plus ca change
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Well definitely a change anyway. I’m getting my French on today because I’m brewing the Biere de Garde. O.K., before the purists get involved, it’s my interpretation of the style and let’s face it, the general term Biere de Garde covers quite a variety of flavorful beers so yes, it may not taste like the one you had on your French vacation in 1996! Personally I enjoy St. Amand French Country Ale, not that this will taste anything like that. This brew is particularly interesting from my point of view because I’m using ale yeast graciously supplied by Steve Frazier at The Brewer’s Art which is the first time since I’ve been in the States that I’ve brewed with a yeast other than Ringwood. It’ll be interesting to see how the yeast behaves in an open fermentation. Until I taste the finished product I can’t say much about how I expect it to be as the yeast is an unknown factor for me but we’ll be aiming for a little over 6% a.b.v. and a brown/red color. At the very least it should be an interesting experiment!
Staying the same will be the rest of the week during which we’ll be brewing a couple of batches of Ironman Pale Ale and maybe even the Scottish Ale again as it’s been selling very well so far. The Strongman Pale Ale will be going into conditioning and cask and will probably be on tap in a few weeks.
Cheers for now.
Steve
I filled my growler with the Scottish Ale… wow. That is a fantastic beer. It was hearty and earthy, the perfect beer for sipping on a cold winter’s night.
Thanks Mitch, I’m very proud of The Scottish Ale so it’s great to hear that other people like it too.