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!
