Another day, another brew. This is an attempt at a slightly-beyond-style Belgian Pale: the alcohol is a bit higher than the style specifies, in order to take advantage of the characteristics of the yeast cake I’ve got ready for it. I could call it a Wonmisan Tan’n’Heavy Belgian Pale, but I don’t want the name to be too long. Another thing I’m doing differently here is the hops. Since the Belgian Abbey II yeast won’t be doing much in the sense of estery flavors, I’m doing a slightly crazy late-hopping experiment (or what some call “hopbursting”). The thing is, when …
Category: BEER & HOMEBREWING
Saisons: Belgian Beer and Global Warming
Homebrewing has bloomed again to the level of an obsession. I have a couple of books coming my way which elucidate the secrets of the Belgians–Stan Hieronymous’s book on Trappist Monk brewing, and another on Farmhouse Ales. But something dawned on me quite a while ago, which I recently worked into the plot synopsis for a novel I am hoping to write soon. One (small) part of the book has to do with Belgian brewing and how global warming will affect it. You see, Belgian brewing is, more than many other sorts of brewing, quite closely linked to the landscape. …
Belgian Brewday: On a Jag Abbey Dubbel Quad (Version 1)
Update (27/9/2010, 29/9/2010): Notes on fermentation appended after the end of this post. Original Post (26/9/2010): Yeah, you knew this was coming. I have a few reviews to post, of Delerium Tremens and a bottle of Old Peculier that my friend Mark brought over for us, as well as a bottle of framboise by Mort Subite that Nick brought over back in February and which I saved, somehow, until a week ago, but today, my beer-related post is a recipe log for a brewday! (Whew, it’s nice to be back at it. I get a weird itch in my mind …
The Taste of Melbourne: Beers Part 2 (BBCE)
The remainder of these beers, I tried at the Belgian Beer Cafe Eureka, which I highly recommend to anyone in the Melbourne area. The first three are from the first visit, the rest from the second. All of these were bottle beers except the Kriek. Visit 1: Silly Saison: This was the beer I started with on the first trip to Eureka. I wanted to get a better handle on this style, since I will be trying to make one sometime soon, but I still feel like I don’t quite know exactly what a saison is supposed to be like, beyond …
The Taste of Melbourne: Beers Part 1 (Around Town)
Well, actually, I could rant about the horror of the meatpie I had at the Aussie Rules football game we went to, but instead I’m going to talk about beer. I had a lot of different beers in Melbourne this week, and many of them are worth talking about: Carlton Draft: This was plain old terrible stadium lager. Pass it, or pass out. I had one cup and shuddered at the idea of drinking more, but it was the stuff that everyone at the football game was having. Apple Cider — Bulmer’s? Mangan?: I’m not sure which brands I tried, …