Capital Brewers May Meet-up

Last week saw another Capital Brewers meet in W.J.Kavanagh’s near Dublin’s city centre. The evening started early with a publishers meeting to discuss website content before the tasting got started. A fresh cask of the recently released ‘Oxman’ from the Brown Paper Bag Project crew was the brewers drink of choice while the Kavanagh’s bacon jam as part of their ‘Meatatarian Starter Board’ was the overall star of the evening. It was noted that this dish deserves an article by itself!

First off was Conor’s Hefeweizen which was fermented with a WLP300 liquid yeast. The beer imparted an intense banana flavour which was still retained some sweetness despite finishing with a final gravity of 1.010. The general consensus was that the banana flavour was a little too strong and Conor was looking at ways of balancing the flavour. Initial suggestions of swirling the bottle were unsuccessful as it merely stirred up more banana flavoured trub and yeast. The fermentation temperatures may also have been a little too high on occasion and this was identified as the main area of improvement for his beer.

Next up was Rossa’s Hopfenweisse that was brewed in the TOG hacker-space at one of the recent capital brewers brewday’s. The wheat beer used Cascade hops for bittering and flavour during the boil while being dry hopped with Citra. The use of Citra was immediately apparent when the bottle was held to the nose. A few of the tasters detected a mild soapy off-flavour from this brew which can be caused by yeast autolysis which can be caused by insufficient aeration.   Another from Rossa was his ‘Little Bitter’ which was brewed with a massive 200g of Bramling Cross hops at flame-out and only a tiny bit of bittering at the start of the boil. One of the aims of this brew was to establish the amount of bittering which can be achieved from adding a large quantity of hops at flameout. Most brewing software will indicate that zero IBU’s of bitterness will be extracted when adding hops at this stage but Rossa points out (and demonstrated from his brew) that between 20 -30 IBUs of bitterness were extracted from this addition. The appearance of the beer was very clear and Isinglass was used as a clarifying agent to achieve this degree of clarity.

Peter’s 6.4% IPA was the next beer to take centre stage. It was fermented in two corny kegs to avoid exposing the beer to oxygen after the fermentation has started. The fermented beer is then transferred into another keg which has been purged with CO2 and has the dry hops already inside. This beer is brewed with Columbus, Amarillo and Centennial. This beer was complemented with Tom’s Citra Pale Ale which was brewed with Summit hops and of course Citra hops! The beer was dry hopped in the primary fermenter during an active fermentation which may have reduced the hop aroma slightly. Tom told us that he has a newer version in the fermenter so we can also look forward to that at the next meet.

Brian’s ‘Metalman Moonbeam‘ inspired robust porter subsequently stepped up to the mark as the beer styles begin to get darker. Fermented with US05 and aged for 3 months the beer still retained a citrusy flavour and aroma despite its age. These flavours complemented the chocolatey malt backbone of the beer. Gender politics soon became a hot issue with Michelle refusing to brew Grainne’s Pale Ale. We likened it to the fact that girls hate to be seen wearing the same shoes, everyone wants their own niche! Once the gender debate was over it was time to try Shane’s ‘East India Porter’. This porter was based on a historic style of beer that was supplied to the troops which were part of the east india trading company. It is a tweaked (more chocolatey) version of the toned-down recipe which originated from Ron’s blog. Despite being ‘toned-down’ it still contained 200g of East Kent Goldings hops which are balanced out by the sweetness resulting from a very high mash temperature.

Overall it was a productive evening with some fantastic beers and a big thanks to everyone for coming.

Shane