Reflections

So it turns out I'm not off the drink at all. Turns out You were right, I was talking rubbish.

Lasted until Monday, when I headed on down to the Print Works in Glasgow to check out the artwork to go with the Williams Brothers venture at Drygate in the city's plush east end. Better beer blog thebeercast did a write up, and so did the Creative Review. I thought the artworks were brilliant, mostly. The lager good; the IPA fantastic; and the apple ale ... well, it wasn't for me.

Anyhow, guess what! Turns out I'm really not off the drink at all whatsoever. Thursday I headed down to Stereo which was once a top pub in the west end that did a fabby night called Dub and Grub, which was just that. This Stereo's near Central Station but has a cool, hipster vibe. I noised up the poor barman and tried some naff celebrity I-Ken-You chat with boardgame geek and comedian Rab Florence.

And guess what! Turns out I ain't off the homebrew either. Right now I'm drinking my very last Reflection, the third beer I ever made and until V for Victory, the best. I think it's gone off a bit but it's still a solid pint. Bit twangy, yet still carries loads of flavour. Reflection was the brew that made me realise how easy it is to brew it yourself. And I kinda love it for that.

Anyhow, guess what! Turns out I ain't off the homebrewing at all. As I'm writing this I've a can of Cooper's Light Malt Extract bubbling away with a whole load of Cascade hops. Have been for almost 45 minutes. Once done I'm going to cool it quickly in a cold bath then add it to a Cooper's Premium IPA, my first (flawed) kit. I'm going to throw in some Liberty hops for the fermentation too. That'll (hopefully) give it plenty of flavour and aroma, while the boiled up Cascade will (hopefully) have upped the bitterness substantially. Wasn't the original plan, but I stumbled into the homebrew store Inn House Brewery and met Scott Williams, gave him some naff celebrity I-Dinnae- Ken-You chat then nodded sagaciously while he talked about isomerisation, the meaning of which I know not. Also got to see the very, very funky labels from the Drygate brewery I mentioned at the start of this post which brings me nicely to the end of this post cause that's my 45 minutes up.




 
 

V for Victory - best review ever

'Ooh Ena, that stout is bleedin' lovely.'

Guess what?!

My first stout, my fifth homebrew ever, is utterly awesome. I've named it V for Victory.

To be fair, after a dreich January, and a long 31-day wait for it to condition, I could have drank fermented yak's pish and still thought it delicious. So I had another. And guess what?! It was utterly awesome too.

I shared some with my mum and dad. They also liked it.

My mum, whose own mum hails from Salford, said: "Your stout brings back memories of Ena Sharples and her two chums, Minnie Caldwell and Martha Longhurst, three of the original characters from Coronation Street, when it was in black and white, and they used to sit in the snug of the Rovers Return and drink half pints of stout, although one of them could have been drinking port and lemon or port and brandy."

I think that's the best beer review I've ever read. 

Anyhow, I've messed about with dry-hopping and that so I wanted to push this boat out a wee bit further. So, for you interested brewers: 
I made this with Cooper's select stout and a 1kg tin of Cooper's amber malt extract. Before adding any water I threw in a cup of strong, black coffee and a pint of hop tea, brewed with Liberty hops. Stirred energetically. Brought it up to 22 litres - slightly short the kit said for 23l. Original gravity was 1.042, and I pitched the yeast at 22C. One week later I bottled it (FG was 1.014) and left it for five long weeks. Worth the wait.

Would hoppily brew again. 

On the brew

Homebrew No.6 - St Peter's Golden Ale.

My poor wee beer blog has been awfully neglected of late. But I've been busy MAKING beer rather than writing about it (though I did pen this Christmas beer piece for The Herald). I've also started a novel. And I'm working on a wee ebook venture. So it's not out of laziness. Just so we're clear.

Anyhow, tomorrow, after a month off the booze*, I'm cracking open my fifth homebrew. It doesn't have a name yet - that'll come after the tasting, which, frankly, I'm a bit anxious about.

Homebrew No. 5 is a Cooper's stout kit with a medium malt extract. Also threw in a cup of strong, black coffee, and a pint of Liberty hop tea. So, yeah, might be awesome; might be rancid. It was bloody bitter with strong malty notes, hoppy aromas when I tasted it during the bottling late last year. The coffee was there but not overpowering. It's had five very long weeks to condition so fingers crossed these elements all come together in perfect, beautiful harmony.

One of the great things about homebrewing is the choice and freedom to hack beer kits. Boiling up hops, playing with different sugars, malts and yeasts. The next step, of course, is brewing from scratch using the raw ingredients rather than an extract. I'm not there yet. Maybe this time next year ...

Pictured here is my sixth brew. A St Peter's Golden Ale. It's coming along nicely thank you very much, but, like all decent homebrews, requires a bit of patience: it probably won't be ready until March.    


* I had a dry January a few years ago and felt great after it. Did it last year too and it was OK. This year it's just been miserable and pointless. Clearly something that should only be done once in a lifetime. Someone please remind me of this in 11 months' time.

Call of Duty: Black Hops

Did you ever play Dungeon Master on Atari or Amiga, with its crappy graphics, naff sound, but awesome gameplay and characters like Gothmog, Sonya, Linflas and Wuuf? Remember how you felt when the dungeon's gate opened for the first time and it was just you on the edge of 14 levels of darkness and days of gamer angst? That's exactly where I am right now.

Apologies to FTL Games & Nintendo.

I'm about to start home-brewing. I've spent much of the past year prattling on about hops and malts, citrus and caramel, it's time I got to grips with the process of packing these flavours into a glass bottle. It's like I'm in the Hall of Champions about to choose my four adventurers. 

After months of negotiations, and even agreeing to move house, I have managed to secure a small cube of cupboard space just the right size for a 40-pint fermentation barrel. But winning agreement from my end-of-level bosslady was just the first stage; I also had to choose whether to go for a kit, and if so, which one.

First part was as easy as decking Dhalsim in Street Fighter: Noobs start with a kit. And seeing as I was too busy playing games in my teens and twenties to brew my own beer, solving that puzzle was easy. So I moved promptly on to: which kit.

Oh dear, there are many.

Fortunately, I have a crack.

It's the home-brew haven on Dumbarton Road. Inn House Brewery is like a real-world PokeMart. But instead of PokeBalls, potions or antidotes, it's stacked floor to ceiling with tins, tubs, barrels, flasks, bottles, and packets of yeast and hops. (For those of you sick of my shoddy videogaming metaphors, it's like an old-fashioned ironmongers, but beer and wine stuff instead of tools, screws and fuses.) 

And thankfully the vendor's more like Beedle than the Happy Mask Salesman (one hopes).  After a series of dumb questions that really did play out like a scene from Zelda, I think I'm going to accept the Cooper's Starter Kit quest. That I can swap their starter lager for a Brewmaster IPA is like an in-game special bonus. And you know what, if I muck it up and brew a bad batch I can always respawn.

(Fans of Xenon 2, and Assault on Precinct 13, this song's for you. Cx)