St Peter's Honey porter

[Arcs]

In all my time of drinking beer. I have never come across such a dissonant beer. Out of the FV there is an overpowering smell of honey. Yet when it comes to drinking time, this beer really does not know what it should be. Very subtle taste of honey, little or no porter. It almost seems like a wannabe crap lager. It gets my thumbs down - certainly after the rather good previous Coopers Stout.

I would welcome other peoples opinions on this, but it seems to me that the idea behind it was to give too much and yet nothing at the same time. So, dissonance as it were. I've done two expensive beer kits and both of them have been disappointing. Seems rather odd to me that the cheaper ones yield better results.

Next up for me, and I have read the forums on this is actually the Richie's Export stout. Sounds promising. The sooner I get through these extracts the better. I know I can AG if I want to put my mind to it even as a beginner. But I want to get through the brands first. I guess in some cases I am on a long road to disappointment.

 

[Sandimas]

I've not done that one but kits are what they are, an approximation, a compromise. I went through quite a few kits and most were disappointing, I never went "wow". The problem I think is that the production process kills the hop flavour. The kits with added hops are better as they mask the underlying kit taste, Tiny Rebel Cwtch and Youngs American Amber Ale were the best ones I tried.

One kit that stands out for me though is Woodforde's Wherry, I still make it to this day - needs a bit of conditioning time but comes out good in the end. I tweaked the last one with 20g Willamette 5mnin boil and a 30g dry hop, and that has made a richer beer, less sweet.

Once you get to Full Extract or AG, give Obama's Honey Porter a go and you'll see the difference. In fact, given you've done a few kits, you could probably make this now - no need to mash, you just need to steep the grains for 30mins, sieve, and then do a boil in say a 12L stockpot. This comes out good!
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2012/09/01/ale-chief-white-house-beer-recipe

There's a few versions of this kicking around the Internet, here's the one I made. It uses 2 full 1kg bags of DME/spraymalt so no messy leftover. You can do a reduced-volume boil say 10L then top up with cold water in the FV. Add the honey at the end of the boil.

20L recipe
OG 1053
Yeast Nottingham / Gervin

Grain Bill
----------------
2.000 kg Dry Malt Extract - Light (60.12%)
0.400 kg Caramalt (12.02%)
0.400 kg Honey (12.02%)
0.293 kg Munich I (8.82%)
0.133 kg Black Malt (4.01%)
0.100 kg Chocolate (3.01%)

Hop Bill
----------------
12.0 g Northern Brewer Leaf (9.6% Alpha) @ 45 Minutes (Boil) (0.6 g/L)
7.0 g Hallertau Hersbruker Leaf (2.2% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (0.4 g/L)
7.0 g Northern Brewer Leaf (9.6% Alpha) @ 30 Minutes (Boil) (0.4 g/L)
16.0 g Hallertau Hersbruker Leaf (2.2% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (0.8 g/L)

 

[Arcs]

Nice one for the heads up. I think trying this one was most likely due to a visit at my local wetherspoons which were doing a cappucino stout and a porter that was equally delicious. So forgive my dalliance and expectations on this one. Partial extract does seem to be the way to go for now.

Most of the kits forgive my colloquialism suck without extra dme to the nature of the beer it should be and then the sugar for the alcohol. I do mess about a bit already but with mixed results and a mixed bag on what you will get. But I am in it for the long haul now.

About a years time I will have gone through the ones I want to taste. Then it's AG time. I will say that the instructions on most of these extract beers are somewhat ambitious to say the least with final product.

 

[Slid]

Nice one for the heads up. I think trying this one was most likely due to a visit at my local wetherspoons which were doing a cappucino stout and a porter that was equally delicious. So forgive my dalliance and expectations on this one. Partial extract does seem to be the way to go for now.

Most of the kits forgive my colloquialism suck without extra dme to the nature of the beer it should be and then the sugar for the alcohol. I do mess about a bit already but with mixed results and a mixed bag on what you will get. But I am in it for the long haul now.

About a years time I will have gone through the ones I want to taste. Then it's AG time. I will say that the instructions on most of these extract beers are somewhat ambitious to say the least with final product.

You could save a year's disappointment and go to mashing grains sooner!

 

[Arcs]

By my calculations it's more like 2 years with all the ones I wanna try lol