What have I been doing…..or thinking about

Hello there, its been a while. Have I been somewhere or really busy? No not really, just not blogging much?

Well sort of busy, lots going on with work, silly season upon us, trying to fit in some beer related stuff, all that. Oh and I joined twitter (@idreamofbrewery). Twitter is a wonderful, it gets you free beer, lets you know where important things like taco trucks are and puts you in touch with tons of ideas in tiny bites, kind of like mind tapas. It is distracting me from blogging though.

So to blog!

What have I been up to in relation to beer. Still planning some kind of beer company thing for 2013, love the concept but am still a little intimidated by the actual delivery bit. I need to put some stuff on paper, which I will do when I’m on hols at the beach over Christmas. Sorted.

I’ve also been doing a bit of recipe thinking, and part of the research for that is knocking through a few old homebrews, mainly different version of saisons (of which I happily have a good stash). Damn these beers age well. As I think I’ve concluded previously, less is more when it comes to recipes for saisons. IPA’s on the other hand, more is more :).

The harvest has started at my parents farm, barley being harvested right now I think (that is if they have fixed the harvester, broken shaft I think) so I’ll put down a few harvest beers, mainly saisons. I love to throw some fresh wheat, oats or barley from the farm in the mash. I’ll also have some fresh hops on the go too. I think I’ll also do some fruit beers, well chuck some fruit in a saison. I may also need to brew some beer for my brother in-laws 40th in January. I really should be focused on beers that I’d like to take to market but the creative juices want to flow! ah well compromise may need to kick in.

Oh and what should my first beer release be? let me know if you have a suggestion, I’m thinking a saison and/or and IPA.

I’m still trying plenty of new beers, not really saying a whole lot about them though as I don’t really see the need to write about the ho-hum, so so or terrible beers any more. As they say if you can’t say anything nice….. Some IPA’s have let me down a little lately, many excitable releases from breweries are just not giving me what I want in an IPA, that is to be a hop delivery device. Perhaps I’m just getting beers that are past their best or I expect too much? Of recent times I’ve been impressed by beers from MoonDog, Mountain Goat and Heretic, and of course good old Saison DuPont and Cantilion.

This trend was bucked last night 8 wired Superconductor Double IPA. I’m not going to go into the “it tasted like…” but it tasted like a double IPA should, hoppy with a good malty booze backbone. Great tropical citrus nose and flavor, with a firm bitterness. Soren, again you’ve hit the nail on the head, great beer.

That’ll do for now, didn’t really go anywhere with this post. Well no I had a bit of a winge and dumped some of my thoughts down. Ah well, perhaps a more productive post next time.

Cheers D

 

 

DuPont, Radelaide and Josie Bones

Tomorrow I go to Radelaide.

Tonight I’m drinking a Saison Dupont, the big one, not the regular one (Super Saison?). I think it’s a 9% beer, but its on the bench in the kitchen and I’m on the couch watching TV (got to love those Doug Pitt adds). Anyway great beer, really nice earthy character, its smooth but with a bit of a tang. It’s a great beer with a nice but of warming booze, in a similar fashion to a tripel or a Duvel. Get yourself one, I got mine from Grain and Grape.

Anyway that’s not what I wanted to write about tonight. I’ve been kinda busy, OK and a little lazy, but I went to Josie Bones with my good mate Crackas last week for a bit of bromance of the meat and beer type. If you like meat and beer then and havent been there then what the fuck are you doing? no really, they have crackling of the day and plenty of offal, all backed up by a killer beer list.

We didn’t go too over board, crackling of the day (it was pork) oysters, some kind of pork spring roll, some awesome goat, some black pudding. I may have left something off the list, Crackas will help out if I have. I’m not going to bang on about the food too much, only that it was awesome.

Now to the beer. Josie Bones is making their own beer, at 3 Ravens I think. Anyway they are calling it a golden IPA. They had it on tap as a bit of a mystery beer under the name of Hop Junkie. It’s a pale hoppy beer, perhaps more hoppy and bitter than the average IPA, but with a little less in the area of malt complexity that some IPA’s give, and a little less in the area of booze. This beer is headed in the right direction. Stick at it Josie Bones, this one is headed in the right direction.

We also had a couple of Bridge Rd B2 Bombers, a really nice black IPA. I think its improved since I last had it. But I think the beer I finished on was the pick of the evening. It was probably that it suited the mood, but it’s also a fucking fantastic beer. Of course its a beer by 8 Wired, good old Soren. C 4 Double Coffee Brown Ale. Damn that’s a good beer, think a coffee creme brule in a booze form in a glass. Magic stuff. It’s the beer you need after a bunch of excellently cooked animal bits and hoppy beers. It is desert in a glass. I have previously mentioned that I will drink any beer that Soren of 8 Wired makes. The man is a brewing genius. If you see his beer buy it!

Ah well that’s enough talk of good beer and food at Josie Bones, its in Collingwood Melbourne. If you havent been there track it down. Its my happy place of beer and meat. As for beers by 8 Wired they are in NZ, and excellent, and the Bridge Rd stuff is in Beechworth. I’m lazy right now so you can find the links yourself. It wont be hard.

Damn this saison is good too, can’t dispute that Saison Du Pont know their shit when it comes to saisons.

That’ll do for now, very slack post, but its been a long day so I’ll let myself off.

Cheers D

PS – just need to clarify that at no stage did myself and Crackas hug, that would be inappropriate for a manly bromance of beer and offal

Haywired by 8 Wired

As you know I love any beer by Soren Eriksen, brewer and owner at 8 Wired Brewing. The man makes some good beer, I’m yet to have a fail from him yet.

Now back to the beer via a long side track. Many of you are familiar with small square hay bales, for those of you that arent they are about 50 cm x 50cm x 80cm. That could be wrong but it’s about right, they are blocks of hay, grass, fodder, crop, all packed together tightly in a parcel that you can store for later use to feed livestock. These bales are bound up with string these days, bailing twine. A black red or blue string that cuts into your hand when you move thousands of the bastards by hand. This was a job I had every year as a kid. I actually liked it and was kind of good at building haystacks (never had one fall over). I also earned enough cash to buy my first car, ah that awesome 1982 Datsun/Nissan Bluebird TRX with a sunroof with a bloody great eagle on it. It was the sporty model, mag wheels and a number of extra gauges. I loved that shitty car. Anyway I carted in thousands of bales of hay each year for quite a while.

Yep, thats a massive head, excitable but tasty beer

Prior to string bales were bound with wire, bailing wire. Now I don’t know what number this wire was, but it was commonly used to fix things.

Gates, fences, cars, radio antenna. Nothing that needed fixing properly but needed to be fixed well enough to get the thing going. Number 8 wire (its a measurement of the weight or thickness of the wire) is also used in a similar manner. I’ve heard Soren talk that there is a link in his brewery name to this principle of patching things up to keep the show on the road, hence the 8 wired name. Add the beer called Haywired and we tighten the link up some more, bailing wire, hay wire, 8 wire.

Anyway I thought that was interesting.

Now to the beer. Its a 4.6% Abv hoppy pale beer with a lot of wheat in it. It’s not a heff or a witt, just a beer with a lot of wheat, hops and a British yeast. I’ve made beers like this myself many a time, I think the last time was for my little sisters wedding, love them. I think the hops and wheat give a really dry quenching taste to the beer. There is something really nice about the combination of an english yeast, some big hops and a bunch of wheat. I often use unmalted wheat but that’s just because its cheap and on hand.

This would be an excellent beer for a hot night (which tonight isnt by the way). I do have to note that the beer was really excitable, way over carbonated making it a bitch to pour but that’s my only negative thing on this beer. Its not a wow beer, but its one I’d happily drink (and brew, well my own version off) again.

Oh and despite all the reminiscing, no I really don’t miss moving all those hay bales. I was young and fit then.

Cheers D

Le Merle, a saison

A man with a hammer drill had a very productive day installing air con ducts on the 4th floor of my building. I work on the 5th floor.

King Brown!!

This did not make for a productive day for me. The vibrations went right through the concrete floor, my chair, my desk, my head. After that, a session at the gym and a late train I need a beer.

Thankfully I went to Purvis Beer in Richmond and grabbed a selection of beers over the weekend, mostly new ones and some old favorites. I had a bottle of 8 Wired Tall Poppy watching a DVD on Saturday evening, excellent beer. Love your work Soren. I also had a beer from Brew Boys, a South Australian brewery, King Brown. I think I went to beer school with one of the brewers. It was a nice beer, nothing too amazing, but still quite nice. I have a bottle of their stout in the fridge, apparently its a fairly handy beer.

But now to tonight’s beer, a saison, Le Merle from North Coast Brewing. I grabbed this beer mainly because I havent had it (or heard of it) and figured it couldn’t hurt in my search for the perfect saison. The bottle was interesting too. I’ve had some North Coast Brewing Co. beers before I think at a good beer week event last year. They were solid, nothing awesome, but good beers all the same.

So to this one, Le Merle. It’s a fairly heavy beer, plenty of yeast flavor, almost towards a triple or something bigger than I expect in a saison. It is however 7.9% ABV. That’s a little bigger than I like my saisons. But it is a nice beer, not in the class of a Saison DuPont, but very worthy of drinking. It’s probably closer to the Bridge Rd Saison than the DuPont actually.

However it is not a beer your going to get stuck into as you work in the fields of Walonia, or anywhere else for that matter. And for that reason it wont be something that I’ll aspire to brewing myself as a saison. That said I wouldn’t say not to another one, way better than sitting in the office with a hammer drill going under your feet.

Cheers D

Sunday and Batch 18, an 8 Wired production

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.

I generally like Sunday. The morning is good. Sleep in and get some breakfast. The arvo is ok too. Perhaps a beer, perhaps some wandering, maybe even exercise (no promises on that though). Its Sunday evening that really lets the show down as it’s all that stands between you and Monday.

Mondays suck. I’m doing budgets at work right now. Finance is not my friend and the whole income v expenditure thing at my place of employment isn’t so great. Not shut the doors and walk away stuff, but it could be a whole lot nicer.

So how to make Sunday evening bearable I try to relax and chill out. Some TV usually makes up part of if for me, Bones right now, and a bit of Grand Designs. Ah Kevin the way you wander around a weird house shaking your head thinking “what the fuck are they thinking?” while commenting on how its wonderful that people can build their dream, and that it represents them being themselves and their spirit or something along the lines of that. I do like some of the funky buildings, Kevin’s jackets are often pretty cool too.

So what else can I do to get through to Monday? Have a beer, I’m off to the fridge right now, lets see how we go. Oh and tonight Bones is about finding random feet in Canada. I think that happened for real? OK beer time.

Jackpot time! I have a bottle of 8 wired Batch 18 – Barrel Aged Imperial Stout. As I have previously blogged I pretty much love everything that Soren Eriksen, head brewer from 8 Wired has put out. From my first couple of sips this has not changed. This beer see’s my man crush on Soren continue.

It’s over 12% ABV so perfect for a Sunday evening (as long as you are not opperating heavy machinery). OK perhaps not. According to the bottle it has a shit load of malt and hops (perhaps some US ones?), a bunch of sugar, a couple of yeasts (perhaps the first one died mid brew?) and some coffee then chuck the lot in an oak barrel. How could that be anything but good? The best way to describe this beer is rich, really rich tasting. Its kind of desert like in that manner, not sweet, kind of bittersweet. Like a really dark chocolate, one of the good ones. I think the oak adds a little vanilla, and the coffee is there in the background. Have I mentioned I really like this beer?

I like it that Soren has made it to his 18th batch (and is probably made it past that now). From the course I went to yesterday (that wasnt really a course, more an ad but I’ll write about that some other time. Perhaps) bugger all breweries make it past the idea stage, something like 9%? So good for you Soren, and you make kick arse beers. The sweet roastiness of this beer is great.

I’ve got some beers in the making that are heading towards the land of flavor that this beer lives in. Not the booze, just the flavor. Following a room temp off the keg taste with Dan yesterday the porter on coco nibs has a chocolate topping like flavor, chocolate and more chocolate, and the stout on oak has a great woody, spicy, vanilla backbone on it. Both were great but need some carbonation sorted out in them. Personally I’m wrapped with them, was expecting some kind of mmmmm what’s that taste moment. Instead I just smiled. Like I did when I tasted the Batch 18. It really reminds me of Brew Dog’s Tokyo. Got all the same things going for it with a bit less booze. Still don’t drive after this one kids.

Have a nice Sunday evening people, and I hope Monday isnt so rough on you.

Cheers D

Obsessions and Saison Sauvin

I think I am prone to getting really hooked things. There are a number of things that for me the answer is always yes. This presents in many different ways, for music for example its the man crush I have on Tex Perkins and Tim Rogers. Sign me up for more or less anything involving either of them. If they are both in try and keep me away. For food when travelling it involves getting in a cue of locals for what ever they are getting. This has gotten me dodgy street pizza in Cuba, and a whole bunch of random but awesome food in Japan. Ah the Takoyaki and Okonomiyaki.

I am developing a new crush on a brewery 8 Wired Brewing Co. from NZ. So far I don’t have a bad word to say about any of the beers I have tried from these guys (I think I’ve blogged about them?). That leads me to the beer sitting right in front of me now. Saison Sauvin, surprisingly enough this is a saison hopped with Nelson Sauvin. Now I love saisons but until recently I’ve been unconvinced by the merits of Nelson Sauvin, mainly from my own brewing and I don’t think I’d found the right home for it until I dry hopped a beer with it. I’ll be doing more of that in the future.

Ah but back to the beer, its everything I don’t really think a saison should be . But I like it. It has hte French saison yeast, rather than the Belgian one I love. It is 7% ABV, way bigger than I like a saison to be, and has a fair amount of character malt in it, adding a nice amber hue and a malt sweetness. I kind of like the lighter bodied ones. What I am describing as my kind of saison is Saison DuPont. I know its far to easy to pick the gold class standard for a saison as my favorite but its simply an awesome beer. Simple yet complex and vastly different to the Saison Sauvin.

So why do I like it? The tropical fruit hop aroma mixes with the skunky yeast character and just works. It may even have a wine character to the nose? Flavour wise there is a sweetness to the beer, but a nice bitter after taste that lets you know that you are having a saison.

This is a good beer, perhaps confirming my crush on 8 Wired Brewing Co. Look out Soren Eriksen (8 Wired Brewer), keep making beers like this and I may end up with a man crush on you! God help me if you put out a beer/album with Tex Perkins and Tim Rogers in an obscure Japanese town.

Cheers D

Hopwired IPA – Finally

I’m back from the far east and have nearly regained my taste buds. The far east was interesting and involved many discussions about wild dogs, not dingos, wild dogs. The buggers eat sheep and I am not a fan of their work. In case anyone is wondering the far east is Gippsland. I am not a fan of Gippsland, it is east of Melbourne and I’m from the west. That’s about it.

However driving there I remembered one thing that I do rate in gippy, the vanilla slice at the Yaragon bakery. It rocks. Good vanilla slices are almost non existent in Melbourne. If you are driving through Yaragon get one into you. Yaragon also has an Ale House; a combination bottle shop home brew shop. I have now visited there, they have an OK beer selection but give it the miss if your home brew supplies can be purchased from Coles. I will leave it at that.

Anyway I’m home now and am having a Hopwired IPA. I liked their Tall Popy India Red Ale, a beer all about the malt, and I like this one which is all about the hops, as any good IPA should be.

Its bitter, that is for certain, and inspired by the US IPA’s rather than the English styles. The hop nose is however a whole different thing, not the usual US IPA citrus/pine twang. The label sites the beer as being 100% NZ hops, I get a hit of Nelson Sauvin and what i can best describe as a fruit salad or two fruits (tinned pear and peach combo). I just hope that my nose is unblocked enough to do the beer justice. It’s 7.3% ABV so the booze should help clear my head some more.

There is a fair malt sweetness that sits well with the bitterness, it is not however sticky or chewy. Again I like this beer but am finding the use of the NZ hops rather than the citrusy and piney hops that I usually associate with this style of beer a little challenging, distracting and just damn intriguing. I don’t know that I would want to replicate it but it may be something that grows on you, like the new Vegemite. First taste I didn’t know about it but I like it now. Actually I haven’t brought that since it first came out and had a bad name but that’s not the point.

This is a good beer and you should buy it if you have the chance. I got mine from Grain and Grape in Yarravllie but I’m guessing that most of the good beer shops should have some on stock. Now on a completely unrelated issue why does the blog editor thing give me pictures of volleyball players when ever I type in NZ?? I really don’t understand this.

All this tasting IPA is making me think that I really need to brew one, haven’t done that since last June. Well overdue. Now I’m tired and must stop typing to drink some more beer and watch Bobs Burgers. Like new Vegemite and Hopwired IPA I like it.

Cheers D