Beer Review - Hornbeam, Dark & Devine

tldr: Nice roasted flavours, malt and New Zealand hops on the nose, dry on the tongue but with quite a strong, long lasting bitterness. Genuinely very enjoyable but maybe not a full session beer.

For those of you with some time to read:

I received a surprise package in the post yesterday morning from my good friend, Alex back in the UK. Two bottles of beer from a relatively new, family run craft micro-brewery in the Manchester area going by the name of Hornbeam.

Tonights bottle...

Dark & Devine

(from the bottle, "Ale To Die For") 

4.2% abv

The first thing that struck me was this was not as dark as I had been expecting from the label. As you can see in the photo above, it's still quite an amber coloured beer.

The second thing that hit me (like a train - but in a good way) was the gorgeous waft of roasted malts and hops as I began to pour. Wonderful smelling beer.

The head formed easily while pouring and there was a pleasing amount of carbonation, not a gaseous micro fizz like some churn out. Very nice indeed.

The colour betrays the actual roasted maltiness and I couldn't put my finger on the hop aromas.

A quick read of the bottle informed me that New Zealand hops are used in the recipe although not a hop type I have used in any of my brews yet so I still can't say which type/s are used. If I was going to guess, I'd hazard a guess on Nelson Sauvin but I am probably wrong. I'd look at high Alpha Acid variety as there is a distinct, strong bitterness here.

I'm not going to give marks out of 10 as tastes and smells are different to everyone so I'd sum this beer up by saying, yes I would buy it , yes I would like to try more of Hornbeam's range and Yes I am going to try and culture the yeast dregs from the bottom of the bottle.

I don't think I would spend a whole evening in the pub drinking this (actually, who can afford to do that these days?) but I'd certainly make sure I had 2 or 3 at some point in the night.

So, cheers Alex matey, thanks for introducing me to Hornbeam Brewery. Tomorrow night I'll crack open the bottle of their Mary Rose Bitter.

AG#13 Friday 13th All Grain Wheat Beer

With the run of luck we've had recently I figured Friday the 13th couldn't really do much more to me so I brewed. It turned out to be my 13th All Grain brew... It didn't actually dawn on me until I began filling in my brew sheet and I'm not really superstitious so don't expect things to differ one day from the next whether walking under ladders or leaving shoes on the table (touch wood). Not that I'd leave my shoes on the table anyway...

This brew was good for me, I really enjoyed it. Different yeast (Danstar Munich) and some very different grains amongst the usual. Munich Malt, Bavarian Pilsner malt, Wheat Malt and my first ever encounter with Hallertaur Mittlefruh hops. It was also my first brew using 1/4 Protofloc tablet for my copper finings, more on which later... It was also my first, unforgettable fermentation, BOOM!!!!

Wuppit's Wit 1313

Brew Length: 25l - Grain bill based on Easy Wit from beerrecipes.org

90 minute mash, 60 minute boil.

Fermentables and adjuncts (weights are my exact ones).
Wheat Malt: 2544g
Bohemian Pilsner malt: 1989g
Flaked Wheat: 504g
Munich Malt: 354g
Pale Crystal: 201g
Torrified Wheat: 202g

Hops.
Hallertaur Mittlefruh: 30g (60 mins)
Styrian Goldings (Bobek): 16g (45 mins)
Hallertaur Mittlefruh: 16g (15 mins)

Aromatics (In with last hops at 15 mins).
Coriander seed, ground coarsely with a pestle and mortar: 41g
Orange peel (unwaxed, organic oranges and with the white pith scraped away): 41g
Camomile (from opened Camomile tea bags): 3g - 4g (the scales were hovering between the two).

Total liquor: 38l

Mash liquor: 14.5l - Sparged with all of the remaining liquor.

From what I'm used to with previous brews there looked to be a lot of flaked wheat, mostly buried in the shot above, so I was expecting my first stuck mash. As I was doughing in the whole mash felt a lot more solid, porridgey than previously.

It ran off from the mash tun really well as it turned out.

Hallertaur Mittlefruh smell great, I'm not the best at describing aromas and flavours very well but they smelled... great, distinctive.

After sparging I ended up with a fair old quantity of wort so I put some to one side to boil up and use for yeast culturing after the yeast in this brew has done its job. My excuse is I usually do a 90 minute boil so evaporation losses are typically around 8-10 litres. I'd sort of forgotten this was only going to be 60 minutes.

Aromatics ready to go in 15 mins from the end of the boil. LOL'd whilst just looking at my brew sheet and saw they actually went in at 13 mins from the end of the boil... 13,13,13 FFS!!!

30g Hallertaur Mittlefruh in at start of rolling boil - I skimmed the initial surface crud as I have been doing the last few brews.

16g Bobek in after 15 minutes, 45 mins from end of the boil.

13 minutes from end of boil and in with the orange peel, a couple of minutes after the last 16g H. Mittlefruh hops had gone in. Chiller in at 15 minutes to sterilize in the boiling wort and hooked up, ready to go.

In goes the coarsely crushed coriander seed followed by the camomile and 1/4 protofloc tablet. Right, with regard to the protofloc... First time using it but I wasn't really all that impressed compared to my previous brews using rehydrated Irish Moss. I got a cold break of course but the clumping was nothing to write home about, maybe I'll up it to 1/2 a tablet next time but I've read all over that 1/4 tabs is enough for 23 to 25 litres.

I wasn't sure whether a typically cloudy beer like a wheat beer should use any floc at all but was advised to chuck some in via Twitter. I'd read that the desired cloudiness is from the yeast not suspended shite but I wanted confirmation.

Ran off to the FV nicely. After my previous brew run off clarity issues (the bloody immersion chiller trapping hops and keeping them away from settling on the hop filter) I removed the chiller and gave it a few minutes to allow stuff to settle back down.

I'd started off the Danstar Munich Wheat Beer yeast a couple of days previously and it had been happily glugging away in an air locked 2l water bottle. Pitched it as the FV was filling from the copper at 26C

Put the FV into a water bath I've made from a large bin and heated with an aquarium heater set at 18-20C which gives a typical water temperature of 20-21C. This was the krausen just a few hours later. I was a bit concerned that it had already touched the underside of the lid already but... it looked like it was settling back down a bit so I left it.

The following morning I went in to check and found this.

Bloody F*ck!

I took the FV out and gave the outside a clean over, emptied the water bath and cleaned everything back down. Re-filled with water at 21C and popped it all back in.

It behave after that. I've just been in to it and I think I'll give it a gravity test tomorrow, it's all settled down but there appears to still be a fair bit of activity going on below the surface.

UPDATE 10th May 2012. Here's a link to a photo of the finished beer taken a few evenings ago. All grain weissen.

AG#12 All Grain Felinfoel Double Dragon

Brewday 3rd April and again a recipe from Graham Wheeler's book.

I hit my target volume for once but was over gravity, the downside to this was I topped up with some freshwater and ended up with 26 litres. Which was nice.

Pale malt
T. wheat
Pale crystal
Black malt
white sugar

Bittering Hops:
Challenger
Target (I had to make up a shortfall of challenger to get the right bitterness)
Bramling Cross - becoming a favourite
East Kent Golding

Aroma Hops:
East Kent Golding

Irish Moss

Safale SO4 starter made from reclaimed yeast from previous brews. It kicked off like a mo-fo in the FV.

Few words for this one, a pleasant brew again. My only gripe really is the immersion chiller. It works very well but the hosepipe I bought for it gets a bit soft and easily kinks causing back pressure that hasn't yet popped a fitting but probably could do. My other gripe with the immersion chiller is it don't half bugger up the hops settling onto the hop filter in the bottom of my copper.

Anyway, some piccies.

Grain shot obligatoire.

Nice clear run off from the Mash Tun. I only had to run off about a litre before it came clear, often it's 3 or 4 litres.

Sparging, allowing the sparge liquor to circulate around over a slotted foil try. I haven't bothered with my spray bar for a while.

Approaching the boil, getting ready to skim the surface crud away.

Surface crud skimmings, not as much as previous brews.

Rolling boil and bittering hops and debris rolling around.

Chiller and 10 minute hop addition

1,046 or thereabouts. Over OG so I added water to bring it down to 1,042 giving me 26 litres :)

The remains of the day. Notice the hop filter isn't entirely covered with hops! Bloody immersion chiller collects them in the centre. I need to address this, maybe some legs to lift the chiller off the base of the copper a bit.

Krausen about 4 hours after pitching the yeast. Took off like a rocket!

Bottled on 9th April and I had my first sneaker sampler bottle on 14th... WOW!!!!!

I've had a few glasses of this so far, it's absolutely bloody gorgeous! I haven't gotten round to any pics of pintas yet as the weather has turned a bit shitty and they just look better, taken out doors.

To date, this is my favourite beer that I've brewed.

Update: May 20th 2012 - Weather still shit, not sure if we're going to get a summer this year so here's a link to an indoor photo of this batch, pint of all grain Double Dragon. I do have a second batch in the Fv right now along with a Timothy Taylor Landlord I just really need to get my arse back in gear and blogging again.