Posts Tagged ‘Oak Aged’
The Cask Ale Social/ Bishop’s Indulgence Release
Monday, January 11th, 2010
Mark your calendars for a special event at The Pratt Street Ale House. On Tuesday 2nd February @ 6pm we will launch our new seasonal, The Bishop’s Indulgence, an 8% a.b.v. chocolate stout and will be holding an informal discussion of cask ale brewing and handling featuring a glass ended firkin of Best Bitter.
As you can see above, although the view through the firkin is impressive (who are those ruggedly handsome brewers?), when it is filled with beer you’ll be able to see the way that the finings in the cask promote the flocculation of the yeast, forming a sediment at the bottom of the cask. You’ll be able to draw your own pint straight from the cask. I’ll be talking about cask ale preparation and handling and we’ll have the various tools of the trade on display for you to look at and we’ll be on hand to answer any questions that you might have. The event will be pay as you go and of course Tuesday night is cask appreciation night at The Ale House so our cask beer is only $3/pint. For the Bishop’s Indulgence, $3 will get you a 10oz serving in a snifter. But wait, there’s more. If you choose to pay $4 for your first beer you get to keep a souvenir Oliver Ale pint glass!
Bishop’s Indulgence will be available on both cask and regular tap. The cask is aged on Oak with vanilla and is the only Oak Aged cask of this beer that I prepared.
Please come out and support the brewery and our love of cask conditioned ales, it’ll be a fun evening and, who knows, you may learn something!
Cheers
Steve
New on cask
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
Yeah, it’s cold, damn cold outside. Pretty cold inside too …. 48F in the brewery office this morning! But, y’know what, I’m not going to worry about it now because I’ve got a snifter of Oak Aged William’s Winter Warmer which is providing a warmth you can’t get from BGE, oh yeah! It’s on the Brewer’s Choice beer engine right now so come on down and try one. You know that it makes sense!
Roadtrip
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
Yesterday afternoon Assistant Brewer Justin Damadio, co-owner of The Pratt Street Ale House Justin Dvorkin and myself went on a short road trip to D.C. We’ve recently started distributing in the D.C. area so thought it was about time we visited a couple of the bars that have been serving our beer. We met up with our FP Winner rep, Mike, who’s been doing an awesome job for us and headed off to the District Chop House to visit old friend Barret and sample a couple of his beers before visiting our accounts. As usual I had a Bourbon Barrel Stout from the beer engine, an excellent beer with a powerful bourbon presence. As you may recall from an earlier post we will be investing in some Woodford Reserve Barrels in the near future to do some limited runs of bourbon aged strong ales. We then headed down the street to RFD who have featured a number of our beers on taps in recent weeks and had just kicked a firkin of Dark Horse mild. I tried a Brooklyn Manhattan Project which I confess I didn’t particularly care for. We then headed off to Birch & Barley/ChurchKey which I have to say I was particularly excited about. ChurchKey has emerged as the jewel in the crown of the cask beer scene in D.C. with 5 beer engines and I am very pleased that they have been serving a variety of our ales from firkins.
Birch & Barley/ ChurchKey
With 50 regular taps, 5 beer engines and over 500 bottled beers this place is quite the beer mecca. The interior is extremely stylish and the “Beer Organ” in the downstairs bar is a stunning backdrop.
The "Beer Organ"
I had the pleasure of talking with Beer Director Greg Engert who, as you would expect for such a bar, was knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Without doubt this place is a wonderful addition to the beer scene in D.C. We will be supplying many firkins to ChurchKey so expect to see an Oliver Ale on one of the beer engines on a regular basis. Last night they were pouring the Best Bitter (of which we will be supplying more next week). Today they will be taking delivery of a firkin of Oak Aged Winter Warmer (which is the only place you’ll be able to get it outside of the Ale House) so look out for that soon.
Beer Director Greg Engert discusses cask conditioned ales.
Whilst there I had the pleasure of sampling cask conditioned Isle Of Arran Paradox from BrewDog, Harviestoun Schiehallion and of course our own Best Bitter.
Last, but not least we made the trip up to the Commonwealth Gastro Pub in Columbia Heights where we enjoyed many pints of our Dark Horse mild from one of their two beer engines. I must admit that I felt very comfortable at Commonwealth, chatting with the regulars over a few pints and wish that we hadn’t had to brave the early evening rain and make our way back to Baltimore. Bill at Commonwealth will start doing some pins on the bar in the near future so we’ll be supplying a pin of Oak Aged 3 Lions next month, I’ll keep you posted as to when it will be served.
All in all it was a very enjoyable break from the brewery routine and we look forward to returning to do some promotional pint nights in the New Year.
goodnight william
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Well there it is, done for the year. William’s Winter Warmer has been “put to bed” in FV1, one of our 14 barrel vessels, yeast has been pitched and the wort vigorously roused to aerate it as much as possible. Aeration is very important at this early stage, especially for a relatively high gravity beer such as this, to promote good yeast cell division and get fermentation off to a rapid start. If we were to under aerate for example we may experience an extended lag phase and we’ll be in for a correspondingly lengthy fermentation which may require re-pitching of active yeast. Ensuring that we have a viable yeast pitched into a well aerated wort at optimal temperature (70F in this case) will get us off to a good start and avoid problems further down the line. It is for this reason that we collected our 7 barrels of wort in a 14 bbl FV, it is physically easier to rouse (and hence aerate) the wort. The large head space in the open fermenting vessel also helps avoid loss of yeast from the vessel as the yeast head rises during exponential growth or due to rapid release of dissolved CO2 from the fermenting wort which sometimes happens as the night time ambient temperature falls and the wort is then roused the following morning. I collected the wort at an original gravity of 1.080 and will be aiming to attenuate to about 1.016 before crash cooling giving a final a.b.v. of a little over 8%. I will fill a number of firkins with William’s Winter Warmer, at least 2 of which will be aged on Oak for release in January.
Cheers
Steve
Happiness is a warm… beer
Friday, October 16th, 2009
Well, not warm exactly but not cold! It turns out that a great way to spend a cold, wet Thursday night is to sup a few pints of Oak Aged 3 Lions served straight from the cask on the back bar at Bertha’s! With the beer at about a perfect 52F I can’t think of too many places I would rather have been last night. The only thing missing was a roaring open fire and it would have been heavenly. At 7.5% alcohol by volume the alcohol warmth of the 3 Lions is perfect for such miserable weather but it ’s really the hints of coconut and vanilla that the oak aging imparts, the open malt flavors that the correct serving temperature allows and the calm, subtle carbonation of the cask conditioning that really bring this beer to life! Of course as many of you already know the Chesapeake Real Ale Festival tomorrow will offer an abundance of such delights. It really is going to be one of the most important events of the festival season so make sure you don’t miss it.
Cheers
USQUE AD MORTEM BIBENDUM
Steve
the sunday question !?
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
O.K., as you may have noticed, Friday came and went without the Friday question. Sorry about that but we were buried in the brewery and I couldn’t find time to log on! On a positive note though, our new kilderkins arrived (just in the nick of time) so I spent the morning cleaning casks and filling them with E.S.B.
Saturday too came and went in a blur … this time courtesy of the DuClaw Real Ale Festival. All of the usual suspects were there with a couple of notable additions in Troegs with their Nugget Nectar and Javahead Stout and Stone with their Oaked Arrogant Bastard and Cali-Belgique. It was a very well run event as you’d expect from DuClaw and a good time was had by all. A special thanks go out to Brandon for helping serve our beer and of course to all those thirsty real ale fans for all the great feedback about our beers. My only criticism would be that maybe people should have been offered the chance to fill growlers at the 4pm cut-off … it was heartbreaking pouring away those last couple of gallons of Oak 3 Lions and dry hop Ironman Pale Ale!!!
Anyway, on to business …. There was only one correct entry to the last Friday question so instead of it being a 2 part question as I had originally intended, I will give a pair of Oktoberfest Tickets to last weeks winning entry and another pair of tickets to this weeks winning entry (Achtung! Our generosity knows no bounds!) As per usual, the first correct entry received via the “comments” link below wins, judges decision is final blah, blah, blah. The answer to last weeks question was …. drum roll … answer c) Ironman Pale Ale so congratulations go out to Mr. Scott Scharf, the winner of 2 tickets to Oktoberfest at The Timonium Fairgrounds on October 10th.
This weeks question …. as you may well know, the bitterness of a beer produced by hops is measured in terms of International Bitterness Units (IBUs). This seems to be of particular interest to some of my American colleagues who proudly proclaim their latest Double Imperial pale ale or whatever to contain 140 IBUs as if some sort of badge of honor! In context, an English Mild ale will typically have around 20 IBUs.
So the question is this … What is the IBU value for the Ironman Pale Ale, is it …
a)30
b)35
c)45
d)70
e) How the Hell would I know, the brewer has never calculated an IBU value in his life!
Good luck.
Steve
Three Lions and Tattoos
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
Please join us at The Pratt Street Ale House on the evening of Wednesday 12th August for a very special 3 Lions event. Come and see the brewer cry like a baby as he’s tattooed at the Ale House with the 3 Lions logo by local artist Norm of Art With A Pulse Tattoo Studio (www.awaptattoo.com). Fortunately, to ease the pain a kilderkin (that’s over 20 gallons) of Oak Aged 3 Lions strong brown ale will be available on cask. We’ve been aging this one for over 2 months so it’s going to be full of wonderful oak flavors! We’ll have beer specials all night long as well as giveaways (t-shirts, glassware etc) from 8pm. Come along and support your local brewery.
What’s happening ….
Monday, July 13th, 2009
We racked the Chelsea Best today (see earlier post for details), firkins are filled and the rest of the brew will condition for a week before being carbonated. I’ve got to say I can’t wait to have my first pint of this one, quickly followed by my second pint of course, after all it is a session beer! Check out the logo for the tap handle, pretty cool, eh?
We’re going to raffle off the 2 tap handles at the post game celebration at the Pratt Street Ale House. Come along, buy a pint of Chelsea Best and you could walk away with one of the most unique souvenirs of this incredible event!
On the Brewer’s Choice handpull now is 3 Lions Ale, a 7.5% strong brown ale. If you’ve tried the regular 3 Lions tap you’ve got to try the cask version. You’ll be amazed by the malt flavors that come to the forefront of this complex beer when served on cask. Writing this is making me thirsty, I’d better go up to the bar and get one …. ah, that’s better, delicious! Keep an eye on the brewery news posts for details of a 3 Lions brewery celebration at the Ale House sometime in late July/early August. We’ll have a Kilderkin of Oak Aged 3 Lions on the beer engine (yep, you read it correctly … a kilderkin… 21.6 gallons, oh yeah) and a few special things going on! More details soon.
Don’t forget, enter the Friday competition …. you never know what you could win!
Cheers
Steve
What’s happening ….
Monday, July 6th, 2009
Today I brewed an old favorite of mine, a 4.3% abv Best Bitter which is to go on tap as “Chelsea Best” to celebrate the forthcoming soccer match beween London’s Chelsea FC and AC Milan at the M & T Bank Stadium on July 24th. The Pratt Street Ale House will be the official headquarters of the Chelsea In America Supporters Club (see the events section of the site for more details) so it seems only proper that we honor them with a truly unique British brew. This bitter is deep amber in color, medium bodied with a bold, but balanced, hop presence. It is brewed using English Halcyon Pale Ale, Crystal and Chocolate malts along with malted wheat and is hopped with Kent Goldings and English Fuggles. This was a regular brew when I worked for the Firkin Brewery in England but I have brewed it just once in the U.S., to celebrate my 14th anniversary as a brewer in 2008. On that occasion I was myself honored by this beer being recognized as The Best Of Baltimore by The City Paper. “Chelsea Best” will, of course, be available as both a cask-conditioned and carbonated ale.
Speaking of unique beers, I conducted a taste test of the “Hot Monkey Love” winter seasonal today. The HML was brewed back in April and has been conditioning since then and will remain in conditioning until early October. The transformation since I first sampled it just a week after entering conditioning is remarkable. The harshness of the high alcohol (approximately 10%) has given way to a more mellow warmth with some sherry type undertones and a lingering sweetness. This beer is well worth the wait! Of particular interest this year is the fact that I’ve aged some firkins with American Oak (and some without the Oak). These will have been sitting in a quiet corner of our cask room for some 6 months before their debut tapping at the Chesapeake Real Ale Festival in October. It’ll be interesting to see how the vanilla and coconut flavors that the oak impart combine with the complexity of the beer.
Don’t forget, Tuesday night is Cask Night at The Pratt Street Ale House, with pints of all three of our cask-conditioned ales being only $3 after 5pm.
Cheers
Steve