Saturday, January 20, 2007

The story so far PT 1 - 101

Just a quick update for those of you wondering how the first few runs of Beer Bloke Beer is going.

The very first batch of Thomas Cooper’s Heritage Selection Lager - or ’beer’, for short - is now almost two months old.

Bottled on November 30, and tasted at two minutes past November 30, you will remember that the ‘green beer’ had a slight, though not really unpleasant, bite at the end. After a month and a half we can report that the product is now noticeably better - smoother drinking, finer bubbled, sweet in the front and bitter in the back. It really is heart-warming to see your little ones grow up so well so quickly.

The Pale Ale, or Cascade Imperial Voyage Pale Ale, for long, is maturing at a similar rate, although there is something, here and there, that makes me wonder if we slipped up somewhere in the process. Still can’t quite put a name to it, it’s just a slightly “misplaced” flavour note in the middle of the taste that just seems a bit dud. It does, however, appear to be dissipating with time so we might just store it away for bit and let it get over its’ malaise.



The second batch of Lager will be bottle conditioned by January 24 and we will have a quick taste for note-taking purposes and then put it away for a few months. You may recall that this is the one in which we used liquid malt extract and sugar rather than the dried malt extract. It was also the one which was subjected to higher fermenting temps and we wait to see how this affects the finished product.

Production is now geared up towards building a stockpile and as each batch is bottled we prepare for the next. At the moment this involves buying a bit of the shop stuff for the empties but we’re getting there. It’s tough. We also now have a few mates on board who are keeping us supplied with empties. We have also begun the next phase of the adventure and Dr Lager is beginning to source kegging equipment for the eventual tapping of the Beer Bloke Beer. Watch for the brand appearing in a half-arsed converted fridge near you soon.

Cheers
Prof Pilsner & Dr Lager

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

you describe your beer as "sweet in the front, bitter at the back"... it seems to me that your target audience is intended to be the common australian mulleted bogan... the mulleted bogan who has finally grown tired of weebee.

if so, where can i find this brew? it sounds like it will go down a treat whilst i am listening to my choirboys tape in the shed.

Beer Blokes said...

Good Work, Anon,
This first brew (with which you would like to run to paradise)is the frontrunner of our "training wheels" program.
You see, Dr Lager is pretty much a 'line and length' lager man so we decided that to fairly assess our brewing skills we would need to make a few 'bogans premiums' so he would recognise what it should taste like. Having said that,what we are making at the moment is bastard lager - lager style but made at higher temperatures and with ale yeast- until we get the hang of it.
Stay tuned for some Pom Style Bitters and Bavarian Wheat beers down the track.
Thanks for your post, Prof. Pilsner
P.S. I actually prefer a bit of Acca-Dacca or Angels!