New on cask
February 24th, 2010
Today sees the debut of the Three Spires Ale on the beer engine. It’s a hoppy little golden ale, 5% a.b.v., clean and refreshing and dangerously drinkable. Come get some!
Three Spires Ale, now on the beer engine
The Monkey is dead, long live The Monkey
February 24th, 2010
In a spectacular example of coincidental timing the last two Hot Monkey Loves shuffled off this mortal coil within minutes of each other some 40 miles apart last night. Although separated at birth the bond was obviously strong between these two. The cask of My Monkey’s Got Wood kicked at The Ale House last night just as we were sampling the remaining sixtel of Hot Monkey Love at The Strong Beer Tasting at The Brickskeller in Washington D.C. That’s some coincidence considering their journey started in April of 2009!
But as the Phoenix rises from the ashes, the Monkey shall be reborn! A cask of Hot Monkey Love will be previewed at The Real Ale Festival at The Ale House on March 20th. The Hot Monkey Love will then be returning to the taps to celebrate Opening Day 2010 at which time we will be brewing batch# 2 for release in November. There is of course a cask of My Monkey’s Got Wood hidden away for future release and one cask will be released to Frisco Grille to celebrate their move/expansion.
The Friday Question
February 19th, 2010
Before I get on to the business of The Friday Question I would like to encourage you all to check out the new Oliver Ales facebook page that I set up recently and if you feel inclined please become a fan www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/oliver-ales/288496506028?ref=ts. I’ll be posting regular updates of brewery activities, releases etc so if you want to keep abreast of what’s new and where it’ll be pouring, join us. By way of some gentle encouragement there’s going to be a “prize” draw for fans only which may be of interest to some of you. Some time in the near future I’ll be receiving a bottle of the World’s Strongest Beer (at least for now), the 41% BrewDog “Sink The Bismarck” along with their 0.5% “Nanny State”. An interesting contrast I think you’ll agree! I’ll be getting together with avid local beer bloggers www.beerinbaltimore.blogspot.com , www.beerinbaltimore.com and www.baltimorebeer.blogspot.com to taste test and review these beers and I’ll be inviting one Oliver Ales fan, chosen at random, to join us and review the beers for my blog and facebook page. Check out the facebook page for details.
So, onto last weeks question. There are several sources of published data. For example online @ http://www.nickelinstitute.org/index.cfm/ci_id/12606.htm which gives the empty and full weights for a stainless steel kilderkin as being 51lb and 236lb respectively. The book “Cellarmanship” by Ivor Clissold gives the weights as 46lb and 226 lb for stainless steel and 32lb and 212lb for aluminium. Now, as you know, we here at Oliver’s don’t take these things lightly (ha,ha!), especially when there’s one of our cool new Hot Monkey Love t-shirts at stake so we weighed one and the result is ….. drum roll …..
The weight of a full Kilderkin is 220lb
Yep, 220lb so that makes Dan the winner and, for the first time ever the answer was spot on, congratulations Dan, let me buy you a beer as well when you come in to collect your prize. By-the-way, the empty weight of our kilderkins is 37lb if you’re interested.
So, this week’s question (sticking to a theme here) is how much would a Pin of Hot Monkey Love weigh? Said pin will be featured at our Cask Ale Festival to be held at The Pratt Street Ale House on March 20th (full details will be posted next week). The festival is going to be limited to 110 tickets but you can attend as our guest if you can answer the above question correctly. As usual please post your answer via the comment section below. In the event of tied winning entries, an overall winner will be made by a random draw from the correct entries. Good luck.
Please join us at Victoria Gastro pub on Monday evening for their beer club night where you can get a sneak preview of our Biere de Garde in cask. They’ll also be pouring The Bishop’s Indulgence, Strongman Pale Ale and Coventry Cream Ale. We’ll be there and if we’re feeling generous we might just buy you a beer!
Have a great weekend.
Cheers
Steve
Three Spires Ale
February 18th, 2010
In homage to my hometown of Coventry comes “Three Spires Ale”, a golden ale @ 5% a.b.v. It is generously hopped with English First Gold, Kent Goldings and Fuggles. Although it is going to be served as a nitro pour as a replacement for the Blackfriar Stout I have racked a number of firkins as well and these will be distributed over the next 2 weeks. I’ll keep you posted as to where and when it will be available.
Cask conditioned "Three Spires Ale" coming soon
Mid week round-up
February 17th, 2010
Wow, it’s been something of a “difficult” week! The snow played havoc with the brewery as it did with just about everything else. Our distributor wasn’t able to pick up beer so stocks have been running low at the warehouse but hopefully that will all change today. Also we’re running dangerously low on empty kegs as well! We only brewed twice last week because of the storms so we’re playing catch-up this week. Just to add to our woes our glycol pump died and the tank room walk-in cooler also went down! Fun, fun, fun.
Look out for The Bishop’s Indulgence on tap at The Judge’s Bench now and on tap at Frisco Grille soon. The Judge’s bench will also be receiving Strongman Pale Ale soon as will Metropolitan and Victoria Gastro pub. We’ll be at Victoria on Monday 22nd February for Beer Club Night with a preview of the Biere de Garde (cask) brewed with Belgian Ale Yeast, join us for a beer or two. More casks of Dark Horse and Scottish Ale are heading over to ChurchKey and tonight the Wonderland Ballroom will have a pin of ESB on gravity pour.
As you probably know by now I’m a fan of Scottish lunatics BrewDog. There was a lot of talk on the blogs yesterday about there new 41% a.b.v. Pale Ale “Sink The Bismarck” so I thought that I’d take this opportunity to throw my hat into the ring! Personally I’m excited about it. Craft brewing has always been about experimentation and pushing the limits and the alcohol content is just one more parameter for such experimentation. After all, the ever increasing amount of hops that a brewery can shove into a beer seems to be wholeheartedly celebrated in most quarters so why all the fuss about a.b.v? Agreed, it may not be a “traditional” beer and maybe the irreverent way in which they market themselves may irk some people but it seems to me that they are deadly serious about their beer and intent upon challenging themselves as brewers so what if they have a sense of humor as well? More strength to them I say. I recommend that you read James’ post on Beer Advocate
http://beeradvocate.com/forum/read/2590028
Sometime in the near future I’ll be reviewing “Sink The Bismarck” and the all new 0.5% a.b.v. “Nanny State”. If you would like to sample these two BrewDog ales and write a guest review for the blog then check out the Oliver Ales facebook page, we’ll be holding a draw for one lucky fan to join us for the tasting.
The Friday Question
February 12th, 2010
Before I get on to the Friday Question I’ll just remind you that My Monkey’s Got Wood, the cask of Hot Monkey Love aged with American Oak since 4/30/09 will be on the beer engine on Valentine’s Day. Nothing says “I Love You” like a Monkey with Wood! The cask is vented, tapped and sampled and absolutely bursts with Oak flavors, more Oak than you could shake a big stick at! Despite it’s 10% a.b.v. the beer has a “soft” quality, with the underlying sweetness and oak flavors combining wonderfully and a gentle warm finish.
So on to the Friday Question. There was a good spread of answers given but, as I explained, I don’t know what the answer is myself yet. The test kit should be arriving today so we’ll send the samples off to the lab on Monday. Hopefully the turnaround time will be minimal. As soon as the analysis is back I’ll post the answer/winner.
This weeks question is a fairly simple one. As many of you know as well as distributing firkins of our ales we use kilderkins in house. A kilderkin is a cask with a volume of 18 Imperial Gallons (21.6 U.S. gallons). Despite the fact that I filled kilderkins every week when I brewed in the U.K., when I finally got some here it had been some 9 years since I’d handled one and I was shocked by how heavy they were. So, the question is this, how heavy is a full kilderkin of beer? For those of you who want to calculate the weight of beer we’ll assume that it’s Best Bitter with a specific gravity of 1.010. Obviously you’ll have to guess what the kil is made of ie stainless steel or aluminium to get an estimate of empty weight. Usual rules apply, one answer only via the comment section below, judges decision is final. In the event of a tie the first correct answer posted wins. Good luck. The winner gets one of the new Hot Monkey Love t-shirts (back print shown above) and the satisfaction that you know a piece of useless information that you’ll never get to use again!
Winter wonderland Part 2.
February 10th, 2010
No photos this time, just look at the pictures from the last WW post and add more snow! It was a hell of a walk to the Ale House from Fells Point. A lesson quickly learned was not to bother wearing my glasses, they were covered in snow in seconds, result zero visibility. There were a lot of city trucks out though, so some of the roads weren’t too bad. What I really love about the walk is the silence! With the exception of an occasional passing vehicle or other weary pedestrian and a distant siren, the only noise was the sound of my own labored breath and the snow beneath my boots. The city looks so serene under cover of snow, so calm, it’s hard to believe that this is Baltimore, with its triple digit homicide rate etc. The main difference between today’s journey and that of Saturday was the wind today! As I neared the Ale House strong gusts of wind would blow the freshly fallen snow along the street, almost like a creeping fog, causing a momentary whiteout. It felt as if I was breathing snow!
But here I am. Monday’s Irish Red fermentation is progressing well and needs a little aeration by rousing to keep those yeast cells dividing. Yesterday’s Three Spires Ale was a little on the warm side so I’m chilling it back a little but otherwise fermentation got off to a good start. If you haven’t read the previous post, the Three Spires is going to be a new nitro pour ale available at The Ale House in place of the Blackfriar Stout, which I’m retiring for the time being. It’s a hoppy little Golden Ale @ 5% a.b.v. which should fit nicely into our portfolio. I think it will be a great cask conditioned ale also so I’ll be filling a few firkins before the bulk of the brew goes to conditioning and subsequent nitrogenation. Speaking of firkins, we’ve just bought a few new ones to add to our stockpile to try and keep up the demand for cask conditioned ale, which is showing a healthy upward trend at the moment. That makes me a happy brewer.
The Strongman Pale Ale is on tap now so when the snow stops and the pub can open again come stop by for a pint. I think you’ll like it. We should hopefully be open tomorrow, Thursday.
Stay safe and warm
Steve
Strongman Now On Tap
February 9th, 2010
I think the title says it all, the Strongman Pale Ale is now on tap. Come and sup a pint of this English strong pale ale before the snow hits! I estimate that it come’s in at about 8.5% abv but you’d never know. The malt backbone really keeps the alcohol at bay! I’ll post the specs when we get the analysis back from Whitelabs.
An eclesiastical beatdown.
February 8th, 2010
The Bishop challenges the Friar. There can only be one winner. The Bishop dusts off his Miter and the Blackfriar is vanquished. No, I haven’t lost the plot, it’s just a round about way of saying that since we started brewing the Bishop’s Breakfast, sales of the Blackfriar Stout have been slow so I thought it was time for a change. Out of the ashes comes the Three Spires Ale (hello Coventry) , a hoppy little Golden Ale, 5% a.b.v. (or thereabouts) which will be replacing the Blackfriar on our nitro tap as soon as the current supply of Blackfriar is done. I’m brewing it tomorrow. It’ll also be an excellent candidate for casking so look out for firkins of it in a couple of weeks. I’ll post updates on the Oliver Ales facebook page.
Strongman Pale Ale
February 8th, 2010
Strongman Pale Ale, on tap Tuesday 9th.
On tap tomorrow, Strongman Pale Ale, oh yeah.