Last week I told you how we received 9 oak barrels and filled 2 of them with The Big Smoke, just as a trial. Next week the real fun begins:
We're brewing a huge (huge!) imperial stout. this will ferment in the stainless steel tanks over Christmas and when we get back from the holidays I will rack it into the barrels to mature for a few months.
I'm expecting it to finish off at 12-13% abv which may make it the biggest stout ever brewed in the southern hemisphere? Prove me wrong please;-) I'm not making it that strong for people to get hammered quickly (trust me, no one will be able to binge this), I'm doing it to achieve maximum flavour. That being said, I could probably keep it at 10% and still have all the flavour, but since I've never worked with wooden barrels before, I think it is wise to give the beer as much defence against any microbes that may be living in the wood. Alcohol is, of course, poisonous to yeast and bacteria.
Recipe wise this is by far the most complicated beer I've ever made:
7 different malts from 5 different countries (NZ, UK, Germany, Belgium and Australia)
3 Different hops (NZ and USA)
Jaggery (a Delicious raw sugar from India)
Fair Trade coffee (grown in South East Asia and roasted by local Marlborough roasters, CPR)
2 different yeasts (Wyeast 1272 and 1968. And possibly a third if they can't finish the job)
And of course the big unknown, the barrels.
We have received all the ingredients, except for the Jaggery which has only just been released from MAF quarantine, hopefully it will be here by Wednesday.
To be honest the recipe looks quite chaotic but as we would say in Danish "there is reason behind the madness" and I'm confident it will all come together in harmony. Therefore the working title for this beer is "Cosmic Chaos". But if that name sticks around to the bottle, it would be a first. Usually we go through a few different names during the process before we settle on one for the labels. Another noteworthy fact is that this will be our 18th batch. We were always planning on doing something special for batch number 8, but this came around so fast and we had to brew an ordinary HopWired to satisfy demand. Back then we said to each other, "We'll do something special for batch 18 instead". I think it's safe to say that, if nothing else, this will be special!
Friday, December 10, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Barrels. We've got barrels!
Earlier this week we received 9 american oak barrels from fellow craftbrewer Luke Nicholas of Epic Brewing Co. It is hard for me to conceal my enthusiasm, although non-beer people around me doesn't seem to understand. So let me try:
Wooden barrels are hard to work with when it comes to beer. Unlike stainless steel (which everything in the brewery is usually made of) they can't be completely sterilized, microbes will always find somewhere to hide in the porous wood. In other words, it makes brewing harder, because much more work goes into cleaning and maintaining the barrels which is why most breweries don't bother.
But of course, I am not excited because of the extra work involved but because of the opportunities the barrels provide. Barrel aging brings complexity to the beer. Tannins, vanilla flavours, micro oxidation, depth! Bourbon for example, is basically a tasteless, white spirit that has been aged in american oak barrels. Virtually all the flavour is contributed by the oak. Weather you like bourbon or not, you can imagine what the barrels can do to an already excellent beer.
Epic used the barrels for 2 batches of beer, an IPA and a Stout. Upon first examination, they don't seem to have much beer character in them. The smell is very oaky, very bourbony. I think they have a lot of life left in them and I will make sure to put them to good use. In fact, I already have: This morning I filled two of them with The Big Smoke which I will leave in there for a month or two. I've never worked with barrels before so I don't really know how long to mature the beer. Time will tell.
After that I'm planning a big imperial stout. Bigger than lasts years iStout (which by the way will return to the shelves in May). After primary fermentation in the stainless fermenters I will rack it into the barrels and leave sit until it's ready to bottle. I'm guessing 2 or 3 months should do.
I think this may be the beginning of a glorious adventure into the world of wood!
Wooden barrels are hard to work with when it comes to beer. Unlike stainless steel (which everything in the brewery is usually made of) they can't be completely sterilized, microbes will always find somewhere to hide in the porous wood. In other words, it makes brewing harder, because much more work goes into cleaning and maintaining the barrels which is why most breweries don't bother.
But of course, I am not excited because of the extra work involved but because of the opportunities the barrels provide. Barrel aging brings complexity to the beer. Tannins, vanilla flavours, micro oxidation, depth! Bourbon for example, is basically a tasteless, white spirit that has been aged in american oak barrels. Virtually all the flavour is contributed by the oak. Weather you like bourbon or not, you can imagine what the barrels can do to an already excellent beer.
Epic used the barrels for 2 batches of beer, an IPA and a Stout. Upon first examination, they don't seem to have much beer character in them. The smell is very oaky, very bourbony. I think they have a lot of life left in them and I will make sure to put them to good use. In fact, I already have: This morning I filled two of them with The Big Smoke which I will leave in there for a month or two. I've never worked with barrels before so I don't really know how long to mature the beer. Time will tell.
After that I'm planning a big imperial stout. Bigger than lasts years iStout (which by the way will return to the shelves in May). After primary fermentation in the stainless fermenters I will rack it into the barrels and leave sit until it's ready to bottle. I'm guessing 2 or 3 months should do.
I think this may be the beginning of a glorious adventure into the world of wood!
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Long time no see
It has been far too long since the last blog. I apologize but life has been quite hectic: We have been finishing up a big export order for both 8 Wired and Renaissance, destined for the Shelton Brothers in the US. We also shipped 2 pallets to Better Beer Imports in Melbourne and one to Denmark where fellow contract brewer Mikkeller will distrubute to my native people.
On top of all that work, Monique gave birth to our gorgeous baby girl, Mia Sarina Eriksen, on the 23rd of September. She's behaving pretty good but obviously still consumes a lot of time. Great fun and really exciting being a parent. She's so tiny and I can't figure out how she can make noises that loud!:)
Since the last blog we also scooped a bronze, silver, gold and best in class trophy at the BrewNZ awards in August. I don't mean to neglect the awesomeness of this achievement but there's not much else more to say about it. We haven't received our judges notes yet but I am eager to see why iStout and ReWired didn't win anything.
After being a judge for the first time myself this year I realize that ReWired was probably in the wrong category. Although I call it a brown ale, it is probably too big for the style and might fit better in the porter category. Beer judging is a lot more complex than one might think and really quite fascinating.
Of other news, last week we brewed a batch of a beer I have been dreaming about for months, a beer with big malt, big hops and big drinkability. It has the malt backbone of a big amber/red ale, almost scothch ale like, and the hoppiness of an IPA. Consequently I call it an "India Red Ale" and the name is Tall Poppy. This time we are also swaying away from one of our original mantras about brewing solely with NZ hops. I just couldn't find a NZ combo that would work in this beer, without making it a red HopWired or a bigger version of Red Dwarf. So in the end I went with American Warrior, Amarillo, Simcoe and Columbus, and I'm really happy about the choice. The first batch will be released in kegs only and hopefully before christmas we will have labels for the second batch which will become the fourth member of our permanent range, along with ReWired, HopWired and Big smoke.
Finally, I think I told you last time that I was getting a pilot brewery from Liberty Brewing. I've been playing a lot with this and at the moment I'm doing a series of belgian inspired beers. If I'm happy with the results we might make these on a large scale in the new year. Starting with a smallish quaffer for the tap market and following up with a tripel and a quadrupel in bottles.
Until next time, and I hope it wont be this long again,
Cheers!
On top of all that work, Monique gave birth to our gorgeous baby girl, Mia Sarina Eriksen, on the 23rd of September. She's behaving pretty good but obviously still consumes a lot of time. Great fun and really exciting being a parent. She's so tiny and I can't figure out how she can make noises that loud!:)
Since the last blog we also scooped a bronze, silver, gold and best in class trophy at the BrewNZ awards in August. I don't mean to neglect the awesomeness of this achievement but there's not much else more to say about it. We haven't received our judges notes yet but I am eager to see why iStout and ReWired didn't win anything.
After being a judge for the first time myself this year I realize that ReWired was probably in the wrong category. Although I call it a brown ale, it is probably too big for the style and might fit better in the porter category. Beer judging is a lot more complex than one might think and really quite fascinating.
Of other news, last week we brewed a batch of a beer I have been dreaming about for months, a beer with big malt, big hops and big drinkability. It has the malt backbone of a big amber/red ale, almost scothch ale like, and the hoppiness of an IPA. Consequently I call it an "India Red Ale" and the name is Tall Poppy. This time we are also swaying away from one of our original mantras about brewing solely with NZ hops. I just couldn't find a NZ combo that would work in this beer, without making it a red HopWired or a bigger version of Red Dwarf. So in the end I went with American Warrior, Amarillo, Simcoe and Columbus, and I'm really happy about the choice. The first batch will be released in kegs only and hopefully before christmas we will have labels for the second batch which will become the fourth member of our permanent range, along with ReWired, HopWired and Big smoke.
Finally, I think I told you last time that I was getting a pilot brewery from Liberty Brewing. I've been playing a lot with this and at the moment I'm doing a series of belgian inspired beers. If I'm happy with the results we might make these on a large scale in the new year. Starting with a smallish quaffer for the tap market and following up with a tripel and a quadrupel in bottles.
Until next time, and I hope it wont be this long again,
Cheers!
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Return of HopWired
The new batch of HopWired is out. Bottles and limited amount of kegs have been available for a few days from our distributor, BeerNZ. It'll be interesting to get some feedback on this one as it is a bit different than last year. The recipe is excactly the same but the hops are from the 2010 harvest. Hops are like any other crop (grapes would be the most obvious example), there is an element of vintage variation. In most beers this variation is hardly noticable because the hops play a secondary role as a flavour component and is mainly used for bitterness. HopWired on the other hand, is all about the hops and the vintage variation will shine through with nothing to hide behind. But you may find that there is not much difference from last year. The difference could be so small that unless you have an intimate knowledge of the hops and the beer, you may not notice the change unless you tasted it side by side with last years. I think there is a difference but hopefully I know the beer better than most... Any feedback is most welcome.
Anyways, all his talk about HopWired reminds me of a poem we received a few months ago from Tony Garstang (Masterton) and Peter Crosland (Wellington):
An Ode to HopWired:
T'was a time in New Zealand,
When good beers were few,
Then a Dane stepped ashore,
And he dreamt of a brew.
With a brew to be made,
He hopped and he wired.
It was bursting with the flavour,
The Dane was afired.
He focused on flavour,
He focused on hops,
The ale was pale,
And the taste it was tops.
The pundits they claimed,
It was lime on the nose,
And besotted old soaks
Did break into prose.
With ales on board,
They raved and they gushed,
Keyboards sang praise,
Till they made the Dane blush.
So let's raise an honoured glass To a beer you just cannot pass.
To the roaming Dane all hail
Accolations to this great pale ale.
I think it's safe to say that Tony and Peter like the beer and they have since written even more poetry that politely commented on the non-availability of their favorite beer. Lads, now it's back and a dozen is headed your way in return for your poetic praise. Thank you very much, you make me blush.
On a sidenote, Beervana is now less than 3 weeks away. It'll be a blast so get your tickets now. It will also be the only chance to try our festive brew, The big Hangi. This is a remix of our Big Smoke porter, but instead of Beechwood smoked malt we used maunka smoked kumara. It is very smokey and quite tasty if I may say so myself. The observant reader will notice there is no mention of the other festive brew, Feijoafied. This one didn't make the cut, the Feijoa was just too sour and the flavour didn't really mingle all that well with the HopWired base. Oh well, you win some and you loose some. Fruit beers have never really been my cuppa tea anyways.
Anyways, all his talk about HopWired reminds me of a poem we received a few months ago from Tony Garstang (Masterton) and Peter Crosland (Wellington):
An Ode to HopWired:
T'was a time in New Zealand,
When good beers were few,
Then a Dane stepped ashore,
And he dreamt of a brew.
With a brew to be made,
He hopped and he wired.
It was bursting with the flavour,
The Dane was afired.
He focused on flavour,
He focused on hops,
The ale was pale,
And the taste it was tops.
The pundits they claimed,
It was lime on the nose,
And besotted old soaks
Did break into prose.
With ales on board,
They raved and they gushed,
Keyboards sang praise,
Till they made the Dane blush.
So let's raise an honoured glass To a beer you just cannot pass.
To the roaming Dane all hail
Accolations to this great pale ale.
I think it's safe to say that Tony and Peter like the beer and they have since written even more poetry that politely commented on the non-availability of their favorite beer. Lads, now it's back and a dozen is headed your way in return for your poetic praise. Thank you very much, you make me blush.
On a sidenote, Beervana is now less than 3 weeks away. It'll be a blast so get your tickets now. It will also be the only chance to try our festive brew, The big Hangi. This is a remix of our Big Smoke porter, but instead of Beechwood smoked malt we used maunka smoked kumara. It is very smokey and quite tasty if I may say so myself. The observant reader will notice there is no mention of the other festive brew, Feijoafied. This one didn't make the cut, the Feijoa was just too sour and the flavour didn't really mingle all that well with the HopWired base. Oh well, you win some and you loose some. Fruit beers have never really been my cuppa tea anyways.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Festive Brews
For this blog, I had planned to explain the brewing process so everybody would have a chance to understand what I talk about when I use words like “mashing “, “lautering” and so forth. However, I realised that there are plenty of descriptions like this out there on the internet. Who am I to think I can explain it better than the world’s biggest know-it-all, Wikipedia:
If you are interested you can read the article or just refer back to it if I use terms you are not familiar with. I am also more than happy to answer any questions people might have, so don't be shy.
So, instead of spending time on that I will tell you a bit about our festive brews for this years BrewNZ awards.
So, instead of spending time on that I will tell you a bit about our festive brews for this years BrewNZ awards.
First of all, BrewNZ is the biggest beer competition in New Zealand. It attracts hundreds of entries from all over the world. In my view it is the most prestigious competition in the Southern Hemisphere. The 10 days of competition and celebration culminates with Beervana, THE beer event of the year. It is organised by The Brewers Guild of New Zealand, which I am currently an executive member of.
Apart from all the standard categories (Pilsner, pale ale, stout, porter etc) every year there is a themed ‘festive brew’ category. This category is a great excuse for the brewers to make something wacky, using ingredients they normally wouldn’t. This year the theme is ‘Let’s go native!’. Every entry in this category must have a significant native/unique ingredient. Anything that was in NZ before mankind is considered native. Unique NZ ingredients are things like Kumara, Kiwi fruit and Feijoa that although imported by mankind, is pretty unique to NZ.
For the past 2 weeks I have been working on 2 beers to go in this category. That is not to say that they will both go in the competition, I will only enter them if they turn out good.
For the past 2 weeks I have been working on 2 beers to go in this category. That is not to say that they will both go in the competition, I will only enter them if they turn out good.
The first beer is Festivus 2010 – The Big Hāngi 
As the alert reader may have noticed this sounds awfully similar to The Big Smoke and that is no coincidence. The recipe is exactly the same the only difference is that instead of beechwood smoked malt from Germany, I used manuka smoked kumara, cooked in our back yard. Ideally I would have dug a hole in the ground and made a real Hāngi, but running short of time (and the ground being rather stiff this time of year) I borrowed a ‘Keg- Hāngi’ from Brian at Renaissance. Using this I smoked the living daylights out of 9 kg of purple kumara for 3 hours. Then I mashed them up (this smoked kumara mash was out of this world!) and added them to the mash (the barley mash, if confused, refer to Wikipedia above:-) and brewed the beer as usual.
The beer is still fermenting, but judging by the samples I have taken, it is really smokey. Much more so than Big Smoke and the manuka is quite different from the beechwood.
The second beer is Festivus 2010 - Feijoafied
This one has been a bit easier to brew, coming up with a name
was harder... It’s simply HopWired, taken out of a commercial sized batch, refermented with 20 liters of Feijoa juice. Tasting it out of fermentation it is, shall we say, interesting... It’s kinda funky but that will probably clear out after fermentation. It’s also quite sour from the Feijoas and this kinda clashes with the bitterness of the beer. My idea was that the Feijoa will add another fruity dimension to an already very fruity beer and that seems to be working. The sourness should also add to the perception of fruitiness. Hopefully a bit of age will make it more integrated and smooth out the edges, but I don’t have much experience in fruit beers so it is hard to say...
I have only made 50 liters of each of these beers. That is just one keg. A couple of liters will go to the judges and the rest will be served for the public at Beervana. If they are good that is, no matter how festive, we wont dish out bad beer...
As the alert reader may have noticed this sounds awfully similar to The Big Smoke and that is no coincidence. The recipe is exactly the same the only difference is that instead of beechwood smoked malt from Germany, I used manuka smoked kumara, cooked in our back yard. Ideally I would have dug a hole in the ground and made a real Hāngi, but running short of time (and the ground being rather stiff this time of year) I borrowed a ‘Keg- Hāngi’ from Brian at Renaissance. Using this I smoked the living daylights out of 9 kg of purple kumara for 3 hours. Then I mashed them up (this smoked kumara mash was out of this world!) and added them to the mash (the barley mash, if confused, refer to Wikipedia above:-) and brewed the beer as usual.
The beer is still fermenting, but judging by the samples I have taken, it is really smokey. Much more so than Big Smoke and the manuka is quite different from the beechwood.
The second beer is Festivus 2010 - Feijoafied
This one has been a bit easier to brew, coming up with a name
was harder... It’s simply HopWired, taken out of a commercial sized batch, refermented with 20 liters of Feijoa juice. Tasting it out of fermentation it is, shall we say, interesting... It’s kinda funky but that will probably clear out after fermentation. It’s also quite sour from the Feijoas and this kinda clashes with the bitterness of the beer. My idea was that the Feijoa will add another fruity dimension to an already very fruity beer and that seems to be working. The sourness should also add to the perception of fruitiness. Hopefully a bit of age will make it more integrated and smooth out the edges, but I don’t have much experience in fruit beers so it is hard to say...I have only made 50 liters of each of these beers. That is just one keg. A couple of liters will go to the judges and the rest will be served for the public at Beervana. If they are good that is, no matter how festive, we wont dish out bad beer...
See you all at Beervana!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Spur of the moment beer, spur of the moment blog and a wee competition
Last week I told you of a few things we needed to get done before we head overseas in 2 weeks. They didn't include brewing a new beer, in fact that was the last thing on my mind. Never the less, that's exactly what has happened.
I've been puzzling with a recipe for an Amber/Red Ale for a while, made a stunning test batch and was planning on brewing it in July. Patience is not always our greatest forte but there was a couple of reasons for the wait: We wanted to release it in kegs only, no bottles, as I feel this is the perfect pub beer. Refreshing, tasty and moreish, best drunk fresh, by the pint and in the company of good friends. The problem was we don't have nearly enough kegs and would have to buy some first. Secondly, I knew that the mighty Yeastie Boys were releasing their amber ale 'Return to Magenta' and we don't like to wrestle with our comrades.
The keg problem solved itself when our awesome distributor, BeerNZ, offered to loan us the kegs and then it turned out that Magenta was a Belgian Amber Ale. Without having tried it, I am pretty confident that the two beers have very little in common apart from the colour. Besides, Magenta will probably be sold out by the time this beer hits the taps.
This all dawned to me on Monday and yesterday, Wednesday, we brewed it. The great thing about being a small company is that you don't have discuss anything with your shareholders and can act freely on your impulses.
The brew day was excruciating slow, 16 hours it took. On top of that the courier decided to send half of the hops we ordered to Christchurch, the other half arrived on time(makes you wonder?). Renaissance don't use the missing hop (Motueka) so we couldn't borrow from them. Luckily Dave Nichols at Moa Brewing had some to spare. Dave is a great guy, a very talented brewer and always keen to help out when needed.
The ingredients are Gladfield pale malt, Munich malt and generous lashings of 3 different caramel malts. It is hopped with Pacific Jade, Motueka and Cascade at levels most brewers would use for an I.P.A. (10 g/L of finished product). ABV should end up around 5.5%.
Anyways, this one is still nameless, so we've decided to launch a small competition. All you need to do is to come up with a name. There are no guidelines to what the name should be like.
Although it could be a starting point, it doesn't have to have to be anything to do with 'wired' and it doesn't have to be anything connected to 'amber' or 'red'. Let your creativity flow and suggest as many names as you think of. The prize is yet to be decided but we'll send the winner some beer, a t-shirt, glassware or other merchandise if we ever get around to making some... Post your entries here, on Facebook or send them to info@8wired.co.nz
I've been puzzling with a recipe for an Amber/Red Ale for a while, made a stunning test batch and was planning on brewing it in July. Patience is not always our greatest forte but there was a couple of reasons for the wait: We wanted to release it in kegs only, no bottles, as I feel this is the perfect pub beer. Refreshing, tasty and moreish, best drunk fresh, by the pint and in the company of good friends. The problem was we don't have nearly enough kegs and would have to buy some first. Secondly, I knew that the mighty Yeastie Boys were releasing their amber ale 'Return to Magenta' and we don't like to wrestle with our comrades.
The keg problem solved itself when our awesome distributor, BeerNZ, offered to loan us the kegs and then it turned out that Magenta was a Belgian Amber Ale. Without having tried it, I am pretty confident that the two beers have very little in common apart from the colour. Besides, Magenta will probably be sold out by the time this beer hits the taps.
This all dawned to me on Monday and yesterday, Wednesday, we brewed it. The great thing about being a small company is that you don't have discuss anything with your shareholders and can act freely on your impulses.
The brew day was excruciating slow, 16 hours it took. On top of that the courier decided to send half of the hops we ordered to Christchurch, the other half arrived on time(makes you wonder?). Renaissance don't use the missing hop (Motueka) so we couldn't borrow from them. Luckily Dave Nichols at Moa Brewing had some to spare. Dave is a great guy, a very talented brewer and always keen to help out when needed.
The ingredients are Gladfield pale malt, Munich malt and generous lashings of 3 different caramel malts. It is hopped with Pacific Jade, Motueka and Cascade at levels most brewers would use for an I.P.A. (10 g/L of finished product). ABV should end up around 5.5%.
Anyways, this one is still nameless, so we've decided to launch a small competition. All you need to do is to come up with a name. There are no guidelines to what the name should be like.
Although it could be a starting point, it doesn't have to have to be anything to do with 'wired' and it doesn't have to be anything connected to 'amber' or 'red'. Let your creativity flow and suggest as many names as you think of. The prize is yet to be decided but we'll send the winner some beer, a t-shirt, glassware or other merchandise if we ever get around to making some... Post your entries here, on Facebook or send them to info@8wired.co.nz
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Exciting times and one frustrating ferment
First of all, it has been a full on couple of weeks in our personal lives. 3 weeks ago Monique and I got married on a beautiful day in the Marlborough Sounds and we are expecting our first child in September. Last week I successfully defended my title as New Zealand champion of one of my hobbies: Poker. The cash comes in handy as we are about to head overseas for a 5 week honeymoon (including 2 weeks in beer heaven, West Coast of the US), we need to do some renovations to our house and with a wee one on the way I'm sure the expenses will just keep piling up.
Beer-wise, ReWired was chosen for the Kiwi line up in the annual SpecTAPular at The Local Taphouse in St. Kilda, Melbourne. Quite an honour to get tap beer across the Tasman already.
Before we head overseas there are a few things we need to get done:
Hopefully NZ hops will deliver some freshly harvested Nelson Sauvin so we can brew another batch of HopWired.
The Big Smoke, our new smoked porter, is ready to bottle and we are just waiting on the labels. This should be on the shelves by mid May. My proudest moment yet as a brewer was when legendary Richard Emerson tasted this last month and later told me that he 'could not stop thinking about it' (in a good way!). I almost blushed.
Finally, there is iStout, the Imperial Stout that is turning into a bit of a problem child.... To get an idea of this beer we should probably start at the beginning:
If I had to name a favorite beer style I would have to go with imperial stout. It is a style that I have enjoyed and brewed for a few years and I think I am getting pretty good at it. Last year I took down the best in class award at the SOBA national homebrew competition, up until the Emerson episode mentioned above, that was my proudest moment as a brewer:)
The most grain we have ever had in the mashtun at Renaissance was 777 kg for the Double IPA Marlborough Pale Ale, or MPA. This is a lot of grain, in fact so much that the sparge arm in top of the tun was under water (or under mash!). The last time we made MPA we had a stuck mash as a result of all that grain. So I decided not to go quite that high and settled on a recipe with a mere 776 kg. Half a tonne of Canterbury grown Gladfield, topped up with British Marris Otter, oat malt, chocolate malts and roasted barley and a Belgian crystal malt (Hooray for Cryer Malt who have recently started importing these great malts from Dingemans).
Like all beers at Renaissance, we load the grain by hand into the mill and collect it by hand on the other side. We carry it by hand up to the mashtun and then mix the mash by hand using canoe paddles and rakes. After the brew we remove the spent grain, you guessed it, by hand. Trust me, brewing (especially a beer this size) is bloody hard work.
I was prepared for a stuck mash but luckily that never happened. In fact everything went smooth as, I collected more wort than expected and hit the calculated gravity of 1.108 (25.5 plato) spot on (to get an idea of the size, this gravity is almost twice as high as ReWired, our brown ale and about 3 times that of a mainstream beer). I boiled it for 2 hours and for good luck I added the last bottle of “1st Stout”, the very first imperial stout that I made as a homebrewer. For bittering I added a searing amount of Southern Cross hops and for flavour and aroma a large dose of Willamette. The theoretical IBUs are 110, in reality it will probably be less.
During transfer to the fermenter I made the mistake of thinking that everything was going really well: 2 minutes later the heat exchanger packed up. I was unable to unblock it and as a result I lost about 200 liters of precious wort.
The second and more serious problem arised 4 weeks later. I thought fermentation was complete, had dumped most of the yeast and was getting ready to transfer the beer to the cellar when I discovered something terrible that I don't know how I missed up until then: The beer was packed with acetaldehyde, a compound that has a strong smell of green apples and delivers severe headaches to the drinker. Aldehyde is a chemical that forms part of the yeast metabolism of sugar to alcohol. Simply speaking, the yeast transforms sugar into aldehyde and then the aldehyde into alcohol. The yeast usually cleans up after itself and removes the aldehyde from the beer. In this case it was still there, probably because the yeast had decided that the 10.5% alcohol was too harsh a working environment and went on strike before they had finished the job.
I gave it another 2 weeks to clear up, it didn't happen. I then added a good dose of fresh and powerful yeast, hoping that this would be strong enough to finish the job. A week later it still smelled and tasted like a black imperial cider! Finally, yesterday I tried it again, there is still a bit of apple there but it's getting alot better. Hopefully it will fully clear up and I wont have to pour it down the drain (actually, if it can't be saved it I think I will get it distilled at a local distillery, put it in a barrel and keep it in the garage for a decade, 8Wired whisky anyone?).
Anyways, it is not easy making big beers, so I hope people will enjoy it if it ever makes it to the market. Behind the apples, I think it's tasting really good and in 6-12 months time it will be stunning, fingers crossed.
That's all for this time, I'm not sure there will be time for another blog before we go overseas but I'll make sure to make some sort of trip report from our pilgrimage to the West Coast. Luckily pregnancy makes Monique the perfect sober driver:)
Beer-wise, ReWired was chosen for the Kiwi line up in the annual SpecTAPular at The Local Taphouse in St. Kilda, Melbourne. Quite an honour to get tap beer across the Tasman already.
Before we head overseas there are a few things we need to get done:
Hopefully NZ hops will deliver some freshly harvested Nelson Sauvin so we can brew another batch of HopWired.
The Big Smoke, our new smoked porter, is ready to bottle and we are just waiting on the labels. This should be on the shelves by mid May. My proudest moment yet as a brewer was when legendary Richard Emerson tasted this last month and later told me that he 'could not stop thinking about it' (in a good way!). I almost blushed.
Finally, there is iStout, the Imperial Stout that is turning into a bit of a problem child.... To get an idea of this beer we should probably start at the beginning:
If I had to name a favorite beer style I would have to go with imperial stout. It is a style that I have enjoyed and brewed for a few years and I think I am getting pretty good at it. Last year I took down the best in class award at the SOBA national homebrew competition, up until the Emerson episode mentioned above, that was my proudest moment as a brewer:)
The most grain we have ever had in the mashtun at Renaissance was 777 kg for the Double IPA Marlborough Pale Ale, or MPA. This is a lot of grain, in fact so much that the sparge arm in top of the tun was under water (or under mash!). The last time we made MPA we had a stuck mash as a result of all that grain. So I decided not to go quite that high and settled on a recipe with a mere 776 kg. Half a tonne of Canterbury grown Gladfield, topped up with British Marris Otter, oat malt, chocolate malts and roasted barley and a Belgian crystal malt (Hooray for Cryer Malt who have recently started importing these great malts from Dingemans).
Like all beers at Renaissance, we load the grain by hand into the mill and collect it by hand on the other side. We carry it by hand up to the mashtun and then mix the mash by hand using canoe paddles and rakes. After the brew we remove the spent grain, you guessed it, by hand. Trust me, brewing (especially a beer this size) is bloody hard work.
I was prepared for a stuck mash but luckily that never happened. In fact everything went smooth as, I collected more wort than expected and hit the calculated gravity of 1.108 (25.5 plato) spot on (to get an idea of the size, this gravity is almost twice as high as ReWired, our brown ale and about 3 times that of a mainstream beer). I boiled it for 2 hours and for good luck I added the last bottle of “1st Stout”, the very first imperial stout that I made as a homebrewer. For bittering I added a searing amount of Southern Cross hops and for flavour and aroma a large dose of Willamette. The theoretical IBUs are 110, in reality it will probably be less.
During transfer to the fermenter I made the mistake of thinking that everything was going really well: 2 minutes later the heat exchanger packed up. I was unable to unblock it and as a result I lost about 200 liters of precious wort.
The second and more serious problem arised 4 weeks later. I thought fermentation was complete, had dumped most of the yeast and was getting ready to transfer the beer to the cellar when I discovered something terrible that I don't know how I missed up until then: The beer was packed with acetaldehyde, a compound that has a strong smell of green apples and delivers severe headaches to the drinker. Aldehyde is a chemical that forms part of the yeast metabolism of sugar to alcohol. Simply speaking, the yeast transforms sugar into aldehyde and then the aldehyde into alcohol. The yeast usually cleans up after itself and removes the aldehyde from the beer. In this case it was still there, probably because the yeast had decided that the 10.5% alcohol was too harsh a working environment and went on strike before they had finished the job.
I gave it another 2 weeks to clear up, it didn't happen. I then added a good dose of fresh and powerful yeast, hoping that this would be strong enough to finish the job. A week later it still smelled and tasted like a black imperial cider! Finally, yesterday I tried it again, there is still a bit of apple there but it's getting alot better. Hopefully it will fully clear up and I wont have to pour it down the drain (actually, if it can't be saved it I think I will get it distilled at a local distillery, put it in a barrel and keep it in the garage for a decade, 8Wired whisky anyone?).
Anyways, it is not easy making big beers, so I hope people will enjoy it if it ever makes it to the market. Behind the apples, I think it's tasting really good and in 6-12 months time it will be stunning, fingers crossed.
That's all for this time, I'm not sure there will be time for another blog before we go overseas but I'll make sure to make some sort of trip report from our pilgrimage to the West Coast. Luckily pregnancy makes Monique the perfect sober driver:)
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Humble Beginnings
We have promised a blog since we started up almost 6 months ago, so without further ado and delay, here it is!
We'll dedicate this first blog to a brief description of who we are and how 8 Wired Brewing came to life. For those of you who don't know, I am Søren Eriksen, born and bred in Denmark. I haven't really lived there for the last 7 years though, which is about one quarter of my life. In 2003 I spent 10 months in Bangladesh working for the Danish embassy It was there I met the other half (and the better half some might say) of 8 Wired Brewing; my soon to be wife, the Te Aroha born and round the world bred Kiwi, Monique Aves.
Monique is actually the one to blame for all this: 5 years ago we were living in Perth, where she worked as a Physio and I was finishing my biochemistry degree. Our interest in craft beer slowly started to grow as we were living close to Little Creatures Brewing Co in Fremantle. For Christmas that year she got me a Cooper's homebrew kit. Very basic stuff: Mix some malt extract with water, add yeast and wait. It tasted terrible, but as I always say: You'll always love your own children, no matter how ugly they are! Due to a lot of travelling and moving around I didn't really upscale the brewing until 2007. By then we had semi settled in Auckland and I started playing around with specialty grains, hops and eventually brew-in-a-bag style all grain brewing (that term will make sense to the homebrewers and probably no one else). In 2008 we did a roadtrip through the USA and while visiting every brewpub we passed I started to realize that this is what I wanted to do with my life. No more biochemistry, brewing is the biz! Once again, Monique is to blame really, for being so damn supportive! Well, alright, it took a bit of convincing, but I was persistent and in the end she caved...
The plan was to start a brewpub but I needed some commercial experience, so after contacting basically every craft brewery in the country I got the dream position: Keg monkey (an affectionous term describing the guy who cleans the kegs and other tedious tasks) at the awesome Renaissance Brewing in Blenheim. We shifted down from the North Island, intending to stay for 3 months. 18 months later we are still here: We quickly realized that a brewpub was beyond our abilities, adding to that the global credit crunch made for a very inhospitable environment for new businesses. Life has a funny tendency to sort it self out though. It turned out that Renaissance will be in need of a new head brewer by January 2010. They offered me that position and when I proposed to start my own brand on the side to vent the steam of my creative ambitions they were all for it and generously let me brew and bottle the beer at their facilities. In hindsight I don't know why we ever considered any other option than contract brewing: What we really want to do is make top-top beers that appeal to a small but enthusiastic audience. To run a physical brewery you need to shift a lot of volume to sustain the overhead, contracting is much better for our kind of venture which is inspired by the likes of Danish contract brewer Mikkeller and New Zealand's own Stu McKinlay and Sam Possineskie, a.k.a. The Yeastie Boys.
The name, 8 Wired Brewing, came to life during a brain storming session with Monique's family. They are probably still debating who said it first and frankly I don't remember either but at some point “No 8” was suggested. This led into “No 8 Wired” and eventually just “8 Wired”.
For all you Non Zealanders, No 8 Wire (it was the 8th type of wire in the catalogue) is a specific gauge of wire originally used for electric fencing. In New Zealand it's use is much more widespread than that though, Kiwi's have used it to fix just about anything, from cupboards to cars, because it was versatile and readily available. Over the years it has become a symbol of the kiwi ingenuity, their ability to fix any problem no matter how limited the resources.
We think this fits our company pretty well: We don't have the resources nor the abilities to run our own brewery, so we make do with what we have. We also think that all our beers have a certain amount of ingenuity, ingenuity in flavour we like to call it.
“8 Wired”, as opposed to the more traditional term “No 8 wire”, is to symbolize that our beer is not old school Kiwi draught, kiwi lager and kiwi dark, in fact it is the exact opposite. Still, we're keeping it as Kiwi as we can through the ingredients we choose to use.
Cheers!
We'll dedicate this first blog to a brief description of who we are and how 8 Wired Brewing came to life. For those of you who don't know, I am Søren Eriksen, born and bred in Denmark. I haven't really lived there for the last 7 years though, which is about one quarter of my life. In 2003 I spent 10 months in Bangladesh working for the Danish embassy It was there I met the other half (and the better half some might say) of 8 Wired Brewing; my soon to be wife, the Te Aroha born and round the world bred Kiwi, Monique Aves.
Monique is actually the one to blame for all this: 5 years ago we were living in Perth, where she worked as a Physio and I was finishing my biochemistry degree. Our interest in craft beer slowly started to grow as we were living close to Little Creatures Brewing Co in Fremantle. For Christmas that year she got me a Cooper's homebrew kit. Very basic stuff: Mix some malt extract with water, add yeast and wait. It tasted terrible, but as I always say: You'll always love your own children, no matter how ugly they are! Due to a lot of travelling and moving around I didn't really upscale the brewing until 2007. By then we had semi settled in Auckland and I started playing around with specialty grains, hops and eventually brew-in-a-bag style all grain brewing (that term will make sense to the homebrewers and probably no one else). In 2008 we did a roadtrip through the USA and while visiting every brewpub we passed I started to realize that this is what I wanted to do with my life. No more biochemistry, brewing is the biz! Once again, Monique is to blame really, for being so damn supportive! Well, alright, it took a bit of convincing, but I was persistent and in the end she caved...
The plan was to start a brewpub but I needed some commercial experience, so after contacting basically every craft brewery in the country I got the dream position: Keg monkey (an affectionous term describing the guy who cleans the kegs and other tedious tasks) at the awesome Renaissance Brewing in Blenheim. We shifted down from the North Island, intending to stay for 3 months. 18 months later we are still here: We quickly realized that a brewpub was beyond our abilities, adding to that the global credit crunch made for a very inhospitable environment for new businesses. Life has a funny tendency to sort it self out though. It turned out that Renaissance will be in need of a new head brewer by January 2010. They offered me that position and when I proposed to start my own brand on the side to vent the steam of my creative ambitions they were all for it and generously let me brew and bottle the beer at their facilities. In hindsight I don't know why we ever considered any other option than contract brewing: What we really want to do is make top-top beers that appeal to a small but enthusiastic audience. To run a physical brewery you need to shift a lot of volume to sustain the overhead, contracting is much better for our kind of venture which is inspired by the likes of Danish contract brewer Mikkeller and New Zealand's own Stu McKinlay and Sam Possineskie, a.k.a. The Yeastie Boys.
The name, 8 Wired Brewing, came to life during a brain storming session with Monique's family. They are probably still debating who said it first and frankly I don't remember either but at some point “No 8” was suggested. This led into “No 8 Wired” and eventually just “8 Wired”.
For all you Non Zealanders, No 8 Wire (it was the 8th type of wire in the catalogue) is a specific gauge of wire originally used for electric fencing. In New Zealand it's use is much more widespread than that though, Kiwi's have used it to fix just about anything, from cupboards to cars, because it was versatile and readily available. Over the years it has become a symbol of the kiwi ingenuity, their ability to fix any problem no matter how limited the resources.
We think this fits our company pretty well: We don't have the resources nor the abilities to run our own brewery, so we make do with what we have. We also think that all our beers have a certain amount of ingenuity, ingenuity in flavour we like to call it.
“8 Wired”, as opposed to the more traditional term “No 8 wire”, is to symbolize that our beer is not old school Kiwi draught, kiwi lager and kiwi dark, in fact it is the exact opposite. Still, we're keeping it as Kiwi as we can through the ingredients we choose to use.
Cheers!
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