We Bought The Farm

At Last It Can Be Told

I have been alluding for a long time to developments in our lives that needed to be kept under the hat. Developments that have been a real time sink for me (and probably will continue to be, although the pressure is off to some extent now). Anyway, things have finally come together and I can put it down here: we have bought a microbrewery, and are up and trading.

This is the culmination of a dream born at the 2005 Great British Beer Festival. After a few too many pints, some of them quite dodgy, we agreed, my mates and I, that we could do this, and do it better than at least some of the entries we had tried.

After the buzz had worn off and we looked at it again more soberly, we still felt the same way. We would start a brewery.

And then, while we were putting together the basic idea, we came across an advert in the Campaign for Real Ale magazine listing a trading brewery for sale. And a pretty hefty price tag.

But we did our sums and realised that, relative to trying to do this from grass roots, it did make sense to buy a going concern. I don't want to go into the particulars, but that was October of last year, and now, come September, almost a year later, we've sold our houses, moved our families and are set up in rural Norfolk. We've moved to the country. I haven't quit my day job, but I do work from home to be closer to my family most of the week, and two of our team are working full time in the business.

Me, I live vicariously. Every one of our team - two couples - are extremely well suited and bring their talents to our project. I am focused on the parts I love, or the parts that I'm good at. Business admin, beer design, quality control, marketing, the website.

We've got a lot of work ahead of us, to be sure. But I prefer to dream big. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to do some real foodie good in this world and really enjoy ourselves in the process. We didn't buy the farm, in the end. We bought the brewery instead.

Three Little Beers

Here they are, my babies.

The one on the left is my blonde ale. 4.6% or thereabouts. I made this batch with Fuggles and Challenger hops for bittering and then Cascades for aroma. I tasted it at barrelling last night. Finally some complex citrus. Great nose, but chewy...that would be the yeast.

In the middle is the Poor Richard's Ale. FG of 1014, so about 5% by volume. It's nutty, malty. The hops weren't in strong evidence (Kent Goldings). It was tasty and full bodied; it's hard to get a real feel when it's so yeasty. I totally missed the OG on this one, so it might be a bit out of balance. I'm tempted to go for a bigger mash tun by sticking a valve in a larger picnic cooler we have so I can do bigger beers.

And on the right is my porter, just for comparison. 5.6%. Bottle conditioned. This is a lovely drink - possibly my best ever beer. The judges at the competition said it drank thin for its gravity. To each his own, I guess. It's complex, hoppy, beautifully conditioned and has a hint of the molasses I added.

I guess the two new beers will be drinking in a few days...I force carbonated them manually, so they're a bit turbid at the moment. But the last batch of the blonde cleared beautifully by the time I got down to the last few pints.

Looking ahead, the fermenters are empty again. I might get something on I can get through the primary and then leave over the holidays in the secondary. Maybe another go at the porter.

Notes from the Brewery

After a month of other commitments, the barrels and fermenters were empty, so I spent much of this past weekend brewing, knocking off my 10th and 11th batches of all-grain brew since I did the course in April.

The first was a second pass at my blonde ale recipe. I slightly tweaked the grain bill to put a little more wheat malt in, in search of head retention. And I changed the hopping slightly. The first was good, but I'd like to do something more than straight cascades. So we'll see how that turns out. I got OG of 1044 vs target of 1046, which I absolutely nailed last time. Makes me pretty sure I know the efficiency of my set-up.

And then on Sunday I brewed a batch of Poor Richard's Ale, which is a commemorative brew for Ben Franklin's tercentenary (recipe) - pdf. Seemed a fitting tribute. Also proved a bit of a challenge. I was early to rise to make this one, as we had other plans for the afternoon.

This is the biggest beer I've ever brewed, in terms of target OG. I learned the hard way that it's really too big a beer for my mash tun; I just can't handle that much grain. I knew it would be tight, but what it meant was a low recovery (I missed the target OG of 1068 by 16 points despite a textbook sparge). I also revisited the need to raise the strike heat for the mash-in because the grain bill is large and the water level is low. In this case, I wound up first adding some boiling water from the kettle until the tun was full and then rotating three batches of the mash liquid through a saucepan and raising the heat slowly up to about 150F (target 154). At least once I got it there, it more or less stayed there. I finished at 148F.

Apart from that, the brew went well. It smells wonderful. I've never brewed with corn before, so it will be interesting to see the effect this has on the body and flavour. I had to make some mods to the original recipe, substituting brown malt for both the biscuit and special roast malt. I also didn't use the recommended yeast since it's not available in my local shop. I figured that since it called for an English Ale yeast and there's no shortage of those around here, I'd just use what I could find, which was Danstar Nottingham from Lallemand (so, a Canadian English Ale yeast...a bit like coals to Newcastle!).

So, I mucked with the grain bill, mucked with the yeast and I'll miss the target alcohol by about 2%. Okay, then, it's not really Poor Richard's Ale, is it? Still, not to worry, as ol' Ben used to say, "Who is rich? He that rejoices in his Portion." Two fermenters thripping away and two weeks away from joy

Homebrew Update

I tapped into the third all-grain batch last night (I've been managing about one batch every other week, which pleases me). This was my first attempt at a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone. My previous attempts to get the Sierra taste involved hopping some kit ales and brewing them to a shorter brew length than specified to boost the alcohol. They were acceptable. This time, I used the above recipe, adjusted to UK brew length and for unavailability of certain of the ingredients.

The results? Well, it's good. It's not SNPA. But perhaps I shouldn't have expected it to be.

First off, I had trouble in the sparge again. I got some of the plumbing issues sorted out in the second batch, and it went much better. But this time I was having trouble maintaining the liquid level over the beer, which makes me think I was rather channelled during the sparge, which I consider was evidenced by the starting gravity of 1042 (SNPA says 1052). The final gravity came out at 1010-1012 (about on target) but that means the alcohol level is low.

Also, I did not have Perle hops, since I couldn't get them. I had some Challenger in the freezer with approximately the same alpha acid as the Perle, so I used those. And, probably most critical, I didn't have the Wyeast 1056 yeast, sometimes called Chico (address of SNPA), which is the right yeast for the job.

What I wound up with tastes good. It's not as hoppy; not as Cascade-y as the last time I used Cascade in a brew. Maybe that's just due to too small a quantity, or just poor contact with the steeping hops during the cooldown. It actually reminds me a lot of Fuller's London Pride. Considering that's one of my favourite beers, that's no bad thing. If you look at the Pride tasting notes, you see Challenger hops and an ABV of 4.1. These are probably closer to the reality. And the fact that it tastes like an English Ale, well, that's probably the yeast, Safale S-04. If you're a hammer, everything looks like an ale.

Incidentally, I definitely note the difference for having used caramalt in the recipe. The head is firmer, with smaller bubbles. And the body is good; colour is probably about right for SNPA. My wife reckons it's under-carbonated for SNPA, but it's just fine for an English ale.

Do I fret? No, I'm relax and not worrying. Hell, I'd make this again. We'll have another go. I still am thinking to culture the yeast from bottle-conditioned SNPA. And I might look a bit harder for the Perle hops next time I try.

Next up? I was thinking to do a porter, but now I think I'll just make another bitter. I'm looking to have some good drinking beer around for a barbecue in early July and I don't see my clone lasting that long.

My "clone" recipe (to make 5 UK gallons):

• 4360g optic malt
  
• 410g crystal
  
• 270g caramalt
  
• 30g Challenger in copper
  
• 26g Cascade 15 mins from end of boil
  
• 18g Cascade during crash cooling

Mash at 150F 75 mins, sparge at 178, og 1042, fg 1010-1012

Hop to it!

A recent podcast called my attention to Chris O'Brien, the Beer Activist. His "About" page tells us "My two great needs in life are drinking beer and saving the planet." Oh, if only my wife would listen...

Anyway, via Chris' website I found the Crannog Ales website, Canada's only organic farmhouse brewery. What's better...they are sharing their wisdom (pdf) on hop cultivation from the perspective of a low-input organic farm. Man, this is what it's all about.

Brewing Update

Sparging the grain bed to recover more fermentables

I spent yesterday morning brewing up my second batch of all-grain ale. This one is called "cooking bitter" and it's one of the recipes I picked up from Richard at the brew shop during the workshop. The first batch was also one of his, called "best bitter". I figure while I'm still learning there's nothing wrong with using some tried and tested winners. We tried the "best bitter" at the workshop, where we brewed the "cooking bitter" (later sampled) so I know that, properly crafted, these are good ales.

The first batch went well, although we were missing some hose and connectors that meant we weren't able to sparge the grain bed very effectively, and as a result I feel the recovery suffered. I measured the final runnings at 1012 and the OG of the wort was 1045, which was a little low IMO. The FG of the first batch was also a little high (1012) but I reckon it's fermented on down a little bit more in the keg.

By contrast, the batch I brewed yesterday, which had a lower grain bill than the first batch, came out at 1054 OG and the final runnings were about 1007. The difference is in the sparging, I suppose. It's blubbing away under the stairs and will probably be ready for the keg by the time I finish off the first batch.

I will say that I've noticed the first batch is fairly low alcohol. I guess 3-3.5%. It's an easy-drinking ale that exacts no penalty (so far). One thing I've read suggests that if you take a few extra steps during the process you can remove a lot of the "hangover" components - hop oils and the like.

I've asked Richard about ordering up some new grains in anticipation of my first crack at a more authentic Sierra Nevada clone. I'll be starting from a Cat's Meow recipe. I'm not sure what I'll do about the yeast. I've got a couple of bottles of SNPA, but I'm not convinced I really want to start cultivating my own yeasts just yet. I think I'll try with a good English ale yeast and take my chances. What's the worst that can happen?

We have a Pope - really!

No, you just have to read it and smile.

It's Almost Ready

I tried this last night. Needs a little more time to carbonate up, but it's pretty good. Not, I would say, as good as the Bleak Midwinter, but certainly drinkable.

Homebrew Update

Although I felt really rushed, I did manage to get another batch of homebrew into the fermenter this Sunday evening. I started with another Woodforde's kit (Wherry). I much prefer the 3kg kits (two cans of malt) to single kits. This one promised 40 pints at 4.5%, but that's 6.25 US gallons, which is a stretch in my fermenter (it holds about 7 US gallons, but you need to leave headspace for the froth), so I brewed to 5 USG, which ought to leave my final ABV at about 5.6%. Strong.

I also bought Cascade hops and hopped toward the end of the brewing. I never achieve a proper boil with these kits - I'm not that patient and it's not technically required - so I put the hops in toward the end of the "boil" and got the temperature, finally, to about 75C.

My aim here was to try to approximate the hoppy flavour of Sierra Nevada. If I do this right, I should be in good shape on alcohol and hops, although I haven't been following an explicit Sierra clone recipe.

I pitched the yeast on Monday morning. So far, the results are a bit sluggish - I had some fermenting, but it's a bit stuck at present. I'm going to give it a few days before I try to kick-start it again. I know it hasn't had enough fermentation yet to be done.

Cost for kit, hops and sanitiser was £24.39. Expensive. But Sierra (now available here) would cost me about £75 for the same volume. And I will have some leftover sanitiser for the next batch.

I spoke to the guy at the brew shop about taking his course in mashing. Currently scheduled for April. We're busy that week, but I might still make the course.

Home Brew

This holiday season we've really been enjoying the Bleak Midwinter Ale. With the addition of extra malt extract and dry hopping, it's a potent winter warmer that's extremely pleasant to drink - might be my best-ever batch. I also found the slight reduction in priming sugar to have been a complete success - it's not as fizzy as previous batches have been - much more to style for an English ale. I'd try this one again, although for regular consumption I'll be aiming for something lighter in the next batch.

The waiting begins

This evening we bottled up our Christmas ale. Haven't decided on a name yet, but we like "Bleak Midwinter Ale".

It took us about 2 hours (x2 people) to do the handiwork (hats off to the Mrs for soaking off all the labels and giving them a pre-cleaning earlier in the week). We wound up with 33 (nearly 34) bottles - not a bad yield.

I batch-primed with half a cup of table sugar (maybe not the best, but that's what there was). Papazian recommends 2/3 cup but I find that overcarbonates for British Ale styles. We even had a few "grenades" in the last batch, which ruined the bathroom carpet in our old apartment.

I took a fg reading of 1020 at 20C which strikes me as a little high, but there was a lot of malt in there. Tastes good - tastes right...let's hope the bottles were clean enough.

And now we have to wait...I reckon three weeks, minimum. Should be ready to go just in time for the holidays. We have to be careful not to give it all away, or I'll be back to square one with emptying London Pride bottles again.

I'm inclined to rebound on this batch and get another going in the fermenter - maybe in a couple of weeks.

RDWHAHB

When we moved to Brazil in 2002, I left my brewery behind. I figured that the Brazilian weather would not be well suited to making the kinds of top-fermenting home brews that I am accustomed to producing. And while I still think that's somewhat true, I have learned that Brazil makes some excellent ales, especially those made by Baden Baden in Campos de Jordão.

Anyhow, this past weekend I finally got around to "opening" the brewery again. This consisted of digging the vessels out of the shed and giving them a good cleaning to chase out the cobwebs and who-knows-what-else, then making a visit to a local homebrew shop to pick up a new kit - Woodforde's Nelson's Revenge.

I'd like to move away from straight kit brewing (I did buy some extra spraymalt and Golden Brewer hops to make some "betterbrew") into the more demanding "upstream" activities of mashing, but for the present our storage space and kitchen limit me to kit brewing.

So, Sunday night I fired up the brewpot and made my first batch of beer in three years (the last batch was called "The Baby's Bottle", to commemorate our daughter's birth, and her third birthday is this Friday). This morning it was blubbing away through the airlock, one hopes on its way to hoppy perfection.

Is home brewing economic? It probably depends on how often you do it and how much DIY is involved. My kit cost me £16.95, plus another £3 for the DME, something for the hops and some supplies (sanitiser, bottle caps). About £25 for the batch, which should make 32 pints (4 UK or 5 US gallons). Buying bottle conditioned real ales can set you back a fair penny. This weekend at the local supermarket, I saw 12 bottles of Fuller's London Pride for £14.99. I reckon 32 pints should yield me about 37 bottles. If it were Pride, that would cost me about £45.

But then there's labour and energy inputs. We're not done yet - brewing is the easy part, bottling is a pain. Lots and lots of washing up to come. I've diligently emptied about 40 bottles of the above-mentioned Pride - not the worst part of the job, mind you. But those will need a thorough hot wash, delabelling and then a sanitising and a clean rinse. Probably 5 hours work in total. Then three weeks of bottle-conditioning.

On the bright side, we're looking at a Christmas ale which should measure in somewhere north of 5% abv and be extra hoppy.