Strange-steve's Homebrew Reviews

[strange-steve]

It was actually pretty clear but I added a little of the sediment, I've edited my post above to clarify (pun intended).

So this was made with the same wort as the saison you've sent me, but with the modification as above? How come the saison is 9%, is that just cos of a low FG?

 

[Zephyr259]

Yep, same base wort, the saison got 20% sugar (by extract) instead of the reduced wort for an OG of 1.070 and the yeast put on their super-suits and fermented down to 1.002 compared to the weizen which stopped at 1.016. I was quite surprised at how the saison came out.

 

[HarryFlatters]

It might only be 09.22, but I'd tear into that beer like a dog eating hot mince.

 

[strange-steve]

Sorry for the delay on getting through some of these, been a busy couple of weeks but tonight it's the turn of @Ajhutch's Ever Closer Union, which looks to be a French/Belgian pale ale...

Aroma
The aroma is clean and quite muted, nothing too powerful coming through, some delicate hints of peppery spice, a little tartness from the yeast and bready malt.

Appearance
A beautiful copper colour with a lovely creamy white head and excellent clarity. This is another great looking beer, the picture doesn't do it justice.

Flavour
A lovely complex malt base initially, bread crust, slightly toasty, followed by lightly floral and spicy hops, with that beautiful French saison yeast profile that I love underlining everything nicely. A little hint of alcohol coming through as the beer warmed, but very smooth and perfectly carbonated. Everything is really well balanced.

Overall Impression
The first thing I noticed was that the flavour was much more complex than the clean aroma suggested, though that could be down to the fact that I probably served it a little too cold, so that was a nice surprise. This is an interesting one because the yeast profile, while certainly noticable, is quite clean like it was fermented cool which makes this come across almost like a biere de garde, and your note mentions a honey addition which probably adds to that effect. I'm not sure what the intended style was, but it's rather cleaner than a saison and I reckon it would pass as a very good ambrée biere de garde. I really loved this, it's another beer that I'd be happy to be served in a pub in Belgium, and I'd be really pleased if I'd brewed this. The ABV is surprisingly low at 5.8%, I would probably have guessed somewhere around 7%+ which is a good sign in my opinion, because there's a lot going on here. You mentioned that it's fermented with French saison yeast, I'm guessing that's the Wyeast and not the Mangrove Jack? Although if I'm wrong you may well have changed my opinion on MJ yeasts cos this is great and it went down beautifully, so many thanks for sending this :hat:

 

[Ajhutch]

Thanks for the comments Steve, glad you enjoyed it. It wasn’t really intended to be a particular style, it was deliberately intended to be a bit experimental. It’s the European Beer from my 2 batch Brexit series so the malts are Belgian pils and wheat plus Munich and Vienna, chosen mainly for their names(!) along with Spanish eucalyptus honey. I understand that this honey can give a slightly spicy flavour so I hoped it would compliment the yeast well. It is a pretty complex flavour profile all told and I feel pretty lucky that it came out quite well rounded and not a confused mess.

It was in fact the MJ yeast, I fermented it at ambient in my wardrobe as the fermentation fridge was otherwise engaged but it was probably 19-20C for the bulk of fermentation.

The British Beer for my Brexit series is a Chevalier/Bramling X SMaSH called Old, Pale and Bitter. I’m glad that last night the 29 March deadline seemingly got pushed out as I haven’t got round to bottling yet!

 

[strange-steve]

It was in fact the MJ yeast, I fermented it at ambient in my wardrobe as the fermentation fridge was otherwise engaged but it was probably 19-20C for the bulk of fermentation.

Well I'll be jiggered, this is the first time I've found the flavour profile from an MJ yeast to be really pleasant, I'll definitely be using that one in the future!

 

[Ajhutch]

I did deliberately not tell you exactly which yeast it was, didn’t want to influence you

 

[strange-steve]

Well I'm glad you did, I like to think I'm open to having my mind changed

 

[samale]

I really enjoy your home brew reviews one of the main reasons I joined the forum. I wish I had a pallet that could break down the flavours/taste and pin point them to certain grains hops or yeast. I just know what I like and don't like. I normally ask myself when tasting my brew would I be happy if I bought this in a bar/carft bar. My experience is limited to ale's and the odd stout. Keep it up. Hopefully I will take part in the next beer swaps. Don't think I am at the level to go for a full on review as I don't copy a style to the letter

 

[dad_of_jon]

I really enjoy your home brew reviews one of the main reasons I joined the forum. I wish I had a pallet that could break down the flavours/taste and pin point them to certain grains hops or yeast. I just know what I like and don't like. I normally ask myself when tasting my brew would I be happy if I bought this in a bar/carft bar. My experience is limited to ale's and the odd stout. Keep it up. Hopefully I will take part in the next beer swaps. Don't think I am at the level to go for a full on review as I don't copy a style to the letter

+1 for steve's amazing reviews.

The MJ saison yeast is my favorite yeast i've used to date. can only compare with dried yeasts and whilst I started with fermentis I prefere mj's equivalent but that could be personal taste. I'm trying lallemand and bulldog as well but yet to find a worthy adversary.

 

[strange-steve]

I really enjoy your home brew reviews one of the main reasons I joined the forum. I wish I had a pallet that could break down the flavours/taste and pin point them to certain grains hops or yeast. I just know what I like and don't like. I normally ask myself when tasting my brew would I be happy if I bought this in a bar/carft bar. My experience is limited to ale's and the odd stout. Keep it up. Hopefully I will take part in the next beer swaps. Don't think I am at the level to go for a full on review as I don't copy a style to the letter

Thanks for the kind words :hat:
I wouldn't say I had a particularly good palate either, I thought I was OK until I went along to help out at a few BJCP competitions and saw how good the trained judges were, some of those guys were really impressive. If you're ever up for a swap then let me know, or you could enter the monthly competitions. It's all just a bit of fun, we don't take it too seriously and you don't need to worry about brewing to style, that's only important for a BJCP style competition

+1 for steve's amazing reviews.

The MJ saison yeast is my favorite yeast i've used to date. can only compare with dried yeasts and whilst I started with fermentis I prefere mj's equivalent but that could be personal taste. I'm trying lallemand and bulldog as well but yet to find a worthy adversary.

I have to admit I was really impressed with this yeast, the fact that I thought it was Wyeast 3711, my go to saison yeast, says a lot. I'll be getting a few packets of this in my next order for sure. The skeptic in me though wonders how it would compare if the temperature was bumped up to typical saison fermentation temperatures

 

[strange-steve]

This is the first of two beers from @BeerCat, a German pils. I'm a big fan of German lagers so I'm looking forward to this a lot...

Aroma
Typically lager-ish initially, clean and with slight sulphurous aroma, then lovely fresh floral hops coming through (I'm going to guess hallertau?). Really nice.

Appearance
A beautiful amber colour with exceptional clarity, with a thin white head. Looks like a commercial lager, very impressive. Look, I could actually watch TV through this (can you tell what I'm watching?)

Flavour
Elegant floral hops initially a with gentle, lightly sweet pils malt breadiness then a dry finish with a clean bitterness. Also a very clean fermentation profile, no esters or phenols and the sulphur in the aroma dissipated after a little while.

Overall Impression
This one is a belter. As far as stylistic accuracy goes I think this is spot on, I can't find anything wrong with it at all. The hops really shine through, fresh and clean with the perfect level of bitterness. Carbonation is spot on, and a light mouthfeel makes this really drinkable and refreshing. I've actually been drinking a lot of commercial German lagers recently and honestly this is as good as any I've had. I'd love to see your recipe and method for this one. Brilliant job mate, thanks for sending and I'm looking forward to the next one. BTW my Berliner went in the post for you yesterday :hat:

 

[Leon103]

Are you watching Simpson's?

 

[strange-steve]

Are you watching Simpson's?

Close but not quite.

 

[Zephyr259]

Close but not quite.

Rick and Morty isn't it? The hair looked familiar. Looks a great pint too.

 

[An Ankoù]

I really enjoy your home brew reviews one of the main reasons I joined the forum. I wish I had a pallet that could break down the flavours/taste and pin point them to certain grains hops or yeast. I just know what I like and don't like. I normally ask myself when tasting my brew would I be happy if I bought this in a bar/carft bar. My experience is limited to ale's and the odd stout. Keep it up. Hopefully I will take part in the next beer swaps. Don't think I am at the level to go for a full on review as I don't copy a style to the letter

Practice and perseverance are the key to developing an educated palate. That and more practice. And the occasional reset with a chicken phaal. And more practice. It's a hard life.

 

[strange-steve]

Rick and Morty isn't it? The hair looked familiar. Looks a great pint too.

This guy gets it :thumba:

 

[strange-steve]

Tonight I'm having the second beer sent by @BeerCat and I know nothing about this other than it's a wheat beer...

Aroma
Really fresh hoppy aroma, tropical and citrus fruits, mango, passion fruit and grapefruit. Sweet and delicious.

Appearance
A beautiful very pale straw colour, plenty of haze as per style and a fluffy white head. Fantastic looking beer.

Flavour
Very hop forward, tropical fruity flavours but restrained bitterness, a slight sweetness lingering on the palate. Malt flavours are light and subtle, yeast profile is very clean, no obvious phenols.

Overall Impression
Initially I had forgotten that you said this was a hoppy wheat beer so I was expecting a traditional hefeweizen and got a bit of a surprise with the aroma. So apparently this is an American wheat, and I'm guessing you've used something like US05, or maybe some of the fruitiness is actually from a kviek yeast? Either way this drinks very much like a session IPA, it's light and fruity and extremely drinkable. I really like how you've managed to keep the bitterness low and very smooth while getting a ton of hop flavour in there NEIPA style. Even though the flavours are light and refreshing the mouthfeel is great too, presumably due to the wheat and maybe a big chloride addition? This is another cracking beer, clean and fresh with no off flavours at all and I really enjoyed this. I could happily get through a crate of these of an evening. I've had quite a few of your brews over the last number of years and these two are without a doubt the best yet, quality brewing mate and thanks for sending these :hat:

Edit to add: I just read that this is a raw beer, so presumably you used just a hop steep which would explain the gentle bitterness, but you've got a load of flavour in there too so great job.

 

[strange-steve]

Don't leave me hanging @BeerCat, any more details on these two beers?

 

[BeerCat]

Thanks for your kind words Steve, glad you enjoyed them.

Unbelievably i have lost the recipe for the lager i sent you. I brewed the same beer twice though but with different yeast so as far as i remember would be 97% pilsner and 3% biscuit. Saaz for bittering and Mittelfruh for flavour and aroma. IBU is 30, most from bittering.
Og 1044 FG 1009 mashed at 66c fermented with wyeast 2278 at 10c for 10 days then 10 days at 20c. Cold crash at zero for 3 days, add finings and cold crash another 3 or 4 days. Longer is fine. Water for both these beers was 50 ppm of chloride for all water. I found i really like this for all my light lagers now, it rounds off the bitterness and makes it very moreish.
The beer should be crystal clear by then. I never open the fv it until i add the finings to minimise oxygen exposure. The main thing is to pitch a lot of yeast and i always try and pitch a bit below 10c.

I posted the hoppy wheat recipe on the kveik thread post 275. The beer i sent you was kegged on the 14th February. Its the second time i have keg hopped now and i love it. Takes a week to settle down from the hop dust but seems to be really stable after that. I have not noticed any drop off in flavour. I used one of those tubes and less than 300g for the batch.