Sept 2017 Meet Writeup
This month saw us sample the 'Will It Brew?' beers, a number of freebies, confirmation of a mid-week meetup and overall a great turnout of people and beers.
Will It Brew
We can all honestly say that the will it brew challenge was a success which produced some very interesting and unique beers. We enjoyed it so much that this challenge will likely feature again next year. Here's what the group produced:
Steve - Porcini Mushrooms - 7.5%
Beer brewed with the porcini mushrooms as well as a white wine kit. Subtle and surprisingly good.
James & Lucy - Dried Pigs Blood - 3.7%
A trio of beers using the same base beer for experimental comparison.
B- A smoked Porter base beer with no blood
Blood Light A mid-range amount of blood. Most noticeable difference was the mouthfeel.
Beery Black Pudding Lots of blood. Some hints of metallic and slight graininess to the mouthfeel. Someones feedback was "needs more blood..."!
Ali - Star Anise - 7.5%
Chineese Takeaway inspired beer brewed with star anise, ginger and chilies. Certainly nailed what he was after. Taste and heat built up into a serious amout of afterburn after only a few sips.
Tom - Bale of Meadow Hay - 4.5%
A sour bret beer with hay added during the mash. You could actually taste the hay!
Keith - 500g of Old Fuggle Hops
Brewed with Kveik yeast Keith attempted to make a normalish beer. Not supprisingly his beer was sour. Probably got infected with his house bret.
Rich - Black Treacle - 6%
American Brown Ale brewed with 2x tins of Lyles Black Treacle. Almost tastes like a bannoffe pie. Hmmm
Craig - Burdock Saison
A table saison brewed with Belgian Ale II yeast, addition of black treacle and a steeped dried burdock tea.
Arron - Tropical Blast - 8.5%
NE IPA + Tropical Blast boiled down to a syrup and used to prime the bottles with.
Monday 2nd Oct: Mid-Week Meetup
We've been working behind the scenes and are about ready to move forward with organising that cross-group meet up thing we've been on about.
On Monday 2nd October there's the inaugral midweek cross-group homebrewers meeting at The Gasworks from 6pm. Topics of discussion are what the local groups can achieve together, sharing of information, coordination of events (such as the HomebrewExpo) as well as sampling a few beers and providing an opportunity for those that can't make their local group's normal meets.
This is a great opportunity for us all and we'd like to see as many homebrewers there as possible!
November Cluster Hop Challenge
For the November meetup we have challenged the group to produce a single hopped beer using only Cluster hops. The rules are:
- No other hops other than Cluster hops can be used
- Any malts
- Any yeast/bret
- Any style
Thanks to the Chorlton Homebrewers for giving us 3kg of Cluster hops for free. Most people should have plenty. If you don't have any ask the group I'm sure some of us will have more than we need.
Other Events/Competitions
- Beer Nouveau - 29th & 30th Sept - Weird Is My Happy Place. 13 weird beers including... Pizza, Champignon & Chardonnay, Strawberry Shortcake, Black Treacle Double Weiss, Cock Ale and Meat Stout.
- bru·bi·a·ce·ae² (Coffee Beer Competition)
- BrewCon - 12th Nov (London)
- Beer Nouveau - Cider Event sometime in Nov. Will including talks and varius cider apples present.
- Beer Nouveau - Mead Event sometime in Dec. Lancashire Mead Company should be present who are extremely informative and helpful about homebrewing mead.
- Black Friday Homebrew Competition - 20th Nov - Black Friday Homebrew Competition organized by London Amateur Brewers, UBrew, Bermondsey, London.
- Stockport Beer Festival homebrew competition will be running again next year.
More Beers In Attendance
- Matt - Joined us for the first time and wanted feedback on his pale ale brewed from a standard kit. Notes of acetaldehyde (green apples) were detected. Tips to swap out the kit yeast (typically smaller pack) for a Safale S‑04 and to re-hydrate the yeast to avoid stressing the yeast.
- Steve - Mercer's Meat Stout - A historic recipe brewed with beef extract. Think bovril. You can try this beer at Beer Nouveau on 29th & 30th Sept.
- Steve - Cock Ale - A historic 1600's recipe where you boil a whole chicken in a 3hr boil. Apparently the chicken was also delicious afterwards. You can try this beer at Beer Nouveau on 29th & 30th Sept.
- Arron - Brought another beer from the Homebrew Forum experimental competition for feedback. This one was produced by John Baker and was a beetroot & horseradish saison.
- Steve - Blackberry Kveik with a pale ale base.
- Pen & Mike - English IPA brewed with mangroves jacks yeast, fuggles and goldings. Brewed to the BJCP category guidelines. Initially sweet but with a building bitterness.
- Rob - Lager brewed over winter without temp control to see if it could be done. It worked and produced a solid lager. Great planning.
- Rich - Bitter/pale summer ale
- Rob - Brewdog libertine clone from the DIY DOG recipes list.
- Ali - IPA - A dry IPA with Grapefruit zest brewed with fermont ale yeast. Really good.
- Ali - Bretted with no boil and no hops with additions of lemon.
- Keith - 'I want to marry a lighthouse' an imperial bretted mocha using sumatra coffee and his house bret. Superb.
- Keith - Light lager sour.
- Arron - Brewed with Nottingham ale yeast, special B, EKG & hallertauer mittelfrueh hops.
- James & Lucy - Westvleteren 12 clone. A superb beer.
Ideas
We are always looking for ideas for future meetups, challenges, topics and ways to improve the group. If you have any ideas do let us know.
Someone suggested that we add a recipes section to the website. I will take a look at doing that.
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.