Brewmaker – Best of British – Indian Pale Ale

Pale Ales are one of my favourite beers but I haven’t brewed one so far this year. I have previously brewed the Munton’s pale ale which was very good, but this time I fancied trying something new. The Brewmaker pack was pretty standard with 2 tins of wort and a sachet of yeast, so simple to start brewing.

Edme Superbrew Gold Weizen – Tasting

Ok this is a lager so you wouldn’t expect the same sort of flavour as a real ale. Although there still isn’t a great deal of flavour. The beer is too flat for a lager which may be because I didn’t put enough sugar in each bottle or because I used plastic as opposed to glass bottles. It’s perfectly drinkable and better than the standard bunch of piss you get in pubs but I’m used to the good stuff now.

Edme Superbrew homebrew rating:

Milestone Lion’s Pride – Bottling

I have been a bit bad here as I actually bottled this before I went away for 3 weeks to Canada, but didn’t update the blog.
NOTE Bottled on 1st May 2008
Nothing apecial to report here other than I used some pretty funky eclipse shaped bottles supplied by Ollie. I may return the favour by returning them to him full of Lion’s Pride!

Sherwood IPA – Bottling

As I needed the brewing bucket for the wine I had to bottle the IPA. The hydrometer showed a reading of 1.012 just short of the expected 1.010 but it hadn’t changed in a few days. I fashioned a support for the syphoning tube using string tied to the handles of the bucket and this held it in place for the duration. For this batch I used green caps (which is important to note down in case I end up with so many different beers I can’t remember which is which – In my dreams!).

Plum Wine v2.0

This weekend I had the enviable job of defrosting the freezer. There have been a bag of Chris’s plums in there from last year so this was the perfect opportunity to make use of them and my new 2 gallon bucket. Using the scales I estimated I had around 3kg of plums so I added 2kg of sugar and a 500g bag of raisins to add body. I added a few kettle loads of boiling water to defrost the plums and dissolve the sugar. Once the plums had defrosted I used my hands to burst them all open to ensure all the flavour and colour was released. I didn’t do this with the first batch and I’m hoping it results in a colourful wine.
I topped the bucket up to a bit over 2 gallons to take into the account the weight of fruit. I dissolved 2 tsp and added it along with 2 tsp of wine yeast. Here’s how it all looked.

I had a quick look this morning ( less than 1 day later) to make sure it had started fermenting. I have a feeling that’s not going to be a problem.

Beer order

The brupack’s colne valley I’m brewing at the moment is my last kit. I’m finding that as each one takes around 3 weeks in the bucket, I need to start a new kit straight away to keep up a constant supply, so it’s time to order some more.
Ideally I’d get the kits from Harvey’s Homebrew as I don’t have to pay delivery but after a bit of research I had my heart set on John Bull Masterclass Irish Stout. Harvey’s doesn’t seem to stock this and the cheapest I found it was for £14.99 at http://www.leylandhomebrew.com/ (see blogroll). With £5.95 delivery it does make it quite expensive so I decided to order a couple more kits. After much deliberation my order consisted of:

• John Bull Masterclass Irish Stout – An exta dark, highly roasted brew with a smooth hoppy flavour.
• Sherwood India Pale Ale – A British pale ale for the Indian Empire. Lots of hop character, with a smooth well-balanced body. Brewed near Sherwood forest in Nottinghamshire.
• Edme Superbrew Gold Weizen – A smooth golden beer with a rich Bavarian-style character. It is crisp, refreshing and distinctive being made from both wheat and barley malt. Edme is owned by Munton’s

I also ordered another John Bull Masterclass irish stout for Dave bringing the total to £56.96 I needed £3.05 to bring the total to over £60 and get free delivery. So I also got:

• 8 gm. CO2 Bulbs – The only way to get pressurised CO2 delivered
• Hambleton Bard Carbon Dioxide Injector – Connects the CO2 bulb to the S30 valve on my keg

Munton’s Midas Touch Golden Ale

Munton’s Golden Touch contained 2 litres of wort and a bag of yeast. It contained no instructions for brewing.
Following the instructions I used for the Birkby Bitter I poured the tins into the sterilised bucket and then filled them with boiling water and poured that in too. I prepared the yeast in a cup of warm water and then filled the bucket with cold water to a total of 23 litres (40 pints). The yeast was stirred in and the lid fitted tightly. This time I decided to move the beer to the spare room to ferment. The difference between this room and the kitchen is that it has a radiator, so stays warmer than the kitchen. I have placed the bucket fairly close to the radiator to encourage fermentation. This process took no longer than 20 minutes, much quicker than the last batch!