I find a lot of the commercially brewed imperial souts to be far too sweet and cloying. In designing this recipe I therefore wanted to balance the inevitable sweetness that comes with a really big beer with enough hops to ensure that it did not taste like drinking alcoholic treacle. My plan was to aid in this by using Brett to dry out the beer beyond what Saccharomyces would be able to handle, as well as hopping quite generously to ensure a good balance of bitterness.

I brewed this beer as a parti-gyle brew with approximately half the sugars going into a more conventional stout and half going into this imperial stout, with only half the water. Thus the volume is half the size of my usual batch. I have adjusted the grain quantities to this half size to account for this. In designing the grist I had two goals, first to use large amounts of caramel malts to build body and complexity, and second to use up the last bits of various specialty malts that I had accumulated.

I hopped with Magnum and Newport for a total IBU of 50, which should be enough to balance the inevitable sweetness of such a big beer without the bitterness clashing with the roast character from the dark malts.

I brewed the beer in February 2015 and pitched the M03 yeast. After a month the gravity had dropped to 1.030 and the yeast acitivity had pretty much stopped. At this point I added the Brett claussenii, with the expectation that it would be able to do what the Saccaromyces could not, and eat up some of those complex sugars produced by the high amounts of caramel malts and the high mash temperature. It still took the Brett another 3 months to drop the gravity down to 1.018 and for me to consider the beer ready to bottle.

Appearance

Pitch black and opaque even at the edges of the glass, the beer looks every part the imperial stout. The tan head is quite insubstantial and the low carbonation means you don't get much of it.

Smell

A mild, earthy funk of olives, farmyard and citrus combines with the sweet, coffee and smoky character of the roast malts. The funkiness of the beer has gradually increased as it has conditioned in the bottle, but even now, 6 months after bottling, it is not particularly strong.

Taste

The body is thick, with the slight carbonation providing only a tiny bit of lightness. There's alcohol here for sure, 9.7% ABV can't easily be hidden. But there's also lots of dried fruit and coffee. Above it all there are hints of spices and citrus and olives, perhaps from the Brett.

Final Words

I'm very happy with how this turned out. The funk of the Brett melds well with the other flavours in the beer and has produced a very tasty, heavy beer, perfect for a winter evening.

Vital Details

Batch size: 10l
Expected OG: 1.095
Expected FG: 1.020
Expected ABV: 9.7%
Colour (SRM): 41.9
IBU: 50

Grist:
50.7% (2.25 kg) Pale Ale Malt
11.3% (0.50 kg) Munich Malt
11.3% (0.50 kg) Flaked Spelt
5.6% (0.25 kg) Toasted Oats
5.6% (0.25 kg) Flaked Wheat
4.8% (0.22 kg) Roasted Barley
3.4% (0.15 kg) CaraPils
2.3% (0.10 kg) CaraAmber
2.3% (0.10 kg) CaraBelge
1.7% (0.08 kg) Black Malt
1.1% (0.05 kg) CaraAroma

Hops:
Magnum (9g / 20 IBU) @ 60 min
Newport (20g / 20 IBU) @ 15 min
Newport (25g / 10 IBU) @ 5 min

Yeast:
Mangrove Jack's M03 Newcastle Dark Ale
Wyeast 5151-PC Brettanomyces claussenii

It's been quite a while since I last wrote anything on here. I've been pretty busy, but I have also brewed some interesting beers. Perhaps then it's appropriate to write about a beer that I brewed in August last year and bottled in June this year. Death and Gravity is an old ale fermented with a red wine yeast and brett. After fermentation was mostly done I racked the beer into two 12l PET carboys and added some rum-barrel oak cubes. I then pretty much forgot about the beer for a while, occasionally thinking I should perhaps bottle it, but not getting round to it. The result was that the beer sat on the oak for 9 months before I finally got round to bottling.

The resulting beer is a fantastically clear, dark red with a strong oak character. It is perhaps fitting for a beer fermented with red wine yeast that it looks like an aged Pinot Noir. The oak was rather overwhelming at first but has mellowed in the 4 months since bottling. I aimed for a rather low level of carbonation at 2.1 vol of CO₂ and it works well here. The brett character is minimal though, with only the slightest hints of funk peeking round the edges here and there. With 8.4% alcohol it comes as no surprise that there is a noticeable alcohol warmth present too.

Overall I'm not entirely happy with how this beer turned out. There is simply something not quite right about it, the oak is perhaps a bit too strong, or the alcohol too pronounced or the brett not quite funky enough. Put simply it's all somehow off-balance. Must try harder next time, I guess.

Now here is a beer I that makes me really happy! It has turned out better than I would have dared to hope, drinkable, hoppy, spicy and a real looker too. This is a beer brewed like a traditional weizen, but hopped with plenty of New Zealand hops. I brewed it at the end of last year and it had a full month in the fermenter before I got round to bottling it. It ended up a touch lower in ABV than I had expected, coming in at 4.5% instead of the predicted 4.8%. Apart from that the fermentation went about as well could be hoped.

Appearance

The first thing you notice about this beer is the fantastic head on it. Just as a weizen should be, the slightly off-white head is big, moussy and long lasting, hanging around the whole time you drink the beer. The body is golden-orange in colour and quite hazy.

Smell

The nose is all about the hops. Peaches, citrus, pine and woody notes.

Taste

Spices, then more spices. Here the yeast really shines through with peppery notes combining with cloves and oak. I'd like to think that the ferulic acid rest I did during the brew had something to contribute too... The four and a half percent make this incredibly drinkable and unlike more traditional weizen, the increased hopping means it doesn't start feeling too sweet after a while.

Final Words

Must brew again. That is all.

One of the unsolved issues I have with recipe design is how to take into account the fermentability of the wort during recipe design. How fermentable the wort is depends on, among other things, mash schedule, yeast choice, and grain bill.

Higher mash temperatures will result in more complex sugars which are not as easy for most yeasts to utilise. The use of crystal malts has a similar effect. In addition, some yeasts such as Brettanomyces are able to utilise sugars that ordinary brewers yeasts cannot, while many wine yeasts cannot metabolise maltotriose. The combination of these factors makes it quite difficult to calculate the attenuation that one might expect for a beer which deviates from the average.

This porter is a good example of just such a beer. The use of crystal malts, unmalted adjuncts and high mash temperatures means that my estimated of attenuation were off by quite a lot.

I brewed John Frum as a fairly straightforward porter, with the aim of achieving the sort of full mouthfeel that I like in my dark, wintery beers. Thanks to those efforts I expected to have produced a relatively unfermentable wort and consequently, to get quite low attenuation. I bottled after 3 weeks in the fermenter, cold crashing the beer on the balcony now that the temperatures are finally cold enough for that to be possible. At the final count I ended up with an OG of 1.018, which is an attenuation of 70% and a fair bit less than one would normally expect from Nottingham, but not unexpected considering the unfermentable wort.

Appearance

Dark, but almost completely clear, the reddish copper hues just about show through at the narrower parts of the glass. It pours with a dense tan head that hangs about quite a while and leaves a nice bit of lacing on the glass.

Smell

There is are hints of dark fruits, spice and roasty malt with an almost smoky character in the nose, but it's pretty subtle. As the beer warms up the spice becomes more noticable.

Taste

The flavour leads with sweet, caramelly malt which is followed by dried fruits and finally a palate-cleansing bitterness that just about prevents the beer tasting too sweet. The mouthfeel is slick and oily, coating the palate pleasantly and never tasting too thin. I think this is likely to be due to the rye and oats in the grain bill. Both rye and oats have a tendency to add a somewhat thick, oily character to beer thanks to the large amounts of beta-glucans they contribute to the wort. The medium carbonation is just about right here, lending some brightness to what might otherwise be a slightly heavy feeling beer.

Final Words

This has proved to be a rather popular beer with my friends, and two weeks after bottling, most of it is already gone. I will have to hoard the remaining bottles if I'm to have any chance of finding out how it ages over the next few months.

Voodoo Child is the love child of an American IPA and a Saison. I bottled it after three weeks in the primary, having dry-hopped it for 5 days with 120g of hops, equal parts Mosaic, Newport and Amarillo. I primed the bottles with 120g of table sugar for an estimated 2.4 volumes of CO₂. With an FG of 1.011 giving it 5.4% ABV, this should make for a great session beer.

Appearance

The beer pours with a thin white head that dissipates pretty quickly. I had hoped for a longer-lasting head. But perhaps it needs a bit more time in the bottle for that, the carbonation is slightly lower than I would have liked. The colour is pale golden orange, with only a touch of haze.

Smell

Juicy and sweet with a wonderful combination of tropical fruit and citrus. There's a suggestion of spice in there too.

Taste

The juicy fruit flavours follow you from the nose, giving way to a gentle, spicy, bitterness that lingers on the palate. The Saison yeast has really done its work nicely here, producing a great, earthy spiciness in the finish.

Final Words

I'm really pretty happy with how this turned out. Apart from the slight under-carbonation, all the elements come together to make a very drinkable beer indeed.