I really enjoy brewing small batch special beers. I will either serve them on tap in the brewery, or bottle them in champagne bottles – the bottles are individually numbered. numbered.
For these beers I will typically use the first runnings from the mash. I will collect 40 or so litres to boil and hop separately from the main brew. The first runnings are the most concentrated portion of the wort, and have the most intense flavour. Sometimes I will also blend in portions of aged beer.
I also like to use brettnomyces and/or wild yeasts for these beers as they bring complex and sometimes quite striking fermentation flavours to the beers. The use of these yeasts also looks back to quite old brewing traditions.
The currently available special beers are:
Spiced Liqueur Beer
Brewed from the first runnings of a wheat beer wort kit, and added candy sugar. Fermented with a Belgian yeast backed up with a champagne yeast, then flavoured with lemongrass, galangal and several other spices. The taste is soft, sweet and spicy. Lightly hopped. Between the yeast and the spices the flavours are Bangkok meets Brussels. And with an alcohol content of 17%, this beer leaves you with a smooth warmth inside.
First Runnings Brettanomyces Cherry Stout
Brewed from the first runnings of a stout wort kit. The grain bill is an approximation of a mid nineteenth century stout grain bill – a base of ale malt with lots of brown and amber malts, a touch of black malt, and no crystal malt. Hopping was a mixture of Polish Magnum and East Kent Goldings to about 50 IBU.
The wort was divided into several portions and fermented with a mix of saccharomyces and several strains of brettanomyces. The worts were left for several years to allow the brett strains to express their full character.
The finished worts were blended back and refermented with cherries. Part of the batch was bottled in December 2023, and held for several months to condition in the bottles. There were 45 numbered bottles with about 11 remaining. The rest was served on tap in the brewery.
The taste is softly tart and sour set against a complex swirl of flavours: the slight pineapple and musty woody flavours of the brettanomyces, the espresso coffee flavours of the stout and the cherry flavours in the background. The body is relatively light and the beer finishes with a gentle bitterness at the back of the palate. Alcohol is 8.3%.
Available for sale online.
Current projects
As of August 2024, there are two special beers currently brewing. One is another brettanomcyes first runnings stout. I’m not sure yet what I will do with it, possibly some fruit but not cherries.
The other is a high alcohol amber ale. It was brewed from the first runnings of an American Amber wort kit brew. After boiling and hopping the original gravity was around 1100. I’ve added to it approximately three litres of thirteen year old stock ale which was originally fermented using Wyeast Old Ale blend – with some brettanomyces. There are some really nice sherry, caramel and banana flavours. This one now just needs time.