10 Standout Beers of 2012

Sevare and I have really enjoyed reading Beers of the Year 2012 and Golden Pints awards. Particularly Craig Garvie's Golden Half Pints 2012 and The Beercast's Beer of the Year 2012.

Below is a selection of 10 of the more memorable beers for us this year:

Black Isle: Black Run.

B: A big, black porter with a ridiculously generous serving of piney hops! This is Colin's Christmas offering and it's something very special indeed. Hugely drinkable considering the abv. Definitely one to enjoy again on Christmas day.
S: LOVE this beer :) Thanks to Col for letting us taste it at the Black Isle a few weeks ago. I would buy this beer again and again.

Buxton: Imperial Black.

B: We originally had this at The York Tap. Pours a very dark brown colour with a thick light tan head. A beautiful upfront hop aroma of pine and grapefruit before light chocolate and roasty malt. Similar flavours with moderate carbonation and an oily mouth-feel. Alcohol is quite present and also quite bitter with a long roasty malt, dark chocolate, pine and grapefruit linger. Stunning! Also had this at The Stockbridge Tap for the Buxton Tap Takeover, another great night all round!
S: This is a 'happy in my pants' beer. I first tried it at the York Tap (for breakfast) and always buy a bottle if I see in Edinburgh.

Crombe: Oud Kriekenbier.

B: Pours an amber colour with a decent white head. A fantastic aroma of cherries, caramel, lemon, almonds, marzipan and alcohol. Similar flavours and nicely tart with moderate carbonation and a foamy mouth-feel. Superb! Nice and dry.
S: This is one of the beers from THE book '100 Belgian Beers To Try Before You Die'. It took us a while to find it (we started this mission in 2008) but well worth the wait :)

Hoppin Frog: BORIS The Crusher.

B: I've been lucky enough to drink a fair bit of this in 2012 thanks to it's availability at BrewDog. Pours a black colour with a tan head that dies away fairly quickly. Aroma of caramel, chocolate and coffee. Similar flavours with plenty of chocolate upfront. Alcohol is fairly present with a lovely lingering bitter chocolate character. Some capsaicin also, of red peppers, not chilli so much. A great oily mouth-feel and moderate carbonation. Delicious! Also had this on draught at The Delirium Hoppy Loft. Dangerously drinkable given the abv!
S: What can I say? I will ALWAYS love this beer but found it most enjoyable on tap in Belgium :) Mmmm hoppy loft nom nom nom.

HORAL'S: Mega Blend.

B: 2011 bottle. Pours a blonde colour with a thick white head. A fantastic aroma of horse blanket and lemon. Bone dry with flavours of lemon, chalk, digestive biscuits and barley. Moderate carbonation. Stunning.
S: A blend of so many sours? How could it not be amazing? :D


Lost Abbey: Deliverance.

B: Pours a very dark brown colour with a fair, light tan head. Aroma of marzipan, bourbon, coconut, brandy, chocolate, honey, vanilla, caramel and oak. Similar flavours with mild carbonation, light CO2 prickle and an oily mouth-feel. This beer is truly phenomenal! Definite Pannepot notes. Wow!
S: Blair and I went on a lengthy mission in California to find this beer. So glad we did :)

Lovibonds: Sour Grapes.

B: On keg at The Independent Manchester Beer Convention. Pours a blonde colour with a fair white head. A lovely sour, vinous aroma with balsamic vinegar, wet cardboard, oak, lemon and alcohol. Similar flavours with mild carbonation and a foamy mouth-feel. Nice and dry to finish. Great!
S: One of the few beers I drank multi-thirds of at the Indy Beer Man festival. Also lovely to meet the brewer :D

Magic Rock: Magic 8 Ball.

B: Bottle from Luvians, St Andrews. A black beer with a fair, light tan head. Aroma is lovely with passion fruit and grapefruit hop characters, presumably Nelson Sauvin. Juicy passion fruit and pineapple hop flavours give way to coffee, roasty malt, burnt toast and chocolate. The flavours are intense but this is a seriously drinkable beer. Also loved this on cask at The Stockbridge Tap Magic Rock Takeover. Fantastic!
S: I've had this beer so many times; always love it, always drink too much of it!

Thornbridge: Bracia PX.

B: On cask at The Holyrood 9A. Pours a very dark brown colour with a fair light tan head. A lovely aroma of roasty malt, blackberries, dark chocolate, burnt toast and alcohol. Similar flavours with a coconut and dark chocolate finish. Mild carbonation and an oily mouth-feel. A lingering oaky, vinous character also. Delicious!
S: I *love* the normal Bracia and the PX. The PX version convinced me to try the sherry. I loves the sherry.

Williams Bros: Nollaig.

B: Bottle from Drinkmonger. Pours a beautiful amber colour with a thick, rocky beige head. Aroma of mandarins, spruce, treacle, alcohol and pine. Mandarin, grapefruit and spruce flavours compete wonderfully to give a vibrant, bitter orange character that tails off to a warming alcohol hum. The linger reminds me of orange bitters with moderate carbonation and an oily mouth-feel. Superb! Also had this at The Holyrood 9A. Lots of strawberries all round and quite bitter.
S: mmmm Spruce. I could drink this beer all year but it definitely makes Christmas special :D

So there you have it. An eclectic mix of favourites from the last 12 months. Bring on 2013!

Craigs Oolong Chilli Challenge

At the beginning of the year, Craig posted a ready, steady, brew challenge for home brewers to come up with a beer featuring some weird and wonderful ingredients.

The options were:

1) Oolong tea, lemon and honey
2) Oolong tea and chilli
3) Black tea and cardamon
4) Black tea and black pepper and
5) Asparagus and black pepper


From this list, Oolong tea and chilli was selected as the most popular choice, by me included. I have a decent selection of tea but Oolong is not a staple in our home. Chilli's, on the other hand, we generally have on the go. The first step was to get a recipe together. For this one of Sev's workmates, Adam, found a traditional Hock recipe. This would have been the equivalent of todays white stout and so it seemed a fun base to work from. 


The problem with recreating a historical recipe lies primarily with the scarcity and potential toxicity of some of the original ingredients. For instance, the original recipe calls for hard multum made from Cocculus indicus berries which were used to enhance intoxication in the absence of sufficient malt. These berries are, however, toxic in not overly large quantities so I didn't look too hard for them. I also tried to keep the brewing method as close to the original as possible, however, on such a small scale (4L), a few more compromises had to be made.

The selection of the tea was also nice. Sev and I went to Eteaket and tried a few Oolong's before deciding on a golden variety. Liquorice tea was also reduced down and added to the boil in place of Spanish root so the tea quality could hopefully come through. Balance was the real challenge with this one because Oolong tea is such a subtle flavour and chilli's well, aren't. I also wanted this beer to taste like a beer so there was a fair bit of pipetting done to get the balance of these flavours just right. While pipetting out drops of chilli infused vodka into the conditioning vessel, I definitely felt I had an idea of what it must be like to be a master blender at a distillery.


The beer came out at 4% abv and 85 ibu. It's not white, of course, but it's still fairly light given that I had to beef up the malt bill to account for a lack of toxic berries. This was a very time intensive process, involving a 75 minute mash and 135 minute boil. The Oolong tea was added for the final 5 days with chilli-infused vodka added before bottling. I've had a couple of these already and I'm really enjoying it. I wish I'd made more but for now I'm looking forward to seeing what other people come up with when the tasting night comes around. I have also added some Oolong tea and chilli to a mead for a giggle.

Homebrew Night Part 2

Well the homebrew night was a success with Richard, Craig and Paul coming along to enjoy a few locally produced ales and a few commercial offerings as well. A big thank you also to Michael for supplying his IPA and also to Ben who supplied a 6.5% Amber, 5.5% French Oak, 7% Black IPA and a lovely 10.5% Imperial Stout! The blind tastings were enjoyed by all with the DryPA Is Dead challenge proving quite popular. The same 5.5% IPA without dry hopping, with Cascade, Simcoe and Nelson Sauvin. Of these 4 beers, the Simcoe proved most popular among the group (me included).

The next challenge will be to do a yeast series. Recommendations are very welcome. My thoughts are to include a Lager yeast as well as Brett, however, we'll aim for 4-5 different versions so time to get culturing! Also coming up will be Craig's Oolong and Chilli Challenge which should be very interesting. I have both a hock and a mead ready for this. It would be nice to do this challenge soon as my collection is dwindling.

So, thanks again to everyone who supplied their beer and who came along on the night. It would be nice to do this again later in the year to give people time to brew new beers.

Homebrew Night

On Friday 30th March, there will be a home brew tasting at our place. A mini keg of 5.1% India Brown Ale has been vented and will be flowing as of 7PM. A big thank you to Paul for supplying 7 different beers for this event. There will also be a few contributions from other local home brewers. Several commercial beers will also be enjoyed blind alongside offerings of similar styles with plenty of opportunity for vertical and horizontal tastings. Here is a list of what's in store, with the possibility of a few other weird and wonderfuls if people are feeling brave.

Dry Hop Series- Simcoe, Cascade and Nelson Sauvin
Prog IPA
Frozen Donut DIPA
Belgian Bitter
Bohemian Like Ewe NZ Pilsner
Hop Jockey Citralicious IPA
2011 Pumpkin Ale and Ginger Edition
Bruntsfield Abbey Trappist
Dubbel Rainbow
Bamberg Black Mild
Juniper Porter
Wild type- Rauchbier with Brett

Hopefully, we'll see a few of you tomorrow night!

Fruli

OK, 3 days in and the Imperial Fruli no longer needs a blow off. In fact, it seems to have exhausted itself. No point in adding restart because it's done it's thing. I had a sniff and it's definitely boozy with some strawberries also. It was at that time that I decided to actually try a Fruli. Whoah! not subtle at all. Sev seems to be enjoying it but this is not really a beer as far as I can see. It's a cloudy pink colour with a thin white head. Aroma of artificial strawberry sweets and caramel. Similar flavours with a sweet and tangy fruit tingle finish. Definitely not my thing but I can see there is a market... As for Imperial Fruli. 2 weeks in secondary with or without beechwood will tell...

Frozen Donut 2

So tonight we bottle another tribute beer. Based loosely on the Frozen Donut DIPA recipe brewed in honour of Sev's grandmother on her birthday. This IPA is again quite floral and hoppy with a nice amount of bitterness. Two weeks of dry-hopping has really upped the aroma. A small beer was also bottled last weekend from the final run-off from this mash. The small beer is a Belgian Bitter and really packs a punch. Both beers are 6.6%, with the Belgian Bitter gaining a few points from Belgian candi sugar and candied fruit peel in the boil. Both tasting good so far but time for the arduous rinsing of bottles...

Pumpkin Ale

I thought I'd put up a few pics of our first pumpkin ale, brewed for a Halloween party last year. This was a partial mash brew which included roasted spiced pumpkin, malt extract and Nelson Sauvin hops. It turned out a treat. So we repeated it this year but this time it was all-grain. 4L was then racked into a demijohn on shredded candied ginger for another week. This years batch is about ready to drink and promises to be another good one : )