Two much-requested beers being brewed this week....

These two generate a lot of the requests we receive (although Citra plus is our most requested brew) for re-brewing old recipes, and as we love them both it seemed rude not to give them - to use modern contemporary dialogue - a "reboot"....

So, here we have "Mate Spawn and Die", named after a Lard track, which is hopped with the gloriously characterful New Zealand hops Waimea and Green Bullet, then dry-hopped with sticky, juicy, almost liquoricey Vic Secret.... New Zealand-licious!

Next up is "New Dawn Fades", obviously a Joy Division track, with the exquisite combination of tropical fruity Citra and orchard fruity Calypso.... oh yes, it's a belter is this one!  Originally brewed at Steel City in Sheffield back in summer 2012, it was re-brewed at Pontyclun in 2013, again in November 2015, and now it's back with a slightly amended - read improved - hopping regime!

So, in a rare case of no new beers this week, we give you two of our most requested brews; enjoy!

Testing a new "base" malt

Yep, a new base malt!

For those who don't speak brewing lingo, base malt makes up the majority of the beer's "grist" of grains which contain the sugars needed to make beer.  It's barley (usually grown in East Anglia) which is wet then heated gently to con the grains into thinking the season has changed and it's time to start germinating.  Malting is an extremely complicated procedure which is outside the scope of this blog (and my knowledge!) but this should tell you all you need to know should you wish!

Our beers are generally of a simple malt recipe with 90-95% being "base" malt, then 3% wheat malt (for head retention) and 3% of either Carapils or Melanoidin (for body and mouthfeel).  Some beers have other additions, such as stouts and porters with up to 20% roasted grain, but in the main it's 90%+ base pale malt.

We originally used Munton's Maris Otter blend malt, but after using it for a while decided the extra cost (around £150-200 a tonne on top of the usual £500 or so price) of Maris Otter just wasn't worth it for our beer; Maris provides a more "full" malty taste with, at it's best, a luscious honey character, but with our beers being hop-led we don't need the malt character so moved onto Crisp best ale malt.  This unfortunately has an even more pronounced flavour so that was soon jettisoned in favour of Munton's Propino and Super Pale, bought on tonne pallets direct from East Anglia, and we've stuck with them until now as the malt is pretty consistent, works well with our set-up and provides a good to great extract power (the amount of sugar produced per kilo of malt).

We were recently visited by a rep who offered half a tonne of Baird's Propino for evaluation purposes, and so - ever ones for a freebie - have gone with it to test out it's suitability for use in the brewery.  Now I've heard lots of stories, most bad, about Baird's malt but will resist any temptation to jump to conclusions and we'll be using it as a direct replacement for our usual Munton's Propino and we'll see how it stacks up!

Happy ending!

You may remember I mentioned we had a pair of Robins nesting between some casks in our dirty cask store a few weeks ago?  Well, today we had a peek between the casks and, after satisfying ourselves that there were no critters lurking within, removed the top cask.... to find an empty nest!

The RSPB guide to Robins says two weeks from hatching to fledging, so looks like we've got a happy family of Robins around the brewery now!  All well and good, as we really needed the empty casks back which they'd been using for the past month; next time, though, maybe a nest box would be an idea?

the empty nest....

A very full fermenter....

Today we brewed a big batch of "Temple of Love", our 3.8% bitter, hoppy, juicy session pale ale which has, through simple customer demand, become one of the very, very few members of our core range of beer.  So far, so good then.

The problem we have with Temple is that we always make too much of it! The malt we use, Muntons Propino, somehow always conspires to contain more sugars than we expect with the result we have to "liquor back" our brew in the copper.  This sounds complicated, but in essence it means that the resulting wort (unfermented beer) is too high in sugar which means, once fermented, it will be too strong for the beer specifications (temple is 3.8%, HMRC customs allow a brewer 0.5% ABV each way on the declared alcoholic strength if they test it) and so we need to add water to bring it down to the desired sugar concentration.

This is done by adding water from the mains and/or hot liquor tank whilst the wort is still at almost boiling point (so the added water is sterilised) until the required amount (which is worked out with our Beersmith software) has been added, reducing the sugar concentration to the required level; in this case, 1035.5° is the specification.  Today, after adding 175 litres of liquor (what brewers call brewing water, plain "water" is used for washing the floor), we ended up with 1035.7° which is near as damn it!  This should, after fermentation, give us 3.8% ABV which is exactly what it should be, yeast permitting!

The only minor issue with liquoring back is that the total volume of wort increases and, with a big brew, this can mean we're pushing the limits of our fermentation vessel capacity!  Today was one of the largest additions we've done and, as you can see, we're not far off the top.... and that's without the yeast head which has yet to form!

It's a bit full....

200 more casks on order

We've been putting it off for about a year and can't really afford it, but we have finally accepted the inevitable and ordered another 200 casks!

At present we have approximately 580 casks which may seem a lot but, under the old "rule" of brewery cask management, is actually woefully inadequate; it was always said a brewer needs 2, preferably 3 casks for every one he has out in trade which, given we sell approximately 200 casks a month, would mean we would need a minimum 400 others.... which we don't have.  

Now bear in mind this equation was based upon ye olde times when brewers distributed their casks locally and they "turned over" (got them back) very quickly - generally within a few weeks - whereas now casks go to wholesalers hundreds of miles away and may not be seen for months on end; for example, last month we sent pallets of beer out to Manchester, Preston and Stoke, casks we probably won't see again for at least a month, probably two, meaning the old cask equation should really read 6 casks for every one out in trade, meaning we'd need an unfeasible 1500 casks (or thereabouts) to sustain our business.

We're pretty good at retrieving casks and turning them over quickly, but even so some weeks we're stretched to the limit with our casks and just can't rack enough beer to build up any stock.  This means casks being filled then going straight onto pallets and out the door which isn't the way I want to operate, as these casks won't be conditioned enough unless the wholesaler / pubs let them sit for a few weeks once they arrive (we've had no complaints so guessing this is probably happening....).

What we need in order to build up a level of stock which enables us to properly condition our beers and also have a decent list of beer to sell (recently, on occasion, we've been down to our last ten casks of beer to sell which is a ludicrous situation to be in) is more casks, and lots of them.  Given that I don't like metal casks the solution is therefore plastic, and more correctly Brewery Plastics casks.... but, even allowing for their reasonable price of just over £30 a cask, this is still a £6200+VAT investment in casks, money we don't really have.... 

Just imagine if brewers could, rather than giving 50% of their turnover to the government each month, reinvest some of this money in new casks and equipment?  Fat chance of this happening, but it would make life so much easier and enable us to grow our business so much better than we are able to at present.... we can dream!

Anyhow, we've just ordered 200 new 9 gallon plastic casks (plus 6 extra 4.5 gallon casks which are mainly used at our bar) which will be slightly offset by us returning as many of our 100 rental casks as we can lay our hands on (that'll save us money and get rid of a lot of metal casks in one go) but, even allowing for this, we'll still have extra casks and that'll take some of the pressure off and, hopefully, allow us to build up some stock and sell more beer, which can only be a good thing.

This has been yet another post in our "Crap brewers have to put up with that you don't know about" and I hope it's been educational!

And finally....

Well, here we are, blog post 300!

Rather than launch into a lengthy monologue or rant, however, I'll be tapping the rich seam of sentimentality which newsreaders call "and finally....." to create a schmoozy sickening kind of post...

Anyhow, here it is.....

We seem to have acquired a brewery pet, and will soon have quite a few more!  A family of robins has taken up residency (literally, they've built a nest!) between two dirty casks in our cask store and was only discovered when Gazza noticed the twigs between the casks and lifted the top one up to see what was going on, to be met with a very angry Robin defending his nest!  The cask was quickly replaced and, despite being very low on casks, we've left them to get on with things and, hopefully, soon they'll be away and we can wash our casks for reuse!

We did add a suet treat for them to eat near to the nest as we're really nice like that.  Even though they're taking up 4 of our precious casks....

All together now, awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!

"Why bring politics into beer?"

So said one bloke - presumably a Tory - at my recent meet the brewer when I proffered my opinion I was glad Thatcher was dead....  well, IMO politics is, or SHOULD, be in everything we do and say.  I know there are those who have no opinions and simply spout what the papers tell them, or just don't care about politics (look where apathy got in 1930's Germany...) but I disagree; the effects of the stupid decisions of politicians matter to everyone and if you're not informed, with an opinion, then you may as well bend over and take whatever is coming your way, and I guarantee it won't be a box of chocolates.

Anyhow, in this vein, we have brewed a beer with local newcomers Twt Lol (in Welsh this means, vaguely, "little joke") and, in a departure from Phil's normal traditional beers, we've cooked up a hoppy amber ale with the luscious US Mosaic and Chinook hops.  The pumpclip features a photo of the nearby Port Talbot steelworks in South Wales, currently threatened with closure due to Tory inaction, and it really does feel like a case of the last stand for UK industry down here.... 

So, to all those involved in the fight to keep a UK steel production capability, we dedicate this hoppy amber IPA and may steel not go the same way as coal... although I'd not hold my breath with a Tory government in charge.  

See, politics is in everything.

The latest dark brew....

Despite rumours to the contrary, we always try to have a dark beer on sale at all times as

a) people like them

b) they round out our range

c) they stop people taking the piss that we only brew pale hoppy beer
d) they smell really nice when you're brewing them, and

e) we actually like them!

So, with our current offering "Aur Du" (Black Gold, an oatmeal stout) down to single figures in the coldstore, we decided it was time to brew up a replacement... but what?

We thought about another coffee porter but don't want to get typecast (again!) by always brewing coffee beers, so went instead for a porter/stout concoction hopped mainly with the totally bizarre Sorachi Ace hop, one of Gazza's favourites but one that is notoriously difficult to use as it takes over everything else, plus it doesn't taste right in 95% of the pale beers it's used in (says Gazza).

Sorachi Ace is a fascinating little critter; originally developed by Sapporo in Japan (along with it's now extinct sibling Furano Ace) but now grown on the west coast of the USA and, even more interesting, it's flavour continues to develop; years back it was all lemon sorbet, then it morphed into dill and herbs, whereas now the dill is still there but a most bizarre coconut/gorse bush character is coming to the fore and it's bloody gorgeous!

We already have a Sorachi porter, "Graveyard Eyes", but this new brew is a very different animal with all the other hops cut out (except one!), a lower ABV and a very different malt makeup so we'll be very interested to see how it comes out in a few weeks time....

Another "third tank" one-off...

When we brew big batches (12 barrels, 2300 litres) of "Temple of Love" or "Golden Pixie", and occasionally other beers we generally sell 2 of the 3 tanks as the mother beer - i.e. what it's actually called - and the final tank we have a play around with by dry-hopping with either a single hop or mixture of hops we don't normally utilise for this beer, just to see what we can come up with!  These are called "third tank" beers.

Well, we've done it again with the last brew of Temple, so thanks to the magic of dry-hopping will you welcome "Citracana"!  The name is a simple mash-together of the two hops used for dry-hopping; Citra, the mangoey, sweet fruity darling of many a brewer (and consequently difficult to get hold of...) plus Olicana, one of the new UK hops from the Faram's breeding programme, which has the usual European grassy character with some additional soft fruits.

On initial tastings these two hops seem to have come up with something pretty special indeed!  The base beer gives a strong bitterness and oily hoppiness, but the aroma and top-notes of the flavour are all tropical fruit and sweetness; to say Gazza is happy with it might be an understatement, but the bad news is that of the 14 casks and 2 kegs, within 2 hours of filling them we are all but sold out... 

So, if you manage to defy the odds and find some "Citracana", let us know what you think!

The eternal wheel

Brewers are modern-day alchemists (well, some are...) turning this

Into this.....

With a lot of work inbetween.....

Two brews this week

That's right, owing to sales far exceeding expectations recently we've got to brew twice this week to keep the tanks topped up!

First up will be "Golden Pixie" as we've totally sold out and as it's one of the supposed regular beers at Hopbunker we thought we'd best brew some more!  Second will be the return of an old favourite in the form of "Slave to the Wage", a New Zealand-hopped brew with a subtle balance between malt and the fruity hops; this is always a good seller when we make it so get your orders in now ;)

Next week we're still considering what to brew, although it may just be something very hoppy yet again.... we'll see.

Week of catchup!

Owing to Gav being away we're not brewing this week, but hopefully we'll get lots of things sorted out and in order to get straight back into it again next week!  Sales have been crazy this week and, as a result, we have almost zero stock so need to get brewing and refill the tanks to replenish our supplies...

Next week we'll be brewing a big batch of Golden Pixie (as the last one has already sold out) plus another brew, hopefully - if the hops are available - the return of one of Gazza's favourites.  We'll also have to brew Citra+ again as the whole lot (bar a couple of casks) has been sold already, and some isn't even in the barrels yet!

Our collab with Twt Lol is currently on chill and tasting lovely (plus it's being dry-hopped with Mosaic which will make it indescribably lovelier), it doesn't have a name yet but we're working on that!  No rush....

A tonne of malt is on it's way so we'd best get planning some beers!

The UK hop beer now has a name!

If you know of the band Killing Joke you'll recognise the picture.... if not, then this beer is named as a joke against us in that we are well known for our vociferous opposition to British hops as they just don't taste of enough for us.  All well and good, but this brew has been made with over 90% UK hops in the form of the superstar of the new UK hop varieties, Jester, which is very un-British in it's character!

Think rhubarb, gooseberry, squishy tropical fruits and a soft bitterness and you'll have a fair grasp of what this tastes like!  Jester present very much like a New Zealand hop in that they have a soft, tropical fruity character, and we're dry hopping with a dose of another new UK hop, Olicana, which we've not used before but promises peachy aromas... hopefully it'll deliver on that to give us a new UK classic!

Collab with Twt Lol

This week, with Gav away on holiday, things are a bit quieter than normal at Hopcraft Towers but Gazza is still washing casks, filling them up, and all the other assorted things which running a brewery involves doing, all the messy, time consuming things which most people don't know about!

But, amongst all the other stuff, we need to brew some beer so Gazza will be hosting Phil from new local brewer Twt Lol in Treforest; Phil is known for his traditional beer, some of which use local hops, but this time we'll be cooking up a Red IPA with Mosaic and Chinook hops in the copper which most definitely aren't traditional!  The return collaboration in Treforest will be a pale ale using the New Zealand hops Green Bullet and Waimea, sometime in May.

There's no name for this beer as yet, and not even a definitive recipe until Wednesday morning, but everything will be alright on the day I'm sure of it.... the malt, hops and yeast are here so whatever happens we'll make something tasty!

Brewing with UK hops this week!

You heard me right, UK hops....

Well hang on a minute, isn't that Fuggles & Goldings?  Erm... no, it isn't, and rest assured I'd only use those rancid bracts ironically or as part of a collab, but these are dead good UK hops, probably the two best on the market at the moment.... Olicana and Jester.

Both are products of the Charles Faram breeding programme and both show very un-UK characteristics in their makeup, with Olicana having a subtle passionfruit and mango character (think Citra lite) whereas Jester have a big, brash bold soft tropical fruit hit similar to some of the New Zealand hops such as Riwaka.... so between them we should have something pretty good!

We're using "normal" UK malt (rather than the low-colour or super pale we normally use) for the brew to give a more traditional character, but that's it as far as tradition goes as we'll be piling in the hops with our normal "hop burst" approach with 95% of the copper hops going in during the last 20 minutes and a 5kg charge of dry-hop in the conditioning tanks.... 

So, here's hoping something interesting comes out of this little experiment, something distinctly British but with a new-world edge.... bring it on!!

Sorry - been busy!

Apologies for the lack of updates, but we've been really busy / away from the brewery / far too busy to update the blog / etc etc etc.....

Anyhow, I promise to update it more often in future, whenever I can, so here's a little about what we've been doing this last few weeks...

Gazza has had (and still has) manflu.... yes, that's right, even brewers get it!  This has rather drained the creative and motivational juices which is one of the reasons not much has been updated recently, amongst others... so now you know.

We had to postpone last weeks' brew of Bunker Gold owing to said manflu (and not really needing to brew) but we've brewed it today and tomorrow is the turn of perennial favourite "Citra Plus" which has finally settled on a winning recipe and, as long as the Citra hops are luscious enough, should be blasting a bar near you soon.  We've had an order from a wholesaler for 12 casks of this so may have to brew it again pretty soon afterwards!

Next week we may be having a play with the new UK Jester hops and seeing how they perform alongside something like Cascade or Chinook.

Then Gav is off for 2 weeks so Gazza will be making do on his own with random helpers to tide us over; we may have a collab to brew with Phil from Twt Lol whilst Gav is away which has been pencilled in as a Red IPA with lots of US hops, before a return collab which will be a pale brew hopped with NZ fruity hops.

More news as it happens!

20 barrels of beer and a meet the brewer!

That's this week in a nutshell!

We're brewing a "big" batch of "Temple of Love" on Tuesday as the last batch sold out in record time thus making Temple, by default, the nearest thing we have to a permanent beer in our range.... as it was originally devised as a low ABV one-off hoppy pale ale it's success has surprised us no end, but as it's well liked by the brewing team - both for it's brewing process and flavour - we're not complaining!

The second brew on Wednesday is a new one-off Oatmeal stout in remembrance of the local coal mining industry which was deliberately laid waste by Thatcher.  "Aur Du" (which translates as Black Gold in Welsh, one of the local names for coal) contains 9% oatmeal and 12% dark grains to give a big, toasty stout with a smooth edge, brewed with Polish hops to commemorate the link between our region and the coal mining area of Silesia in southern Poland which still has working coal mines, for now...

Then, on Thursday, Gazza is off up the M6 to Preston for a meet the brewer at the Moorbrook pub; these events aren't very common as Gazza is usually much too busy procrastinating to actually do any promo work, so make the most of it.... the running order should be various beers with the story behind each one, then some food - hopefully the pub's famous pies!  See you at the hop....

First they came for the Miners.....

.... and now it's the turn of the Steelworkers, albeit this time in a case of deliberate non-intervention rather than deliberate and intentional destruction, but the result will be the same; whole communities left desolate, people unemployed with no hope of finding another job, mass migration of the young to find work leaving dying communities.  We've seen it before, it'll happen again very soon, and at the hands of the Tories yet again, the party of the rich and the elite.

Anyway, to make sure the coal industry of the Valleys isn't forgotten, we're brewing an oatmeal stout in honour of those brave men who powered the industrial revolution and were then declared surplus to requirements in the shiny new world of services rather than manufacturing, and made the scapegoat of a war against the trade union movement.  

This one's for every miner and now, sadly, every steelworker.... 

The policies of this government are clear – to destroy the coal industry and the NUM. – Arthur Scargill

Brewing Oceanic....

.... is what we're doing today!  It's one of our most popular beers (and also one of the most expensive to make owing to the large amounts of Galaxy and Nelson Sauvin hops which go into it) and we don't expect it to hang around for long once it's ready....

The Pacific hops are smelling absolutely lovely and we're confident this will be the best batch of Oceanic thus far!

We've been joined by Jon from South Wales Whisky Group for a bit of brewing "experience" which, predictably, means digging the mash.... 

An Amber ale is born!

With a complicated malt bill of 6 different grains - Propino pale malt, Melanoidin, CaraPils, Wheat malt, Carafa Special 3 and Biscuit malt - this is the kind of colour we were after for "Over the Wire"...

Add lots of New Zealand Kohatu hops, some US Summit and Columbus, and there you go!