Bert's Home Brews

Amateur home brewer and semi professional beer drinker.

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Hey Bert, just found your blog after looking for people who have done the Patersbier recipe. I started off a bit like you a few years back, but haven't done this recipe yet - hoping to crack on with it next week. You said your dad said it was weird - was that just cos you cocked it up a little, or do you think it's characteristic of this specific brew? How are you getting on anyway, can't see that you've updated for a while!

Almost 100% sure it was because I cocked it up. My dad is very particular about beer, but the whole brew just tasted off. Good thing is that the beer doesn't take long to brew.Actually haven't been home brewing recently, new job and other commitments got in the way. Just started a pale ale recently and working on setting up a new more professional looking blog.

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London Best Bitter:

My next brew is now fermenting and will soon be siphoned into my pressure barrel for conditioning. 

Decided to do a Bitter as my Dad was complaining about my ‘strange’ beer choice.

The recipe required me to steep some crystal malt for half an hour, and add three different types of hops; Challenger, Golding, and Fuggle. 

Boiling the wort went off without a hitch, and cooling it down was a lot less stressful with the immersion wort chiller.

Gotta say this brew has been a bit expensive with all the extra equipment I bought, but should be worth it all in the end.

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Patersbier - A Learning Experience

So brewing my first malt extract beer started off really well. The recipe was easy to follow and the ingredients were fresh and aromatic.

The boil went smoothly, and gave me a chance to read while I watched over it. After the hour was over, with all hop additions added, I then came across a rather big problem.

I had read online that cooling the wort quickly was necessary to create a good tasting brew and that dropping sanitised freezer blocks into it was a cost effective way of doing so.

However, I clearly didn’t have enough and the wort was barely cooled. As a last ditch effort, I surrounded the tub with ice and frozen peas. But in the end only time would help me.

Unfortunately, I became impatient and pitched the yeast too early. This become quite apparent when the beer was finished and was still quite sweet from undigested sugars. 

Nevertheless, I have now invested in a immersion wort chiller. Mistakes are made to be learnt from.

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My next brew, Patersbier:

Wanted to go for something simple and quick for my first extract brew as I didn’t want to be waiting seven weeks to realise I’d messed it up.

Ingredients cost me around £30 and the extra equipment was around £100 (including a boiler), so lets hope it’s worth it.

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Beers of the Week (not really within the week, but Beers that I have had and have taken pictures of kinda recently doesn’t have the same ring to it):

Black Lager by Zerodegrees: The perfect blend of Porter and Lager, chocolate and coffee notes with a nice crisp finish.

Buzz Light Beer by Jacobi Brewery: From our neighbours in the West. This Welsh honey ale is sweet and refreshing, with one of the best names for a beer I think I’ve ever seen.

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Had a beer and chili night to celebrate my second brew. The pressure barrel worked exceptionally well for this, with the sediment staying safely at the bottom.

The beer was a lot cloudier than I was expecting, especially after around 4 weeks in the barrel, but the flowery aroma and fruity flavour made it an afterthought.

Would definitely recommend the Muntons beer kits for anyone looking to get started. 

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Last week's beers of choice. Camden Town's Gentleman's Wit and St Austell's Tribute. Haven't tried many Witbiers but if they taste like Camden Town's I'll have to dabble some more. And on the other hand, Tribute is your classic session ale. Refreshing and dangerously quaffable.

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Just found this beauty at my local off license. Love the fact we’re finally seeing a lot more choice everywhere. Hoppy and fruity, perfect for the hot weather

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Second Brew: Muntons Hand Crafted American Style IPA

After what I found to be a bit of a hassle with the bottles from my last brew I decided to buy myself a pressure barrel. It would be easier to store, as I could just sling it in the garage, and siphoning from the fermenting bucket seemed a lot less time consuming than the bottling process.

As of fan of big hop flavours, I decided to go for an American IPA and as an added bonus the kit requires dry hopping with Citra hops, something that wasn’t required in the Coopers kit.

The beer is currently sitting in my garage and, after preliminary tastes, is much more to my liking than the last one. 

Just a couple more weeks.

[berts-home-brews]

My First Brew: Coopers English Style Bitter

Unfortunately I had nowhere else to brew my beer other than my bathtub. Luckily I have a shower as well otherwise I’d be sharing my washes with over 40 pints of alcohol.

The finished article was quite a lot better than I had anticipated. Very easy to drink, but, due to a blunder during primary fermentation, it ended up a hell of a lot stronger than it should’ve been. Basically, I added the carbonation drops to the fermenting bucket rather than the bottles, and then primed the bottles anyway. Still, it went down well, but after a few pints I knew it was more than a little over 4% ABV.

I did find the bottles rather annoying to fill and store, and it was rather difficult to avoid the sediment from secondary fermentation transferring to the glass.

But, overall, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this as a great starting point for home brewing.

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Looking for a place to start, I came across ‘Home Brew Beer’ by Greg Hughes. Hughes sets out simply and concisely the major points to consider before setting out on your first home brew. By breaking down three brewing types (kit, malt extract, and all-grain), you’re easily able to see the process and equipment behind each one.

I decided to start small and purchased a Home Brew Coopers Beer Starter kit from the-home-brew-shop.

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Beginnings

So I decided to start home brewing after realising I wanted to open my own micro pub. With so many popping up across the country, supplying craft beer and real ales in an attempt to combat the blandness of the monolithic breweries of Carlsberg and Carling, I thought I’d like to have a go myself.

Unfortunately, pure will power isn’t enough to start your own business, so in the meantime I decided to gain and develop a new skill which coincided with my Pub Landlord aspirations, and being able to have a pint without nipping down the shops is pretty neat anyway.