Skippy The Hoppy Porter

My original plan was to make a smooth chocolate stout, hopped only with Fuggles. I have stated the ingredients elsewhere, and so after three weeks of sitting in the bottles I decided to try both variants next to each other, and I decided that given the absence of unmalted roast barley, this would be designated a porter rather than a stout.

The first bottle was the weaker of the two variants, and on opening it gushed like a volcano. So much so that I lost about two thirds of the bottle before it stopped – thankfully I opened the bottle in the sink and didn’t make a great mess of the kitchen floor, as you can see in the video at the foot of this post (sorry it is sideways), unlike the bottle of the stronger version I tried with Evan last week.

Boy is this stuff dark, absolutely no light could make its way through the glass, and the head very quickly disappeared. The nose was exactly what I wanted, lots of caramel, burnt sugar and chocolate, with a noticeable grassiness to it as well. In the mouth, however, I was disappointed – where I had wanted something smoothly sweet, I now had a slight sour edge, which Mrs. Velkyal described as “metallic”. The hops though were very noticeable, and I think I over-hopped for sure – there were 4 additions, 25g with 60 minutes to go, 10 with 30, 10 with 15 and 5 with 3.

The second and the stronger of the two had the same colour profile but this time the brown head stayed a bit longer. The nose was again just what I wanted, and this time the smokiness I had aimed for was lingering in the background. I think the extra malt in this version balanced out the hops far better than the previous version, and so made it quite a nice, though hoppy, porter, with a slightly burnt taste to it. This was the version I shared with Evan last week, and he was most complimentary about it, so I will continue to work on the recipe, having said that I could perhaps create a new style American Imperial Porter, with a hefty hop dose as well as more malt?

It will be about 7 weeks now before I get to brew again and I am already getting itchy fingers to do something. I have even spent time working out a brewing calendar for my homebrew and if I stick with that the next beer will be an Irish Red Ale, just in time for my first autumn in Virginia - sorry guys, it may take some time for autumn to become the Fall – my inner theologian has images of Adam and Eve discovering sin when I hear that term.

Pilsner? Really?

Pilsner is one of the few beer styles to have a clearly defined birthday, the first ever glass of this golden lager was served in Plzeň on November 11th 1842 and soon gave birth to a multitude of imitations around the world. In the Czech lands however, Pilsner style beers eventually came to mean the vast majority of beer from Bohemia and Moravia. Thus any brewer which makes a “pilsner” lager will be judged next to the standards set by Josef Groll and subsequent makers of golden lager in the Czech lands.

When I received a bottle of BrewDog’s 77 Lager along with the production versions of Zeitgeist and Chaos Theory I knew I wanted to compare it to a couple of Czech lagers, in this case Budvar and Žamberecký Kanec. I choose Budvar because of the major Czech lager brewers they still use all malt and whole hops, rather than the somewhat ambiguous ingredient in Pilsner Urquell, “hop products”, Kanec because it is a small artisan brewer, and the BrewDog label calls 77 Lager a “artisan rebel lager”.

In an effort to be as fair minded as possible I decided to do the tasting blind, and so had Mrs Velkyal bring me each glass of beer individually without telling me what was what, here are my thoughts on each beer:

Beer A

• Sight – pale golden, firm white head
  
• Smell – quite malty, touch of smoke, a bit grainy – like Weetabix
  
• Taste – nicely balanced, light caramel
  
• Sweet – 2/5
  
• Bitter – 2/5
  

I thought this beer was medium bodied, and had slight touches of banana, however it was refreshing.

Beer B

• Sight – golden with a white head
  
• Smell – not much going one, some grass and citrus notes
  
• Taste – gentle sweetness up front, but delicately bitter aftertaste
  
• Sweet – 2/5
  
• Bitter – 1/5
  

Again a pleasantly refreshing beer.

Beer C

• Sight – light amber with a smallish head
  
• Smell – heavy on the citrus, grapefruit in particular – American C hops?
  
• Taste – citrus in your face with malty undertones
  
• Sweet - 1.5/5
  
• Bitter – 3/5
  

This was clearly not a pilsner style lager, more like an IPA. As Mrs Velkyal commented on smelling it “no Czech beer smells like that”.

From the tasting I guessed that the beers were as follows:

• A – Kanec
  
• B – Budvar
  
• C – BrewDog 99 Lager (not really a guess after smelling it)
  

I identified all three correctly, and while I enjoyed them all in their own right when it comes to being a Czech style pilsner lager, the BrewDog version was never in the running. It simply isn’t a pilsner beer despite claims to the contrary on the label. Of the other two, I enjoyed them very much, and they are both in the Bohemian tradition, but the one I would choose to drink regularly is the Budvar, which has long been my favourite mass produced Czech lager and thus my first task in Charlottesville is to find a regular supply of Czechvar as our American friends call it.

For a comparison of 77 Lager with German style pilsners, see Adeptus' thoughts over on The Bitten Bullet.

Integrity?

Here’s a thing which may surprise one or two of you, I studied to be a minister of religion, which meant 3 years of church history, theology, ethics and my favourite subject, hermeneutics. One of the themes raised time and again in college was how to maintain your integrity within the community you work with? It is something I think about quite often with regard to my blogging activity, in particular how not to compromise my freedom to say what is on my mind?

That is one of the reasons why Fuggled is a paid advertising free zone, and I realize that on my blog I regularly and openly advertise people’s products, whether I have enjoyed them or not, though I wonder how many people have rushed out to try Gambrinus Excelent on the basis of me saying it isn’t terrible?

Neither do I give myself the title of a beer expert, which is such a relative term anyway as to be almost meaningless. Within one group of my friends I am the most knowledgeable about beer, within yet another group I spend most of my time listening and learning something new, whether about styles or flavours to expect from a given beer.

Perhaps when Mrs V and I are in the States I will do the beer judge course and take my knowledge to a higher level – that sounds esoteric and poncey - but until then I am just a bloke who loves beer, home brewing and writing (something I hope I am half decent at).

Picture Time...again

Kanec Imperial Stout and a couple of bottles of their lager, tasting notes coming soon....

6 English ales for tasting

6 English ales after tasting

A sampler tray in Brauhaus Lemke, Berlin

Primator Stout, all back to front

On Reflection

As I have mentioned before, I was disappointed by the Czech Beer Festival, even though Mrs Velkyal and I stayed for about 8 hours on the day we were there. The experience of the festival and the parallel event held at Zlý Časy got me to thinking about my expectations of a beer festival, and how that differs from going to a pub with a wide range of beers available.

As I said in my post about the Czech Beer Festival, one of the things I would like to have seen would have been special beers made exclusively for the festival. As it was, not one of the breweries at the event felt the need to stand out from the crowd by doing something outside their usual line up, so thank goodness for the ales from Primátor. Perhaps this then is something that the guys at Zlý Časy can bear in mind should they do a similar event again next year – and if none of the breweries will make unique beers, then use their event as the launch for another version of their Zabiják z Nuslý beer.

Probably the biggest problem with this year’s Czech Beer Festival was the choice of venue. The problem though wasn’t the actual location – after all the show grounds at Letňany are right next to the metro station, which is only about 15 minutes from the centre of the city. The problem was that when it rained, which it did almost every day of the event, the field very quickly became waterlogged. Admittedly Prague isn’t blessed with a plethora of venues for these kind of events – however I think an alternative really needs to be found for next year’s event. Personally I think Letna Park would be better, especially on its clay pitches, assuming of course that the tunnel being built is finished.

I realize that this is the beer geek in me speaking, but I would have liked to have the possibility of sampling a lot more beers at the Czech Beer Festival. It woud have been nice to be able to have the option of a 100ml sample rather than having to take the half litre or 300ml on offer. I wonder how many people were put off trying something new because if they didn’t like it then they had wasted 40kč, and so stuck to those beers they knew? Of course the Czech Beer Festival isn’t really pitched at beer geeks, although the welcome presence of micros does make it more likely that we would wander up at least once, but then as I have said before if I really want a grilled sausage and pint of something decent then I will take a stroll to my local, rather than go to a festival.

In reality the Czech Beer Festival is little more than an overpriced 10 day beer garden with a few fairground rides lobbed in for good measure (one of which was called “Staročeský Loch Ness”, which translates as “Old Czech Loch Ness” – funny that, I don’t remember Loch Ness having anything to do with the Czech lands, whether old, new or faintly middle aged). In the same vein, I would think of the event Zlý Časy more of a “pivní akce”, the nearest I can get to in English there is “beer action”, than a beer festival – especially given that they have a wide range of Czech micros on their taps all year round anyway.

Of the two events, I much preferred Zlý Časy’s – but given that it is one of my favourite pubs anyway I have to take that into account, but it has certainly been a very encouraging start, and perhaps one that can become a regular event, perhaps one in winter showcasing dark beers would be a good idea? It is good that Prague has places like Zlý Časy, and Pivovarský klub swimming against the tide and bringing a wider range of beers to beer lovers in the city, long may it continue.

Dark Depths

So far my experience of porter has been a mixed bag, like the sweet and sour jellied sweets I loved as a kid – quite literally. Some of the big and brash Baltic Porters I have tried were very sweet while others were rather sour, making it difficult for me to really decided whether or not porter is my thing.

At the weekend the removal company came to pack our belongings for the move to the USA so all my beer glasses have gone, hence the TESCO hi-ball glass in the pictures, we also reserved our new apartment in Charlottesville which is 4 times bigger than our current shoebox, and has a patio! With the flat starkly bare, my little cellar is in dire need of being emptied, so I made a start by opening one of my bottles of Lovibond’s Dark Reserve – a stronger, barrel aged version of the their standard porter, Henley Dark, which I wrote about here.

Like the Gold Reserve, the Dark comes in 750ml bottles – making it ideal for sharing with friends. The beer itself is very dark indeed, a deep crimson ruby which is almost impenetrable to light except around the edges, the head is a light tan and fades rather quickly.

The nose is a cacophony of chocolate and sweet caramel, with roasted coffee undertones and a subtle yet noticeable smokiness. Tastewise, the chocolate theme continues, but instead of being like a British Galaxy or Yorkie bar, this is more of an American Hershey bar, laced with sourness. The beer is also rather fruity, like a good heavy British Christmas cake done properly with plenty of brandy fed through it – there is a noticeable alcoholic glow and again the light smokiness comes through. Again Lovibond’s have crafted a very nice beer, the one thing I would say though is get at least one other person to enjoy the Dark Reserve with you, and pair it with that most British of cheeses, extra mature farmhouse Cheddar (a constant source of mickey taking in the Velky Al household, as I maintain that real Cheddar comes only from the village of the same name in Somerset).

Lovibond’s only make batches of 500 bottles at a time for this beer, and this was from batch 1 – a very good start indeed.

Getting My Goat

I guess everyone, if they are honest, has a major industrial beer brand which they once loved and now lament that it simply isn’t as good as it used to be – in particular when the brand is question was once an independent brewer. For me that brewer is Velkopopvický Kozel, who today are one the components of SABMiller’s Czech operations, along with Pilsner Urquell, Gambrinus and Radegast.

Back in 1999 as a fresh college graduate who had decided to teach English in Prague for a year before going back home and to the “real world”, I discovered that Kozel was the kind of beer I really liked. It helped that back then it was the beer on tap in Zlatá Hvězda, so I drank copious amounts whilst watching Liverpool. I liked that it was a clean and crisp lager, with a good hoppy bite – I didn’t try the dark back then, which I regret now, having had it recently and thinking it was pretty dire.

Then the brewery was bought by Pilsner Urquell, who in turn got bought by SABMiller and the bean counters took over – sorry if there any accountants reading this, but in future please stick to counting what comes in and goes out rather than changing, some would say ruining and I would agree with them, a lovely product in the name of “extracting brand value” from it.

Last night I went for a stroll in the gathering rainy gloom, and stumbled upon a pub called Kozlovna, and out of sheer nostalgia headed in for a pint of their 11˚ Medium – which you can see in the picture. Nothing spectacular, nothing awful either, but it is nice to see a pub or two dedicated to the Goat. Still though, I have the urge on occasion, like the kid who has kicked his ball into the neighbour’s garden, to ask if I can have my goat back.