Capital Brewers August Meetup
What can I say other than last night’s beer tasting from Capital Brewers offered fantastic quality beer across the board. We were treated to a huge variety of styles ranging from sour beers to 120 IBU brown ales. With a total of 12 or 13 beers, the night was smaller than usual but I have found that the smaller the crowd, the better the night! With a smaller crowd and this being the last tasting before the Capital Brewers “Summer Session Beer Competition” first round, there was plenty of ‘fighting talk’ as brewers discussed their announced and unannounced entries. We adopted a different note-taking format this month with each attendee taking their turn to write down their own thoughts and others around them as the beers came out.
Kicking off the night was Kevin (Dunkel) with a 7% “Turbo Cider” which he described himself as “a bit rough”. Immediately the consensus from the table was that this, most certainly, was not the case! The finish of the cider was quite dry with an effervescent mouthfeel which resulted in a mouth-watering juiciness which I likened to being similar to the aftertaste from Cantillon. Kevin added some crushed raisins to provide nutrients for the yeast and added tea to provide tannins to balance the sweetness. The beer finished quite dry and he back-sweetened with lactose to balance the flavour. The cider had a slight haze to it and pectolase was added to aid clarification which Kevin expects to improve further with time. This was quickly followed, after everyone had taken a 2nd helping of the turbo cider, by Kevin’s “Hefeweizen” weighing in at 5.3%. The beer was very refreshing with a subtle but not overpowering clove flavour. The recipe used kit based ingredients with Safbrew WB-06 dry yeast which also gave a slight banana aroma. The beer had a good hazy golden straw colour with excellent head retention.
On paper Cathal O D was up next with his 4.4% “EPA” which, after clarification, was known as “Emma’s Pale Ale” designed by his partner Emma who took charge of answering questions about the beer. The beer was very fresh with a fantastic hop aroma and fruity taste from the hops. A few tasters found it was similar to a hoppy golden ale while others described it as a great example of a pale ale. I think a few people arrived late at this stage and were looking for more but there wasn’t a drop left, you know a beer is good when it’s all gone. Fionn (Fyodor) was up next with his complex “Oatmeal Coffee Stout” weighing in at 6.5%. When I say complex I’m talking about the five varieties of hops (Simcoe, Columbus, Centennial, Amarillo, Chinook) and seven types of malt used to brew this beer! Each bottle included half an espresso made fresh from a coffee machine which imparted a burnt roastiness to the beer which would satisfy anyone into their coffee. The coffee flavour was such that the flavour and aroma from the hops didn’t really come though and it was suggested that the beer could be replicated with a more modest hop bill. 25% of the malt bill comprised of oats which aided great head retention along with a silky texture to the body of the beer. This beer is not something you would drink for the night but it is definitely something one could savour in a snifter glass by the fire on a winters night.
Declan’s (Cara) 5.2% “English Ale” from his recent brewing demonstration at one of the popular “Little Talks” at W.J.Kavanagh’s was up next. The beer was sitting in a keg on the pub gas and so was exposed to a N2 CO2 mix which gave the beer a very smooth texture and head. The beer itself had an aroma of ice-cream which was blended with caramel aromas from the crystal and amber malts. It was likened to that of Kilkenny in terms of smoothness but with a lot more flavour. Overall the beer was well balanced with Cascade/Warrior hops and was fermented at 22°C before being crash cooled and transferred to a corny keg. Up next was Sully’s (SheBrewer1) “Sour Mild” AKA “Jean-Claude Van Damme” which was inspired by a Basic Brewing Halloween episode. Sully mashed in as normal with Maris Otter and Golden Promise malt, then cooled the wort slightly and added uncrushed torrified wheat which acted as a source for the lactobacillus which soured the mash. After souring the mash for a couple of days, he then transferred the wort directly to the fermenter (unhopped) allowing wild yeast to take over and finish the fermentation. Some found it somewhat ‘mousey’ to the nose with it being described as quite unique and unfamiliar by others. The beer itself was mustard in colour and was completely opaque which probably due to yeast still in suspension and proteins. Personally I would like to see what this beer tastes like side by side with another version that has been boiled and hopped.
Fergal’s (ferg) “100+ IBU APA” was next with an ABV of 4.9% and had been aged for almost a year. Despite its age the beer still maintained some hop aroma which was distinctively American. The flavour profile was quite unique tasting with a very upfront toasted caramel accompanied with some residual flavour from the Chinook and Cascade hops. I imagine that when this beer was young that there was a slight harshness from the crystal malt and this could have been exasperated by the fact that Fergal said he gave the grain bag “a good squeeze” after steeping. The body of the beer was quite dry with a lager-like mouthfeel. The phrase adopted for this beer this beer and I don’t know if Fergal will be able to live it down is “Don’t squeeze your sack”. Fionn (Fyodor) was up again with his 2nd beer of the night, his 120 IBU “Brown Ale” with an ABV of 8%. The colour of this beer was a deep dark brown with an intended EBC of 78. The aroma is dominated with floral notes attributed to the American hops with a hint of sweetness hidden behind it. The initial flavour is malty sweetness dominated by the abbey and special b although this is quickly followed by strong fresh hop bitterness. There isn’t a large degree of hop flavour evident which may change over time as the bitterness and matiness mellow a bit. It’s hard to believe that this beer is so young being only in the bottle two weeks before the testing especially with the large amount of late hops with 100g at 5min and 80g dry hops. The general consensus was that this beer will improve over time and we are all looking forward to tasting it as it progresses!
Damien (DaMun) was up next with a hat-trick of beers to draw the evenings tasting towards its close. First up was a Dunkelweizen which at 4.7% was an all grain kit from the HBC. The aroma was dominated by dark malts and estery fruitiness with a one finger tan coloured head which hangs around. The fruitiness from the aroma follows through to the flavour but the same cannot be said for the malt flavour which isn’t as dominant. The beer itself is surprisingly clear given the wheat content of the malt bill. Despite the beer being three to four months old, several people described the beer as being “absolutely delicious” which Damien attributes to his patented “car conditioning” technique for aging his beers. The beer itself mainly used noble bittering hops with very little contributions to the end of the boil. Damien’s next beer was a 9% “Belgian Tripel” which finished quite dry with relatively low levels of carbonation. The beer had good head retention with a one finger white head that was maintained throughout the tasting. The body was quite light and I felt the beer could have benefited from a little more body to add some more complexity and richness to the beer. Damien’s last beer was a “Hoppy Hobgoblin” which I felt tasted much better than the original as the additional hops in this beer really balance the malt in a superior fashion. The appearance of the beer gave a two finger off-white head which hangs around and left some lacing. The flavour was dominated by an upfront sweetness and caramel flavour from the malts but at the same time can be described as bitter-sweet as it is still well balanced from the hops. This beer really has a much more intense flavour than the original Hobgoblin and that is most certainly a good thing.
The last beer of the night was from Tom which was an infected red ale which was described as having “two problems”. The label on the bottle was marked “not for human consumption” and naturally this did nothing only encourage the attendees to have a taste! The initial aroma was unfortunately destroyed by a bang of metallic accompanied by subtle acetone and musty aromas. The flavour was slightly less offensive than the aroma although it was dominated by a wet cardboard flavour indicating oxidation. There were other clear off flavours in the beer which were difficult to identify given that palate fatigue had well set in by this point in the night. The beer was also characterised by a slight acidic quality with bonus flavours that could only be described as TCP and other phenols. Overall the tasters were thankful that the beer was very cold otherwise who knows what flavours would have been prominent! What happened to this beer, Tom?!
I would like to thank everyone for coming and bringing their creations. Join the discussion in the forum here.
