Hi,
I'm about to redeem the voucher for the Minch heirloom malts that Homebrew Company generously offered for all Brewcon attendees and was wondering has anyone any experience using these or anything similar? I'm thinking about adding a small bit of roasted barley and using them in an Irish red. Do you think that would work well?
Thanks,
Matt
Do you have a link to the malts?
I have been waiting for those malts to show up for months and still can't find them on the site.
To answer your recipe question, no homebrewers have made beers with this malt, and the commercial offerings have been highly hopped, so nothing has showcased these malts yet.
I would love to give this the cask treatment but failing that, go with a basic pale recipe that puts the malt centre stage.
Low carbonation blonde/cream ale or British bitter
Cool, thanks!
No, I had a look earlier and couldn't find them... was gonna shoot the HBC an email to see about ordering them tomorrow and to see if there's a spec sheet to go with them.
I wonder were the commercial beers heavily hopped to hide an undesirable flavour profile from the malts, or was it just to appease the hophead masses?
No , you are not going to get undesirable flavours in base malt, ever. You might get some unexpected surprises when mashing a heritage/heirloom malt, but not an undesirable flavour.
The only one i tried was Kinnegar Barrel Hunter, good beer actually, but not a malt showcase. In my head I think I have tried another, perhaps the porterhouse one?
https://www.minchmalt.ie/product/hunter-pale-ale/
https://www.minchmalt.ie/product/old-irish-melanoidin/
Specs as bottom of each page, in description tab.
Quote from: AnGhrúdlannBeag on October 09, 2019, 01:41:43 AM
I wonder were the commercial beers heavily hopped to hide an undesirable flavour profile from the malts, or was it just to appease the hophead masses?
I was going to give a knee-jerk reaction to this, but I (wisely?) resisted, as it hit a bit of a nerve.
I spent a good chunk of my life in the UK and the traditional/cask scene there celebrates and respects its malts (Maris Otter is decades past the time it should have been phased out). And this malt appreciation does spill over into the craft scene as well. It has made for a renewed interest in heritage barley varieties, and the Chevalier strain in particular is quite famous for being brought back from the dead, and has been used superbly by homebrewers and commercial brewers alike to good effect.
In the right hands, you can make beers that could have been enjoyed by your great great grandparents - and we dont have many opportunities to do this, history disappears fast in the beer world.
So it bugs me that the Hunter variety in particular, was thrown into quite a few beers now without any regard for showcasing the ingredient. I never got to try the White Gypsy beer (straight to keg, not bottle) only the Kinnegar Barrel Hunter, but all of them were American Pale Ales of various strengths and with robust hopping that would have masked the distinguishing ingredient. It just seems like such a waste.
In my mind there are a couple of basic styles that would have showcased the malt - blonde ale, irish red, English Best & Ordinary Bitter, English (pale) Mild, cream ale, and perhaps an american pale ale with a subtle touch. After that, there are other more niche styles that would have worked with it too, like a barleywine/old ale, ESB, scottish ale styles, american amber, and maybe a foray into some belgian styles too.
So let us know what the HBC say about stocking it. If they did so earlier in the year, I might have had a chance to brew a taste of the past for my Dads 70th, and serve it up on hand pull - which would have been pretty cool. But he is still in rude health, so will get another go ..
Mine arrived yesterday. Thinking of doing a dark mild or a brown. Anyone any recipes?
Quote from: Andrew on October 10, 2019, 08:36:12 AM
Mine arrived yesterday. Thinking of doing a dark mild or a brown. Anyone any recipes?
Your malt or your voucher?
As per previous years, your voucher is in your BrewCon booklet.
Quote from: TheSumOfAllBeers on October 10, 2019, 12:17:16 PM
Quote from: Andrew on October 10, 2019, 08:36:12 AM
Mine arrived yesterday. Thinking of doing a dark mild or a brown. Anyone any recipes?
Your malt or your voucher?
The malt. What voucher are you taking about?
Quote from: Andrew on October 11, 2019, 10:14:42 AM
Quote from: TheSumOfAllBeers on October 10, 2019, 12:17:16 PM
Quote from: Andrew on October 10, 2019, 08:36:12 AM
Mine arrived yesterday. Thinking of doing a dark mild or a brown. Anyone any recipes?
Your malt or your voucher?
The malt. What voucher are you taking about?
To clarify - I was trying to figure out if you had a
voucher to obtain the malt, or if you had managed to buy some and get it
delivered.
So you managed to get some of this malt? Can you tell me where/how you got it?
The info's in the back of the Brewcon booklet
Just got a mail back from HBC saying they have a very limited supply that will be appearing on the website soon.
...and judging by this tweet from Minch malts, there will be more available next year too!
https://twitter.com/minchmalt/status/1169186143025422345?s=21
Quote from: pob on October 11, 2019, 07:21:41 AM
As per previous years, your voucher is in your BrewCon booklet.
Its also allocated to the name of the person that bought the Brewcon Ticket.
Quote from: TheSumOfAllBeers on October 11, 2019, 10:27:08 AM
So you managed to get some of this malt? Can you tell me where/how you got it?
Got it from The Homebrew Company, as per the instructions at the back of the BrewCon booklet.
Quote from: Andrew on October 15, 2019, 01:37:01 PM
Quote from: TheSumOfAllBeers on October 11, 2019, 10:27:08 AM
So you managed to get some of this malt? Can you tell me where/how you got it?
Got it from The Homebrew Company, as per the instructions at the back of the BrewCon booklet.
Ah so its not on general release then.
I'm teaming up with another brewer and doing a mighty big English barley wine with out malts. Should really show what this malt has to offer.
Quote from: nigel_c on October 16, 2019, 12:04:07 PM
I'm teaming up with another brewer and doing a mighty big English barley wine with out malts. Should really show what this malt has to offer.
Let me know when the tasting is on. If I was to do make a barley wine with this malt I would be tempted to make it single malt, just with the hunter, and forego any character malts for flavour etc. But its your beer etc.
We did a barley wine a while back that was super clean. It got the barrel aging treatment etc. But I recall that we used just maris otter and a little bit of extra dark crystal. WLP028 and a bunch of the usual english hops. I recall that this was drinkable once the bottles conditioned, as opposed to other barley wines that need to be laid down for months to a year to balance out (the barrel treatment helped here).