The Channel Crossing
Used to be the way to cross the English Channel was by ferry (or hovercraft if you could afford it) but now the Eurostar train will transport you from London to the heart of Brussels in under 2 hours via the Channel Tunnel! Alternatively of course, you can join us for a little trip from the U.K. to Belgium via Baltimore by way of our recent collaboration with Stillwater Artisinal Ales and our Cross Channel Belgian Bitter. The concept was pretty simple, combine elements of our respective brewing styles, brew it on our English Peter Austin system and ferment in our open fermenting vessels with Stillwater’s saison yeast (and it has to be added, we also used some Belgian yeast generously provided by the Brewer’s Art). The malt grist consisted of Franco-Belges Pilsen malt and English Halcyon pale ale malt as the base with English crystal, chocolate and wheat malts and German melanoidin . We bittered with English First Gold and Kent Goldings and finished with English Kent Goldings and Bramling Cross and Czech Saaz. After a slow start the fermentation progressed at a steady pace and held @ 76F, finishing @ a specific gravity of 1.006, 6.7% abv.
Brian and myself mashing the first batch of our double brew day!
the start of fermentation
active fermentation
We brewed a double batch (a little under 14 barrels) which was, to say the least a gruelling 20 hour day! I filled 13 firkins and 6 pins and transferred 230 gallons to conditioning tank for carbonation and kegging.
Yeah, I filled some casks!
We’ll be launching the Cross Channel Belgian Bitter on the evening of May 20th @ 6pm at The Pratt Street Ale House and both Brian and myself will be on hand to answer any questions, listen to your feedback etc. Hopefully we’ll have some souvenir glassware available as well. The beer will be available on draft and we’ll also be serving a firkin with French Oak, a pin dry hopped with Kent Goldings, a pin dry hopped with Czech Saaz and a pin dry hopped with Bramling Cross. It is of course American Craft Beer Week (May 17th – May 23rd) so please come along and support your local breweries.
Cheers
Steve
Tags: channel crossing series 1
Oooh, I spy a pretty red one in the back. Come home soon, honey.
I can’t wait for the 20th! It’s going to be an awesome event with good people and great beer.
It shall be making it’s unecessarily long journey (all hail 3 tier distribution!) the short distance to Metropolitan next week!