Betty Stogs and Andrew Ridgeley. It can only be...

...Falmouth Beer Festival 2008!

Last night I died and went to heaven. Well, Falmouth actually. It was the "sponsors night" of the 2008 Falmouth Beer Festival and my mate (Graham who happens to run my local) and myself were guests of Skinners Brewery, one of the sponsors. Even better than that the owner himself, Steve Skinner, very kindly picked us up, gave us unlimited beer tokens to sample as many ales as possible, and took us home again afterwards! Result!

After picking up the larger-than-life-itself Betty Stogs on the way, (the great Fred Thomas in drag - top bloke, er, bird, er...) we headed towards the Falmouth Princess Pavillion - venue for the best annual beer fest in the county.

It was hugely busy and we just gaped at the vast amount of ales surrounding us. Beer heaven. Tasting glasses and programmes in hand we steadily, and then not-so-steadliy made our way around the different regional sections (Cornish ales, Up North ales, Down South ales, Celtic beers etc).

Sophie, Graham's Skinners account manager, kept us topped up with beer tokens. Whilst sampling the lovely Scotts 1816 from Copper Dragon I seem to remember that Andrew Ridgeley (for it is he, a keen CAMRA member apparently) did try to jokingly blag some of our tokens from Sophie but to no avail - she was far too loyal to us!

In the table below I've listed most of the beers we tried with the official ale festival description followed by our own comments made on the night. I think that we've created a new beer rating scale as you'll see. The late, great beer writer Michael Jackson would turn in his grave!

By the way, big thanks to Steve Skinner for a great evening!

Beer Name	Official Tasting Note	My Tasting Note
Blackawton Cornish Gold (4.1)	Light golden ale fruity with a hint of vanilla.	Gold, bit bland.
Coastal - Golden Hind (4.3)	Classic style of India Pale Ale using four different varieties ofhop.	Ace!
Penzance Brewing Co - Gopher Gold (4.9)	Light golden hoppy ale brewed with lager hops.	Good.
Ventnor - Pistol Night (4.4)	Flowery hoppy bitter.	Shite!
Church End - Vicar's Ruin (4.4)	Straw coloured with initial bitterness softening to a delicate maltfinish.	Bit farmy.
Copper Dragon - Scotts 1816 (4.1)	Well-balanced copper coloured bitter with a dry hoppy finish.	V nice. Andrew Ridgley!
Kelham Island - Pale Rider (5.2)	Full bodied straw coloured pale ale fruity hoppy with a wellbalanced finish.	Little bitter. Nice though.
Woodlands - Bees Knees (4.5)	Light coloured beer laced with honey.	Honey. Got better.
Purple Moose - Snowdonia Ale (3.6)	Golden refreshing bitter with citrus fruit hoppiness in aroma andtaste.	Ace!
Barum - Breakfast (5.0)	Smooth tasting premium ale.	Nutty shite.
O'Hanlons - Port Stout (4.8)	A black stout with added port. Winner of many medals.	Lovely Jubbly.

First taste of Juborg

Right. First taste of my new brew. I suppose I could call these my "tasting notes" but that seems a bit strong. "Observations" maybe.

It wasn't stored cold though but I don't know if this will make a difference. Opened up and slight "Psst!" and poured pretty damn clear.

I just had a Grolsch so it's interesting to compare. My Juborg has that "fuller" flavour that's could be described as "fruity" I suppose (if I had half a clue about these things which I don't). This is an attribute that's not normally associated with lagers but since I prefer fruity and flowery beers like Skinners Ales then I'm very happy with the outcome.

Poured the second half of the bottle into a frosted glass which gave it a nice little white head which didn't last too long but it is a lager after all.


Tasted cold it loses a bit of its fruity taste but keeps its bitter aftertaste. That's bitter as in hops and not as in a bad way. Not too disimilar to the Grolsch I've just had actually. Oooh. Get me.


All-in-all I'm pretty damn happy with my second lager homebrew. Job's on.

Brew 3 - Coopers Pilsener (Juborg)

Seeing as I'm not having so much luck with the Woodfordes Wherry I decide to give another Coopers extract a go. This one is Coopers Pilsener, one of the Thomas Coopers Brewmaster Selection range. I chose this mainly because it uses a real bottom-fermenting lager yeast which doesn't need such a high temperature in the fermenter. This means I can brew it in the garage without having to use the brewbelt.

I shall call this brew "Juborg" in remembrance of the thousands of bottles of Tuborg Gold we drank growing up in Newquay back in the eighties. Everyone used to call it "Steam" which was a bit confusing really as around that time Newquay Steam Lager was released and quite popular I seem to remember. Still, the real "steam" to a local back then was always the little brown bottle of Tuborg Gold.

Here's the brewing notes:

04/09/2008 20:30 Sanitized equipment
04/09/2008 21:45 - OG: 1.034
Air temp 16/17 degrees so no brew belt as this is a true lager yeast.

05/09/2008 21:00ish SG: 1.030
06/09/2008 20:00ish SG: 1.027 - No bubbling still so I screwed the top on a little tighter and it immediately started bubbling every 10 secs!
07/09/2008 20:00ish SG: 1.022
08/09/2008 SG: 1.019
09/09/2008 21:00 SG: 1.015
10/09/2008 21:00 SG: 1.012
11/09/2008 21:00 SG: 1.011
12/09/2008 20:30 SG: 1.009
14/09/2008 SG: 1.008
15/09/2008 - Bottling Day! SG: 1.008 - added 1 teaspoon of dextrose to each bottle.

I love the Coopers kits. They seem to ferment really well and the Coopers fermenter with tap means that I can take a daily SG reading with opening it up and risking infection. Beauty! (as the Aussies might say.)

Brew 2 - Houston, we have a problem

Because this second brew kit says to brew it in the pressure keg supplied (odd I know but I decided to do what it says) I can't take sample everyday for a SG reading as it would lose pressure. I decide to take a sample every few days. Here's my brewing notes:

Specific Gravity (SG) Readings
30/08/2008: 1018
04/09/2008: 1016 - stuck? Still plenty of pressure though.

09/09/2008: 1016 - shook it!
11/09/2008: 1015 - Took off brew belt - still good pressure
12/09/2008: 15 degrees - I put the keg on the floor

I took off 2 litres into a 2 litre PET bottle and added 1 tablespoon of brewing sugar (dextrose).

19/09/08: Pulled a pint from the keg. Very cloudy and yeasty - very bitter aftertaste!

I'm pretty disappointed by now. I decide to add some more malt and re-pitch some more yeast just in case it's stuck. Remember, I'm flying blind here and am clutching at straws. (These are all metaphors, I cannot fly. I do have straws though albeit not at hand.)
21/09/08: Cleaned but did not sanitize my Coopers fermenter although I did a couple of days ago - alcohol already in it so may not matter? (I know, I know, hindsight and all that but sod it.)

Added 1kg of Munton's Beerkit Enhancer to 2 litres hot water.

Poored the beer from keg to fermenter using tap then out of the top. This made it up to the 20 litre mark. Temp of 25 degrees . added brew belt. The SG is now 1.028

Added Young's Ale Yeast.

22/09/08: 1015 and bubbling well!
23/09/08: 1014 and hardly bubbling! Sample really cloudy.
25/09/08: 101227/09/08: 1010 - Time to bottle.

Didn't put into king keg because as there's only 20 litres I though that there would be too much headspace and therefore too much oxygen so I decided to bottle into 11 1.5 litre bottles. Added 2 teaspoons of dextrose. It was still very cloudy.

Strength Calculations
First ferment
1034 - 1015 = 19
Second ferment
1028 - 1010 = 18

Does that mean it's effectively 37 altogther?
If so, ABV = 37 / 7.46 = 4.959 + .5 = 5.459

So, by my (probably very wrong) calculations 5.5% ABV is what I can expect. But will it clear and taste any better? I'll have to wait.

Brew 2 - Woodfordes Wherry

Right. Here we go with brew number two. This time it's a bitter, Woodfordes Wherry, and my mate is helping me as he's interested in what I'm up to.

We sanitize the King Keg pressure barrel, including its float system, with the supplied sterilizing solution. Unfortunately whilst tipping the water away down the toilet* the float system follows it and lands in the loo. Ah. Not too sterile then? I start again with a new bowl of sanitizing solution to clean the float system.

I follow the brewing instructions and add the extract and water in a similar way to the last brew. This time though there's nothing said about adding any sugar. Apparently it's already in the extract which is probably why there's two cans of it supplied.

Once again I add the yeast before I take the gravity reading just as I did with my first brew. Muppet. I quickly take a reading. The Original Gravity (OG) is 1034 which I think is pretty low but what do I know?

The barrel temperature reads 27 degrees. The ambient temperature in the garage is 20. I wrap my brewbelt around the barrel to try and maintain a steady temperature of around 24.

And that's it for brew number two. Fingers crossed.

*Yes, I have a toilet in the garage. Look. I didn't put it there and it's not used for number 1's or 2's anymore anyway. Still, it is pretty weird I agree. Useful though.

Muntons Micro Brewery System

Now I've been bitten by the brewing bug I thought I'd try another kit and this one was an easy decision. You may remember that my first brew was a choice between the lager-based Coopers Micro-Brew Kit and the bitter-based Muntons Micro Brewery System where I eventually chose the former. Now it's time to check out the latter.






I noticed that the homebrew section in my local market house hardware store had one of the Muntons Micro Brewery Systems for sale with an extra tenner off so I handed over my £49.99 and walked out of the store with my second everything-you-need-to-brew-tasty-beer-at-home-in-a-box-job.

Here's a quick run-down on what's in the box:

1 x 5 gallon "top tap" King Keg pressure barrel with dispenser tap

1 x screwtop barrel lid (with pressure release valve)

1 x top float plus tube

2 x tins premium hopped brewers malt extract (Woodforde's Wherry Bitter)

1 x steriliser powder

1 x Co2 bulb

1 x Co2 dispensing unit

Here's a photo of the kit borrowed from Muntons site, complete with blonde woman. Sadly my kit did not include this woman. I intend to complain to Muntons about this. I know my rights.

The full article for the kit's launch can be found here.

Unlike the Coopers offering this kit does not come with any bottles as everything is brewed and dispensed in the pressure barrel so you can just pull a pint ready for drinking straight from the tap.

What I did notice is that the instructions provided (an A4 sheet supplied along with a badly photocopied diagram or two) were no way near as professional and comprehensive as the Coopers kit. It's quite obvious that this kit is "badged" by Muntons by adding the Woodforde's Wherry and that you could probably buy this exact kit around the world supplied with identical components but with a different extract. That said, it certainly has no bearing on the quality of it and it shouldn't have any affect on the beer produced.

Well, hopefully not. I'll soon see.

First Taste!

It's my daughter's birthday so what better excuse to try the new beer out with my friends at the evening's BBQ?

I'm worried because there are no bubbles in the bottle. Have I brewed 30 bottles of lager-flavoured still water? The bottles feel solid so there's pressure but for some reason I expect to see bubbles. There's a little sediment in the bottom of the bottles which, I'm assured, is normal but the beer seems pretty clear.

I open a bottle and realise that I really shouldn't have worried about the carbonation not working as it makes a very satisfying PSSSHHT! sound. I poor the beer slowly into a tall German lager glass and it looks great, quite golden and reasonably clear. And the taste? Well, not as I expected really. I guess I was expecting a pub/shop lager taste (in other words not much!) but it tasted a lot, er, "fuller" if you know what I mean. But it also has a slight taste I can't explain. My friends says it's OK which puts my mind at rest a little. I think it's just a "young" taste. It needs time I reckon.

Relocation Relocation Relocation

Actually, I've just realised that the bedroom has exactly the same temperature as the airing cupboard so I pack up the bottles into a large, sturdy cardboard box (thank you Dell) and store them in the corner of the bedroom for another week.

The Week's SG Readings

Original Gravity (OG)
19/5/2008: 1052 or maybe 1042!

Specific Gravity (SG)
20/5/2008: 1032
21/5/2008: 1020
22/5/2008: 1010
23/5/2008: 1006
24/5/2008: 1006

Final Gravity (FG)
25/5/2008: 1006 - Time to bottle!

Bottling Day

The Coopers kit comes with 30 740ml PET (plastic) brown bottles with screw tops. Actually, they're better quality than they look and not too flimsy. I prime the bottles each with 2 of the supplied "carbonation drops" (sugar tablets basically) and fill each bottle with the beer from the fermenter using the supplied "little bottler" which is really easy to use. I leave about an inch of headspace at the top of each bottle as recommended to help with the carbonation that the sugar will create.

After the bottles are filled I store all 30 of them on a spare shelf in the airing cupboard which has a small heater in the bottom so I can maintain a constant temperature over 18 degrees Celsius.

Did I read that wrong?

Hang on a minute. Yesterday I measured the OG and it read 1052. That can't be right surely? It says here in the little Coopers instruction booklet that Microbrew worts tend to have an OG of between 1021 and 1040 so mine seems rather high. Ah well, maybe I read it wrong. Maybe it was 1042? It was my first time with a hydrometer after all. No matter. I'll measure it everyday to see what's happening with the fermentation. Today's SG reading is 1032.

First Brew

I've finally managed to clear a space in the back of the garage to start up the MoltenHops Brewery. It's not as warm as inside the house but as this part of the garage used to be the toilet and shower part of a self-contained bedsit it does mean it benefits from running water and even a toilet basin for disposal of liquids (hopefully not failed beers but we'll see!).

The ambient temperature of the garage is about 16 degrees celsius so it's too cold to brew this particular beer without a little help. I bought an electric "brew belt" for about £17 when I bought the starter kit so I'm hoping that this will suffice in maintaining the required temperature for fermentation.

I've sanitized the equipment and the can of concentrated malt extract has been warming in the sink. This extract, having had about 80% of its water removed back at Mr Cooper's house in Oz, is a very thick treacle-like substance. Warming the can in water helps the extract pour.

Now it's time to add it all to the fermenter and brew some beer!

The warmed extract goes in first which is like pouring Golden Syrup from a tin. I add a bit of hot water to the tin and swirl it around so I can get most of the residual extract out. I add the bag of brewing sugar (1KG) along with 2 litres of boiling water and stir it like crazy until it's all mixed together. I now fill the fermenter up with cold water up to the 23 litre mark. Apparently it's important to aerate the mix when filling up at this stage as the oxygen helps the yeast in its early days of fermentation. Luckily my cold water tap expells in every direction other than straight down so aeration is no problem.

I have now created WORT! (pronounced WURT and not spelt WART). If you are doing this yourselves and have ended up with a WART then I suggest you have somehow strayed off-subject and into something else, perhaps, a little unsavoury. Keep them to yourselves please.

Ambient temperature in the garage is 15.2 degrees. I check the temperature on the stuck-on thermometer and it says 21 degrees. This is bang-on the bottom of the recommended 21-27 range where the supplied yeast works best at (although it says that the yeast can work its magic between 18 and 32). I plug in the electric Brew Belt, wrap it around the fermenter and tighten it a little. Hopefully this will get the temperature up a little to my preferred 24 degrees and maintain it at that level day and night.

Now to add the yeast. I open the yeast sachet and sprinkle its contents over the top of my wort and immediately screw on the lid tight. I previously assembled the bubbler airlock and grommet into the hole in the top of the lid.

Note: When I was inspecting the contents of the starter kit just after I bought it I did notice that the grommet was split and, not wanting to risk spoiled beer because of something so small, I searched for a replacement. After hunting high and low, well during my lunch-hour anyway, I managed to purchase a similar sized replacement from a car auto-factors. I had to buy a packet of them so at least I have some spares. I guess that it's silly things like this that can hold-up or spoil the production of a good beer.

OH CRAP! I forgot to take the Original Gravity reading before I added the yeast! The Original Gravity (OG) is the density of the brew before the yeast has been added and is used to calculate the alchoholic strength of the beer at the end. I wonder if taking the reading just after the yeast has been added matters too much? Surely it's not going to affect it so quickly? I have read that the time between creating the wort and adding the yeast is the time when it is susceptible to infection so that's why I got the yeast in there so quickly. Ah well. Too late now.

I take the reading by filling up the hydrometer's holding tube thingy with wort from the fermenter's tap and gently drop in the hydrometer itself. Taking the reading is more difficult than I thought it would be because the hydrometer keeps spinning around slowly just as I'm about to read the level. I manage it and it reads 1052. I switch off the lights, close the garage door and hope that it all works after all the effort.

So that's it! My first homebrew started courtesy of that nice Mr Cooper. And to quote him 146 years after he started his business:

'We are now engaged in the Brewery business....'

Well. Sort of.

The Coopers Micro-Brew Kit

Here's a quick post on the kit I bought yesterday.

The Coopers 30lt Micro-Brew Kit's blurb states "Everything needed (except a can-opener) to brew beer is available in a box that fits easily into the kitchen cupboard."

So far so good as I the only piece of homebrewing equipment I have is that can-opener.

Opening the well-packed box I realise that this package really does include everything (except the can-opener).

Photo borrowed from the Coopers website. But think of the free advertising Mr Cooper!

Here's the box contents list:

• A 30ltr plastic fermenter, lid and rubber 'O' ring with tap, washer and sediment reducer
• Bubbler airlock & rubber grommet (I've always wanted my own grommet)
• Little bottler, bottling valve & tube
• Bag of Brewing Sugar
• Bag of Carbonation Drops
• An adhesive digital thermometer
• An instructional DVD
• A hydrometer
• 30 740ml plastic bottles (PET) & caps
• A plastic spoon
• A 1.7kg can of Coopers Lager Home Brew
• No can-opener

I pop the DVD into the DVD player (usually the best place for them) and watch Bruce and Sheila demonstrate how easy it all is. I must admit that it does all seems pretty straight-forward. It better be, Bruce, 'cos I know where you live. (Australia I'm guessing.)

I'm not going into any more detail about the kit now as I've just found a better site here done by Coopers themselves that does it better than I could anyway. That's quite enough of me advertising the Coopers gear. You owe me big time for this Mr Cooper!

So, all I have to do now is find a space somewhere around the house and get it all going. It's quite exciting really. Yes, I know, I do need to get out more.

My final thought is "how many people have bought this, followed all the instructions and preparations to then realise that they actually didn't have that very necessary, and by now quite infamous, can-opener?"

OK. Probably none. Fine.

Day One

So here it is. My first proper blog and it's on a subject I've only just recently ventured into and know next-to-nothing about. What could possibly go wrong? The intention is to publish my exploits into the world of homebrewing (beer to start with) and to document each brew as I go. It's a subject I've been interested in for ages (beer, pubs, breweries - what's not to like?) so why not try and brew my own?

So to find out more information I'm off to the local library in the rain. Nah, of course not. Like most people these days my source of all knowledge is the sofa and the internet. So here goes Google...

Right. Er... Mashing, lautering, sparging, fermentation, conditioning, wort, malt extract, yeast, enzymes, dextrins...... Blimey! Where do I start? Maybe they do those homebrew starter kits they used to do years ago. That's gotta be the way to go, surely. More Googling...

Oh yes, here they are, but there's loads of 'em! What to choose? Articles on the 'net have warned me off the beer-in-a-bag jobs and I'm hardly going to learn anything about the brewing processes with them but, as it turns out, I don't see any of these for sale anyway. What I do know is that as I'm starting from scratch it would make sense if I got a kit which came with the basic tools and containers.

OK. I think I've narrowed it down a little. There's two I fancy my chances with:

• Coopers Micro-Brew Kit
• Muntons Micro Brewery System

They're the same price (£59.99) but the Coopers (an Australian company) is a lager kit and the Muntons (a British company) includes Woodforde's Wherry, a branded Norfolk Best Bitter. So, Aussie lager or Brit bitter? Being someone who's not afraid to drink most beers (hell, I've worked in Belgium!) I don't really have a preference.

As luck would have it one of my local homebrew shops, Geoff's Wine & Beer Making, has both of these two starter kits in the window display which tells me that I'm on the right track. Surely Geoff wouldn't sell them if they were crap? Into the shop then for a nose around.

It turns out that the main difference between the 2 starter kits is that the Coopers kit includes a fermenter to brew the beer in before transfering it into the 30 supplied plastic bottles for secondary fermentation and conditioning whereas the Muntons Micro Brewery System uses a pressure barrel to do the lot it from start to finish.

I leave the shop 20 minutes later with a rather large red box in my arms. I went for Coopers kit in the end as it contained everything I needed to do my first brew. To be fair, the other kit contained everything that I would need too but I felt the Coopers was a bit nearer the "traditional" brewing method as it also comes with a "bubbler" airlock and a hydrometer for measuring the specific gravity during the fermentation period.

Another reason is that the Mrs drinks lager and not bitter so I've justified the cost of my new hobby already by saying her that she'll be able to benefit from the results although I get the feeling that she's not looking forward to my homebrewed amber nectar as much as I am!