominate
can strain to detect some of those malt driven flavours that one might expect from a real ale, but found it's
quite difficult through the domination of the hops.
overall - would have hoped for some more display of malt characters, there are some good malt flavors there
but hard to hold on to as hops quite dominant, providing an ale more reminiscent of something american style
(my assumption is that it's an english style real ale). From a glimpse at the recipe, interesting to note how
strongly the hops came though for the amount added.

6. sappas - Better Red Than Dead Irish Ale
pours a clear copper-red with a low staying light tan head
aroma - initially appear to be some fermentation esters there (however i think this is just because it's fresh more
than anything else, as they dont make there presence felt after). behind those there are some elements that provoke
interest, some nice malt, and some caramel sweetness.
first sip - oh joy, soft malty velvet, hint's of caramel, and toffee. smooth subdued backing hop bitterness
overall - clean and smooth, malt flavor highlights, light caramel and toffee, light carbonation, easy drinking
liked this beer a lot.

 

[brendo]

For all those who have asked, I have finally put my recipe for my LCBA into the recipe thread. As stated with the recipe entry, NC'ing this batch lost a lot from the 20 and 0 min additions.

Glad people are enjoying it all the same though :icon_cheers:

Brendo