Demeter's Brew

We have a success!

Seven months in the making for this one but tonight we opened the first two bottles of the Demeter's Brew, a harvest ale we brewed last winter. Nerve racking stuff considering the effort and wait involved but well worth it in the end.

To say it's nice is an understatement, it has a rich caramel malt taste with a sweet grainy finish. Very pleasant on the palate. So far our home brewing has been about 50/50 with success but the few successes we've had have been worth it. I love rich malty beers and of course honey ales are a must for the winter and the holidays.

Now that the weather is cooling off it will be time to brew again and Demeter's Brew will definitely be one worth thinking about. +Linda Dean and myself are very happy with this brew and as usual are enjoying a glass as I type. Happy brewing all!

AHS English Honey Bitter

Given the fact that it has been far too long since my last post and the fact that we just brewed our first beer in over a year I just felt that I had to make this post. The AHS (Austin Homebrew Supply) English Honey Bitter was sitting around in a press for quite sometime. Up until a little over a year ago we had been home brewing some very nice beers, but then something happened. We had two soured beers in a row and it kind of unnerved us a bit so we took a break from home brewing and concentrated on reviewing and trying various different craft beers over the past year.

Well about a month ago we got the itch to brew some beer again (watching the Hobbit may have helped). So we got to work on the English Honey Bitter kit we had bought from AHS the year before. It was kind of nerve racking, we definitely didn't want this batch to fail again so we redecorated the entire kitchen with new paint and new flooring (helped by +GIEnterprises Oregon ) then made sure the equipment was sanitized and ready for the brew. The main difference this time is that we had purchased two Beer Boxes from Northern Brewer. We were hoping because we wouldn't be dealing with 40 - 50 bottles that we'd be cutting down on the risk of infection and soured beer.

Tonight, nearly four weeks later we got to try our English Honey Bitter out of our new beer boxes for the first time. Glasses in hand, phone recording video and nerves on edge, we set about pouring the first glass. It had been a success, we were back brewing again and it tasted great. In fact I'm enjoying a glass as I type this post. I have said on multiple occasions how much of a fan of Middle-earth I am and how much it pains me not to be able to run around Lotro natively on my beloved Linux desktop. +Linda Dean and myself have also spoken at length over the years about what real Middle-earth ales would taste like if they were real. Well tonight I think we really came close to finding out, this English Honey Bitter from AHS is in my mind, about as close as you could get to sitting in the Green Dragon Inn in Bywater, enjoying a pipe by the flickering fire and listening to tall tales from across the river. So with glass in hand and the soundtrack to Lotro playing in my ears, I say, cheers! Have a great night all!

Life's great passions

I have two...no...three great passions in life right now, Ubuntu, photography and beer. Yes, beer, not your everyday run of the mill churned out by the keg load beer but the finely brewed craft beers that are popping up all over the place right now. I could easily name one hundred that I have tried in the last two years. My favourite of course being the darker varieties, red ales, brown ales and of course stouts and porters. I to take picture of them, to try and show people how good they really are through images. And if possible to make you thirsty, thirsty enough to pry you away from your comfort zone and get you to try one of these wonderful brews for the first time.

Nothing worse than an empty bottle but in this case it makes for a good picture.

I took these when we were home brewing, we managed a few very good brews. They didn't last long around here though.

There is very little better than an afternoon lunch time brew. Maybe good food but I like to have both, savouring each.

Stouts and porters are definitely a must with me with reds and browns not to far behind. The image above is of a 6 AM stout, one of the very best I've tried. It goes down well with a good burger, mushrooms, onions and so on.

I could snap away pictures of beer all day, trying to get the right angle and get in focus before the head goes.

On an odd occasion I'll have a lighter variety, maybe even an IPA if the hops are not completely overpowering. I do like hops in beer but sometimes they'll take your breath away they're so strong. Coming from the Isles I tend to prefer malty ales over hoppy ales if that makes sense. I prefer the real hoppy beers around Xmas, for some reason they just feel right at this time of year.

Homebrew Ginger Beer!

As most of you know by now brewing beer is one of our passions and last night we brewed one of our specials, Ginger Beer, the alcoholic kind as apposed to the non-alcoholic mixer variety. We also used this opportunity to film a special episode of "Don't Be Afraid!" for an up and coming YouTube channel we're working on. And as usual I was able to snap away when I wasn't using the camera for filming so I decided to take a few shots of +Linda Dean butchering a Ginger or two as she prepared them for cooking.

Ginger has a very medicinal quality to it, almost like a mild sedative when brewed into beer. It can be very relaxing and a fantastic stress reliever as well as making sure you get a great nights sleep when needed most.

It is also very spicy, very, very spicy but not in an overpowering chili or curry way. After you've taken a sip of the beer you can feel a wave of heat rise up through your palette, through your nostrils and sinuses and out through the top of your head. It is a very pleasurable and relaxing experience.

Ginger beer is definitely one of those beers that you sip slowly over an evening, you definitely won't be downing bottles of it like you can with other beers. It is perfectly suited to those dark, cold and wet winters nights. A good book or movie and a bottle of your home brewed beer is guaranteed to relieve any stress you might have.

The little bit of effort that is needed to make five gallons or even just one gallon is well worth it. We will be posting a YouTube video showing you in detail how to make your first batch but for now these teaser images will have to suffice.

I'm not sure why I was so surprised to find out that ginger beer would be so spicy. I guess my only real experience with ginger before we brewed our first batch were what we used to call back home, dunking biscuits, they are very hard, crunchy ginger biscuits that we used to dunk in our cups of hot tea as kids. This would soften them enough so that we wouldn't crack our teeth eating them.

We had a really great time filming and shooting this one and I can't wait to see the video on YouTube when the editing is done. Brewing beer really is very rewarding, there is something very nostalgic about it, it connects us not just with our past but also gives us a sense of what a D&D tavern might be like or what the Prancing Pony might be like in Bree. At least that is how I feel about it and it always makes me feel happy.