Jan 2017 Meet Writeup

First meetup of 2017 after a month off during December and what a collection of beers people brought!

As often happens I forgot my notepad so details might be short on some beers.

Welcome New People

James (@j616s) and Lucy joined us this month. Lucy already has been homebrewing wines for sometime. She likes to make wines with elderberries, parsnips and beetroot. They started brewing beer not so long back using kit beers to start with. Now venturing onto liquid malt and hop kits with ideas to all grain soon. Welcome to the group and do bring some of that wine it certainly sounds different.

Upcoming Events

Manchester Beer Week - Homebrew Expo Is Back

With the success of last year Manchester Beer Week will be back JUNE 23 - JULY 2 2017! And with that we will be once again hosting us will be Beer Nouveau. Just like last year all homebrewers will be welcomed to show off their beers to the public and compete for the best in show prize. If you didn't get along the expo last year just take a look at the beer list from 2016 http://manchesterhomebrew.co.uk/19th-june-manchester-homebrew-expo/

More planning and details will be required. A must topic for Feb meetup.

The Great Northwest Homebrew Competition - 2017 TBC

Steve and Rich are still planning The Great Northern Homebrew Competition.

Cloudwater Off Flavour Offer

In our Nov meetup we discussed off flavours as our main topic. Cloudwater are offering anyone local who either work in the industry, home brew, or just do your bit to support good beer, and would like to join them at the brewery for off flavour training, then please email them on info@cloudwaterbrew.co.

http://cloudwaterbrew.co/blog/looking-back-whilst-pushing-forward - See the 2017 trends section.

Sour Kettling

Keith likes his sour beers so this month we asked him how he sour kettles. Although methods can differ here's what he had to say:

Add lactic bacteria after kettle. For example yakult but Keith has his own culture going on. Keep it at a higher than normal fermentation for up to 48 hours. He places it in a warm room with some hot water bottles and a towel over it. The lactic bacteria then produces lactic acid. After that boil your work and ferment as normal (or even use Bret). If you are interested and want more details feel free to ask Keith (@jamesksowerby)

Gruit

Keith and Steve are going to be experimenting on his small pilot kit with a non-hopped Gruit beer recipe (medieval) soon.

Gruit is an old-fashioned herb mixture used for bittering and flavoring beer, popular before the extensive use of hops.

Potential Gruit Ingredients (please do be careful and research your ingredients as some can be poisonous if used incorrectly):

• Yarrow
• Tansy
• Rue
• Wormwood
• Dandelion (whole plant)
• Nettles
• Bog myrtle
• Heathers: ling & Cornish
• Barks – oak
• Herbs – thymes, rosemary, fennel
• Camomile
• Caraway, cinnamon, green cardamom
• Sasparella, ginger, chicory root
• Mugwort
• Ground ivy
• Flowers – calendula, elderflower, daisy, rose, gorse
• Juniper – branches & berries
• Spruce buds
• Other pine (not poisonous Yew)

Beers In Attendance

• Stu - Curry Mild - Brewed with garam masala, cumin, paprika, coriander and pepper corns. Simple base beer was marris otter, flaked oats, crystal and magnum hops.
• Stu - East India Porter - A rebrew of a previous recipe but this time with a dry english ale yeast. Recipe included a high percentage of brown malt at 16%. Finished high but still had a nice dryness.
• Stu - Single hopped madarina bavaria - Very nice and easy to drink
• Stu - Single hopped Galaxy.
• Stu - A soured beer with crushed corriander, orange peel, rasberry and fermented with a Belgian yeast. There were hints of diacetyl in the beer but somehow the buttery notes worked in the beer. Someone said think popcorn at the cinema.
• Stu - Blackcurrent Strong Mild - Brewed with all spice, ribena, norther brewer hops and hallertauer mittelfruh hops
• Alex (@AFCBeer) - A green hopped beer (fresh hops not dried) at 5.2%. The beer was a bit funky which was probably from the green hops and had signs of chlorophenol
• Alex (@AFCBeer) - Kolsh - Brewed to please some of his larger friends. Nicely done
• Rob (@DrRobsBrew) - NZ IPA 5.8% - Brewed with nelson sauvin, motueka and rakau.
• Rob (@DrRobsBrew) - A stout called Kick - 4.8% brewed with Chinook
• Keith (@jamesksowerby) - Deep fruit soured & bretted blackberries 5%
• Keith (@jamesksowerby) - Insect God (beer name) - Elderberries, blackberries and boadicea hops, bretted stout
• Keith (@jamesksowerby) - Uniquely Grim - Sour autumn berries, juniper, slow berries
• Craig (@craigcsruk) - 6.7% IPA brewed with Summit, Simcoe, Centennial, and Citra hops. Basically cheated with a load of expensive American hops
• Rich (@rcaller) - 5.2% dunkel hopfen weisse, hull melon, mandarina bavaria
• Rich (@rcaller) - Imperial stout (to be bretted soon!) - Looking to be a good beer in 9 months or so.

Top Tip Of The Month

A number of people have been experiencing issues with chlorophenol off flavors over the past 6 months. Just boiling your water might not be enough. To be sure treat your water with a campden tablet.

Campden tablets (sodium metabisulphite) can be added to remove chlorine and chloramine from your tap water. 1/4-1/2 of a tablet per 5 gallons left for just 15-30 minutes can help significantly.

Note

You can also find us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/mancshomebrew/

**As always there may be inaccuracies in this article as beer was consumed on the day and whilst writing the article.