Making Smoked Malt at Home

Why would you make your own smoked malt? There are some very good smoked malt products out there – particularly of the Bamberg Smoked Malt variety from the likes of Weyermann malts – or bespoke hand smoked offerings from Malt Miller in the UK – but I wanted to see how good a product you could get in the mixing […]

Hmmm… Dunkel Mild

Not a beer style I’d really wanted to brew previously, but I do have a soft spot for a malty well balanced dark mild. I’d often tell myself: “why brew a 3.4% mild when you can brew an 8% DIPA or 13% Impy Stout?” Or: “Time is precious, why waste it brewing a low gravity malty beer? Now, where is […]

Fullers Porter Clone Recipe

As part of my submissions for the Manchester homebrew expo in Manchester Beer Week at Beer Nouveau I brewed a Fullers Porter clone recipe. This is one of my favourite commercial porter beers with great malty flavours and a hint of chocolate. I used quite a few sources to put this recipe together and tried to stay as close to […]

Boddingtons Bitter Clone Recipe

I’d not done a brew day for a while after the Green Hopped Munich Dunkel (and an Imperial Stout which needs it’s own write up) as we’d had quite a lot of building work going on over the lead up to Christmas and into the new year which had prevented any brewing. The Dunkel had just run out on keg […]

A Green Hopped Munich Dunkel

I faced a couple of problems at the end of this years hop harvest: what to brew with them and how to store the hops. I had tried drying my hops last year, but this wasn’t very successful. I had read some articles and forum posts on alternative storage methods and freezing seemed to provide the solution I was after. […]

Munich Kellerbier Recipe

By way of a follow up to my Saufbruder / Homebrew Expo post, one of the earlier iterations of that beer was entered into the Welsh National Homebrew Competition 2017. It placed bronze in the Amber Beer category and the judging notes provided me with some much needed critical feedback. This Munich Kellerbier was brewed in January 2017 and a […]

Saufbruder and a home brew expo

Since I visited Munich a few years ago I fell into German beers in a big way. Whilst there is no denying that I enjoy hoppy, bitter, juicy and dank beers to be found from some of the best craft breweries – there is something about German beers that I keep coming back to time and again as both a […]

Oatmeal Stout: an experiment on fruit 3 ways.

Last year I brewed an oatmeal stout after visiting Wylam Brewery and their tap room just before they had moved production there. One of the beers available to try as part of the tour was a NZ oatmeal Pale: All Gone South. This had a massive amount of New Zealand hop aroma and flavour against the mouthfeel of the oats […]