Epic Beer

Today starts an epic series of beer tastings around Australasia.

Each link goes to a page with more details

13th October - Christchurch - Pomeroy's on Kilmore
(Official tasting sold out, but I will be in the bar from 4pm to 7pm talking about Epic Beer)

14th October - Christchurch - Pomeroy's on Kilmore
(maybe even a chance to try Armageddon on tap for the first time in the South Island)

20th October - Auckland -Elliott Stables - Six NZ Craft Beers
(Six beers, tutored tasting by Luke Nicholas, includes Epic Armageddon IPA)

29th October - Wellington - Malthouse Event
(secret)

17th November - Melbourne - Ale Stars - The Local Taphouse
(Luke to talk about his beers in Melbourne for the first time)

(Note: there maybe another tasting or two added to Melbourne for the 12th & 13th November, stay tuned)

By the time Pete and Melissa finally arrive in Wellington in mid-August, they'll have crossed Cook Strait about 120 times!

Since boarding the inter-island ferry Aratere on July 9, the pair have crossed the strait three times a day without a break. But Pete and Melissa aren't a couple of fame-seeking tourists trying to get themselves into the record books they're two wooden barrels of beer.

The plan was hatched by two beer-loving Kiwis Colin Mallon, manager of Wellington specialist beer bar The Malthouse, and Luke Nicholas, owner and brewer of Epic beer after a recent beer-hunting trip around the UK. In their travels, Colin and Luke visited several famous British breweries and met up with beer writers including Pete Brown and Melissa Cole. Hence Pete and Melissa!

Putting the two casks of beer aboard the inter-island ferry is Colin and Luke's attempt to recreate beer's most famous voyage. In the 1880s, strong, hoppy pale ales from Burton-on-Trent in England took about six weeks on tall ships to reach thirsty customers in India. That beer became known as India Pale Ale, or IPA.

British writer Pete Brown recently retraced the long journey that helped create the iconic beer style and subsequently chronicled his adventures in a book, Hops and Glory: One Man's Search for the Beer that Built the British Empire.

Returning to New Zealand with copies of the book, Colin and Luke were fascinated to read how IPA was brewed with extra hops and stronger than ordinary beer to withstand the rigours of the long sea journey across the tropics.

Hops were first employed as a natural preservative in brewing and the extra amount used in IPA, in conjunction with the beer's increased alcoholic strength, slowed the oxidisation process and prevented souring.

The beer maturing inside Pete and Melissa is Epic's latest seasonal brew, Armageddon IPA.

"I sourced two 20-litre new oak barrels and filled them with fresh Armageddon," explains Luke.

"I recently brewed a real ale in England for a huge British beer festival, so I knew Armageddon was not a million miles away from what a traditional pale ale would have tasted like. For a beer to stand up to the kind of treatment we have in mind, it has to be pretty robust. Armageddon is definitely big, strong and hoppy.

"The idea is to see what effect changes in temperature and constant movement has on beer stored in wood. Most pundits believe India Pale Ales benefited from the conditioning they received during their sea voyages."

So what will the beer taste like? Given the small size of the wooden barrels and the fact that they're brand new, I anticipate the beer will pick up a huge amount of vanillin and tannin and I wouldn't be surprised if it requires blending with unwooded beer to soften the effect.

A ceremonial tapping of Pete and Melissa will be held at this year's Beervana, a series of public beer tastings being held in Wellington on August 28 and 29. Tickets are available now (at www.beervana.co.nz), so why not head to Wellington and sample the world's first I-IPA ("Inter-Island Pale Ale") for yourself?

Cheers!

Full Story

Does My Bum Look Big in this Barrel? by Melissa Cole

To set the scene for you, a couple of months ago Luke Nicholas from Epic brewery was over here brewing for Wetherspoon's and I met up with him and his mate Colin Mallon (a Scotsman who runs a great-sounding pub called the Malthouse ) had some beers, a bite to eat and an all-round good laugh.

They went back to New Zealand, we did the Facebook thing to stay in contact and I didn't think much more about it - until a tagged photo of a barrel appeared with my name on it on Colin's page, which I found a little odd/slightly insulting!

Basically, inspired by Pete Brown's new book Hops & Glory (which I've mentioned previously), Luke & Colin cooked up the idea to put two wooden casks of beer onto the New Zealand Interislander Ferry for six weeks to see what effect it has - the decided that the barrels should be named after Pete and myself, which is sweet... I think!

from the blog Taking the beard out of beer! - A Girl's Guide to Beer

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Whatcha gonna do, Brother?

Whatcha gonna do, brother, when the hoppiest beers in the country run wild on you?

The Second Annual West Coast IPA Challenge: Battle of Champions has rightly been likened to a huge title bout with two cocky contenders out to win the spoils of victory and, perhaps more importantly, bragging rights over the other for a whole year.

This year, the Challenge kicks off on July 17 at Malthouse with Hallertau’s specially brewed Maximus Humulus Lupulus squaring off on tap against Epic’s brilliantly named Armageddon.

from The Malthouse blog

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An these have been re-blogged here The Epic Journey Has Begun

Whatcha gonna do, brother, when the hoppiest beers in the country run wild on you?

The Second Annual West Coast IPA Challenge: Battle of Champions has rightly been likened to a huge title bout with two cocky contenders out to win the spoils of victory and, perhaps more importantly, bragging rights over the other for a whole year.

This year, the Challenge kicks off on July 17 at Malthouse with Hallertau’s specially brewed Maximus Humulus Lupulus squaring off on tap against Epic’s brilliantly named Armageddon. A few lucky Malthouse patrons had a sneak peak at both the brewers and tank samples of their respective brews at the very limited Epic Halcyon tasting. Halcyon was the real ale Luke Nichols made in England for a huge beer festival. Only ten litres ever made it to New Zealand and they did not last very long.

This event was, if you like, the weigh-in and the early favourite would have to be Hallertau. However, Maximus has been in the tank two weeks longer than the Armageddon so the actual showdown will be a lot closer and a heap tastier.

There was even a bit of a media scrum with some guys shooting footage of Luke and Steve Plowman (Hallertau head brewer and general bearded good guy) talking about pale ales and their contest. They worked for “YouTube” apparently so that footage is currently being edited. Luke will undoubtedly twitter and blog the appropriate link the second it is available provided he has stopped ranting about Wilson Parking. This blog will probably mention the final video some weeks later. We just work at different speeds.

So there was the media, there was the weigh-in and, wisely, both brewers declined to impersonate classic professional wrestlers in order to promote the Challenge. But if they had, it might have gone something like this:

The Nature Boy Steve Plowman: “Imp, let me tell you something. I’ve spent my entire career seeing off punks like you. Women want to be with me, men want to be me. I’m a limousine-riding, jet flying, kiss stealing, wheeling-dealing, porter noir drinking son of a gun. Woooo! My shirt costs more than your entire house. A word of advice slick, stand up when you talk to me… if you want to be the man, you have to beat the man.

You’ve got to climb Space Mountain! Wooo!

He then strutted around the room, emitted another “wooo” and then flopped face first into a table. (That final move is now trademarked by Mathieu Basteraud.)

The Imp: “Finally, The Imp has come back to the Malthouse! The Imp has taken time out of his busy Hollywood schedule to address the Nature Jabroni. His brewery is located outside of Auckland on the corners of Know Your Role Avenue and Shut Your Mouth Boulevard. You cannot challenge The Imp. How many IBU’s does your beer have? It doesn’t matter how many IBUs your beer has! The Imp will layeth the smack down on your roody poo candy ass. If you smell what The Imp is cooking!”

I’m delighted to report that both their nicknames appear to be sticking.

The hype for the Challenge already exceeds Tua vs Cameron and the end result is likely to be a lot more satisfying too. Head down to the Malthouse and, from 17 July, try the contenders and let the staff know which you think is the undisputed champion.

Remarkably, the West Coast Challenge is not the only major pale ale related story for July. Pete Brown, favoured beer author of the Handsome and Softly Spoken Scotsman, has just published a rather excellent book– Hops and Glory. He takes a cask of pale ale from Britain to India by ship, retracing the long journey which helped create this marvellous style of beer. He even graphically demonstrates some of the pitfalls of transporting beer in warm climes by having a 20-litre cask explode in a rented house. Apparently you never realise how much beer is 20 litres until you are on your hands and knees sopping it out of the carpet.

Anyway, over a quiet pint of Epic one evening, the Handsome and Softly Spoken Scotsman had the crazy idea of recreating Pete’s recreation right here in New Zealand. He asked the Impish brewer to procure some wooden barrels and fill them with Armageddon. The Impish brewer immediately agreed. He asked the Interislander ferry if the barrels could go on their ship for up to six weeks. The Interislander people immediately agreed.

The new oak barrels, called Pete (for obvious reasons) and Melissa (after beer writer Melissa Cole) will experience changes in temperature and constant movement. Tapping them and finding out what effect the voyage has had will be a little bit of history and it will undoubtedly be at Malthouse – the home of beer in Wellington.

“So whatcha going to do, brothers, when the hoppiest beers in the country run wild on you?”

Cheers

Beer Writer
Real Beer New Zealand
Beer and Brewer Magazine

Links

Epic – http://www.epicbeer.com/
Impish Brewer – http://imp.epicbeer.com/
Hallertau – http://www.hallertau.co.nz/
Steve Plowman – http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3126/2598667299_a1de94c9aa.jpg?v=0
Pete Brown – http://petebrown.blogspot.com/
Hops and Glory –

Melissa Cole - http://girlsguidetobeer.blogspot.com/
Malthouse Facebook Group - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wellington/Malthouse/7084276173
Real Beer – http://www.realbeer.co.nz/blog/blog.html
Beer and Brewer Magazine - http://www.beerandbrewer.com/

Just some quick feedback for those that have asked, yes the current batch of Epic Pale Ale is slightly different. It was kegged and bottled on the 5th & 6th of May, with kegs now on tap and bottles arriving on shelves over the next couple of weeks.

You can find the code on the shoulder of the 330ml bottles
BB 06.05.10 (BB=Best Before)
B0379 xx.xx (B=batch number)(xx.xx=time)

It seems firstly that we have used some coloured malt that is out of spec and is lighter in colour than what we expected. This has resulted in the colour being lighter.

Secondly we are now using current season US Cascade hops at 7.6% alpha. Prior batches to this had had a blend of current and previous seasons hops (US Cascade 6% alpha).

The double whammy effect of the lighter crystal malts not only means the colour is lighter but the malt sweetness is slightly lower, but also the hop character is greater being fresher and greener from being 100% current season.

Over all there is a noticeable difference but it isn't significantly different.

Ahh, the joys of using agricultural crops which change from season to season.

FUTURE CHANGES
Over the coming batches I will be trialling using English Maris Otter malt (a variety of malt) in varying percentages. The reason for this trial is that the beer I brewed in the UK at Everards Brewery in Leicester for the JD Wetherspoons Real Ale Festival we used Maris Otter.

Reason for this was it was their standard base malt and they had a silo full of it. So we gave it a go and it turned out fantastic, and the extra malt flavour really seemed to improve the beer.