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3 Dec 2013
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Home brew reviews

Brewsmith Aussie Wattle Pale Ale – review

Mikey and I were quite excited to try Brewsmith’s new recipe, the Aussie Wattle Pale Ale that we made a few weeks ago.  This was a new recipe of theirs, and we usually like what we get out of a Brewsmith kit, so we were expecting something good.  All in all, we weren’t disappointed.

The smell was pretty malty with a hint of citrus, and the wattle really came out.

Aussie WattleBecause of the smell, I was expecting a much maltier beer, but it was actually quite bitter, more bitter than I anticipated from the style and the initial sniff.  Of course it wasn’t an IPA bitterness, but there was definitely a hoppy kick.  The wattle remained obvious throughout the taste.  Wattle is a hard taste to describe to those who haven’t had it… I tried to find some tasting notes for wattle seed in general but I didn’t agree with any of the descriptions!  All I can say is that it interacted well with the hops and the two flavours work together well.

The bitterness tended to build up a little bit, which is more typical of an IPA.  This wasn’t unwelcome or over the top and went well: really it was just a regular pale ale that happened to be on the more bitter side of things.  Other than the bitterness, the body and flavour was very typical of the style.

The only real criticism I have is that there wasn’t much finish to the beer.  I prefer a beer with a long flavour and this one was a little short; it lacked complexity.  This added to the sessionability of the beer as it made for very easy drinking, so that’s a plus.

Most basically, this was a good, easy drinking beer.  I’d do this with something just as basic and standard like a sausage sizzle or a burger.  Enjoy.

-Chas

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26 Nov 2013
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Home brew reviews

Brewsmith Hoppy Heart II – Review

A few weeks ago we revisited Brewsmith’s Hoppy Heart IPA.  We originally did this one way back in May, but we wanted to try it again, so we did!

All in all, it was a pretty similar beer to before, but it wasn’t exactly the same.  This can happen sometimes if we did things at different temperatures, especially the fermentation.  Every brew is different!  While commercial breweries take a lot of care to make sure each batch is exactly the same, we didn’t…  Seasonality can often affect raw material flavours as well, so an autumn brew can be different from a spring brew.

Hoppy HeartCompared to my review of the previous batch, this beer was a bit more laid back in terms of the hops.  The smell was great: sticky and malty with a bit of a metallic feel, not a lot of hops though.  From the beginning, the beer felt very malty.

This continued on through the initial taste.  There was a great long bitterness, characteristic of an IPA, but there wasn’t much interaction of different hop flavours.  It was a nice single bitterness.  This was behind the sweetness and malt, which was primary, at least at first.  I would have preferred a little more spectrum in there, but it was still a great beer.

I’m not sure why this batch was generally sweeter than before.  It possible it’s just how we steeped the grains as well as fermentation temperatures.

Towards the end, the bitterness did start to take over a bit more and the sweetness got pushed out of the way.  I usually find this happens in an IPA; the bitterness builds up in your mouth.  I quite enjoyed this, and it was in no way overpowering.

All in all this was a fairly sessionable IPA, but maybe a little heavy for too many.

I always enjoy an IPA with curry, and I’m going to maintain this opinion.  So get some curry and pop open an IPA.-Chas

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8 Nov 2013
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Home brew reviews

Honey Bomb Wheat – Review

Honey Bomb Wheat #1

Honey Bomb Wheat #1 ready for tasting

On Sunday we did a brew at Chas’s place. It was fun and you can read all about it. As well as having another attempt at The Friedlieb Coffee Porter we also got to taste the Honey Bomb Wheat that we bottled a couple weeks ago.

When we brewed this about a month ago we were surprised that there wasn’t any speciality grain. Normally the BrewSmith kits include some. But it doesn’t seam to have been an issue here.

After pouring the first thing you notice is a sweet light aroma. Hints of apricot and peach smells coming out. Overall it is soft.

First taste, sweet up front and light. A bit of citrus is there. Then the sweetness, which is clearly from the honey, builds. This is slightly creamy, maybe due to the honey used. Around mid way the apricot flavour comes in. This works pretty well with the honey sweetness. At the end there it’s a dryness that creeps in. It is strange as the sweetness doesn’t drop away. Overall it leaves an odd dry sweet finish.

Food matching, maybe some fruit or cheese. Great for a beer at a picnic or to kick off a party where there’s sweet snacks.

I was never going to make this kit, as I’m not a fan of wheat beers. But I’m glad Chas decided to do this. While there is no clear wheat beer flavours in this, and it being a nice light beer, I’m not likely to want to get one of these kits myself. Tasty beer.

-Mikey

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2 Nov 2013
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Home brew reviews

Mangrove Jack’s IPA – Review

As you might remember, when Chas returned from his trip overseas we had a brew day at his place. Not sure what to brew he picked up a kit of the Mangrove Jack’s IPA, new yeast and a booster.

Mangrove Jacks IPA 1

Mangrove Jack’s IPA #1 ready for tasting

After two weeks in the bottle we tried a bottle. The beer was okay but still quite rough, even in the middle. The flavours were there but it wasn’t working all together. We decided to give it another week and try again. Over the weekend we did exactly that.

First up is the soft spice hop aroma. Very slight sweetness at the end. A fair amount of fruit aroma which is what you would hope and want from the style.

Taste up front is refreshing and light. Bit of stone fruit and grassy flavors are there. The bitterness picks up slowly and builds most of the way through. Around the middle the body drops away a bit. The beer gets dry and slightly tart. There’s a slight metallic flavour that comes in. This last part is the least enjoyable bit of the beer.

As the beer warms a little it becomes more balanced. The fruit flavors become more pronounced. The metallic flavour drops away to just be at the end. This makes the beer a lot eater to drink and enjoy.

Overall this is quite good for an off the shelf kit. Taste is good, body is alright and the finish is okay.

The booster really helped this beer. Extra dry malt was really needed here.The replacement yeast and extra Cascade hops also helped. Interestingly this beer only came in at 4% alcohol. That’s below what you would expect for the style, this should be 5.5% or higher. That said, it doesn’t really make much difference to the beer flavour or feel.

Food wise, this could work with a few things. Would work with anything with meat and sauce/marinated. That can including seafood all the way through to stake. The fruit side of the beer would play nicely. The meat should help sideline the slight dry tart metallic elements of the beer.

This is a good beer. It’s hard to work out what caused the elements I don’t like. Maybe it’s the base kit, maybe the fermentation or yeast. Really anything. That said, would be happy to return to this and brew again.

-Mikey

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24 Oct 2013
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Cross promotion, check it out!

A while ago I had a  series of posts about my Journey to Home Brew. In the second post I mentioned about how I did 366 Days Of Home Brew. I also mentioned about how my mate Ian has his website.

Well now I can finally reveal that I’ve got all 366 beers up. Check out my site Beer With Mikey. The site will have a lot of my beer reviews on there. I recommend reading the introduction. And for those who don’t have the time to go though all the beers, or the monthly summaries, you can jump straight to the final summary which includes the top beers.

The 366 Days Of Beer is just the start. There’s another 61 beers that were had, as there were more beers than days.  Next up I’ll be putting up the beers from the Singapore Craft Beer Week 2012. Then there will be beers from the Ballarat Beer Festival 2013. There’s a lot from that one day. Also from this year is Good Beer Week 2013 and, if I have all the info, I’ll put up the reviews for the Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular 2013.

It will keep me busy. I hope you enjoy it. And, don’t worry, I’ll still be brewing beer and posting stuff here with Chas.

-Mikey

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15 Oct 2013
8 Comments
Home brew reviews

Mangrove Jack’s Mildy Dark – review

While I was on my holiday, Mikey did a brew of Mangrove Jack’s Mildly Dark all on his own.  This was a simple extract kit with a few other things thrown in to make it a dark.  Judging from the recipe, Mikey threw a couple extra malts in here, and, if I remember correctly, Mikey mentioned he had trouble getting everything to ferment.

Because of this, the beer took a little longer than usual to condition in the bottle as well.  We tried it a couple weeks ago and it wasn’t quite ready.  We tried it again over the weekend and it was definitely ready.

mildly darkOn the colour, it was a good dark brown with a bit of red when held up to the light.  Dark, but not murky.  It was almost a brown ale in colour, but I’d consider it over the line to be a “dark” ale.

The smell was great and interesting, with quite a bit in there.  The main things in there were toffee, citrus, and apple.  The interaction of the apple and the citrus was great, and really complimented the toffee smells well.  When I really stuck my nose in there, I also was able to find a little bit of chocolate in there too.

The taste was great and easy.  The beer was quite obviously hopped, but mildly so, with the malt really taking the foreground.  Gladly, the apple came through in the taste as well, which interacted with the malt quite well.  Mixed in among this was a bit of a licorice taste  with a tiny bit of molasses as well.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot at the end to really round out the flavour, which I would have really liked to see; just something to round everything out.  I think if an additional taste hop had been added, a little bit of complexity could have been added in the finish.  The kit that Mikey made didn’t call for any additional hopping, but had he added something mild, it would have been welcome.

I think this beer would go well with a nice hard cheese.  It’s a fairly sweet beer, but not overly so.  A hard, but fairly mild cheese would be a great way to accompany this beer.

– Chas

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3 Oct 2013
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Home brew reviews

Baltic Porter – Review

Mikey made his Baltic Porter while I was away, and luckily enough, it was ready for drinking as soon as I came back!

It definitely looked like a porter!  Nice and dark, good head.  That’s where the porteryness ended though – although it still turned out to be a great beer!

baltic porterOn the nose, there was a ton of apple and a bit of honey along with a bit of malt.  I’m not sure where the apples were coming from, but the honey was probably coming from the added Crystal grains.

This continued through with the taste, along with the apple.  This was right up front and very refreshing.

With that, there was a good amount of body, just not as much as I usually like to see in a porter.  So while it looked like a porter, this beer was very quickly moving away from what I’d consider a porter.  I’d classify this closer to a dark ale.  The good news is I love dark ales, and this was a good one, so I’m not complaining.

On the porter side though, there was a hint of the typical porter tang/bitterness at the very end, along with a very minor hint of smokiness, but the beer was so light it was still hard to call a porter.  It was a bit creamy like a porter, just not robust like a porter.

The surprising part about this beer is that it was 7.2% alcohol, which you’d never know by drinking it – until you’ve had a couple that is…  it’s a pretty smooth beer with only the slightest hint of dryness from the alcohol.

Overall, great beer, regardless of what you call it.  I’d gladly drink more.  Mikey wants to add some chocolate, which I’d welcome.

Given the sweetness and apple/honey tastes, this beer would go well with either apple or pumpkin pie.  It’s a desert kind of drink…

-Chas

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27 Sep 2013
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Experiments, Home brew reviews

“The Beagle” Double IPA – Review

As Chas mentioned a few days ago, on the weekend we did a brew of an IPA. Chas will be posting the write up on that sometime soon.

The Beagle

The Beagle, double IPA in glasses

As part of any good brew day there are tastings of recent brews. One of those was the previous IPA, and a double IPA, The Beagle.

This is a very big IPA, which is what you would expect from a double. There’s plenty of hops across the board. Big round orange fruit aroma from the Amarillo hops.

There’s a lasting and solid body as the back bone for this beer. The body is sort of a sweet caramel amber style. The bitterness is quite strong and full across the length of the beer. Initial hops are large and quite a hit. After a couple mouthfuls you get use to it and the tasty hop flavours come out quite a bit.

About mid way into the beer the bitterness really kicks up a notch. And overall the bitterness is almost too much. The strong sweetness balances it a bit and saves this from being too crazy to enjoy. With a couple minor tweaks this could become an amazing beer.

Really good beer over all. It does demands your attention and you can’t try to do much else, not that it’s a bad thing. Sit down, shut up and enjoy.

Food? Nah, don’t bother trying to match anything with this. Okay, if I was pushed to find something then I might suggest something strong and salty like BBQ pork.

-Mikey

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10 Sep 2013
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Home brew reviews

Random Task IPA – Review

Random Task IPA

Random Task IPA ready for drinking

The third, and final for now, in my current run of reviewing CarnieBrew beers is the Random Task IPA. Again, the ingredients are on listed on his blog under Beer 15.

This is a pretty good IPA. The aroma is quite nice with the Amarillo hops coming out nice and strong. There’s Cascade hops as well but the Amarillo leads the charge here. For those not familiar with hops, or just not a huge beer geek like me, Amrillo hops gives beers a lot of orange citrus characteristics and subtle floral-ness. Amarillo is the stereotypical hops in American IPAs and that’s because it’s freaking great stuff.

On first taste this is amazing. Just what you want in a bit American style IPA. Big hop flavours, plenty of the citrus bite followed by the floral hints. The base is a malt that’s just turned from golden to amber, and still has some golden ale lightness. Unfortunately most of that drops away. The beer takes a nose dive as the flavour and most of the body disappears in your mouth. But, it’s still there on the tip of your tongue!

The beer gets quite dry before a final splash of hops and you get a bitter spike. Now don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t make this beer a write off at all. Everything else works really well and still makes for a very enjoyable brew. If anything, it makes you want to go back for more and more to get that great up front taste. But it might not be the best idea to keep that up with something that’s 6.8% AVB.

Food? Stuff that, grab another bottle. I could forsake food all night if you just kept a supply of this stuff going. Maybe some tempura might tie me over.

CarnieBrew, you got a good one here.

-Mikey

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7 Sep 2013
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Home brew reviews

Carnie Pale Ale IV – Review

Carnie Pale Ale IV

Carnie Pale Ale IV ready for drinking

A couple days ago I put up a review of a Pale Ale from a fellow home brewer. The second beer I was able to take home was the Pale Ale IV.

There are a few similar traits that the IV has with the III. But, then there’s a whole lot more goodness. Over on Carnie Brews blog, brew 13 lists the ingredients that went in to this brew. There’s a slight change in hops and a wider range of steeped grains.

Aroma is similar to the Pale Ale III. Both apricot and earthy aromas are there but the vegetable-ness is barely there. The apricot is a bit tamed back as well. Overall nothing massive on the nose.

Flavours is where this all comes together. More body up front and lasting the whole way though. This gives everything else more of a base to work off. Apricot hop flavour comes out a bit and rounds out nicely. Not the same dryness of the previous version at all. Does still have a slight tart end to it.

This beer is definitely a step up on the last version. Seams to be balanced a lot more and easier to drink. While being strong in alcohol you can’t really notice, other than the bigger body. This is the sort of beer that says ‘yes, you can add more things and make it better’.

Food matching, this would go well with a lot of things. Any good pub meal or take away from your local fast food joint. Equally would work with any weeknight home cooked meal.

-Mikey.

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