Capital Brewers’ Second Brewday
The Capital Brewers held their second brewday on Sunday 27th of January. Once again the venue was TOG, a hackerspace in Dublin 8. It was a far more intimate event this time around with less than 20 people in attendance over the course of the day. This gave some rookies a chance to help out with Rossa’s all grain brew. James was also brewing on the day, two batches, one extract and one all grain using his Spiedel Braumeister.
Rossa brewed an American stout (BJCP 13E). “What makes it American?” you might ask yourself. An American stout is one that is higher in gravity than a dry (i.e. normal) stout and a lot of late American hops, think Cascade, Centennial, Citra or anything citrusy. On the day Rossa used a lot of Cascade, and went a bit crazy with his bittering addition by using English hops (Fuggles). It is expected to come in around 7% ABV, and if past performance was a reliable indicator of future performance, this will be a nice tasty brew. The speciality malts for this brew were: Chocolate, Black, Brown, Crystal 75 and some wheat. The bulk of the fermentables was Marris Otter pale ale malt. The yeast for this beer was of course US-05, an American strain to stick with the American theme in this beer style.
James once again brewed Jacob’s SNPA clone (BJCP 10A) Extract recipe and had a “here’s one I made earlier” trick that would get him a job on any food network when he unleashed the extract brew from the first brewday. It was spot on and I look forward to tasting it side by side versus the All Grain and Kit recipes from the first brewday.
James also brought along his Braumeister to show everyone in attendance what a great piece of kit it is, he brewed up a milk stout (BJCP 13B) with it on the day. It was very interesting to see a single vessel brew system in action and it would be worth considering one if you can afford it. On a related note some of the NHC members on the forum are trying to piece together a Brewmiser.
In the week since the brewday a vote was put up on the forum for people to decide whether they’d prefer a Saturday brewday or a Sunday brewday. Sunday won the vote easily and we are just awaiting confirmation of venue availability before we add the next few brewdays to the calendar.
We are hoping to start doing a monthly tasting event as well as our monthly brewday, with a bit of a BJCP slant to it, but the BJCP judging will be optional for anyone in attendance. If anyone has a suitable venue or is good friends with a local bar manager, please let us know so that we can set the ball rolling.
And once again thanks to WIll for making it in to take some photos of the day!
As always the best way to find out about future meetups is to keep an eye on the forum and the twitter feed @capitalbrewers, or if you’d like to email padraic@nationalhomebrewclub.ie to request to be added you to my mailing list.
