In 450BC, noted toga-wearer Sophocles philosophised that the best diet for the Greeks was bread, meats, various vegetables and beer  (the last of which they called Zythos).  I would not be unhappy living on such fare as, to me at least, it sounds like endless ploughman’s lunches, ham sandwiches and barbeque roast boar platters, all washed down with ale.

Although the Greeks invented Pythagorean Theorem, the Hippocratic Oath and the modern concept of drama, they most certainly did not create beer.  Zythos is the Greek version of a very old Egyptian word for beer. [1] I am not nearly so keen on the ancient recipe as was apparently one-third barley, one-third safflower seed and one-third salt.  Described as both beer and medicine, I fear the consequences of any drink which is both a laxative and an anti-diarrhoeal.  

However, Zythos is also a new type of American hop. [2] It is not technically a new hop variety but a new hop blend designed specifically by Hopunion to smell and taste a lot like the high-end hops which are currently in short supply.  Here is what the people who invented Zythos had to say:

“Hopunion announced earlier this summer, the creation of Zythos ─ a proprietary hop blend created to embody the powerful tradition and aroma you expect for your finest ales and IPA brews…  Zythos is an IPA style blend created to optimize and exceed the aroma characteristics you require. Zythos is not a replacement for proprietary varieties, but rather, a premium pellet blend that will compliment your current IPA and Pale Ale brews.”

Luke Nicholas of Epic Brewing Company quickly heard about the new hop blend. [3] To be honest, Hopunion probably could have hooked him with a press release which simply said “We have sexy new American hops.  You should make a beer using lots of these sexy new American hops.”

As it transpired, he did.  Epic Zythos IPA is a 6.0% India Pale Ale described by the brewer as having a “richer copper colour compared to the Epic Pale Ale.  A wonderful hoppy aroma of citrus and pine, and a juicy malt flavour, with medium bitterness.”

As an ever-diligent beer journalist, I wanted more information than was included on Wikipedia or the bottle label, [4] so I gave Luke a call and asked him about the inspiration behind the beer.  He said:

“I really wanted to see what the new hop tasted like so that I would know how to use it in the future.  I basically filled this new beer up with Zythos and let it loose on the world.  There are no other hops in there.  I was originally going to call it a Single Hop IPA but of course it is not.  Zythos is a blended hop – not that anyone really knows what that means.  This beer is filling a need for me to know more about the hops – it’s really an educational beer.”

There is a rumour Luke was wearing a toga throughout the entire interview.  He strenuously denies this.  I know I was.

Luke has made a full batch of Zythos and has plans to continue through to the end of the year – possibly three or four more batches.  Demand is high with the first batch virtually sold out even before its official launch at Brew on Quay on Thursday.  He had planned a series of launches (as is his wont) but Easter and his trip to America got in the way. 

The good news is that Malthouse has secured no less than seven kegs of this beer.  It is scheduled to go on tap early next week but keep an eye on the Facebook page and the @malthousetaps Twitter account for exact details.  Like most new Epic beers, it will not hang around for long.

Along with many of New Zealand’s beer-erati, Luke will be attending the World Beer Cup and Craft Brewers Conference in America shortly.  Afterwards, he will be heading up to Chico in Northern California to attend the fabled Sierra Nevada Beer Camp.  As a result, he will doubtless return home with tonnes of new ideas to try out.  He also has threatened to text me when he is enjoying some yummy fresh Hoptimum on tap at Sierra Nevada. [5]

On the topic of American beer, in an announcement that would have headlined this blog on most other weeks, Malthouse has two kegs of the legendary Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA.  Thisoutrageous hopbomb is a huge step up from the (very good) 60 Minute IPA and should be a treat on tap sometime next week.  Be careful though – it is a surreptitious 9% ABV.

[1] We are talking Third Tractate of the Babylonian Talmud old.

[2] It is also a moth and a beer festival.

[3] Luke is rumoured to have three permanent email alerts set up for news on the internet: “American Hops”, “Epic Beer” and “The Impish Brewer.”

[4] There is a significant overlap between the two but there are some new icons hidden on the Zythos label and one new in-joke with a beer blogger.

[5] Luke is promising not to tweet about every new beer he drinks in America after a backlash during previous events from people whose entire Twitter feeds were constantly being taken over by his ever expanding lists of beers.

Cheers
Neil Miller 

Beer Writer
Real Beer New Zealand

Beer and Brewer Magazine

Links

Epic Beer – WWW.EPICBEER.COM

Dogfish Head – WWW.DOGFISH.COM

Malthouse Facebook -WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/PAGES/MALTHOUSE/7084276173

Malthouse Twitter – WWW.TWITTER.COM/#!/MALTHOUSE

Malthouse Taps on Twitter – WWW.TWITTER.COM/#!/MALTHOUSETAPS

Neil Miller on Twitter – WWW.TWITTER.COM/#BEERLYTWEETING

Real Beer – WWW.REALBEER.CO.NZ 

Beer and Brewer Magazine - WWW.BEERANDBREWER.COM/ 

From the Untappd Blog

Epic Photo Contest

In March, we want to push your creative spirit and to do so we will be having another photo contest! However, this contest however will be much more epic.

Starting March 1st, we will be teaming up with our friends from New Zealand, Epic Brewing, to give away 5 Epic shirts a week for the entire month to the most creative photos uploaded to Untappd!

We chatted with the guys from New Brew Thursday about Epic’s latest creation, LARGER as well as the upcoming content! Head over and take a look!

        
To be entered, check-in to any Epic beer and attach a creative photo of you and your Epic. Be sure to be creative, though please keep it within the rules of our photo policy. Each week in March, Epic will pick their 5 favorite photos and we will announce those winners the following week. This contest is open to our entire community - wherever you can find Epic beer - as Epic has been kind enough to handle fulfillment. You can enter as many times as you want, but you can only win once.

Be sure to keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook as on March 1st, we will be launching a special page where you can view all of the photos being uploaded for the contest!

Details: This contest is open to all users. You may enter as many times as you want, but may only win once. Your shirt will be coming directly from Epic Brewing in NZ. Winners will be selected by Epic.

I’ve spoken before about how beer can change over the years. I don’t really know a lot of brewers who develop a beer recipe and then stick with that exact recipe forever without ever taking into consideration any changes with raw materials. Maybe they do exist and I’d be curious if anyone out there knows of any brewers who adopt the “one recipe forever” philosophy.

My time in the world of beer has definitely taught me a thing or two about recipe development and the importance of raw material selection. Taking cues from what nature provides us means that we have to bend and twist our recipes and processes to be able to continue producing the beer that we have in our mind’s eye. I love the first sniff of a new season hops and the way that the brain takes that combination of aromas and builds a convoluted pathway that slowly morphs into how those wonderful smells will translate into a finished beer.

The same goes with the rush of saliva that accompanies that mouthful of dry, crisp biscuity malted barley. Almost as if those enzymes want to begin smashing up all of the starch granules the minute they hit your tongue (did you know that one of our salivary enzymes and one of the enzymes responsible for breaking starch down into more simple sugars in barley – amylase – are forms of the same enzyme?).

When it comes to a beer like Epic Pale Ale, we are constantly aware of the ingredients that we use. This beer uses only one hop variety, Cascade from the USA and because it is reliant on this for all of it’s hop character and bitterness, we find ourselves engaged in a month-by-month repartee with this enigmatic flower. The thing with hops is that they change. The changes may be subtle and impossible for most to detect from batch to batch, but they nonetheless occur. Whether it is the usual seasonal variation that occurs with almost every plant due to things such as rainfall, ambient temperature, the mineral content of soil or even external attacks on the plant from pests or diseases weakening the bine.

The other things to take into consideration include storage conditions of the finished hops and the hop chemistry of the varietals you are using in a brew. Let’s have a little look at hop storage. Alpha acids, the group of compounds known as humulones are responsible for the bitterness of a beer once boiled. They’re not the most stable of compounds meaning that after harvest, these alpha acid levels begin to fall and this can be exacerbated by storage temperature and the way in which they are stored. Different varieties tend to store differently with some seeming to lose more of their bittering potential over time. Hop aromatics can also change during storage, with some decreasing and others actually increasing in aroma potential.

In our experience, US Cascade has tended to throw out a hint more grapefruit peel as it ages and the wonderful rosewater/Turkish Delight note that I instantly recognise as one of the main characteristics of Epic Pale Ale tends to dissipate slightly over storage. We store our hops at 1-2°C and because there is only one harvest per year, we have to be very aware of these changes, responding to them as soon as we can. There is a brilliant table in the book by Ray Daniels, Designing Great Beers, that shows figures from analysis of alpha acids in US Cascade after one year storage at varying temperatures. At 20°C, only 35% of the total alpha acids remain in the hop, at 1°C, 65% of the alpha acids remain, at -7°C, 74% remain and at -15°C, 81% remain.

My advice? Keep your bittering hops in the freezer if you can!

Our malted barley is another area in which we find it necessary to step in and alter the process when necessary. Using malts from as far away as the United Kingdom and Germany in our Pale Ale means that sometimes we may need to change our maltster based on what our malt importer can get in. With a change of maltster can sometimes come a change in malt characteristics. For example, going from Baird’s Caramalt to Thomas Fawcett Caramalt may mean there are slight alterations in malt flavour and colour contributions due to the degree of crystallisation or caramelisation during the kilning process. This has to be addressed as it happens so that we can maintain consistent colour and flavour in our beer. Sometimes however, it’s important to play a little and experiment with grist bills (and hopping rates) to ensure you can get the best results possible from your ingredients. If you can potentially make your beer taste better, then there’s only one choice really!

Which brings me to 2012 and our Epic Pale Ale. We’re patiently waiting for our new shipment of US Cascade hops to be packed up and shipped off, so there are a few months until the new season’s stuff arrives. When it does, this will see more reformulation as we look at blending the remainder of last season’s hops with the new hops resulting in tasty awesomeness (this is a technical term…). Our rebooted Pale Ale has had a few tweaks to it’s malt bill as well as an emphasis on bitterness from late/aroma hopping in the whirlpool and a bit of an increase in our dry hopping rate. Well, a bit more than “a bit”… we’ve increased the dry hop by a third!

1. Kelly Ryan
What an amazing addition to the Epic team. Not only has Kelly expanded the knowledge base, and abilities of Epic, but it has been amazing fun to brew with him, create new beers with him, as well as travel around the country and do beer launches, over the last year.

2. Hop Zombie
We pushed the envelope again. Hop Zombie - New Zealand's Hoppiest Beer. What an unbelievable beer, initially brewed for ourselves to drink, and given a funny name, it has become an incredible overnight success. Unfortunately there are a couple of hop varieties we use from the US which we are unable to secure supply for till the 2012 harvest, which means we are unlikely to have another batch out before January 2013 :-( (It even gave rise to a new Tshirt, which is now highly sought after.)

3. AS SEEN ON TV
In 2011 finally we saw the episode from Discovery Channel - "Brew Masters" series - on the making of the Portamarillo with Dogfish Head, which screened on TV's around the globe . Also Epic was featured on TV3's - What's Really In Our Food - Beer episode

4. NZ Craft Beer TV
Kelly and I took to the road in a campervan and visited most of the brewers in New Zealand. 17 days on the road we travelled 4500kms, tasted 222 beers and visited 44 breweries. Getting all of this on film we ultimately work with each brewery to come up with a beer (Mash Up) that represented the taste of craft beer in NZ in 2011.

5. Best IPA in New Zealand
Best IPA in New Zealand for the 3^rd year in a row - Epic Armageddon IPA. Winning Gold and Best in Class trophy at the New Zealand Beer Awards 2011. 

6. Flying Nun 30 Year Ale
What an honour! In the tradition of brewing a beer for their significant anniversaries, the iconic independent record label Flying Nun asked us to make a special brew to celebrate their 30th anniversary. The beer was available during the month of "Nunvember" around the country and at the special gigs held around the country - 30 gigs in 30 days.

7. Champion Media Brew - Beervana
The origination of the much loved Coffee & Fig Stout was at our ePICO brewery. Brewed for the Beervana Media Brew Challenge with Victoria Wells, editor of DISH magazine. We brewed 20 litres of what was originally called Collision. We liked it so much (and after winning the award) we brewed 5000 litres, bottled it in 750ml wine style bottles under the "Epicurean" label and released it just in time for Christmas.

8. Twitter Reaches 10,000 Followers
We stared 2011 with 7300 followers and ended with over 10400. As the first brewery in the world to use Twitter (March 2007) I still today use it as EpicBeer's first means of communicating to the world. If you want to see the latest pictures, what we are brewing, drinking, and thinking, than follow us here to be first to know.

9. NZ's Best Value Beer - Epic Pale Ale
Epic Pale Ale - NZ's Best Value Beer Joel MacFarlane of Brew Nation, come up with a formula to work out what quality of beer you got for what price. It was kind of scientific but ended up showing that for the price you can't bet Epic Pale Ale for the quality and flavour in the bottle (actually 4 pack) 

10. Four Horsemen Collaboration
Four Horsemen of the Hopocalyse – what an amazing collaboration with four of the most hop driven brewers in New Zealand. Joseph Wood from Liberty Brewing, Steve Plowman from Hallertau, Kelly Ryan and myself from Epic. Could you add anymore hops to one beer? 

So looking back at 2011, we created some fantastic new beers, won some more top awards, and did a couple rock star style beer launches (for Hop Zombie and LARGER) across New Zealand & Australia.

Not sure how we are going to top 2011, but we have a few ideas up our sleeves.

Thank you for your wonderful support during the year, and look forward to having a beer with you in 2012.

Happy New Year

Luke Nicholas
Epic Brewing Company 

Me: “No, I didn’t. It’s Larger. It’s like a lager, but it’s bigger.”

Person Number 1: “Oooooh, I see what you did there!”

Me: “Yes, yes you did and I am funny.”

Person Number 1: “No, you’re not. Puns are never funny.”

Me: “I’ll have to agree with you. They’re not funny… they’re punny.”

Person Number 1: <Punches Kelly>

Me: “Ouch. Did you just punch me because that action includes the word, pun?”

I was going to leave this blogpost at the above conversation, but thought the avid readers out there would want a little more information about our new beer, Larger and were less concerned at the fact that someone hit me for using puns. So, I’ll do what I always do and tell you a little story about how this beer came to be.

Our pretty new label!

Often here at Epic we get enquiries via email asking what beers we have, sometimes it may even be a sales order and sometimes, there are spelling mistakes. It’s most likely that the word that is spelt wrong is lager, where an erroneous “R” makes it’s way in. So, it made sense that if we were going to brew a big Pilsner-style beer, that we would annoy everyone out there and call it Larger.  This now means we’re likely to get a load of people ordering the wrong beer at bars, bottle-stores getting confused and generally, a bunch of folk being miffed at us. Which is why it meant we had to make this beer taste awesome enough, that people wouldn’t worry about it’s slightly frustrating name.

So how does one go about doing this? I’ll be honest. My lager-brewing skills are somewhat limited. Sure, the first two years of my brewing career were spent with DB Breweries, pumping out hectolitre upon hectolitre of bottom-fermented lager-style beers and in my time at Thornbridge, we worked together with Birrificio Italiano and brewed a Pilsener called Italia. Here at Epic we brew our nice dry-hopped Epic Lager, but apart from that, my knowledge was sparse. The best thing to do in such a situation is taste beers similar to what you want to brew and read as much as you can about the brewing techniques.

Thornbridge Italia (courtesy of Leigh from goodpeopleeats.blogspot.com)

If we bounce back a bit to February 23rd of this year... Myself, Luke from Epic and a very important chap who ferries super-fresh bottles of beer from the USA to our own doorsteps, Dave "The Beer Mule" Summergreene sat down and tried a Port Brewing Panzer Imperial Pilsner. It had a big, rich malt backbone, quite sweet in character with a touch of caramel to help fight back against the huge noble hop character. It was big, bitter, balanced and beautiful. We were all super-impressed with the brew and pretty much decided there and then, that we wanted to do an Epic Imperial Pilsner at some stage. Dave had met Julian Shrago, Head Brewer and Owner of Beachwood BBQ Brewery in Long Beach whilst in Los Angeles and put me in contact with him. Julian had originally been a US National Homebrew champion with one of his IPAs. Obviously knowing his hops extremely well he then teamed up with the Port Brewing crew and they brewed the Panzer Imperial Pilsner as a collaboration. Julian told me how he'd been inspired by the Samuel Adams Imperial Pilsner back in 2003 and based on his knowledge of Double IPAs, went about creating the brew based on big hopping rates, but went with German Pilsner malt, German hops and a German Lager yeast strain. With that advice on board, we began thinking of a recipe...

Our inspiration! (Pic courtesy of fullpint.com)

April rolled around and The Beer Mule arrived with another selection of fine beers. We sipped our way through Uinta Brewing Company's Tilted Smile and Karl Strauss Brewing Company's Whistler Imperial Pils. I remembered back to a year before, drinking an Odell Double Pilsner that Doug had delivered to Thornbridge when working on a collaboration with us. They were all great beers and had seemingly taken the Double/Imperial IPA model and modified it with the use of cool fermentation, bottom-fermenting lager yeast strains and a big whack of hops more typically indicative of German and Bohemian Pilsner/Pilseners.

It was time to develop the recipe. We contacted Wyeast to discuss the possibility of getting a decent amount of Bohemian Lager Yeast sent over for us to grow up in a batch of our Epic Lager. We usually use California Lager Yeast in Epic Lager and were really interested to see how this strain would effect the flavour profile in this beer, as well as it being an essential part of the process in which we got a pitchable quantity of yeast for the Imperial Pilsner. The Bohemian Lager Yeastbrewed Lager showed a slightly cleaner, crisper finish, a touch more bitterness and the tiniest amount of sulphur throughout fermentation. Although it was a longer fermentation and maturation with this yeast than it was with the Californian Lager strain, I was personally impressed with the characters that this yeast had brought to the beer. It probably wasn't enough to make a considerable difference to the overall character of Epic Lager, but it exhibited characteristics that we knew would be perfect with our Imperial Pilsner.

The wonderfully fragrant, and lightly biscuity Pilsner Malt

For the grist, we decided on Weyermann Pilsener malt as our base. We wanted a nice, clean malt grain character and the German malt was perfect for this. It makes up part of our grist in the original Epic Lager (along with Bohemian Pilsener malt), so we knew how it behaved in a brew and were pretty pleased with it's flavour profile. The aim for this beer was to hit around 8.5% alcohol by volume with an Original Gravity of 1.077 and a Final Gravity of 1.012-1.013. This would mean we'd need some good attenuation from the yeast to get the beer as dry and clean as we wanted it. I was nervous about this... the last thing we wanted was an underattenuated strong lager!

The bitterness we were aiming for was quite high at 70 IBUs, but this was tempered by the fact that we chose one of my favourite bittering hops, Pacific Jade. This hop exhibits an intense Noble hop character in that it is very low in a hop alpha acid called Cohumulone. This alpha acid is often responsible for a harsh bitterness, so a low level can give a softer perceived bitterness in the finished beer and in my opinion, Pacific Jade is one of the best at giving a well-utilised, soft, clean bitterness.

This little guy helps us with some nice, soft bitterness at low levels

Pacific Jade was paired throughout the brew with three hops of German parentage. Liberty and Santiam, both grown in the US and the hops used in our Epic Lager, were used liberally throughout the flavouring and aroma additions, their Hallertau ancestry lending well to the character we were after in this brew. These were joined by US Tettnang, another of the noble hop varieties and finally finished off with some Kiwi-grown Kohatu. The blending of US and NZ hops had worked well for us in our earlier Hop Zombie, so it made sense to do something similar with Larger. The plan was also to do a massive dry-hop with Larger, using Liberty, Santiam, US Tettnang and Kohatu over a number of dry hops based on how the flavour of the beer was progressing during the lagering process.

When it came to water chemistry and the mash regime, it was all down to compromise and trying to coax as many fermentables as possible from the grains. The temperature-stepped mash started low to really work the maltase, peptidase and β-glucanase enzymes and this was followed by an increase to push the proteases and β-amylases. The majority of the mash rest was done at 66°C to favour α-amylase activity and limit dextrin content. The grist itself was mashed quite thin, emulating the type of liquor:grist ratio that is used in continental decoction mashing (even though this was solely infusion). This thinner grist was chosen as it helps to aid amylase heat resistance at the water mineral content we were looking at using. Because Auckland water is very soft (in fact it is quite similar to the water profile of Plzen), it was decided to use only a small amount of Calcium Sulphate in this beer. The lower calcium concentration was part of the reason a thin grist was used and hopefully the low level sulphate ions would bring some crispness and dryness to the finish.

Just like the blog before this one, we now wait for our beer to be finished. It is sitting patiently in tank, exactly one month from brewday today and developing the flavours that we want. It's slowly picking up the aromatics from the massive amount of dry-hopping. The finish and bitterness are exactly where we wanted them, the lower alpha acid hops are working in a different way than the big high-alpha beasts we used in Hop Zombie, providing us with something big, yet refined. The body is perfect, nice and light and summery, which is convenient considering this is to act as our Christmas release beer from now onwards!

Less than a month to go...

Our keg tap badge... who will be the lucky recipients of our small number of kegs??

Cheers,

Kelly

Our latest beer has been a six month labour of love, and that was just us getting to brew day! Not all brews have this much time and energy invested into them, but this one has been fun, had a lot of challenges and will hopefully be a great beer.

Back at Thornbridge, I worked with Simon Bower of Pollards Coffee and we developed a scrumptious Coffee Milk Stout with a blend of beans. I’m a massive coffee fan, so it was a fun project and involved lots of coffee bean steeping trials as well as some labour intensive lactose dissolution (thanks to James Kemp of Buxton Brewery for that!). Lactose is not a big fan of dissolving in water, but as JK found out, stirring will get you there eventually  The resulting beer turned out exactly as hoped, it was like drinking a cool, slightly alcoholic pint of slightly sweet coffee, replete with crema on top (the joys of handpulled cask-conditioned ale).

Coffee plus Stout plus Lactose equals Pollards

With that experience in mind, I thought it would be pretty cool to work with a New Zealand coffee roastery and sent out a few emails to the New Zealand Coffee Roasters Association, who then put me in touch with Jess Godfrey from Caffe L’affare, a roastery based in Wellington. She was really excited about the concept and so began the process of choosing the beans that had the characteristics we were looking for. I was sent some analysis sheets from the roasters at L’affare, Kerry and Dan and went through their cupping notes. Cupping is the process in which the flavour and aroma characteristics of the roasted, ground beans are ascertained and involves weighing a set amount of ground beans, placing with hot water and going through a series of sensory analyses. But more about that later…

The initial samples that Caffe L’affare sent us were Guatemalan Asobagri, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, Ethiopian Sidamo, Colombian Pitalito Huila, Brazilian Monte Alegre and Honduran. Sample bags were cracked open in our office and we nosed through them all. The way of using the beans in the brew meant we were looking for aromatics more than anything else. The roaster’s tasting notes described fragrance, aroma, sweetness, acidity and flavour amongst others, so we looked at our notes and compared them to theirs. There were a couple of beans in particular that really stood out for us and they were both from Ethiopia – the Sidamo and Yirgacheffe and they both exhibited a dominant citrus character, with a subtle floral background. The only way to really know for sure that the character would work in a beer though was to brew one.

As luck would have it, Epic was due to take part in the Beervana Media Brew Challenge in which brewers were paired off with media pundits from around New Zealand. We were paired with Victoria Wells, Editor of Dish magazine, whilst other brewers were paired with the following; Writer Haydn Green and Paul Croucher of Croucher’s (Rotorua); radio broadcast journalist Sean Plunket and Carl Vasta of Tuatara; Simon Morton of Radio NZ’s This Way Up and Stu McKinlay of Yeastie Boys (Wellington); Lucas de Jong of TVNZ Breakfast and Pete Gillespie of The Garage Project (a Wellington brewery launching this week); Geoff Griggs, beer writer, and Soren Eriksen of 8 Wired (Blenheim); Matt Markham of The Press and Ralph Bungard of Three Boys (Christchurch) and Michael Donaldson of Sunday Star Times with Richard Emerson of Emerson’s (Dunedin).

Victoria came along for the day to brew with us on our little ePicobrewery set up and we decided to mix things up a bit and use some Turkish Figs in the boil. Initially just a fun idea, we realised that these were gonna add some interesting character to the brew. To get as much character as possible out of the figs, I caramelised them up with some of the Stout wort, which resulted in a sticky, delicious mess, and internalised vocalisations of that “Now, bring us some figgy pudding” song. Probably lucky for Victoria and Luke that I internalised them, to be honest.

The stout itself was a blend of malts. The Malt of Champions, Maris Otter made up the bulk of the grist and was accompanied by it’s good friend, Mr. Oat Malt and a few of their ragtag bunch o’ friends, namely Mike Melanoidin, Andrew Abbey, Chris CaraAroma, Carol CaraAmber…

At this point in time, my great idea of personifying malt types as if they were members of a motley Munch Bunch instantly faded into oblivion. It just didn’t seem to work at all. Damn it. The other malts we used were Black, Pale Chocolate, Chocolate and Roast Barley.

Corky Coconut... a fitting Munch Bunch character for this beer, I think...

This was quite a complex grist, but in the back of my mind, I always ponder the legs of a stout. If it’s gonna be a bit on the strong side and you can get the grist just right, then you’re going to have something that will reward you over time as it matures away in the bottle. The chunky, intense CaraAmber and CaraAroma were there to provide some body and some ageing potential… Initially, these malts can come across slightly intense with a roasted bitterness, especially when combined with the other dark malts in the beer, but as the beer ages away (somewhere cool and dark, not on your windowsill in the kitchen!), they push out complexity, they soften and they open up a world of new flavours. I love the darker malts for these exact reasons. They are like inverted assassins… hiding in the wilderness, being patient, then all of a sudden leaping out and unkilling a bunch of great flavours.

The water for the mash has also been treated with Calcium sulphate (gypsum) and Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). The Auckland water is quite soft and it was important to get this right. Calcium is important for some of the enzymes that work away during the mash rest, helping to reduce the pH and providing some heat stability to the amylases responsible for breaking up the starch molecules. It’s also important for a bunch of other things… pH stabilisation, protein coagulation and bitterness extraction in the boil and even yeast flocculation. The sulphate ions are important for a bit of crispness and dryness in a beer. Because of the smooth character that the oat malt provides, coupled with the slightly high finishing gravity of this beer, these were important to create a balance that shifted the beer into the realm of drinkability (well, sippability really… this is 8% alcohol!!).

The bicarbonate ions actually do the opposite of the calcium ions and increase the pH. This helps reduce the acidic, harsh compounds that dark malts have, meaning the resulting character from these malts will be more palatable. The sodium ions actually give an impression of sweetness, so again would help with the balance of drinkability. Brewing is the art of compromise and begins with your water. Always something to keep in mind when developing a recipe.

Every brew needs a montage. This is no exception... Media Brew Challenge Brewday!!!

Back to the brew… Victoria, Luke and I brewed up a storm and I ended up adding whole beans to the finished wort. We chose the Caffe L’affare Ethiopian Sidamo bean as our first trial bean, impressed as we were by their vibrant aroma. The fermentation went to plan, I toasted up some coconut in the oven and added some of this to the fermenter prior to it going into the fridge for a period of cold conditioning. The beer was then bottle conditioned and off it went to the Beervana Media Brew Challenge. Collision (as we had named it then) cleaned up the competition with an awesome 41/45 score. We knew we were on to a winner!

Our magical fermentation cellar... Well, actually our Epic HQ office and an oil heater...

But it could be better… Whilst in Wellington, we caught up with the Caffe L’affare crew and spent a few hours with them at the roastery. We cupped a bunch of different beans, discussed their characters and had a look around the roastery with roasters Kerry and Dan. It was amazing to talk shop with them, discuss different coffee bean varietals, processing techniques and the amazing myriad of aromas and flavours that the humble bean could provide. The cupping did prove one thing to us… our choice of the Ethiopian Sidamo bean was a fine one. Even during the cupping process, this bean exhibited the characters we were after… citrus, zesty and subtle floral touch. Kerry and Dan explained to us that they could get this bean in two different forms, either Dry Process or Wet Process…

There are many arguments of the merits of the processing method on the character of the beans, but these tend to depend which country the beans are from. Generally, it could be said that wet processing is the more modern method where the fruit is removed from the bean prior to drying. The smaller parts of the fruit mucilage can be removed either by a short fermentation process or by mechanically scrubbing the clinging flesh from the beans prior to drying, yielding a bean with higher acidity and a cleaner, brighter, more fruity character. Dry processing is the more traditional approach where the whole bean, fruit covering and all is dried in the sun to the appropriate moisture content, prior to machine de-hulling, which removes the dried flesh. This results in a bean that can be more heavy in body, with more smoothness and complexity.

Getting ready for some Cupping action at Caffe L'Affare's roastery in Wellington

There could be only one thing to do… trial the Wet Process Ethiopian Sidamo against the Dry Process Sidamo and see which gave us a better aroma. This next set of trial brews, saw the beans been added at the end of fermentation (along with the coconut) as this was the method that would likely be used if we were to upscale the recipe. The beers were eventually bottled after an extended cold maturation, we waited for refermentation to occur and tried the two. Both beans were great, but the wet process edged it. It had more intensity, a little more chocolate, cleaner fruit characters and made our decision easy. We had ourselves a bean for the job!

Meanwhile, all other details that involve getting a beer from idea to package were going on. We were working with our suppliers to get a new 750 mL Amber bottle to put this baby in. We were working with our design company on an awesome new label design and concept for a range of beers that would be a little quirky. Steam Brewery (where we brew our beers) were working hard getting their packaging line sorted so that they could take these bottles, bottle cases were designed and ordered… the machinations and the associated bouts of temporary insanity that these entail were clanking and grinding away, culminating in our big brewday!

The day before, I spent a few hours patiently caramelising figs and the barbeque burner in our warehouse. 30 kilograms, done in batches until the plump, sweet figs (Lerida variety from Turkey) began to push out the tiniest wisps of rich, dark caramel… I’d sit there, mesmerised by the bubbling fruit until a bubble would burst from their surface, a plume of steam and toffee smoke letting me know that it was time for the next batch to go in.

A behemoth lump of diced, caramelised figs... hardly looks like a couple of hours work!

Everything went as planned, Luke, myself and Steam brewmaster Shane Morley went to work and teased some deep, dark rich wort from the assembled grains and soft Auckland water. Lashings of Cascade hops were dumped into the brew – the perfect companion to the citrus/floral Sidamo bean that was to be later used. The biggest challenge though was the figs… we lowered them into the boil, loosely wrapped in muslin and tied to some stainless steel wire. The boiling wort weaved its magic, sucking out the fruit and caramel goodness, a bit of homeopathic fig memory now in every bottle (and no, I don’t believe in homeopathy and you should all read Ben Goldacre‘s Bad Science.

We let the Wyeast American Ale Yeast II munch up all the goodness for 6 days before the beer went on to chill. The stout was tasting great… deep brown in hue with a silky. medium body and deep, roast flavours. Hints of char and dark, alcohol-steeped fruits… a touch of flavour that reminded me of those small dried-up raisins… the runts of the litter that sit there all shrivelled and lost at the bottom of your bag of mixed fruit and nuts… the last currant that no one wants because it looks over-dried but is actually rich and sweet and deep in flavour. Yeah, I got some of that character as well…

If I had some buttons, a carrot and a scarf, I could have made a Coffee-Bean Man!

The assorted speciality grains had done their trick, the complexity, the wisps of leather and roasted astringency, the intensity was perfect, exactly as it had come across in our trials. The mild Cascade bitterness integrated well with the smoothness that the oats had supplied. Happy? Yes!

Thirty kilograms of freshly roasted coffee beans from Caffe L’affare and eleven kilos of toasted coconut were the next editions. Stainless steel wire and d-clamps were sanitised, muslin bags steeped in peroxyacetic acid to sanitise, then rinsed with hot water… bags hygienically loaded with lots of beans and coconut and we were ready to place them in the tank. Shane from Steam had organised for a couple of eyes to be welded onto the inside of the fermentor for us, so everything was securely fastened and it was “Bombs Away” as the fragrant packages were sent to their demise in the freshly fermented brew. It was important for us to have a system where we could remove the coffee and coconut either together or independently once the flavour in the conditioning tank was where we want it, so this will hopefully do the trick.

Now is the tough part. We wait for the water and alcohol solubilisation of all of the wonderful flavours and aromatics from the coffee and coconut. The coffee will come to the fore, ideal for when the beer is fresh. The coconut will linger in the background… It’s there to bind flavours together, to act like those wonderful American Oak lactones that shout Vanilla and Coconut swear words at you as they travel down your gullet. The figs are quiet… dark and silent and lurking until the beer begins to show some age. It’s here where the synergistic relationship with the roasted malts brings forward some vinous notes.

I hate waiting…

Kelly

 Our pretty new label :)

Following on from ROGERS RUIN and RED SKY, EPIC beer have brewed a celebration beer for the Flying Nun 30^th Anniversary.

It doesn’t hurt that the combined number of years that the Epic Brewing Company team have been playing around with ales and lagers also numbers thirty. It also doesn’t hurt when you get to develop a brew for a company that has provided soundtrack through the years in breweries up and down the country either!

“There’s no point us deviating from one of our favourite styles of beer,” says Epic Beer frontman, Luke Nicholas. “Epic began with an American style Pale Ale and it seemed logical for us to brew this style of beer for the 30th celebration. We wanted to create something that will hopefully open the eyes of people who are yet to try this style of beer, yet stay true to the Epic motto of adding more hops.”

The resulting beer pours golden in colour with an aroma similar to lychees, grapefruit peel and Turkish Delight. “This beer is about sipping and enjoying,” says Epic Operations Manager and roadie, Kelly Ryan. “We wanted to develop something that oozed drinkability, lacked the massive bitterness that can sometimes scare people away from a good pale ale, yet deliver as best as it could when it came to hop aromatics and flavours.”

Meanwhile, Auckland-based artist and illustrator, Henrietta Harris developed the new Flying Nun 30th Anniversary logo and with the work of Epic’s design team, the LP beer label was created making Flying Nun’s 30 Year Ale one that should be proudly sipped as the nights get longer and the sounds from the likes of The Clean, The Bats and HDU flow through the stereo.

EPIC BEER’S - FLYING NUN 30 YEAR ALE now available at selected stores and at venues hosting the 30^th Anniversary shows around the country. 

www.flyingnun.co.nz

Photo: Norm Blyton

British brewers created the IPA (India Pale Ale) originally as a pale ale style in the eighteen century to satisfy the demands of their countrymen living in India. The long trip from England to India, around the Cape of Good Hope emulated the cellaring that used to occur with such beers, resulting in increased depth of flavour and maturity. Doubling the amount of hops (a natural preservative) resulted in a hoppy, high-alcohol (in those days 6.5-7%) beer we know today as IPA.

In 2009, curious about how the long sea voyage in barrels would affect a beer, Epic’s Luke Nicholas put 40 litres of his Armageddon IPA into two oak barrels and sat them on the Interislander ferry for six weeks as it made it’s way back and forth across the choppy Cook Strait. The resulting beer proved so popular that Luke made another larger batch - and another and another.

Each time the beer has turned out slightly differently, reacting to the diverse barrels to give various flavours. This year Epic used new American oak barrels and aged the beer for three months, as opposed to two months for the 2010 vintage. Some fresh Armageddon was also blended with the barrel-aged ale, resulting in a beer in which the large vanilla oak character is balanced by the fresh hops. Mandarin, orange oil and cedar are evident in the palate as well. Barrel-Aged IPA is the perfect accompaniment for a creamy blue cheese.

The 2010 Barrel-Aged IPA picked up a Gold Medal and a Best in Class trophy at last year's Brewers Guild of New Zealand Awards and has picked up a Silver Medal this year. Armageddon IPA also picked up a Gold Medal and a Best in Class trophy at the 2011 awards.

Epic Barrel-Aged IPA will be available in bars and retail outlets around the country. For more information, please contact Epic Brewing Co on 0800 212 337 or email orders@epicbeer.com

Epic Brewing Co. has again received top honours at the 2011 BrewNZ Beer Awards. At the awards dinner on Thursday night, Epic Armageddon IPA won Trophy in the US Ale Style class, an honour it has received every year since its launch. Epic also received Silver medals for their Lager, Pale Ale and Oak-Aged Stout, and Bronzes for the Barrel-Aged IPA and Stout, showing they are still the master of hop-fueled beers. 

Epic has a history of success at the awards, wowing the judges with their hoppy creations. In 2006, the first year Epic submitted entries, Epic Pale Ale won Supreme Beer, an amazing achievement for a new brewery. Since then, the Pale Ale has medalled every year, with Epic Mayhem and Lager also taking top honours, in addition to the on-going success of Armageddon.

Kelly Ryan, Master of Brewing at Epic Brewing Co, credits their success with their uncompromising attitude to flavour. ‘It is essential to never compromise when it comes to the quality of ingredients in creating massive flavours,’ he says. 'And it's great to be rewarded for doing so.'

In light of this recent success, Epic is also happy to announce that their latest batch of Barrel-Aged IPA will go on sale this week. Available from bottle stores and supermarkets around the country, this new batch of Barrel-Aged IPA has delicate vanilla oak flavours and a burst of fresh mandarin.