An important part of WIB since its inception has been our homebrewing community. We never cease to be amazed by the creativity, talent and sometimes utterly bizarre creations they come up with, using the ingredients from our shelves. We've often said we wish we could share the brews that make it to our monthly homebrew club with the rest of the world, so now we are!
These three recipes were chosen as the best beers of the month by our homebrewers at May's homebrew club.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Matt Meyell has been brewing since July 2013 when he took a one-day course at London Fields Brewery with the now head brewer at Mondo Brewing. May was his first visit to our homebrew club and everyone was absolutely blown away by his Flanders Red, aged on blueberries!
Blueberry Flanders Red Ale
2kg Lager
1.2kg Maris Otter
1kg Munich
1kg Vienna
230g Special B
230g Aromatic
230g Crystal 40L
35g East Kent Goldings
1 Pack Wyeast 3763 Roselare Belgian Blend
The above recipe was brewed in July 2017, transferred to a carboy for 18 months and aged on 45g of oak cubes for a year. Finally added 1.8kg of blueberries and roused with S-04. Bottled six weeks later. 6.4%
……………………………………………………………………………………………...
Alban Howeld has been brewing beer for around three and a half years. May's homebrew club challenge was to brew a mild - Alban went strong and brewed a Festival Mild. It may say something about our homebrew club members' tastes that we thought the best mild was the strongest, but it was a great beer all the same!
Festival Mild
Grain Bill:
4590g Golden Promise
295g Black Malt
160g Dark Crystal Malt
81g Torrified Wheat
Hop Schedule:
47g Fuggle @ FWH
275g Brown Sugar @ FWH
16g Fuggle @ 10 mins
3g Irish Moss @ 10 mins
1 First Wort Hop (FWH) is essentially putting hops in to the kettle immediately after the mash has finished (i.e. before the wort has reached a boil). I find it just takes the edge off the bitterness and is something I started doing with my hoppy pale ales.
Mashed in 12.8L at 62C-63C for 90 mins and then sparged with approx 20L to collect around 30L of wort. Very rapid boil for 90 mins, finishing with 22L, and then cooled to 20C before adding S-04 and sticking down the cellar. OG was 1.060.
Very slow fermentation for some reason, not sure why; best part of a month in all and there was still airlock activity when bottled, but this was probably latent CO2 in the beer. Tested at 1 & 2 weeks and still had a way to go, so swirled the bucket a few times to induce more activity. Eventually added another half packet of S-04 and left it for another couple of weeks. Bottled at 1.009 using Mangrove Jacks carbonation drops (first time for me, 1 per 500ml bottle, convenient, moderate carbonation which is fine for a mild). After 3 weeks in the bottle the brew was ready but will probably improve over the next few months.
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
David Keszi started brewing at the beginning of 2018 on a very basic one gallon kit. His first brew was a peated stout and he’s been playing about with the recipe ever since, we’ve got the recipe for version three below.
Tarmac -The Peated Stout Nr3.
1 gallon recipe, starts over 6L- ends around 4L.
The first recipe had only four malts in so the third time I wanted to try if I can play around with more flavour/more malts.
Malts:
-Dingemans Pale 300g. Malty flavour
-Marris Otter Pale 150g. Sweet
-Peated Malt 300g. Smoke, bonfire
-Melanoidin 100g. head retention
-Special B 100g. Heavy caramel
-Pale Chocolate 100g. Smooth coffee
-Black Malt. 100g. Burnt Coffee
-Dark Crystal. 100g. Burnt Toffee
-Crystal Rye. 100g. Liquorice
-Flaked Oats. 200g creamy feel
-Liquid Dark Malt Extract 100g.
Mash 60 mins, brew bag. 62-67C°
Hop: Centennial
-10g start of the boil. (60mins)
-10g 10mins left of the boil
Og:1070
Fg:1011 Abv: 7.7%
Ferment for 40 days, 22-23°
Yeast: Belgian Tripel M31