Crown Brewery

Here are a few updates on my resent activity.

The American Pale Ale I brewed which was named Brooklyn Heights was racked last week, I decided this super hoppy beer needed more hops so I dry hopped it in the casks with some more Apollo. Brooklyn is now on the bar at The Hillsborough Hotel.

I brewed another beer in the Jazz series on Wednesday this one is Bob Crosby and will be about 4.7%, I only used one hop variety in Bob, Target. I have used Target before in some my other beers (not on its own)  but I was very impressed with a single hopped beer I tried recently from another brewery so thought I’d give it go my self. I tasted the wort before fermentation and I think I may have over done it (another hop bomb) but time will tell it might calm down a bit.

HPA28° is tasting amazing I’m really pleased with it. Last week I tasted a small sample that had been kept separate from the rest of the brew (dregs in a bottle) and I didn’t like it, the sample had a little bit of yeast in it so this week I it again but this time the sample was bright. It tastes just like the 4 gallon test brew I did last year and its only a few weeks old.

American Pale Ale is named! Brooklyn Heights has fermented well and reached a very dry 1007, so will be labelled 5.8% abv. It tastes great from the fermenting vessel and I’ve decided to dry hop it with some Apollo.

The name came through twitter from the Reluctant Scooper.

Big thanks to all of you who suggested a name it was a close call!

I’m calling it American Pale Ale at the moment because I haven’t thought of a name and A.P.A is the way of describing the style at the moment.

I’m going to keep updating this post in real time as the brew day goes along.

0830: I mashed in with the same malts I would use for Samuel Berry’s which is 5.1%, but with twist, I added 1kg of Summit hops to the mash.

0900: the hot water is heating up ready to sparge, time to get the first wort hops ready Apollo!!

0930: caustic is flowing from the kettle to the fermenting vessel, first hops are ready.

0950: the spage arm is turning and wort is flowing in to the under-back, I’m geting any hops yet but they were well distributed in the mash. hopfully I’ll get some hoppy aromas when the middle worts are coming through.

0955: the first wort hops are in 500g of Apollo.

1017 I’m just starting to get a little bit of hops coming through now, its more obvious when the wort is cold.

1030: we have 2 barrels of wort in the kettle and the steam is on.

1053: we have 3 barrels of wort in the kettle and another 18 gallons of water to sparge

1100 sparge is off, just another 3/4 of a barrel (27 gallon) to collect from the mash.

1125: we now have 4.3 barrels of wort in the kettle and its just showing signs of a rolling boil.

1130: full rolling boil time for more hops!

1135: time to dig the mash and start the CIP cleaning in the fermenting vessel.

1143: the mash smells amazing! but does that mean most of the aromas didn’t make it to the kettle?

1200: mash tun is cleaned out.

1210: time for lunch.

1220:

1225: lunch is gone time to rince the fermenting vessel.

1235: time to weigh out the late hops and start adding them to the boil.

1240: 1kg of cenntenial has just been added, time to weigh  out the Apollo.

1245:1kg of Apollo has been added.

1250: boil completed, the wort will sit for 15 minutes.

1305: recirculate the wort in the kettle and flush the wort pipe to fermenting vessel.

1320: wort flows to the fermenting vessel through the heat exchanger which cools it down to 19 degrees centigrade, the gravity is 1058.5, it smells amazing I’m really happy with this brew!

1350: the kettle is empty apart from the hops, but they aren’t quite spent yet because its hop sparge time.

1400: we have 3.6 barrels of wort in the fermenting vessel and we need 4.25 brls so I am doing a hop sparge, this is when I add some more not water to the spent hops in the kettle and recirculate it. The hop sparge is going to extract more fementables,  bitterness and hop flavour from the spent hops.

1410: start pumping and cooling the hop sparge liquid.

1430: we have 4.25 barrels of wort at a gravity of 1052 this should ferment to about 1009 be about 5.3% abv.

1435: US-05 dried yeast is added to the fermenter, the lid is on and I’ll check it tomorrow.

As Porky Pig would say “thats all folks”. Thanks for the comments through the day, its been like having you all in for a brew day.

This brew is going to get some more hops it so stay tuned and I’ll blog the details later in the week.

One last thing before click the post button for the the last time, this beer needs a name?

I’ve got a few things going on this week, another swap with Great Heck Brewery will bring some good guest beers in to the Hillsborough Hotel. There will be a van load of beer going to Rotherham Camra’s Oakwood beer festival, the beers are Hillsborough Pale Ale (HPA) 3.9%, Traditional Bitter 4%, Stannington Stout 5%, Sanuel Berry’s 5.1%, Cannonball Adderley 4.6%, Django Reinhardt 6.2%(the one I brewed with that ale lad) and the 2009 Ring of Fire 7.7% (the one I brewed with that cold northener). I will be there hanging around our bar some time in the early evening of Thursday the 18th.

On friday we will also be delivering another brews worth of Royal Bitter 3.8% to the Royal Hotel at Dungworth (a small village on the out skirts of Sheffield) that should keep him going for another month.

There will also be some beer going to the Rutland near Sheffield station, HPA, Trad Bitter and Jimmy Smith.

Its been a good year with some great projects done and some lessons learned.

Bottling has been great this year but I wish we had done more of some beers than others. Unpro IPA was a great success we bottled it all which is great because it will around for a while, also it will be great to see how it matures, but its also one of those beers that could have sold a lot of cask.

The only other beer we still have in stock is Wheat Stout 6.6% this is another beer we only bottled and I think it is now at its best at 16 months old.

the other bottles this year were Ring of Fire 10.3%, India Pale Ale 7.2% Django Reinhardt (Damson Double Porter) 6.3%, Stannington Stout 5%, Smokin Oktoberfest 5.7% Wheetie-bits 4.4% and Samuel Berry’s Pale Ale 5.1%.

Ring of Fire was a 350 bottle run ready in January and sold out by July. I have already brewed it again and will hopefully be bottling it early in 2010.

India Pale Ale was brewed with the help of Pete Brown and was matured warm in casks before bottling we still have another cask to bottle the first 190 bottles have already sold out.

Django Reinhardt was brewed with Zak Avery it turned a lovely bitter sweet porter we did 200 bottles and they sold out in a month Zak has got the last 24 at his shop. we do have three casks left as well one for The Hillsborough Hotel and two for Rotherham Camra Oakwood Beer festival.

we where a bit rubbish at sorting the labels for Smokin Oktoberfest so we still have some stock left and its still in great condition so we are now selling it as Rauchbier.

Wheetie-bits was last brewed in January 2009 so the bottles are pretty old for a 4.4% but its done well and we’ve just sold out of that as well.

Sam Berry’s and Stannington Stout are both regular cask beers so we’ve tried to keep up with demand but its been hard work and they’ve been out of stock far to much. So 2010 is going be the year for bottling the regular brews HPA, Traditional Bitter, Stannington Stout and Sam Berry’s.

2010 is also going to be a year for all the other idea’s I’ve got. The HPA13 home brew that I did went down well with the few that tried it so I’m going to try and do a full size brew and put in to 750ml bottles all nice and fancy like my marketing consultant says.

I also want to continue with the Jazz series. Basically its an easy way to name beers and I can continue to try different hops and malt combinations and if anything really special comes out then I’ll bottle it.

My main focus this year will be to increase the weekly out put of casks and this is going to take most of my time and effort. So here’s to 2010 and lots of great beery things!

Cheers everyone see you next year.