50th Celebratory Brew

Urbangoose · Apr 21, 2020

Hi brewers

i am rapidly approaching my 50th brew and on the whole my two years of a brewer have gone pretty well - fruit beers, stouts, saisons, blondes, ipa to pilsners. Fancy doing something special (doesn’t need to e complicated) for my 50th brew ... what would you recommend?

An Ankoù · Apr 21, 2020

Urbangoose said:
Hi brewers

i am rapidly approaching my 50th brew and on the whole my two years of a brewer have gone pretty well - fruit beers, stouts, saisons, blondes, ipa to pilsners. Fancy doing something special (doesn’t need to e complicated) for my 50th brew ... what would you recommend?

Congratulations. You don't mention a Best Bitter. That would be my vote, something around 1045 with Fuggles and Goldings. Yum.

Urbangoose · Apr 21, 2020

Just brewing what I hope will be a very nice ESB - that was number 47. Fuggle based, now resting in secondary with a handful of oak chips

Northern_Brewer · Apr 21, 2020

There's two ways to go with this - either brew something daft that you wouldn't normally brew like a big barleywine or imperial stout, or celebrate the journey and go back to either your favourite brew of all time, or brew#1 and rebrew it, using all the experience you've gained along the way (and eg doing it all-grain if that's what you now do when your original brew was extract, maybe using liquid yeast instead of dry and so on).

I'd tend towards the latter.

Slid · Apr 21, 2020

I suggest a parti-gyle - two beers from two mashes using the same grain. A big (low volume - 10L) Barley Wine and, say, a Best Bitter (20L or so).
Use the first runnings for the Barley wine and the second for the Best Bitter. All you need is 6-7kg Base Malt, perhaps Crystal as well, and hops.

This takes some time to think through the logistics, but special it is.