A few days ago I was engaged in a conversation on twitter with the head brewer of Unfocused Brewing (@UnBrew), @PyotrSidwell. We were discussing homebrewing and the following idea sprang forward;
Compare/contrast the results.
Most of this is blatantly stolen from Peter's own blog (unfocused brewing abc challenge). I'm just blogging it as well to see if we can push the entry a little further.
What we decided to do was brew a beer separately, but with quite a lot of the ingredients and targets set in stone. The idea behind this is that if we are working with a set parameter of ingredients and targets, it's all up to the brewers interpretation and style to bring something special to the table.
As this was opened up to an invitation to all to join in this, the "rules and parameters" of the first ABC brew are laid out thusly;
Hops
The bittering hops are at the brewers disgression. The only stipulation for this ABC brew is that the following, and only the following, hops are used for the rest of the brew. Also, they have to be used in this very specific order.
Columbus, Simcoe, Experimental 366, & Cascade.
You may dry hop with any combination of these. This still gives remarkable leeway with how you hop, but I'm not going to start detailing how you get round the rules. That's for you to decide if you want to.
It's possible to use any amount you want to of these hops, as long as you don't exceed the target IBU for the beer.
If you don't have any of the hops listed, there are plenty of places to get them, including The Malt Miller, Dean Regler, and myself.
Malt
The main base British 2-row pale malt (eg Maris Otter)
Up to 2 ‘Cara’ specialty malts
- in any proportions that seem fit. Again, the only stipulation is that you keep within the ABV target.
No other malts permitted.
Again, even with such seemingly tight stipulations for the malt bill of the beer in question, this still leaves plenty of options for so many different beers to be produced. You could go "traditional", or as insulting to history as you like.
Yeast
Clean US style – so along the lines of US-05, Nottingham, etc Apparently this means not using Brettanomyces. Surely that's a mistake right there. No? Ok, seem's that what was agreed.
Targets
ABV 6.5%
IBU 65
The recipe must be crafted to deliver these targets with brewer’s kit & processes. Any divergence will therefore just be down to brewday issues.
Drinking Date – UPDATED!
We have it confirmed that we’ll be able to hijack part of the Manchester Homebrew Group meeting on 15th June, so that’s just one more reason to come along to that and be beer-y. That should give a more than reasonable lead time for all interested brewers!
We’d also like to make provision for remote participants using our fine postal system and maybe even some modern technology as well – so don’t let distance dissuade you.
If you’re interested, do let us know – it’s a very open concept, not a competition, and any brewer is welcome to join in. Even professionals!
Hops - UPDATE!!!!
OK, if you got the hops from me recently, and want to know the Alpha Acid percentage so you can sort out your recipes, the details are as follows.
Experimental 366 (2013) - 15.5%
Cascade (2013) - 8.6%
Columbus (2013) - 17.3%
Simcoe (2013) - 11.7%
I hope that helps out.
Agree a recipe outline,
Brew beers that meet that specification,Compare/contrast the results.
Most of this is blatantly stolen from Peter's own blog (unfocused brewing abc challenge). I'm just blogging it as well to see if we can push the entry a little further.
What we decided to do was brew a beer separately, but with quite a lot of the ingredients and targets set in stone. The idea behind this is that if we are working with a set parameter of ingredients and targets, it's all up to the brewers interpretation and style to bring something special to the table.
As this was opened up to an invitation to all to join in this, the "rules and parameters" of the first ABC brew are laid out thusly;
Hops
The bittering hops are at the brewers disgression. The only stipulation for this ABC brew is that the following, and only the following, hops are used for the rest of the brew. Also, they have to be used in this very specific order.
Columbus, Simcoe, Experimental 366, & Cascade.
You may dry hop with any combination of these. This still gives remarkable leeway with how you hop, but I'm not going to start detailing how you get round the rules. That's for you to decide if you want to.
It's possible to use any amount you want to of these hops, as long as you don't exceed the target IBU for the beer.
If you don't have any of the hops listed, there are plenty of places to get them, including The Malt Miller, Dean Regler, and myself.
Malt
The main base British 2-row pale malt (eg Maris Otter)
Up to 2 ‘Cara’ specialty malts
- in any proportions that seem fit. Again, the only stipulation is that you keep within the ABV target.
No other malts permitted.
Again, even with such seemingly tight stipulations for the malt bill of the beer in question, this still leaves plenty of options for so many different beers to be produced. You could go "traditional", or as insulting to history as you like.
Yeast
Clean US style – so along the lines of US-05, Nottingham, etc Apparently this means not using Brettanomyces. Surely that's a mistake right there. No? Ok, seem's that what was agreed.
Targets
ABV 6.5%
IBU 65
The recipe must be crafted to deliver these targets with brewer’s kit & processes. Any divergence will therefore just be down to brewday issues.
Drinking Date – UPDATED!
We have it confirmed that we’ll be able to hijack part of the Manchester Homebrew Group meeting on 15th June, so that’s just one more reason to come along to that and be beer-y. That should give a more than reasonable lead time for all interested brewers!
We’d also like to make provision for remote participants using our fine postal system and maybe even some modern technology as well – so don’t let distance dissuade you.
If you’re interested, do let us know – it’s a very open concept, not a competition, and any brewer is welcome to join in. Even professionals!
Hops - UPDATE!!!!
OK, if you got the hops from me recently, and want to know the Alpha Acid percentage so you can sort out your recipes, the details are as follows.
Experimental 366 (2013) - 15.5%
Cascade (2013) - 8.6%
Columbus (2013) - 17.3%
Simcoe (2013) - 11.7%
I hope that helps out.
No comments:
Post a Comment