Miðgarð Brewhouse

Miðgarð Brewhouse is a homebrew project by Gazz located in Cawood, North Yorkshire in the UK. Blogging about all things homebrew; recipes, techniques, brew days, hop growing and foraging, etc... Gazz also organises the York Homebrew Club, hosting meetings every other month at Brew York.

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I’ve been at this blog for 10 years now and in that time Tumblr has kind of drifted away as a decent platform. It’s been hard for me to find time to keep it updated along with my micro-blogging on Social Media so I’ve decided to stop posting here for now and just focus on Instagram and Facebook as my main platforms. They’re just easier to post in a more real time with better ability to interact with other people.

So please give me a follow on the Socials, full links available here.

Thanks everyone for reading my homebrew waffle over the years, it hasn’t stopped just moved on, and I hope you can follow along with me across the other platforms.

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Eostre Witbier Brewday.

Spring has sprug and I was a little late to get my seasonal Witbier on the go but managed this weekend.

I was resolute I'd stick with the exact recipe and not mess about with it but while I was measuring out the 2 Saaz additions realised I didn't have enough in.  So the only slight amendment is swapping out a 5 minute Saaz addition with Mandarina Bavaria, which should go nicely with the coriander and bitter orange peel anyway.

Malt base is fairly simple with 44.4% Floor-Malted Bohemian Pilsner, 22.2% Torrified Wheat, 22.2% Wheat and 11.1% Flaked Torrified Oats.

15g Saaz for a 45 minute boil with 10g Mandarina Bavaria for the final 5 minutes with 35g of bitter orange peel and 25g of fresh crushed coriander seeds.

Cool to 21c and pitch Mangrove Jack's M21 Belgian Wit Yeast.

Efficiency was 9% down on my average, not quite sure where that went wrong as I've been making notes on all my processes trying to nail it down. Mash and sparge temps were the same, water volume and pH all balanced. Can't put my finger on it.

Anyway at 1.040 OG I might just scrape in at 4%, not too far off but probably good as a warm weather thirst quencher. One year I added honey to my wit and ended up with it being imperial strength, that certainly wasn't a sessionable garden beer at all, lol.

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Wild Yeast Capture

It's been a while since I dabbled in some wild Yeast harvesting.

While I was collecting the latest couple of forced rhubarb stalks I wondered if I could harvest something from the leaves. I know they're poisonous if you eat them but is there some wild yeasties living there that are different to the usual ones I've collected in the garden?

Well, 500ml of water boiled for 10 minutes with 45g of DME and a pinch of Yeast nutrient is the start of the answer. Cooled and then the rhubarb leaf dropped in. Now to wait and see. Not forgetting to shake up daily of course.

As has been mentioned rhubarb leaves contain oxalic acid, which is poisonous, so I removed the leaf after a day or so. Any yeast on the leaf should have moved into the starter by then anyway, but it’s just worth noting. 

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The Hawthorn is budding up, which means I better get a shift on with my spring Witbier brew this weekend so that I've got the fermenter free in time to make use of this special seasonal bounty in my Hawthorn Flower Kölsch. Went down so well last year I think I'd be in trouble with my mates* if I missed the blossom. * Except Dan, he didn't like it, lol.

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A Decade of Homebrew 

Whilst bottling my Chinook & Loral Saison I noticed my old bottle sticker on the fridge and realised I've been at this homebrew lark for 10 years this year. Good brews, bad brews, lots of fun times  and many close friends made, nothing short of life changing. Here's to the next 10!

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Hulda 5% Elderberry Porter - Tasting Notes

There seems to be much confusion in the origin of Hulda as a proto Germanic earth goddess but she does seem to be heavily associated with the Elder tree so a perfect fit for this fruity Porter.

With a base of Mild malt, DRC, Chocolate malt, Torrified wheat and a dash of roasted wheat. A reasonable dose of Endeavour hops brings out hedgerow berries, Blackcurrant and blackberry, so the addition of 900g of homegrown Elderberries in 20L compliments the existing flavours.

There's a light chocolate note to the base with biscuity malts and plum overtones. The beer is light despite being 5% due to pushing the attenuation lower to dry it out. The Elderberries add a lovely dark fruity tartness which balances with the malts. Making this quite a refreshing pour for a Porter. Just what I was aiming for.

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Fuggle Update

Someone needs a bit of a trim for their 10th birthday! My trusty old Fuggle could really do with the rhizome cutting back a bit but it's so well established in there I'll just settle for a weekly trim to try keep it under control.

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Cawood Marshes Hop

Little bit late in the season to be repotting my Cawood Marshes Wild Hop cutting but managed it without disturbing the roots too much.

Bit of an upcycle idea with a log basket I got free off marketplace thinking it was a lot smaller in the picture, it would hardly even fit through the door.  So it's been sat outside for ages and I suddenly thought I could use that as a planter!

Utilising some offcuts from a pond liner, putting some holes in it for drainage along with some crocks to line the bottom and we're sorted. If it rots away after a few years, no issues as I'll just move the hop when it's dormant. Much easier to transplant a rhizome than for instance if I planted a shrub of tree in it.

Hopefully the hop should have loads of space to spread its roots with some fresh peat free compost and get established nice and quickly.

Second photo shows before repotting, so you can see the size difference of the pot!

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Saison Brewday.

Still working out what to do with all the hops I was donated after the sad closure  of Hopeye. After stocking up with some darker beers I knew it had to be something pale and refreshing. A combination of Chinook and Loral lead me down the Saison path.

Playing on the spicey, peppery, herbal and citrus properties of these hops I put together a relatively simple malt base of 63.4% Finest Golden Promise, 20.7% Torrified Wheat, 9.9% Dextrin Malt, 5% Caragold and 1% Crystal T50.

I'd not ordered in for this recipe so had to make do with what I had in, so it's not a 100% authentic Belgian Saison, more of an English/American/Belgian hybrid one.

It's also slightly more hoppy but still within the style guidelines, Saison is rather forgiving in those respects.

I bittered with just 5g of East Kent Goldings, I've found these are great for a mellow and rounded bitterness and use them in most of my pales now. Next 15g of Chinook when in for 15 minutes with another 20g for 5 minutes along with 30g of cryo Loral and 6g of fresh ground Grains of Paradise, for that extra bit of peppery kick.

I then whirlpooled my remaining 27g of cryo Loral at 75c for 20 minutes before cooling to 26c and pitching the yeasty feasty Yeast, which I'm told is basically Safale Belgian Saison.

OG was 1.048 so as long as the Yeast doesn't attenuate lower than predicted this should still make a nice sessionable sunny spring beer.

It was bubbling away happily in the morning so fingers crossed it should be quite a quick turn around. I'm not dry hopping this one as I don't want the hops to overpower the Yeast profile just support it. I've already hopped a bit more than I should have really but I like good bold flavour to my beers.

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Mǫgr 3.8% Amber Ale - Tasting Notes

Well it started out as a hoppy pale but I put too much Melanoidin malt in, which not only changed the colour more than brewersfriend said but also knocked the diastatic power. 

So what I ended up with was Mǫgr (old norse for boy or son, as this is the bastard son of my Pale Gungnir ) a 3.8% Amber Ale, quite heavily hopped with Ernest and Jester with a bit of UK Cascade as well.

It's got a nice toasty malt background layered with those typical modern English hop flavours, Blackcurrant, earthy, some Apricot, floral spice and pine. There's a reasonable resinous bitterness to it was well that goes pretty well with the touch of sweeter malts. Certainly packs a flavour punch for such a low ABV. I think I'll stick with the idea of it being a modern take on an Amber. Every days a school day with brewing but it's still I nice pint so all's good.

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Top of the hops!

Some sunny spring weather and the hops are off, currently winning is Cawood Marshes Wild Hop, First Gold and my trusty old Fuggle. Some sprouting movement on my others but not worth reporting currently.

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Brewday - Elderberry Porter

Despite spring being on the horizon I really fancied brewing something dark that wasn't over 8%, so I set my sights on a simple Porter. But me being me I decided to pimp it up a bit after I found last years elderberry harvest in the freezer. I'd totally forgotten about them and had originally planned to do an Elderberry beer last year but didn't get round to it.

I went with a base of 67.7% Mild Ale Malt, 11.3% Chevallier Malt, 7.9% DRC, 4.5% Chocolate Malt, 3.4% Torrified Wheat, 2.9% Roasted Wheat and 2.3% Rolled Oats. So not exactly simple but I'm still using up a few leftover bits and wanted to see if using Mild Ale Malt as a base would make any difference to the flavour as apparently historically this was more common in Porters.

I wanted to compliment the Elderberry flavours with the hop additions so decided to use Endeavour, which is described as complex blackcurrant, loganberry and spice aroma, with a wonderful grapefruit and lime flavour.

20g went in for 60 minutes with an additional 30g for the final 10. At 8.2% alpha this is at the higher end of IBU for a Porter but I wanted a bit more hop flavour for this beer.

My efficiency was a bit poor again at 65%, not sure where I'm going wrong with that one but it does mean this beer will be below 4% if the Lalbrew London English Ale attenuates as the guide says, I suspect it might go a bit lower.

The Yeast turned out to be a bit of a beast! Just 3 days on my Porter and it was pretty much done, down to 1.014 from 1.044.

So I prepped up my Elderberry harvest, it turned out I had just over 1kg, which I pasteurised with 700ml of water, 150g of golden syrup and 200g of sugar, just to boost my ABV back within style and dry it out a little.

I wanted to hold the temp around 70c for 10 mins but overshot to 80c so added a teaspoon of pectolase just to avoid any jammy situations. I mashed most of the berries but they are very small so bagged up the processed fruit and added it in a mesh bag along with the liquid once it had cooled.

All together it bumped the gravity up to 1.020 so we should be good for a more on style ABV. The yeast was quick to pick up again and the airlock was bubbling away within hours. I’m going to leave it on the fruit for a few days then take some more reading and taste test soon.

Don’t forget if you fancy more of my waffling in real time follow me on Instagram and Facebook...

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First Hopdate of 2022

First Gold is the first up this year. After having hardly a single cone last year hopefully it'll perform better for 2022. Lets hope for a decent spring.

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Brewday - (sort of) Pale Ale

Having recently received a load of bag end hops from a friend who recently closed down his homebrew hop supply shop I was inspired to brew up something a bit hoppy again. Also my Pale Gungnir is dangerously low, so I took a similar base to that and added in a few bits as a user upper. My first mistake was not checking the diastatic power from adding a load of low colour crystal malts, dangerously low at 36, 30 is the bare minimum for conversion. So I did end up at 53% efficiency which kind of threw off the recipe as a pale ale. I also didn't really account for how dark 9.7 SRM would be. So I think I've created something more like an Amber ale, anyway this was what went into it. 57.4% Chevallier Heritage Malt, 10.6% Caragold, 10.6% Dextrin Malt, 10.6% Melanoidin Malt, 5.3% Crystal Light and 5.3% Torrified Wheat. I wanted to expand upon the Ernest from Gungnir with more alternative English Hops. Also risking a bigger addition than usual. I'm a bit more confident now with hops after upgrading to the SS Conical Fermenter. So I went in with 25g of a Ernest and Jester each for 15minutes of the 60 minute boil, followed by another 30g each at 5 minutes. With a 75c whirlpool adding 50g UK Cascade and 25g each of Ernest and Jester again. Alother 50g of those saved for a dry hop. Fermented with Crossmyloof Five. It might not end up exactly what I planned to brew but sometimes the best beers start off that way and I definitely did want more maltiness in there to balance the hops. I think I'll fully decide on the style once I can taste it. 😆

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Finally got round to bottling a mixed ferm beer I brewed last April. I was going for a Lambic style but in an attempt to age and debitter my own homegrown Fuggles for it failed by miles. It impeded some of the mixed culture souring properties, although there's still a distinct Brett funk in there, and left a very bitter taste. Knowing how the Fuggles do eventually mellow out I added last year's Blackcurrants to the beer to give a bit more depth of flavour and some tartness. They fermented out pretty quickly and the beer's been sat for a while with no activity. Now it was time to get it into bottles to fully age out, hopefully given some time it will turn the beer around but it was still very bitter even after 10 months. Only time we tell on this one. 🤞

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Brewday - Barleywine

First brewday of 2022 and we're going big! 👊 Jan or Feb is when I usually look to brewing something for Christmas to give it the aging it deserves, previously its been Imperial Stouts, but as I've a good Milk Stout recipe that I want to do again which doesn't require so much aging, I thought I'd change tact. Inspired by Brew York’s Grainsly Harriet, a Ryewine, I put together my own Barleywine with a bit of Rye, but not too much. The malt bill was 51.9% No. 19 Floor-Malted Maris Otter, 13% Malted Rye, 6.5% Crystal Dark and 6.5% Dextrin Malt. The rest of the bill to be made up of 15.6% Liquid Malt Extract and 6.5% Dark Brown Sugar. I know the limitations of my Brewzilla, the bigger we go the less efficiency there is so this one needed a little boost. The mash went fine, a little slow on the sparge but no major issues. Went with 66c mash and 75c sparge. For the 2 hour boil I just added 50g of homegrown Fuggles for 60 minutes with another charge of 50g at 15 minutes and finally 47g of Keyworth Midseason for the final 5 minutes. Aiming for about 39IBU, but this is always a bit of a guess with my homegrown hops. At flame out I added the sugar and extract. Boil off wasn't too much actually so I think I ended up with around 19L. I should have made a starter but didn't get round to it so it took Nottingham a day or so to get going but of course being Nottingham it's hardcore and is currently bubbling away. I was only a few points off at 1.080 which should still give around 9%, probably the highest I've ever gone without the addition of honey. We'll see how this one develops over the next few weeks.

8 days into fermentation of my Barleywine and unsurprisingly Nottingham has destroyed the sugars to 1.012 from 1.080! I don't know why Brewers Friend always calculates such low attenuation for it, it's target was 1.016. 🤷‍♂️ Anyway I'm going to leave it a few weeks as I'm fermenting quite low at 18c and we could have a few more points yet to go. The sample tasted awesome, thick mouthfeel, mega malty with loads of caramel and booze. Just like a Barleywine thankfully. More time then some aging should really do this justice, all being well.

Barleywine bottling day.

Mostly 330s so quite a bit more to do packaging. I used black treacle to prime for a little extra flavour boost, not that it needed it though.Wow. The sample I tried was astounding, such huge silky body and even though its 8.9% the deep maltiness hid the booze pretty well already.This is supposed to go away to age out over the year for Christmas, if it makes it. 😆 I'll get it packed away at the back of the shed to avoid temptation. Let's hope aging does improve it.I think the addition of liquid malt to get the ABV up rather than sugar makes a vast difference to the body, so I'll be using this trick on any future big stouts as well.

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Skaði 4.2% Sour Wheat Beer - Tasting Notes

A labour of love, a kettle soured American hopped Belgian Wheat Beer... A risk combining so many things but it sure paid off. I say this quite often but I really mean it for this beer, it's possibly the best I've ever made and definitely a firm favourite to be rebrewed. Mashed with Crisp Maltings Hana, Torrifed Wheat, Wheat, Flaked Torrifed Oats, Hana Vienna, Cara Gold and Juniper Berries. Kettle soured with Omega Yeast Laco blend, then boiled with Coriander Seeds, Grains of Paradise, Bitter Orange Peel & a Lemon. Hopped with Amarillo, Simcoe and Sladek, including dry hop as well... Finished off with Mangrove Jack’s M21 Belgian Wit Yeast... Wow, what a combination. Lemons, peach, pear to the nose. Mouthfeel is thick and luxurious with a crisp sourness followed by complex citrus, green hoppiness and Belgian spice. It's just a taste sensation and 100% up my street. The best of all countries and styles in one.

Full recipe can be found here.