Hop to it!
Thornbridgers like ourselves love spring. No longer do we have to throw steaming hot water onto the external pipes so we can pre-rinse our dirty casks. No longer do we have to waste time plunging our bright red hands into a bucket of warm, soapy water just to keep them warm instead of washing barrels. Toes like ice-cubes nestling in our Wellington boots, in my case with my possum-merino blend socks on, wondering why we didn’t put two pairs of socks on that morning whilst cursing the chilly snow.
Couple that with the bustle of activity as the dormancy of winter dissipates, buds opening, spring blossoms blooming, insects and birds and animals emerging and you can see why it makes a brewer happy. Yet beyond all of the Pantheistic worship is the most exciting thing that spring offers the Thornbridgers. You guessed it… the new seasons hops have all arrived at our hop suppliers!
Stefano, Dave and Matt all left early on Monday morning to make the trek down to Newland, a small town close to Malvern in Herefordshire where Charles Faram & Co Ltd, our hop suppliers, run their hop warehouse. Myself and Catherine were both already in London, so we also headed over and had planned a night in a local pub called The Talbot at Knightwick, which (oh, so conveniently) happened to have a little brewery attached called Teme Valley Brewery as well as a great selection of local sourced food.
Stef, Dave and Matt met up with Charles Faram hop legends Paul Corbett and Will Rogers, both veritable black belts in the art of Hop-kido. They all went off to visit Mark Andrews who had grown the delicious fresh Target hops that we had used in our 2008 Green Hop Vintage of Halcyon (our Imperial IPA). I met up with them upon their return and we got into some serious hop sniffing!
We started with the more delicate hops then moved right through to the pungent beasts, and I thought it would be a good idea to put a few aroma descriptors next to each… you never know if any budding home brewers are going to be reading this blog! So here goes…
Sovereign – Similar to Fuggles/Goldings with good pungency and floral notes
Saaz – Hay, dried apricots with hints of spice
Lubelski – Smokey, slight oxidised character, some spice
Crystal – Noble aroma, Cascade-esque character, mango and stone-fruits with some citrus
Mount Hood – Perfume and wood, quite delicate
Sterling – Old lemons and some lemon dishwashing liquid
Santiam – Lots of pineapple, clean character
Sladek – Mint, spice, hardwood
Aurora – Biscuit, slightly cheesey with some mint
Atlas – Hint of lemon, wood with some patchouli
Savinski – Lemon dishwashing liquid with some root vegetable character
Bobek – Fuggles like with some more lemon
Celeia – Styrian Goldings like but more intensity with a little lemon zest
Sorachi – Lemongrass, pineapple, mouldy citrus (but in a good way!)
Bramling Cross – Grapefruit, passionfruit and some berry characters
Pilgrim – Very pungent with some almost dairy characters
Willamette – Mango, peaches, ribes (blackcurrant)
Marynka – Banana, shoe polish, slight vegetable character
Northern Brewer – Intense hop pungency
Ahtanum – Delicate citrus, fresh cut hay
Cluster – Pine, citrus some bubblegum
Galena – Pineapple, pine needles, oriental wood
Herkules – Intense hop pungency. Hard to characterise
Chinook – Pine, citrus, grassy
Centennial – Orange zest, pungent
Amarillo – Grapefruit, floral with some sweetness
Simcoe – Sage, slightly balsamic, citrus and some rubber/sulphur
Cascade – Citrus and tropical juice, good pungency
Challenger – Green peppercorns, chocolate, some cheddar
So I suppose you could call this list a beginners guide to the 2008 crop of hops! It was amazing to smell the difference that the hops would have from farm to farm and really highlighted how important it is for us as brewers to nose the hops before every brew to ensure we’re getting consistent aroma and flavour characteristics into our beer. It also works as a fantastic brainstorming session as we begin to build beers based on the hops we are nosing. Needless to say, we have a few already! The other fun part of testing the hops is how stupid we look doing it! Catherine took a few photos, so I thought it would be a good idea to put some in…
- Noses at the ready…
Dave gets his nose dirty. Paul loses his favourite hop! Dave???
Do you want any?
Dave's had too many...
So has Stef!
Paul, Matt, Stef, Dave, Kelly and Will. We ain't seen no hops!
Next stop for Catherine and I was the Talbot where we managed to plonk ourselves down in front of the massive open fire and get down to some serious card playing! It was really cool for us to actually be staying in a pub where we didn’t have to run downstairs all the time! We decided to start snacking and because the bar menu had so many great meals on it, that’s what we ended up doing all night! We started off with some pheasant giblets on their toasted homemade bread which were awesome and then went for an amazing prawn and crab bisque. The bisque had been made with the crab shells as a stock and was intensely aromatic and took me straight back to growing up on a beach in New Zealand and getting crabs with my family every low tide. We also went for a beautiful pigs-head brawn which was amazingly fresh and full of pieces of pork, fat and wonderful natural gelatine. A little later we shared a baked Chaser cheese with yet more freshly toasted bread, olives and sundried tomatoes. It was awesome! To top it off, a little rhubarb crumble and fresh custard made us the happiest New Zealanders in the whole of Worcestershire! The food went well with the selection of Teme Valley ales that they had on tap, all full of delicious locally grown English hops with names such as This, That and T’other… This was my favourite though.
Cat chilling by the fire
The English breakfast the next morning was a show stopper! Eggs, bacon, black pudding made on site, kidneys, mushrooms, baked beans, tomatoes, fried bread and probably one of the nicest sausages I’ve ever had in the UK, made by Parsons Nose, a local supplier. In fact the Talbot’s breakfast was officially voted the best pub breakfast in the whole UK by the British Pork Executive!! Coupled with their home preserved apricots, rhubarb and marmalade, this place is well worth a visit! They even make their own fruit liqueur which they put in your room as a nightcap! And because of my love of traditional food (and the fact I spotted the menu below as we left), I’m definitely going back!
Yum!
Epic Halcyon at Thornbridge
Still all go and we’ve just finished an awesome collaboration with Luke Nicholas of Epic Brewing Company over in New Zealand. Luke was over here to launch and promote Epic Pale Ale which he had been invited to brew with Everards Brewery in Leicester as part of the JD Wetherspoons International Real Ale Festival. Luke is a highly awarded New Zealand brewer with a vast amount of experience. He has twice brewed beers that have won the Supreme Champion Beer of New Zealand (including Epic Pale Ale, which won in 2006) as well as scooping Gold and Best in Class awards at the 2008 BrewNZ competition. Coupled with the fact that he has twice judged in the World Beer Cup (Seattle, 2006 and San Diego, 2008) you can see that he’s no stranger to both brewing and judging a beer!
Although we are both from NZ, this was the first time our paths had crossed. You have to remember that everyone knows everyone else in NZ, so this was no mean feat! How can I describe Luke? He is very confident and oozes self-belief and passion. He has an intuitive understanding of the world of craft beer and has literally worked from the bottom up. He told me of how he used to volunteer his weekends at a local Auckland brewpub chain so he could learn how a commercial brewery worked (Luke was a passionate home brewer prior to this) until he was employed and gradually worked his way up in the brewing world. Commitment seeps from his every pore and the intensity with which he talks about beer and brewing is awesome. He is engaging, intelligent and the type of person that us Thornbridgers love to hang out with.
It was a big step to decide to collaborate with someone that we did not know. We hadn’t tasted his Epic beers or met him; however it was an opportunity not to be missed. In hindsight, I would have been gutted had we not brewed together. We had a great day and even got to try some of Luke’s beers, which were fantastic!
I met up with Luke the night before our brewday at the Chesterfield Arms in Chesterfield, where Everards were launching a Meet the Brewer evening and where Luke had a coveted mini-cask of the Epic Pale Ale that had been brewed with Everards. We sat down and had a few pints of the Everards beers and then got a chance to try the cask Epic. This stood head and shoulders above the Everards brews (which were all good pints nonetheless) with a dominant citrus hop character, a little grapefruit with some underlying caramel maltiness. Luke told me that Everards were shocked when he told them how much hops he wanted to put into the beer. I think he should have put in even more!
Kelly prepares a breakfast of malt porridge for the hungry Thornbridgers. Where's my spoon?
It was time for the brew and myself, Luke, Dave and Stef were ready for action. The mash in the mash tun and vessels cleaned and ready to go, we began the mammoth task of deciding what hops we were going to use. We worked our way through a load. New Zealand Hallertau, Pioneer, Cluster, Atlas and Liberty didn’t make the cut. Chinook, however with its wonderful resinous and citrus notes and a little pine and the ultra-intense Hallertau Magnum made the grade. We thought these two hops would provide a nice resin-pine-citrus backbone as both early and late additions and allow our other two hop choices to shine through. Centennial with its pungent orange zest and the unique New Zealand Nelson Sauvin (for a touch of home of course) with its mango and pineapple and gooseberry and grapefruit were the obvious pairing to give us a real New World character in what was to be a unique twist on our Halcyon Imperial IPA.
Hops anyone?
We cracked open a bottle of our Green Hopped Vintage 2008 Halcyon and started discussing bitterness. The bottled version has a touch more dryness and astringency due to a little more attenuation and a humungous amount of wet hops added at maturation, yet we thought the bitterness level (around 85 IBUs) was still well balanced by the residual malt sweetness. With this in mind and knowing that this was to be in the cask form only, we upped the ante. We went for over 100 IBUs (International Bitterness Units) in the hope that the slightly increased perceived sweetness that the less carbonated cask form would have, would then balance out the mouth puckering hops.
Because this had a bit of a New Zealand twist, Luke had the brilliant idea of bringing a little New Zealand water with him. Good Water is from Kauri Springs in Northland, above Auckland and is exactly as its name suggests! Once the brew was finished, Luke added the water to the finished brew. You can see that here!
We were also lucky enough to try a bottle of Luke’s NZ brewed Epic Pale Ale, which was absolutely beautiful. Reminiscent of some American Pale Ale’s I have tries. Quite light on the bitterness, yet retaining a lot of citrus and resin pine character. Nice carbonation and fantastic cold. No longer will I be reaching for an ice cold New Zealand lager after mowing the lawns when I’m back in New Zealand. From now on, it’s definitely going to be an Epic! Just when I thought that Luke’s Pale Ale was all that, then he brought out his Epic Mayhem. At 6.2%, this poured a nice dark orange/amber colour. The nose was amazing. Lots of sweet tropical fruits with a hint of pineapple and a floral and citrus background. I’ve always thought that Jaipur was extremely drinkable at 5.9%. Mayhem is of the same ilk. I polished off my taster quickly and instantly thought of the movie, Interview with the Vampire… I was the young child vampire Claudia after my first meal… “I want some more.” This was a ridiculously drinkable and extremely tasty drop. All I can say is well done!
Once the brew day was over, we all met up at the Coach and Horses in Dronfield for a few beers, a few laughs and some good kai (that’s the Maori word for food). We tasted the various Thornbridge beers (Luke described Kipling as being the best use of Nelson Sauvin on the planet) as well as some Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast, Birrificio Italiano Tipopils (one of my favourite beers ever), Port Brewing Hop-15, HaandBrygeriet Norwegian Wood (courtesy of Phil at BeerMerchants) a couple of HopDaemon beers (Green Daemon Helles and Skrimshander IPA) and my very own improvised lambic-style beer. As usual it was awesome fun and great for us all to talk about the different flavours and aromas we were picking up.
- Spot the normal guy…
We are beer nerds!
I love my job…
Epic + Good Water + Halcyon = ...
Busy Busy!!
Been a while between blogs and all been busy here at the brewery! Stefano Cossi, our head brewer, is working day and night getting the new brewery sorted, with delivery and commissioning getting closer and closer. We’re all in the process of finalising, looking through the joys of the process descriptions, sourcing and ordering equipment for our laboratory and generally running around like ants around a popsicle on a hot summers day!
The toughest decision to date though has been the floor colour! May green is the final choice… didn’t even know that months of the year had colours!
What else has been happening? We had a great party here at Thornbridge a few weeks back and because it was for a birthday, I decided it was prime time to open my Thomas Hardy’s Ale, bottled all the way back on the 1st September 1979. So at almost 30 years old, there was never a better time. It would be fair to say that it was lacking slightly in carbonation, but the flavours were fantastic! Often, when I taste a beer, I’ll often smell the cap of the bottle and this one definitely didn’t disappoint. A massive hit of Marmite/Vegemite with a hint of blood… a type of just-rusting iron but nothing overpowering. Do they still make bottle caps that robust?
The ale itself was more port and sherry than beer. Once the waft of age dissipated (which took a few minutes), the unctuous, black liquid came into a world of its own! Really complex with lots of dried fruits. Mostly sweet prunes, syrupy figs and plump raisins with a bit of chocolate, some liquorice and a black cherry character. I detected a little vanilla in the swallow and a little of the marmite and metal that you could smell on the cap. It’s texture was all thick and gooey and so similar to the Pedro Ximenez I have chilling in my refrigerator. I’m going to have to try this at a warmer temperature to see if it’s as close to the ale as I think it will be. All in all, an interesting tasting experience and amazing to see what age can do to a beer. I wonder if the O’Hanlon’s bottles will be as interesting as the Eldridge Pope bottles in years to come. Just in case, a bought a box of the 2008 last year and will dutifully try these every year or so to make sure!
What else has been happening? We were visited recently by Kim Scheider, a brewer from Michigan in the US and her husband Karl Walser. Kim is the head brewer at North Peak Brewing (http://www.northpeak.net/default.html in Traverse City, Michigan and even hand-bottled a couple of her beers (that are usually only served in the brewpub) for us to taste. She also brought a couple of Dogfish Head’s 90 Minute IPAs for us to taste. A beer that I’m yet to try so looking forward to that.
We also had a bit of an epic tasting at the Coach last weekend with Phil Lowry (from Beermerchants). You can check out his blog action here. His good mate and fellow beer guru, Angelo Scarnera, blog ninja, Simon Johnson (www.reluctantscooper.co.uk) and Danish Ratebeerians, Jan and Charlotte also came along to taste a few beverages… Fellow Thornbridgers (Matt, Stefano and Dave Corbey) joined us and we got down to some serious supping. We managed to get through a bunch of Mikeller beers, some fantastic Port Brewing Co beverages (with Santa’s Little Helper being the highlight of the night), a selection of Pannepot beers, an interesting cherry lambic called Keralensis (a blend of beers from brewers Alvinne and Struise), a massive 10% Millenium edition Malheur (that would probably have been better in a trifle than as a drink) a few other assorted beverages and finally a good ol’ Thornbridge Bracia (and maybe an Orval or two) to finish the night. Because there were a load of us, am happy to say there were no sore heads in the morning!
We also had a great night out last week at Rowley’s restaurant in Baslow with their annual Thornbridge Beer and Food evening taking place. Chef’s Richard and Rupert along with Alastair put together a great night with some awesome food and some pretty good beer as well!
Upon getting there we enjoyed some wonderfully delicate pork scratching and a pint of Lord Marples, our 4.0% traditional bitter, and then once we sat down we were served the most delicious bread. The bread itself had being rested for 8 hours and used no actual bakers yeast. Instead it relied on the Champagne yeast from our Bracia to work away and the extremely subtle chestnut honey character could just be detected and worked so well with the sweet, lightly caramelised onion that had been rolled through it. The texture was great, all fluffy and moist. A great start!
What followed was a fantastic piece of theatre! Using a “smoke-gun”, Nelson Sauvin hops were smoked and the resultant smoke was collected in wine glasses and held in the glass with a beer coaster. The coasters were then removed and the smoke pillowed out, all burnt, resinous hoppiness. Wild Swan was then poured into the glass allowing a hint of smoke character to remain in the beer. It reminded me a lot of one of our other beers, Ember, which is a pale ale brewed with a portion of smoked malt. This beer was accompanied by a Nelson Sauvin Hop Smoked Halibut with Caramelised Onion and Pearl Barley Risotto. The risotto was cooked to perfection and the barley was soft in the mouth, yet still firm and chewy. The smoked halibut combined well with the light residual smoke character in the beer and the sweetness of the onions helped balanced the bitterness of the Wild Swan. It was grand!
The main course was an Osso Bucco of Derbyshire Pork. The best way for a layman like myself to describe this cut of meat, is that it’s the bit just before the shank. It was braised in our Kipling beer and honey and served with a pickled cabbage and small roast potatoes. The fascinating thing about the cabbage is that they had actually pickled it in one of our beers, Wild Swan. The beer had been left out to go sour (helped by the action of acetic and lactic acid bacteria and anything else that would have been present on the cabbage leaves) and the resultant sauerkraut-esque pickle was great. This dish was served with bottled Kipling. The sweetness of the braise tied in perfectly with the hint of caramel from the beer and the light, fruity bitterness helped wash away the pork fat and refresh the palate. Another great combo.
Finally came our dessert of a deconstructed Lemon Meringue (consisting of a slice of intensely sour-sweet lemon curd tart and some neat, little meringue rolls) topped with a fantastically bitter-sour Jaipur and Lime Sorbet. The Sorbet was a bit too much for some, but I thoroughly enjoyed the intense lime-pith bitterness and the hint of Jaipur hop bitterness. The drink of choice for this was a Jaipur Mojito, invented by the host, Alastair and a fantastic success. Who said you couldn’t do a beer cocktail!
So, as you can see, we have been a bit busy, but it’s definitely a good busy J
Karl, Kim (from North Peak Brewing Company) and Me
