HoppySlosh is Lazy: Brewing Backlog

Almost May already, and a long overdue update on what's brewing.

That Gose I recently talked about...it's going to remain undisclosed for quite some time. My last sample showed fermentation hasn't progressed noticably , other than in a further development of...flavours.

Hey, it's a flavour, even if not a particalarly beery one.

It's an ongoing pet project of mine, although it's taking on an ever increasing Frankensteinian undertone. I'll need to chain it to a wall if it doesn't settle down eventually.

Cheesy beer, cheesy movie.
At least it has a name now.

I wanted to brew a porter, and found myself inspired by the first porter I ever tasted: Fuller's London Porter. Not being satisfied with simply brewing a clone, I played with the malt bill and the hops and decided to add some spices to boot: black pepper, fenugreek and a pinch of Sichuan-pepper. A splash of smoked malt to boost the grittiness of it all and finally some cocoa nibs in bourbon to smoothe things over.

Because gritty always means better.

It's being carbonated as we speak, taking its own sweet time, like a porter should. First reports are favourable, and I'm sure this one needs to sit in the bottle for some time ere it reveal its true colour(*).

Mine are slightly smaller.

*) Black. Duh.

Another beer that's been sitting patiently in my cellar is Quincey!, a quince saison, courtesy of a generously donated box of September quinces.

The illegitimate love-child of apples and conkers.

I let the beer (a basic saison, fermented with Belle Saison yeast) sit on boiled-and-spiced quinces for six months and then racked onto a membrillo paste I'd made with the quinces I had left over back in September. The result is a fruity, perfumed beer, which I think could use a bit of tartness.
I was planning on pitching a sourdough starter I'd concocted earlier this week, but upon inspection, it smelled...off.

Way, way off.

So I dumped it and decided to pitch with the dregs of a Sour Mélange culture I had on hands by the time I finish my latest brewing day at that time (more on that a bit further down).

More saison: I received another fruity donation from Marloes & Martijn in the form of a case of medlars in late October. Once properly bletted, I cooked a syrup from them, which I put in the freezer for later usage.

Bletting basically means the same as rotting only sophisticatedly.

Mid-January, I brewed a saison using Citra hops, French saison yeast (another generous donation, this time from one of my Frankenbuddies) and, you guessed it, the medlar syrup. Should be ready for bottling by the end of the May and ready to drink by the time summer arrives. Which means I'm all set for the Harvest Season, unless I drink it all before then.

Donations kept coming, and a friendly beekeeper (beekeepster? beester? Help me out here, Magda!) supplied me with two jars of honey.

Bee Barf.

I brewed a malty Brown ale, spiked it with El Dorado hops and boosted the lot with the honey.

Bee Barf Brown.

So far, the El Dorado and the honey seem to be complementing each other nicely, giving something reminiscent of biscotti and almonds, oddly enough. The beer's been sitting in secondary since the end of February, and just as I was about to bottle it, I noticed I had some visitors when I wasn't looking.

Pellicle.

I've had similar uninvited guests before, and while certainly undesirable and unplanned, I'm not exactly worried. I'm keeping a close look on this one, but will leave it where it is until the pellicle subsides again. Pity, as it's more or less guaranteed to interfere with clarity, if not flavour as well.

More carboys, more cellar space, and more anxious waiting for brews to be finished: last on the list is another saison, this one with French saison yeast again, Centennial hops and hibiscus flowers at the end of the boil. The hibiscus is coming through nicely, and I boosted the whole sprit of it by adding fresh hibiscus tea when bottling, as well as some (welll...a lot of actually) fresh ginger juice.

Good Girl Ginger. 
Get it?

It's bottled already, but given the enormous amounts of sediment in the bottles after a mere two weeks, I think I may have to undetake a rescue mission with this one.

Despite grim warnings by most everyone (*) I tried my hand on another parti-gyle/batch sparge experiment, in which I'll extract not one but two worts from one malt grist.

*) Except for Menno. Whatever happens, if it's slightly odd or over the top, Menno will approve.

The first will become a peated-scottish-ale-gruit hybrid.

Which, if all goes well, will not turn out like bituminous fossilised shit

The second will become my first attempt at a proper Flemish Red sour, aged on (supplies permitting) cherries and oak chips soaked in pinoit noir.

Not a proper Flemish Red, what with it being from France.
I'm brewing beer, not cattle.

Pretty stoked about this project, but then again, I was pretty stoked about that Parmesanny Gose too so perhaps cautious optimism is more advisable for now.

Lastly (màààn I've been so busy), a pair of hoppy brews: I brewed a new incarnation of Liquid Black together with BeerBert. This is an "inspired-by" brew, intended to become something resembling Brew Dogs's Libertine Black: an all-Simcoe black IPA. Bubbling away in primary as we speak.
The other (yes, I got to the point where I can pull off two brews in one day and not get all panicky about it) was supposed to be a all-DrRudi lager, but since my Budvar2000 pack failed to bloat ànd to ferment, I kickstarted the brew by pitching with a sachet of S33. Not a lager then, but at least I'll have something to pour for any visiting Rudi's soon.

More updates when available!

Until then,

Greetz

Jo

HoppySlosh Tastes: Saison Surfine (Dubuisson)

A saison by Dubuisson. This I quite simply had to try.

The very concept of a saison is so far removed from the brewery's Flagship(*) that I was very curious as to what the people in Tourpes (°) consider to be a saison.

*) Bush beer in all its incarnations.

Named Scaldis in Murka because of other resident people and beers also called Bush

°) home of that other saison.

View from Dubuisson's driveway. (Not really though)
Also, note the absence of anything resembling the river Scaldis.
Just sayin' is all.

But by the beard of Saint Arnoldus, you'd think that a brewery of Dubuisson's scale would at least have their brewing process under control!

I am seriously not exaggerating here when I make the claim that this beer is an impossible pour.
Not "difficult".
Not "only with a steady hand and the patience of a brewer".
Just, you know, "not at all".

A careful attempt to extract the beer from its bottle by pouring it gently into the glass yielded (and I reiterate my utter lack of exaggeration here) a foot-high head, frothing atop a measly quarter-inch layer of golden beer.

Like so.
Ok, so I exaggerated about my lack of exaggeration.
But not much.

Further attempts to coax the beer into the glass in a civilised manner failed miserably and I was ultimately facing a Tantalos torture in a fancy glass: 2% of beer and the rest all foam.
What little actual beer remained was almost completely desaturated by its titanic efforts to produce such ample head. More's the pity, because that little bit I finally got to coat my lips with actually tasted pretty good: a refreshing, if flat, crisp and hoppy flat saison. Also: completely flat. Such a shame.

Regarding the rest op the presentation:

AAAAAAARGH!

Can we finally be done with (nay, outlaw outright as of now and for ever more) this vacuous and vain pseudo-mysterious kack about "3 malts and 3 hops and 3 yeasts"? Can we just have nothing meaningless on the label at all, if nothing meaningful can be found worth mentioning?

Like "Well water". Now thàt I want to know.

3 hops means nothing(*) and it is demonstrative of the abysmal quality of labels the world over that I'm already quite happy not to see inanities like "carefully selected hops" here.

(*) AKA Jack Shit.
Drawing by andie200

The label has that new-black retro vibe thing going, and the story goes that the brewer came across the old label (*) and was so charmed by it, he decided to resurrect (also*) the beer.

*) wellll...."resurrect"....Surfine was actually a Spéciale Belge in the 1930's, a beer style which conjuncture has demoted (°) to High School Unpopular Kid status so "resurrect" can quite literally be translated here to mean "shred the original recipe, brew saison instead and call it Surfine".

Authentic? Probably.
Only probably not the way you expected it to be.

°) do I really have to start my "Bolleke-becomes-APA" lamentation again or am I making myself clear already?

Surfine reminded me most of those chinese puzzle gizmo's.

"Can only be enjoyed by throwing it as far away as possible and having a hissy fit"

Frustrating, no fun, and ultimately ending up in the trash.
Except Surfine ended in the sink because I didn't want a foot-high head of foam on my trash.

Such a low down dirty shame.

Greetz

Jo