Zalig Kerstfeest!

Christmas greetings in Flemish, there, for you all. Last night I brewed St. Crispin's Agincourt Ale. Using a variety of Belgian caramel malts (Special B, Caramunich, and some Aromatic), as well as some heavily caramelised raw turbinado sugar, I brewed quite a potent dark ale using some choice European hops (Hersbrucker and Saaz). It is bubbling merrily away with a Belgian strain of yeast (Fermentis T58) that is likely to give it fruity, spicy, and estery flavours. The initial output was boiled down to a very strong gravity, 1.098, but I cut it with water to reach a more temperate gravity of 1.086, to ensure that the fermentation would not "stick". I want it powerful, but moderation is key, and balance is ever so important with a Belgian ale. Besides, I want to test out the T58 strain first, make sure it can handle something so high in gravity. I am considering, when it is finished, bottling it in corked Belgian beer bottles...perhaps you've seen them, with the wire cages as on a champagne bottle. I have the proper corker for this now, thankfully! It is expensive, however. 65 cents a bottle, just for the corks and cages!

Now I am in a "tending" stage, where I must manage my remaining fermentations before worrying about new ones. I have three meads in various stages...one of which is ready to be bottled (I am reasonably certain), and the other two are sitting in secondary with their "flavourings" (fresh ginger and tart cherries). Still got an overly sweet IPA that I don't know what I'll do with, exactly. Might bring it upstairs in an effort to jumpstart it. But after things mellow down some, I've got a braggot to start...basically I am brewing a base beer, a medium strength stout-style beer with black patent malt, dark crystal, and maybe a few more various malts. At the end of the boil I am going to add nine pounds of honey, making it essentially mead strength. This will be a sort of cross between a honey mead and Imperial stout, bottled in 12oz bottles and held for a long time (like my barleywine, bottled after several months of aging in October, and I won't be touching it for a long, long time).

Had a minor feast on Christmas Eve with family, preparing a variety of English foods, from scones with blackcurrant jam, to Cottage Pie, to Welsh Leek Soup. Also Carbonnade a la Flammande, a Belgian beef stew made with a good Dubbel-style ale (Ommegang Abbey Ale). Went over pretty well, I think. Still have some leftovers...

Cherry Melomel Back in Action

So my cherry melomel is back in fermentation...I added 9 lbs of tart cherries to the fermentor (a LOT) and racked the base mead (specific gravity 1.045, original gravity 1.120) onto it. I've been keeping the temperature at 74 Fahrenheit, approximately, and it has restarted fermentation apparently. This is a brief post, and that's about all I needed to mention. I'm hoping to get the mead down to 1.010 to 1.020, but I would take even a dryer melomel, given that these are tart cherries and should have a nice acidic bite. I tried one, and wow, it made me pucker. A little "flavour bomb" if you will, so I'm excited about this one.

Next month, the blackcurrant mead will be bottled. Now that is one I am excited about.

Back to Agincourt

So, I've got another order of supplies on the way, including some basic essentials, as well as a champagne corker, top flight stuff. This will make mead bottling a breeze from here on out. Although, I've got new stuff in the pipeline. But first, some status updates.

The Koelsch is doing well, only had one bottle so far. The cider (bottled the same time) is not exactly doing a stellar job carbonating, but its fruity, winey dryness is appealing both carbonated and uncarbonated. I had it last night with some Thai food, and wow, it went great. But I should let it lie for a good long time to reach its peak. The Tongue Splitter (American session IPA style) is quite good, but dwindling...it was a small batch. It is better fresh, anyway...hops tend to fade. So get in on that while you can, I tell 'e. I've still got one bottle of the ESB remaining, brewed in June. It's coming up on 6 months and is probably fading in its appeal to some extent. Still, I wanted to see what aging could do.

To do...I need to get up the courage to do something about my Double IPA...check the gravity, bottle it, whatever. Dramatically underattenuated, its very sweet and very hoppy. I'll probably bottle it anyway but thats a lot of work. This would be when Cornelius kegs would come in handy. My other issue with underattenuation is a mead destined to be a cherry melomel, but I'm hoping the issue is more one of me checking too early. Meads do take time, despite the magnificent performance of my first three batches. So I'll check it again in a week or so, and regardless, I'll rack it onto the cherries. Even if it gets stuck at 1.050, God forbid, that would make a very sweet and intersesting elixir. Apple juice is at 1.050, so it wouldn't be any sweeter than that. Again, we'll see how it goes.

With that out of the way, here are my plans. First off is St. Crispin's Agincourt Ale. This will be a Belgian Strong Dark Ale, a Quadrupel style, a rich, dark, strong ale in the tradition of Belgian Trappist monasteries. It is so named for various reasons. The Battle of Agincourt occurred in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France, in the Northeast of France just by the border of Belgium. It was the scene for the climax of Shakespeare's Henry V, and the location for the stirring St. Crispin's Day speech, from which this brewery's name was inspired. So it seemed appropriate, being something like a Franco-Belgian brew, in a sense. It will have continental European hops, sugars, and Belgian barley malts.

After that, eventually, my attempt at a dark braggot, a Black Braggot in the style of an Imperial Stout, will ensue. I'm buying the malt and hops for this now, the honey will be procured later. Should be a striking brew.

New Plans and First Impressions

Firstly I am coming up on another purchase of supplies, which will likely include a corker and various supplies as well some ingredients for further brewing. I have two projects in mind. One is a Belgian ale, styled after a Trappist Dubbel. Dark malts, spicy yeast notes, dark sugars, held together with a restrained European hopping. Should be quite interesting, I'm finalizing my recipe now on it. The second possibility is what I have dubbed a "Black Braggot". A braggot is a fusion of ale and mead...technically a mead with a certain quantity of malt (and possibly hops) added. My version will be unique for its use of highly kilned black or dark malts, which will make this into an interesting hybrid of mead and Imperial Stout. My recipe for this, however, is far from finalized. If you (the reader) have any advice on the use of black patent malt, I'd be interested in discussing it with you.

As for first impressions, I finally tested my blackcurrant mead, which had been sitting in secondary for two months now. It had a gravity of 1.004, with a Brix reading of 10 degrees. After some computation this implies that the corrected original gravity (adding juice in the secondary threw off the initial reading) is 1.100, being a noticeably milder mead of 13% ABV, approximately. It has a wondrous nose of blackcurrants, without obscuring some honey notes. Also quite perceptable was the heavy char oak cubes, offering up a distinct vanilla/bourbon note. This was a very welcome bit of complexity, and I'll be using it again. It has a light body and was quite drinkable. And I can't forget to mention the colour...rich, jewel-like burgundy, with surprisingly impeccable clarity. I won't be using any finings on this mead!

Also, I forgot to mention, but I did rack the mead onto the ginger. Peeling and chopping the ginger was quite an undertaking, but I completed it. I'm a little worried the ginger, with around three weeks of age in the refrigerator, might have lost some of its potency, but that may have been my imagination. I'm sure no matter what it will be a beast of gingery goodness, and hey, if after a month I find it to be lighter on ginger than expected, I can always rack it onto a new bed of ginger!

I leave you with a saying that has somewhat stuck with me, and would be a worthy remembrance for just about anyone:

"Wine is a Good Servant But a Terrible Master"