Posts Tagged ‘jacob’s summer celebration’
The Friday Question
Friday, June 17th, 2011
I hope you’re all aware that the Strongman Pale Ale single hop Sorachi Ace has returned to the taps of the Pratt Street Ale House. This batch is 8.3% abv and I managed to squeeze a little extra hop into it this time. It really has got wonderful, unique characteristics and if you haven’t tried it yet I urge you to do so soon, it won’t be around for long! I’ve sent some cask & draft out to some of the usual places (Max’s, ChurchKey, Meridian Pint, Punks Grill, Pizzeria Paradiso, T-Bonz, Big Hunt and Churchkey) so if you can’t get to the Ale House seek it out. Also coming soon will be the second batch of Draft Punk. The bulk of the batch is sitting on a couple of pounds of Cascade in conditioning tank. The rest is in cask, some dry hopped with Cascade, some with Citra. Casks will be distributed next week to ChurchKey, Frisco Taphouse, Meridian Pint, The Mount Airy Inn, Pizzeria Paradiso and Max’s. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough to save one for the Ale House <sob> so you’ll probably see me sipping a pint at one of the above fine establishments. Also back on tap at The Pratt Street Ale House is Bulldog Bitter, a classic English amber bitter, 4.3% abv brewed with English Maris Otter, Crystal 45, roasted barley and malted wheat and bittered & finished with Kent Goldings and Bramling Cross. … it’s an easy drinking delight, come get some. It will also be on the beer engine next week. Casks are already out and about and it will be featured at the wonderful Metropolitan Coffee House as their Thursday firkin soon.
Jacob’s Summer Celebration moved from fermentation to conditioning tank yesterday and is maturing on a bed of whole leaf Liberty (y’know, coz it’s being released on July 4th, Jacob’s birthday!) Casks are filled, again, all dry hopped with Liberty and a couple also have oak added. They’ll go into distribution on the 4th. The release at the Ale House on the 4th will feature both cask and draft and we’ll (hopefully) have some logo glassware for the event, watch for details soon.
We’re plotting another collaborative brew with one of our DC friends to celebrate DC beer week in August … can’t say too much about it yet but we should be hammering out the recipe details and announcing it officially next week. It also looks likely that we’ll have our friends from Meridian Pint in the brewery again soon, I’ll post more about that soon.
So, The Friday Question! A couple of weeks ago I told you that I’d be brewing batch# 3500. Needless to say I wanted to make this milestone brew something special … a never to be repeated one-off. I decided upon a red ale … I’m loathe to bandy around the term “Imperial” but you get the picture … a “big” Red Ale. Yesterday was brew day … I packed the mash tun with as much grain as I could squeeze in (for those interested, a base of English halcyon and Canadian Pale Ale malt, malted wheat, a little chocolate malt, crystal 45 and German melanoidin), packed the hop back with as much leaf Cascade & Mount Hood as possible and bittered with English Target and American Chinook. I also added some light brown sugar and Juniper berries to the boil and the brew will be dry hopped in tank with more Cascade and Mount Hood.
Not much chance of getting any more grain into this brew!
... or any more leaf hop in the hop back for that matter!
I’d asked what the original gravity of the brew would be? I received a lot of “near miss” answers but nobody nailed it. The brew came in at a very respectable 1.090 which makes Mike (who answered 1.089) and M. Batley (who answered 1.091) joint winners. Congratulations gentlemen, I’ll be in touch.
This week I’ll stick with batch #3500 and ask what is the combined weight of grain and hops that will have been used in this brew? As usual, please answer via the comment option below. The winner gets a growler of Oliver Ale and a bottle of something! By the way, in case you hadn’t already seen it on the Oliver Ales facebook page I’m running a sort of competition to design the tap logo for the brew (which will simply be know as 3500) … so, any budding designers who want to have a shot at it please email me your idea at steve.oliverale@gmail.com within the next two weeks and you’ll get to be the guest of honor at the beer release!
Cheers
The Friday Question
Friday, June 3rd, 2011
That was a brutal week! As I’m sure you noticed, it was damn hot! We brewed 5 times and the mercury was definitely rising in the brewhouse. I ended the week brewing Bulldog Bitter, a 4.3% abv classic English ale brewed with Maris Otter, crystal 45, roasted barley and malted wheat and generously hopped with Kent Goldings and Bramling Cross. It will be featured on cask and draft at The Ale House. Batch # 2 of Strongman Pale Ale (single hop Sorachi Ace) is currently in conditioning (bright tank) prior to carbonation. Casks (dry hopped with Sorachi Ace) will be distributed next week. Casks are limited of course, expect to see them at ChuchKey, Meridian Pint and one or two other outlets. Next week I’ll be brewing “Jacob’s Summer Celebration” for release on Jacob’s birthday, July 4th. If you want to attach a “style” to the brew I guess it would be classed as an Imperial Amber ale … ie amber, strong (8.8%) and generously hopped. You may recall that the specifics of the brew were determined by Jacob’s birth weight, 8lb 13oz, hence 8.8% abv, with 8lb 13oz of bittering hops and 8lb 13oz of finishing hops. The hop grist is split equally between English and American varieties (reflecting his parentage) and, being as the little scamp was born on July 4th, Liberty is used for dry hopping. Also on the brew schedule next week is a second batch of Draft Punk. I’ll be tweaking the recipe a little, a touch more Chinook here, a dash more Cascade there and I’ll be dry hopping casks with Citra and some with Cascade. As with the first batch, a limited number of casks and sixtels will be distributed to a few select outlets (details as ever will be posted on the Oliver ales Facebook page) but the bulk will of course be divided between the Ale House and Punks Backyard Grill.
So, The Friday Question … Last week I asked you to guess the price
per pint of an Apricot Ale that I brewed with the Firkin Brewery back
in England in the 90′s. The answer was £1.80 which makes Mark the winner with his guess of £1.82 congratulations sir, you win some delicious Porter. This week I’ll be offering another growler of Oliver Ales of course and I’m sure we can find a bottle or two of something interesting as well. The Question will run for a little longer than usual as I won’t know the answer until about June 15th when we brew batch #3500 which is going to be an “imperial” red ale with juniper. The question is this. What will be the Original Gravity of batch #3500? (for example 3 Lions Ale is 1.075) Good luck and, as per usual, please post your answer via the comment option. Have a great weekend.
Winter Celebration
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
Psst ... early release of jacob's Winter Celebration at The Pratt Street Ale House tomorrow!
After tense negotiations, Jacob has relented and allowed me to tap his namesake Winter Celebration ale ahead of its planned January 4th release (when the young man turns 6 months old). The draft version will be tapped tomorrow to replace the Merry Ole Ale. As part of the agreement I will save the firkin (aged with American Oak) for January 4th release. I have also promised the young man a Tickle Me Elmo, which was the real deal maker! If you’re wondering what the Hell I’m talking about take a moment to read the original blog entry regarding Jacob’s Summer Celebration here! The Winter Celebration is a “seasonally adjusted” version of this. The same criteria apply … it’s all based on Jacob’s birth weight and parental origins … the recipe remains the same except for the substitution of Crystal 65 for caramalt and the addition of a little black malt to deepen the color and add a little more complexity to the malt profile. Hops remain divided between American and English, 8lb 130z of bittering hop and 8lb 13oz finishing hop with, of course, Liberty being used as the dry hop in tank and cask as a nod to Jacob’s July 4th birth date!
The Friday Question
Friday, August 13th, 2010
Firstly thanks to all those who tried Jacob’s Summer Celebration at Max’s last night. Obviously I haven’t been out and about much recently so it was great to see everyone. Cheers! Here’s a pic. that I stole from @CDoubleIPA’s tweet ….
Jacob's Summer Celebration dry hopped with Liberty
If you haven’t already seen the beer list for Max’s Rare & Obscure event over the next few days I urge you to get over there … it’s beer geek heaven!
You may have seen news that DC beer week is almost here … check out DCBeer.com for updates. There are a lot of cool events happening and of course we’ll be involved in some of them. We’ll be at The Big Hunt on Monday 8/23 with 3 firkins of 3 Lions (French Oak/Dry Hopped/Cacao Nibs), Meridian Pint on Tuesday 8/24 with a selection of casks and drafts, Kramerbooks on 8/27 (subject to confirmation) and RFD on Saturday 8/28 with a cask of Jacob’s Summer Celebration with American Oak. There’ll be glassware giveaways at the events so if you’re in the area come on by and say hello and grab a beer.
On to the Friday Question … last week I asked how many pounds of hops we’d used in the previous weeks 4 brews. There was a good spread of answers but closest was Nick with his guess of 32 lbs … the actual amount was 30lbs. Congratulations Nick you win a growler of Oliver Ale of your choice and a bottle of something nice (as soon as I get to the Wine Source to buy it!) This weeks prize is provided by the amazing generosity of former Friday Question winner DaveG who donated this ….
Trust me ... you want this!
yeah … that’s right … 2006 … Nice! I’ve never tried this beer (so feel free to not try to win it so that I can drink it) but it gets an A rating on Beer Advocate. Again, thanks Dave. The question is this … next year Oliver Breweries will celebrate it’s 18th year of brewing (holy crap, I just realised that I’ve been here for more than half of that, no wonder my back hurts so much!) so what I want to know is on what date was the first batch brewed?
Don’t forget, today is Friday The Firkteenth @ T-Bonz and will feature casks of Old Habit, Bishop’s Breakfast with Coffee and Jacob’s Summer Celebration amongst others.
Cheers
Steve
Beer Release
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
Psst … have you heard the news? My Dad made a beer to celebrate my birth. Cool,eh? It’s 8.8% abv because I weighed 8lb 13oz when I was born and Dad used 8lb13oz of bittering hops and (you’ll spot a theme here) 8lb 13oz of finishing hops. Dad’s English but Mom’s American and guess what … I was born on July 4th so Dad used half American hops and half English hops! Guess what? It gets it’s local release at Max’s Taphouse tomorrow, on draft and cask dry hopped with Liberty. Mom says I’m too young to go to Max’s, she says I have to be 21 … seriously …21?! Oh well, Dad says he’ll be there at 6pm if I let him (and Mom gets out of work in time to look after me) and check this out, he hasn’t even tried the finished beer yet so he’s pretty excited. He hopes you’ll come and try it with him.
The Friday Question
Friday, July 16th, 2010
Last night’s Brew At The National Zoo proved to be an excellent event despite the heat and humidity. The beer festival was excellently organised and had something for everyone in terms of beer, plenty of great craft beer as well as the generic big brands, as well as great food and live entertainment. I look forward to this being a regular event in our festival calendar and, of course, it’s for a great cause. Thanks to everybody who stopped by to sample Oliver Ales, we “sold out” 15 minutes before the end of the event!
Mike, our DC sales rep serves some Oliver Ale @ Brew At The National Zoo
Today I’m brewing our latest seasonal offering, Golden Glory. It’s a golden wheat ale (40% of the grain bill by weight is wheat) brewed with root ginger (chopped and suspended in the boiling wort) and I’m trying out the Liberty hops I bought for Jacob’s Summer Celebration as the finishing hop. Speaking of little Jacob’s brew, it’s fermenting nicely. I can’t wait to get this on tap, especially on cask, which will be dry hopped with Liberty and maybe Chinook also. I’ll be filling about 6 firkins so expect to see it at a few of your fave purveyors of cask conditioned ale.
O.K., onto the Friday Question. As I haven’t had any responses to “what’s in the fridge” (see earlier post), I’m going to offer up a couple of bottles from our stash, namely Fuller’s Vintage Ale (’08) and Stone Double Bastard (also ’08) AND a growler of Jacob’s Summer Celebration (when it’s released next month). Staying on the theme of Jacob, the question is this …. next Wednesday the little man will have his scheduled doctor’s check-up … at that time, how much will he weigh? As usual, post your answer via the comment option below …. the winner will be posted next Friday. Good luck.
Cheers
Steve
Jacob’s Summer Celebration Ale
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
Hey Dad, breast is best but what about a kick-ass strong ale?
Today’s the day … little Jakey is a little over a week old and I’m brewing the ale that will celebrate his birth (wet the baby’s head as we say). It’s going to be a big beer. Jacob weighed 8.8lbs at birth so I’ll be aiming for 8.8% abv. I’m also using his birth weight to determine the amount of hops used in the brew … 8lb 13 oz didn’t seem enough so I’ll be using 8lb 13oz of pellet hops in the kettle and 8lb 130z of leaf hop split between the hop percolator and dry hopping in tank. The hops used will be split between American and English varieties to reflect his English and American parentage and of course because he was born on July 4th! As another tribute to Jacob’s ironic birth date I’ll be using Liberty to dry hop with (and Liberty is derived from a cross of Hallertauer, so there’s a nod to his German Grandmother and his Great Grandmother … Jacob’s middle name, Evan, was chosen as a tribute to his Great Grandmother, Eva.) The beer will be released in about 3-4 weeks and then will be brewed for release on his birthday each year as is the case with William’s Winter Warmer. I didn’t have time to get any in time for this brew but next year we will also be using the American hop “Independence” (you see where I’m going with this!). We’ll have a low key release party at the Ale House, details will be posted in the near future.
Cheers
Steve