Monday - Brew day

To be able to cope with the thirst of the Old Gits, when the 2nd orchard Road Beer festival is held, I have had to ramp up beer production. I am making clones of well loved commercial beers that are available today or have been available in the past. However, I am not going to publish their names. That will be something for the festival.

I dissolved 3250 grams of dried malt extract in 10 litres of water at 40C then topped up with a further 10 litres of water. When this mixture started to boil I added 51 grams of challenger hops. After a further 80 minutes of boil I added 17 grams of styrian golding hops and 3 grams of Irish moss. The wort was then allowed to continue boiling for a further 10 minutes. The boiler was then turned and the wort allowed to cool for 30 minutes when a further 10 grams of styrian hops was added. After a further hour the wort was run off into a sterilised fermentation vessel which contained 4 litres of fridge cold bottled water. The wort was then topped up to 20 litres of cold water and the gravity checked. This turned out to be a little higher than desired so I added a further 1 litre of water. This then gave an Original Gravity of about 1.046 and all was well with the world. The yeast was then pitched. This latest brew was mostly free from the influence of goblins. A check this morning revealed that the brew was bubbling away quite vigorously. So I declare another successful brew is on the way.

Thursday - Curry Night

The Old Gits returned to the Staple Hill Oak after an absence of one week to partake in the weekly curry night. Started the evening with a Cocky Blonde 4%. As the name implied the beer was blonde to golden. Slightly sweet with a fruit overtone but full bodied. As is our custom we then ordered our curries. I had the chilli con carne due to the fact that I have gone off Wetherspoons currys. The meal was reasonable especially as it was washed down with a pint of Prairie Gold 5%. Another pleasant golden beer with a slight citrus finish. Of course we were now beginning to put the world to rights and begin our weekly rants. Amidst all this we had another pint of Cocky Blonde. I must admit I quite like a cocky blonde now and then. It was then onto a Fox's Nob 5%. A strong bitter with a mid brown colour. I liked this one. The next on the list was Bloomin Smoky 5%. This is a dark wheat beer. Now I usually like wheat beer but this one was to me undrinkable. There was nothing wrong with it except my own personal taste but I couldn't drink it. A sad thing to admit but perhaps my tasting buds are changing with the onset of old age.

Due to other commitments I will not be publishing a blog next Wednesday or Thursday. However, Monday will be another brew day. I am ramping up for the 2nd Orchard Road Beer Festival to be held sometime in June, July, August or September.