Pratt Street Ale House » the bishop’s indulgence

The Friday Question (updated)

Steve — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:40:59 +0000

Now if there’s ever a time to win a growler of The Bishop’s Indulgence this is it (if you can get to the Ale House before the snow comes)! I must confess (no pun intended), I think that The Bishop will be keeping me company over the weekend and probably the Scottish as well (mmm, The Scottish Bishop, that could be an interesting blend!) Anyway, Nick wins the growler with his guess of 30. There were actually 25 beans in the Bishop’s Indulgence. Ten were used in the brew, ten in the conditioning tank and five in the casks. Congratulations Nick.

Next on the beer release horizon is the Strongman Pale Ale which will make it’s debut on tap at The Pratt Street Ale House on Tuesday. You may remember from an earlier post that I’ve discussed the type and amount of hops that went into brewing this 8% a.b.v. English Pale Ale. As you may also know, throughout my brewing career I have never given an indication of the I.B.U. value of any beer I’ve produced, but this is about to change. I hasten to add there is no special reason for announcing I.B.U. values other than the fact that Whitelabs are running a special deal on beer analysis this month so I thought it’d be sorta cool to find out a bit about a couple of my beers. I’ve got to say I’m more interested in getting a lab analysis of specific gravities and a.b.v. but I.B.U.’s are included so what-the-heck, why not? Obviously then the question will be this…. what is the I.B.U. value of the Strongman Pale Ale? The winner will get a growler of the Strongman and a souvenir Oliver pint glass with which to drink it. As usual please post your answers via the comment section below. The competition will close next Friday but it may take a while to announce the winner as obviously I have to send the samples of to Whitelabs in San Diego and then wait for the results so your patience is appreciated.

By-the-way, I’ve finally set up the Brewery facebook page (Oliver Ales), please check it out and if you’ve got any photographs from past events/festivals, please feel free to post them.

I’ve just filled a Beaujolais -Nouveau cask with 3 Lions. It leaked a lot when prepping it but as the wood absorbs liquid it expands and the more major leaks have stopped. Hopefully it will seal completely soon, fingers crossed. If all goes well it’ll be sitting in the cask room for a couple of months and will then go out to Bruce at the wonderful Metropolitan Coffee House & Wine Bar. I’ll keep you posted.

At last, England and France in perfect harmony!

cheers

Steve

Bishop’s Indulgence Release

Steve — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:58:29 +0000

Just a reminder regarding the release of The Bishop’s Indulgence at The Pratt Street Ale House tomorrow evening @ 6pm. The Bishop’s Indulgence is an 8% a.b.v. stout brewed with cocoa nibs and vanilla beans. As well as making its debut on tap we will have a kilderkin on the beer engine that has been aged on American Oak. Tuesday evening is always cask appreciation night at The Ale House so cask pints will be $3 with the exception of The Bishop’s Indulgence which will be available as a 10 oz pour for $3. If that wasn’t enough we’ll have a glass ended firkin of Best Bitter (dry hopped with Maryland grown Chinook) on gravity pour in the lounge area. If you have an interest in cask ale and want to know more about how we make it here then come along and we’ll answer your questions as best we can. We will also be introducing our new “seasonal veterans club”, come check it out!

The Friday Question

Steve — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:52:07 +0000

The time has finally come to reveal the winner of the Tactical Nuclear Penguin. There was an incredible spread of answers, from 9 pounds sterling at the lower end to over 60 at the other. A couple of answers were pretty close but one was the clear winner. The correct answer was …. bagpipe flourish & drum roll ….

If you can’t quite make that out apologies for the poor picture quality (you’d think i-phone could do better) but the answer is 17.32. By my reckoning, that makes “Red Rob” the winner with the answer of 18.86. Congratulations sir, I will be in touch to arrange collection of your prize. For those of you who may be interested, to have it shipped directly from BrewDog to the Ale House would have been 40 pounds! I had asked my Mother to ship it to me by the quickest method regardless of cost (within reason) but she, of course, being my Mother ignored this and just sent it regular parcel air mail. She didn’t even put a “fragile” sticker on it! Clearly no respect for beer there, even though her son has been a brewer for 16 years.

So, as you may know, on Tuesday @ 6pm we will launch our latest seasonal beer, The Bishop’s Indulgence, at The Cask Ale Social at the Pratt Street Ale House. As well as having the beer on tap and on cask (aged on a little American Oak) we will have a glass ended firkin of Best Bitter dry hopped with Maryland Chinook on gravity pour in the lounge so you can see how yeast settles in the cask. The Bishop’s Indulgence will be available in 10 oz snifters for $3 and our other cask beers will be priced at $3/pint. We’ll also have an informal discussion of cask ale brewing and handling so if you have any questions about cask ale come along, have a beer and we’ll do our best to answer them. You may have read in the previous posts about the Bishop’s Indulgence that it is an 8% a.b.v. stout brewed with cocoa nibs and vanilla beans. This week’s question is simple. How many vanilla beans did I use making this brew? I want the number of vanilla beans not the weight of beans and it includes any beans that may have been used in casks. As usual, answers via the comment section please, one answer per person only. The closest answer to the correct number wins and in the event of a tie the answer posted first takes it. The prize will be a growler of The Bishop’s Indulgence. Good luck.

For those of you in the DC area, look out for the Blonde Ale dry hopped with Chinook and Dark Horse mild @ RFD and Best Bitter and Dark Horse at ChurchKey. Next week we’ll also be sending casks out to both Pizzeria Paradiso locations and more to ChurchKey. Also mark your calendar for the Strong Beer Tasting at The Brickskeller on Tues 9th February where we’ll have our last sixtel of ‘09 Hot Monkey Love. Commonwealth Gastro Pub will be hosting an Oliver Ale Beer Dinner on March 2nd (t.b.c.), more details to follow.

Have a great weekend.

Cheers

Steve

New on cask

Steve — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:33:54 +0000

Now on the Brewer’s Choice beer engine is the Blonde Ale, dry hopped with Chinook (grown, hand-picked and air dried in Frederick County). There’s only one pin available so get it while you can.

Dry Hopped Blonde Ale now on cask.

Remember on Tuesday 2nd February @ 6pm we will be releasing our latest seasonal offering, The Bishop’s Indulgence, an 8% stout brewed with cocoa nibs and vanilla beans (see the blog archive for details of the brew). As well as having a kilderkin of The Bishop’s Indulgence aged on American Oak on the beer engine, we will have a glass ended firkin of Best Bitter dry hopped with Maryland Chinook on gravity pour in the lounge for a more “interactive” cask ale drinking experience . I’ll be on hand to talk about cask ale brewing and handling and, as Tuesday night is cask ale appreciation night at The Pratt Street Ale House, cask pints will be just $3 (with the exception of The Bishop’s Indulgence, which will be $3 for a 10 oz snifter).

Cheers

Steve

The Cask Ale Social/ Bishop’s Indulgence Release

Steve — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:56:51 +0000

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

The Friday Question

Steve — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:22:32 +0000

Happy New Year everyone and welcome to the first Friday Question of 2010! There were some good guesses to last weeks question. I thought that it was a bit of a tricky one because it was a year unlike no other one for the brewery in recent times, with a lot of different factors coming in to play. Firstly of course the Wharf Rat /Pratt Street Ale House closed for 6 weeks for refurbishment back in January which was a major disruption for the brewery but the refurbished Ale House proved to be a great success with strong sales for our house brewed beers (though it would be nice if the Orioles could find some solid winning form!) Obviously the sluggish economy was a worry but was offset by our efforts, along with our distributor in the Summer to push out our brand to more outside accounts with new brewery design tap handles etc. We also recently started distributing to D.C. which has been a great outlet for us, especially for the cask beers. So, overall we had a pretty good year, a firm foundation upon which we hope to build in 2010. The final figure for the number of times we brewed in 2009 is …. drum roll …. 163 so congratulations go to Greg with his guess of 162. Greg wins growler fills of our upcoming 3 seasonal offerings, the Scottish Ale, Peeping Tom Porter and The Bishop’s Indulgence. Keep an eye on my posts to see when they go on tap. I’m going to stick with a seasonal theme as I’m happy to announce that we will soon be launching our “seasonal veterans club”. We will issue a passport of sorts that you get stamped the first time you try each of our new seasonal beers and rewards will be issued through the year as you accumulate more stamps. For example, if you have 5 seasonal stamps in your passport you’ll get a free beer, for 10 a free growler fill, 15 a limited edition t-shirt and so on. That first pint you buy of each seasonal will also be served in a 20oz pour for the price of a 16oz (obvious exclusions will apply to some of the higher alcohol beers which are served in 10oz snifters). Sound good? I think so! As soon as we get the the passports printed up I’ll post all of the details. I’m going to keep this weeks prize the same, growler fills of our upcoming 3 seasonal offerings. Here’s the question. How many different seasonal/ one-off offerings did I brew in 2009? I’m talking about individual brewing events here, not seasonal/ Brewer’s Choice casks. One entry per person only please posted via the comment section below. Good luck.

I tried the Bishop’s Indulgence from the conditioning tank yesterday and I’m very pleased with the results. It has pleasant notes of chocolate without them being overpowering and a smoothness from the vanilla. Some of the initial cocoa bitterness that I detected in fermentation samples has mellowed out so, all in all, I think that it is a well rounded beer. I estimate its alcohol content to be 8.2%.

Cheers

Steve

The Peeping Tom

Steve — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:28:23 +0000

I’m brewing the Peeping Tom Porter today. It’s a great session ale, about 4.5% abv, reasonably light in body but full of wonderful dark malt flavors, very drinkable, especially on cask. Speaking of which it will likely make its cask debut at Bertha’s in Fells Point on January 14th. Bertha’s are going to have a monthly cask (pin) 0n the bar for the first Thursday of every month. Now you eagle-eyed detectives out there will have noticed that the 14th is the second Thursday but Bertha’s will be closed for some refurbishments briefly in early January, hence the 2nd Thursday slot. Thereafter cask night will be the first Thursday of every month. We’ll be supplying as many interesting casks as possible including most of our seasonals. February’s cask will likely be the Bishop’s Indulgence.

Speaking of cask ale, the very last cask of Merry Ole Ale is on the beer engine at Max’s Taphouse now. ChurchKey has the Dark Horse dark mild on one of its beer engines. If you find yourself in that part of D.C. stop by for a pint, it’s a wonderful session ale and you couldn’t want for a nicer environment in which to drink it!

The Bishop’s Indulgence (VI)

Steve — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:36:56 +0000

I’ve just prepped the cocoa nibs and vanilla beans … it smells mouthwateringly wonderful in here!

Cocoa nibs and vanilla beans ready for the brew.

The Bishop’s Indulgence (V)

Steve — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:53:44 +0000

What goes in to the mash tun must come out! As many of you already know, this is a no frills brewery. There is no door in the mash tun through which the spent grain can be shoveled into an auger taking it to grain bins outside. Here it is a case of standing by the mash tun and shoveling the grain out into the sacks from whence it came and then hauling them up the stairs and dragging them outside for the farmer to collect. The dry weight of these sacks coming into the brewery is 55lbs. The weight of the spent grain sacks (ie wet mash) is closer to 80lbs and don’t forget, the spent grain is still very hot. To say that digging the mash tun out is not fun would be something of an understatement! Now I’ve got the grain out of the mash tun I have to jump in it and scrub and rinse it out so that it is ready for tomorrow’s brew day.

Dig, dig, dig!

Just in case you were wondering, 610lbs of grain went into this brew. Ouch! No wonder my back hurts.

The Bishop’s Indulgence (III)

Steve — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:58:39 +0000

Wort run off is going well, clarity remains excellent and the color is now a deep chestnut color, beautiful. The sparge has almost finished now and the wort run off should be finished within the hour. The sparge liquor serves to wash out the sugars and other nutrients from the mash so that we are extracting the maximum amount of nutrients that we can within the limitations of the system. Of course we can’t simply keep sparging until the mash is free of nutrients because we will excessively dilute the wort we are collecting and the last runnings may contain high levels of phenols if the pH rises above 5.5, which will lead to clarity issues with the product. The elevated temperature of the sparge liquor serves to rapidly inactivate the mash enzymes.

The sparge liquor is added across the surface of the mash as the wort is drawn from underneath the mash.