Crown Brewery

Its been far to long since my last post partly because of time and also because I know I’m not a good writer. I’ve been posting regularly on twitter which for me is the perfect blog size. I do feel quite satisfied when I have finished writing something but the process is not enjoyable. Today I have been inspired by the awards given out last night at the Beer Writers dinner from the twitter feeds I read it looks like they all had a good time. I was glad to see some of the newest blogs won some awards, Mark Dredge with his Pencil & Spoon took the New Media award for his blog and the runner up was Wool Pack Dave with his Beer and Stuff blog. Both these blogs were founded on the same day just over a year ago, I read them both maybe not every post but I don’t miss much, and deserve recognition for two very well written blogs!

I was very pleased to read that Pete Brown won the Travel Bursary for his book Hops & Glory. I’m sure that will go a long way to paying for his trip to India! Oh and of course He won Beer Writer of The Year 2009. I don’t think there was a writer in that room last night that thought any one else but Pete could possibly win and as he said him self (to everyone who would listen & and probably some people who didn’t care) “if I don’t win with Hops & Glory this year I’ll never win it”. So well done Pete cheers! If you haven’t read the book yet then you should because its very very good, it inspired me to brew a beer which you can read about here.

Right I should talk about the beer I’ve been brewing recently, after all that’s what I started the blog for. The last post I wrote was about the Damson Double Porter 6.3% (the was named Django Reinhardt by Zak to keep in with the Jazz theme) Zak Avery came to brew with brew with me, well it turned out to be very nice and a cask of the beer went down to London for the White Horse old ales festival along with a cask of India Pale Ale 7.2%(if anyone who tried them would leave a comment I would be very grateful).

I’ve also been keeping up with the Jazz series Wes Montgomery 3.7% was brewed and is available from some pubs somewhere.

I also should have blogged about Ring of Fire 2009 which was brewed late in October I had some help from a mate met on twitter chilliupnorth man Andy Mogg who also does a site called beer reviews. Andy grows a lot of chilli’s and brought 1KG of them down to Sheffield to go in to this years brew. Andy blogged about his brewday here.

I had the pleasure of Pete Browns company yesterday for a brew, I was inspired by his book Hops & Glory I wanted to brew an IPA the way it was brewed in Burton during the early 19th century and I want it to mature in a way that will replicate the conditions the beer went through on its journey. In the book Pete talks about Madeira wine, the way it matured on its journey to India and how the Madeira produces today use heated cellars sometimes hanging the barrels from ropes and giving them a push to replicate the movement of the ship during it voyage. So I decided that once the beer had fermented I would rack it bright ( clear/with no yeast) as they would have done for the voyage to reduce spoilage and add hops to the barrels then leave them in the garage of the Hillsborough Hotel where the temperature stays between 20 and 30 degrees C through the summer until October when I will reseed ( add some fresh yeast ) and bottle the beer.

Here are some photo’s and a video (til I fell off the ladder ) of the brew.

Pete was adding the second Kg of Target and Chinook Hops to the boil.

I have brewed some new beers.
The first one i want to tell you about is a new wheat beer its come out at 5.9% i put some fresh ground coriander and fresh citrus peel in the boil fermented with the same yeast as Wheetie-bits.
Second i have brewed an October fest beer at 5.7% a bit stronger than i wanted, i used smoked and Munich malt this has given it a nice dark amber colour. We have filled the bottles and racked the casks and the beer will sit in the cold store til September when we are hoping to have a beer festival.
Third i have brewed a new jazz beer 4.9% golden IPA style with Cascade, nugget and Hallertau aroma just out this week in cask.
Forth I brewed a beer for Dave unpronounceable about three months ago the bottles(330ml) are now ready it is a 7% IPA with 5kg!!! of Bramling Cross hops (3.5 brl brew!!!)