Provide me with a choice or Dammit i won't go into your Pub

Howdy Folks

this weeks Blog is about the selection of beers (or lack thereof) in two of my local pubs, these pubs are not worlds apart, they are just a 200m walk from each other, their clientele are approximately in the same age and wage bracket, yet one pub refuses to bring in the beer i have been asking for with years lets call this pub 2 with the other pub being pub 1, it's not too much of a request, all i want is some bottles of a wheat beer for summer drinking.

It is not the lack of beer that annoys me today, what annoys me today is the fact that Pub 2 have been refusing my request for approximately five years without even flinching, so i then moved to pub 1 who after the relatively small time frame of about two months have brought in two widely available wheat beers in the form of Paulaner and Erdinger. this has led to me now exclusively drinking in pub 1 for at least six months, it has been mutually beneficial for both I and the pub owner who is very pleased with the sale of Paulaner.

Here is the really annoying bit, the owner of pub 2 has been stopping me in the street asking why i do not frequent his bar any more, when i tell him in plain English he says "i can't sell that here nobody would buy it" My face fills with rage every time, Why ask me? if he knows why i don't drink there and is unwilling to do anything about it!!!!

Sorry about the rant,

BTW both of these pubs are in east cork, i will not name them here on principle, if you wish to find out who they are please feel free to e-mail me.

CHEERS

KEITH

No posts recently, sorry about that.

I will be back posting regularly soon.

a combination of work, family commitments and brewing have got in the way o my posting.
thank you all for your patience, i will be back posting soon.

CHEERS

Keith

Belgians!! Born in the USA?

Tonight folks im gonna drink two Belgians who hail from the USA, I've been lucky enough to get my hands on two Belgian style ales produced by Goose Island, the first one I'm having is Matilda 2009 bottled on the 1/4/09 as the americans would write it.

Appearance: honey like in colour, with a lovely head that disappears quite quickly.

Smell: typically belgian tones with some banana and orange in there, mainly banana.

Taste: sweet with not too much hop character. ( i couldn't even notice the alc content even though it is 7%)

Mouthfeel: has plenty of carbonation that is not immediately noticeable from looking at the beer (no head) it is light and very enjoyable, i would definitely drink this again.

My second beer of the night is again from Goose Island, Pere Jacques 2009 is a very nice beer made in the style of a Belgian dubbel,

Apperance: a reddish amber colour, lighter than most belgian dubbels that i've had. slight tan head to begin with which once again Quickly disappears to leave just a little few patches of bubble where the carbonation is rising.

Smell: once again a very belgian scent with ripe summer fruits and banana evident with a hint of malt at the end.

Taste:Much the same as the scent although it is evident that this beer is more alcholic @ 9% than the last.

Mouthfeel: similar to the previous beer with plenty of carbonation, this beer is more chewy with a stronger and heavier feel than Matilda. nt particularly what i lke in a dubbel but it is very drinkable all the same.

CHEERS

i'm still alive (after the Munster Meet)

OK i know i've not been blogging enough recently or ever for that matter, the reason for this is that between work, the hour long commute each way, various deliveries my boss asks me to do, family errands to be run, babysitting my nephew and of course drinking beer with the lads.

Any how i have decided to write up a blog now on what i remember from the recent Munster ICB tasting session in the Bierhaus Cork. All started well on the evening about half past seven on the 26th June 2009 i and one of the drishane brewery crew Morgan arrived @ The Bierhaus, Here we met several members of the ICB Munster Branch including, Wallicebiy + Brother, Taf, Neils, Ger Cork, Rebel, Paudie and Peter form The Franciscan Well dropped by aswell (if i've missed anybody Sorry but i was probably too inebriated to remember you being there). the session was great, there was a fine selection of beers on show from the homebrewers and Ger Cork brought along some v nice craft brews aswell. there were some stand out beers for me, I really liked Wallicebiy's Shed stout, and Taf's Cider was v nice too (sorry can't say the same for the cranberry drink), as always Neils arrived with some V tasty and V strong Beer (needless to say i loved it).

the evening was peppered with random chatter and some good info on homebrewing techniques, thanks rebel, Wallicebiy, and Peter from The Well for this. all in all i had a great (read Drunken) night, Thanks to everyone involved who organises events such as these I.E. Rebel, Ger Cork, Dave from The Bierhaus and thanks to everyone for coming along to make the night such a success. Cheers Everyone

that's it from me until next time.

Cheers

What should i do?

planning on brewing either of these tomorrow sunday the 14th june 09, both very similar APA's

1.

4.75kg maris otter pale malt
0.10kg crystal malt
0.20kg Honey
16g Centennial whole hops Approx 10% @60
50g Cascade whole hops approx 5.5% @15
50g Cascade hhole hops approx 5.5% @5

Safale s-04 yeast


2.


3.54kg maris otter pale malt
0.04kg crystal malt
0.88kg Honey
23g Centennial whole hops Approx 10% @60
15g Cascade whole hops approx 5.5% @15
15g Cascade hhole hops approx 5.5% @1

Safale s-04 yeast



has anyone any suggestions or opinions on which i should do?

Drishane Brewery: Happy Dog Series, Wagging Tail Ale

Hey Folks, Welcome back.

This blog post is about my very first all-grain beer and the first in a series of beers from the Drishane Brewery, the series is called "Happy Dog" (just in case you couldn't tell from the title). the series is inspired by my next door neighbours dog who last week quickly drank my last beer on a sunny afternoon, worse again it did this while i was busy inside getting a ball to throw for it. one pint of paulaner later and that was one happy dog :).

Wagging Tail Ale is a relatively simple ale and it all begins with the mash, my grist consisted of:

4.5kg of Maris Otter

0.5kg of medium Crystal

these grains were mashed into 14 Litres of water @ 72 Degrees C which left me with @ 67 Degrees C, it was a single infusion mash which lasted for 60 Min, after this i sparged with 9 litres of water @ approx 75 Degrees C.

I was left with a pre boil gravity of 1.050

i was plagued by stuck mashes and sparges because of the bad design of the manifold in my mash tun.

then the boiling began.

it was a 60 Min boil with 4 separate hop additions these were:

28g of Centennial 10.4% @60 Min

16g of Centennial 10.4% @45 Min

50g of Spalt select pellets 1.5% @10 Min

50g of Spalt select pellets 1.5% @5 Min

after a very vigorous boil i ended up with Approx 19 Litres of Wort and a gravity of 1.059

this wort was fermented with Safale S04 Yeast for four weeks and ended up with a gravity of 1.012

I Bottled this with ordinary Household sugar (104g) and ended up with 31 500ml bottles of beer, much of this loss of volume is down to not using hop socks and having to leave beer behind in each vessel to avoid having hops in my bottles (a rookie mistake)

I'm really hoping that this will turn out well and hopefully it will be well received by my long suffering Guinea pigs, i mean esteemed beer tasters (the lads).

thanks for reading my post

CHEERS

My connecton how i love thee, Old friends in a new setting, The first brew, Munster see red (scarlet red that is)

Welcome back folks,

Good news, after years of being left out in the wilderness Drishane Brewery has now got broadband, this technological advancement means that i no longer have to sneak around at work to get a blog post written, Yippee. so here's to my new connection long may it last.

This Sunday past 26/April/2009 i found my self in need of a little refreshment, as i was in Youghal, Co. Cork. my hopes of receiving anything except the usual crappy (insert macro brew of choice here) , Luckily i remembered a post by Rebel on ICB which mentioned that a selection of the Franciscan well beers are now on tap in the nook (Treacy's) bar. with this in mind i went in search, what i found pleased me, i hadn't been in the nook for quite some time but knew that the owner Mick was a very driven bar owner who spotted a niche easily hence the taps, quickly i ordered a pint from the young barman, "a pint of friar weisse please" to which he replied much to my shock "no problem I'll get that now" not the type of comment i had come to expect from young barmen serving new beers the usual answers being "whats that some new Budweiser" or "ya what?".

i got my pint and was mighty pleased, not as nice as it is at source but what the hell it was much better than any macro beer available. after this pint i had a conversation with the owner Mick who informed me that the three beers available were 1: friar weisse 2: rebel red and 3:blarney blonde, of these three the rebel red was selling well, the friar weisse was selling OK, and the blarney blonde wasn't really selling at all, during and after the conversation i had a rebel red, this was just as nice as at source and deserved to be the best selling Franciscan well beer in the bar, after this i had a chat with some of the regulars who were all very pleasant and had good craic, i started this chat with a blarney blonde and continued for a while drinking rebel red, all in all it was a good Sunday evening had in the company of three of my oldest friends in the unfamiliar surroundings of one of their new homes.

On another note, a few weeks ago i brewed my very first all grain beer, i tried to keep the recipe simple and added

• 3kg of Maris otter



• 500g of crystal



• challenger hops for bittering



• and 100g of spalt select for flavour and aroma,

all did not go well, i had two stuck mash moments and at least three stuck sparge moments, but all in all in the end it seemed to go quite well, there are various pictures which i cannot post at the moment but which will be up on the Drishane Brewery website tomorrow night don't forget to check them out.

Finally on a very positive note, i have been to see Munster play in Musgrave park in cork, on the night they were playing Welsh rugby team Scarlets, the game was good with Munster winning by 29-10 scoring four tries and gaining the all important bonus point too, sadly though Thómas O'Leary was badly injured in the first half, his fractured ankle means that not only is he out for the remainder of the season but will also miss out on the lions tour, we all hope recovers and i am sure that he will get another shot at the lions in his career.

CHEERS

Keith