Posts Tagged ‘channel crossing series 1’
The Channel Crossing Release Party
Monday, May 17th, 2010
We hope that you will be able to join Brian of Stillwater Artisinal Ales and myself on Thursday evening from 6pm to celebrate the launch of our Channel Crossing Belgian Bitter. $5 will get you your first fill and a souvenir glass and refills are $3 thereafter. The beer will be on draft and in cask in a firkin with French Oak and three pins dry hopped with Czech Saaz, Kent Goldings and Bramling Cross respectively. Celebrate American Craft Beer Week in style with us.
The Channel Crossing
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
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
The Cross Channel Ale Progress
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010
The active open fermentation with saison yeast
Fermentation of our hybrid Biere de Garde is progressing nicely after a slow start. It’s a very different fermentation than I’m used to with my English Ringwood yeast. The Ringwood produces a thick yeast head, maybe a foot in depth with large bubbles of carbon dioxide evolving from the surface. The saison fermentation is very different. The head is thin and looks like, well, like creme brulee (!) with the rapid evolution of many tiny gas bubbles. The yeast is comfortable at relatively high temperatures and our fermentation is holding steady at 76F. The gravity has fallen from the original gravity of 1.058 to a current specific gravity of 1.014. Unlike a Ringwood fermentation, which I would crash cool at about 1.012 promoting flocculation of the yeast and gradual cessation of the fermentation (the yeast head then being skimmed from the surface for use in the next fermentation), the saison yeast will be allowed to run it’s course. Once a constant final gravity is reached the brew will be crash cooled but, because there is no real protective yeast skin in place as is the case with the Ringwood fermentation, we will minimize any further time it spends in the open fermenting vessel.
note the CO2 bubbles rising from the surface
The thick yeast head of a Ringwood yeast fermentation
The fermentations pictured here are similar in that they both started at comparable original gravities and are both now at the same specific gravity. However the Ringwood fermentation has slowed dramatically and shows little sign of active fermentation (very little CO2 being released, a 1 degree gravity drop overnight) and is ready to be crash cooled and skimmed. The saison fermentation is still very active with a lot of CO2 being released and a 7 degree gravity drop overnight. The saison fermentaion will take about 8 – 9 days to reach completion whereas the Ringwood fermentation typically takes about 4. The phenolic aromas of the early saison fermentation have dissipated now and our taste tests of fermentation samples get a big thumbs-up! I’m particularly excited about all of the cask variations that we’ll be able to do with this beer and 7 of the 14 barrels produced will be cask conditioned. We will be dry hopping casks with a single varietal that was used in the brew’s late hop grist ie casks with Czech Saaz, casks with Kent Golding and casks with Bramling Cross as well as a cask dry hopped with a mix of all 3 hops. Of course we’ll also be cask conditioning with French Oak as well as American White Oak and I know that Brian has some ideas for using herbs/spices.
Don’t forget that tonight Max’s Taphouse will be featuring a couple of unique casks of Brian’s Stateside Saison at the Beer Social from 6pm, definitely not one you want to miss.
Cheers
Steve