SEYMOUR PHOENIX STRONG ALE (2015 Learn To Homebrew Day)

[seymour]

Brewed November 7, 2015 at National Learn To Homebrew Day in the Schlafly Bottleworks Pavilion. There were six of us brewers demonstrating various tips and techniques, and it seemed like a steady flow of interested spectators. It surely helped that we bribed them with lots of free homebrew samples. Speaking of which, I shared a bottle of my Grechka Ale. When I pulled out the bottle complete with Ukrainian lettering, a woman who had been asking lots of questions observed the label excitedly and told us she’s Russian! She was shocked to taste a fresh, locally-brewed buckwheat beer and said it tasted very good.

Anyway...I digress. The name indicates this is a hop trial, my first time using Phoenix hops (thanks Timbo41!) I was aiming for a brown, rich, malty, Scottish 80 Shilling kinda thing with an original gravity of 1051, but I ended up with OG 1064 instead. Ron Pattinson says these a stronger brown shilling-type ales were simply called Strong Ale in Scotland...so here's my version I guess. Fellow forum member Timothy was there too, brewing a parti-gyle stout, and both batches landed at surprisingly high gravities too. We joked about how Schlafly must’ve pre-dissolved sugar into the water they gave us, just to make us feel like we had gone really great jobs.

SEYMOUR PHOENIX STRONG ALE

5 US gallons = 4.2 Imperial gallons = 18.9 Liters

GRAINBILL
80% = 8 lbs = 3630 g, Simpsons Best Pale Malt (UK)
8% = .8 lb = 363 g, CaraStan 30-37L Malt (UK)
5% = .5 lb = 227 g, Torrified Wheat (Canada)
1% = .1 lb = 45 g, Amber Malt (UK)
1% = .1 lb = 45 g, Pale Chocolate Malt (UK)
1% = .1 lb = 45 g, Chocolate Malt (UK)
4% = .4 lb = 181 g, Molasses (US)
TOTAL: 10 lbs = 4.54 kg

STRIKE grains with charcoal-filtered heated water from Schlafly’s own Hot Liquor Tank. I could sure get used to this!

MASH for 2 hours. Stir-in a sprinkle of gypsum, 155°F/68.3°C for 90 min, increase temp to 172°F/77.8°C, hold 10 min.

SPARGE to collect 6.5 US gal/5.4 Imp gal/24.6 L.

BOIL 60 minutes, adding molasses at beginning, reduce to 5 US gal/4.2 Imp gal/18.9 L.

HOPS
.53 oz = 15 g, Phoenix, 60 min
1.06 oz = 30 g, Phoenix (add Irish Moss at this time too), 15 min

YEAST
Blend of McEwans and Adnams brewery strains, ferment at 62°F/16.7°C.

STATS (85% mash efficiency, 82% yeast apparent attenuation)
OG: 1064
FG: 1006
ABV: 7.5%
IBU: 38
COLOUR: clear reddish brown

Schlafly is a major regional craft brewery with an annual capacity of 50,000 barrels, but this is their brand-new mobile pilot brewing rig. The repetitive nature of production brewing can eventually burn-out their brewers, so this gives them a creative playground. Already, several of the pilot brews have turned-out so well they were scaled up to full production.


Close-up of the pilot brewery control panel.


Kerth checking the burner.


Check-out this gimmicky bike-powered grainmill!


Fellow JBK forum member Timothy putting it to use.


Timothy stirring his direct-fire mash tun.


This was my little section of the room. Currently sparging into the boil kettle.


Weighing my molasses addition.


Bringing it to a boil. This is Kerth's cool dual propane burner stand. Mine was having technical difficulties (another great benefit of these group brewdays, right?!)


Knock-out. After flame-out, I waited a bit for the hot break to drop out, then drained into a sanitized bucket, in which I used an immersion chiller coil next. Pleased with the colour.


Chilling. It was sure nice having a floor drain right there for the exhaust hose.


Mike C-Z keeping an eagle eye on his Imperial Smoked Porter. Damn it smelled good!


Mike C-Z's batch sparge technique. You can already tell from that hose how dark this beer's gonna be.


You can tell from the bottle share table, we homebrewers have a good time whenever we gather. It was cool being so close to the outdoor dining tables too. Customers and tour participants got to watch what we were doing, ask questions, sample our wares, etc.


Pardon the blurry pic, but that's Chip Stone. Our host for the day, he is a Schlafly brewer as well a long-time St. Louis Brews Homebrew Club member. Here he is digging through Schlafly's cold storage room for experimental hops to give us. Nice guy to have as a friend, huh?


This is just my own hop haul, other participants got this much or more too. 10 lb bags of Cascade, Centennial, Palisade, Lomik, Junga, Sybilla, Rakau, Taurus, and Ales for ALS blend. Insane!

[BrewerBen]

Fun looking brew day, i really like the bike powered malt mill. I've not brewed with phoenix hops before but they are on the list to try. The only time i have knowingly tried the hops is from a beer produced by a local brewery called Ballards who use them in their Nywood Gold 5% ale. Its been ages since i've drunk some so cant really describe it but i do remember it being particularly good.

[seymour]

I bottled this last night, a mix of 12oz longnecks, imperial pints, and bombers, 33 total. My yeast blend flocculated poorly, and didn't clump to the bottom well, but I added gelatin when I racked to a secondary fermentor a week or so ago, and it has dropped quite clear.

I tasted the hydrometer sample and I definitely like how this is turning out. Very malty, more bold and full-bodied than you'd expect at final gravity 1011 (which sounds quite dry otherwise.) Very hoppy too, bold and intensely floral, perfumey. Phoenix hops are an interesting blend of traditional English and bolder New World hop characteristics. Still some refined noble notes, but with some super-alpha bite too. High alcohol but smooth. With a couple weeks of bottle conditioning, enough carbonation to splash the complex flavours all around, this should be a nice bittersweet balance.

[Redbloke]

I love the American homebrew scene, you all seem to make much more of an effort over there. I live in a major UK city but unfortunately decent homebrew clubs (if any) are few and far between. This also applies to homebrew shops (online is pretty decent though).

Excellent looking beer by the way. Cheers

[Clibit]

Great pics Seymour, and an interesting brew. I have never heard Phoenix described like that, and I've never used them either. I can't add any more hops atm!

[seymour]

I love the American homebrew scene, you all seem to make much more of an effort over there. I live in a major UK city but unfortunately decent homebrew clubs (if any) are few and far between. This also applies to homebrew shops (online is pretty decent though).

Excellent looking beer by the way. Cheers

Redbloke, thanks for the shout-out. Yeah, I get really excited about these outdoor collaborative events. I usually participate in 2-3 per year. It's fun talking and drinking with people and I always leave with a big batch of beer. Sanitation can be a bit spotty at these things, but I've never had a spoiled batch yet. They are usually coordinated by a leader of a homebrew club, who approaches a local homebrew store or microbrewery to request space, running water and electric, maybe some bulk ingredient freebies in exchange for lots of great beer-related publicity. We all promote the event with posters, word-of-mouth, social media, whatever, in order to attract lots of spectators, many of whom learn lots of great homebrewing tips, drink delicious homebrew samples, and make purchases and take tours from our host. If we do our job right, many of our visitors have so much fun they become brewers and keep coming back as customers, so it's a win-win situation for everyone. Sometimes our finished brews are then entered into a contest, served at a beer festival, the sky's the limit. Pretty much the only thing you cannot do is charge money for it.

You are correct, we American homebrewers are pretty hyperactive, and we have some helpful guilds like the American Homebrewers Association (official sponsor of Big Brew for National Homebrew Day and Learn to Homebrew Day) which helps some with promotion, recipe ideas, stuff like that. But honestly, these gatherings can happen at a grassroots level anywhere a couple dudes are passionate about homebrewing. Maybe you're just the guy to get something like this going in your region? Many craft brewers started as homebrewers, they love to give back, talk shop, and build customer loyalty. A memorable event like this is marketing money well-spent. Make a few calls to brewery owners, ingredient suppliers, pubs with a large patio, involve your local CAMRA chapter, get some free local press, tack-on a homebrew expo to your local beer fest, other vendors might wanna setup a table of their own, who knows? I rising sea lifts all ships. You're in Sheffield? Check this hyperlink to see if any of these locals would offer to host. Acorn, Kelham Island, Stancill, Steel City, or Wentworth seem like possibilities. Heck I'm getting excited about this, fly me over there to organize a Jim's Beer Kit homebrew rally for you!

Some past events with pictures:
2013 Teach A Friend To Brew Day
2014 Big Brew Day
Group Brew Day at Jason's House

Great pics Seymour, and an interesting brew. I have never heard Phoenix described like that, and I've never used them either. I can't add any more hops atm!

Nice to hear from you, Clibit. I know of 7 commercial beers I've tasted with Phoenix, but this was my first personal use. In my brew, unlike the others I've tasted, it reminds me a lot of Ella (formerly Stella) from Australia, which I did not expect. Very grassy and floral with softer melon, apricot, berry fruit, and spice. I'm not detecting much citrus. Here's what I previously wrote about Phoenix, "An all-purpose high-alpha English hop bred from Yeoman to replace Challenger. It's good, but not very similar to Challenger which is more traditionally English, and thus preferable to me. Aroma is nice: grassy, faint citrus, some people claim chocolate, pine, molasses, floral--but can be muted, you have to use large quantities for it to show up. Thankfully, flavours are fuller: grass, orange, lemon, melon, black pepper, earthy, sometimes kinda soapy. Phoenix isn’t nearly as aggressive as American hops, no surprise, though some people say so. Perhaps a Phoenix-Challenger or Phoenix-Cascade blend would be tasty."

Have you tasted Stone Arrogant Bastard? Needless to say, it's a big bold beer, super-malty and super-hoppy, about 7.2% abv and 100 ibu. It's rumoured to contain entirely Munich Malt and Chinook hops. My Phoenix Strong Ale isn't quite as bitter, but it's pretty similar overall, except smoother, not so rough-around-the-edges, and a little more biscuity like New Belgium Fat Tire Ale. That's high praise I just lavished on myself; I'll update this thread after other people have a chance to taste it and take me down a few notches. But suffice to say: if you enjoy Chinook and some of the trendy "Down-Under" hops, and Phoenix is plentiful and cheap where you are, it might land you in the vicinity flavour-wise. Your mileage may vary.

I know you have many other exciting hops to experiment with, so no worries. Phoenix is pretty cool, but it's not like you need to race out and get some. It sounds like acreage keeps increasing as Phoenix hops push other varieties out, so they're not going away anytime soon.

[Clibit]

Thanks Seymour. I've not had Arrogant Bastard but I have made malty red ales with Chinook and I love that kind of beer, I'm currently fermenting a red with Chinook, Centennial and Amarillo. If Phoenix gets me into that ball park, similar but different, I want to try it. I'm trying to be as English as possible in my brewing, without compromising my tastes. I use English malts almost exclusively now. I use English yeast strains, and am starting to think about sticking to UK sources for these. None of this flying them in from the States malarkey! We have dried yeasts like Muntons/Gervin and Youngs, we have Brewlabs, we have breweries, and we have bottle conditioned beer. Hops is the one must compromise area for me. I love and use a variety of English hops, but I can't give up Centennial, Simcoe, Columbus, Amarillo etc completely. But, like meat, which I'm eating less of, I can cut down, and find ways of using UK hops in combination with a judicious use of New World hops. The East Kent Chindown I made recently was an example. UK Maris Otter, two crystals and wheat malt, Chinook, EKG and Northdown, and Muntons standard yeast. It was great, one of the best pales I've made. Maybe Phoenix can help me go even further towards the goal, in some beers!

[seymour]

I wanted to let you all know that, if any of you are interested, we would be glad to put the beers you brewed that day through our lab. It takes only a few ounces to test the IBU, colour, calories, gravities, ABV, etc, (but you'll have to let us use the rest of the bottle for a "sensory analysis"). Let me know if any of you are interested.

Of course I'm interested! I brewed this back in November, but between the high Original Gravity, the high-attenuating yeast, and a relatively cool temperature, it took a long time to reach final gravity. And then another long wait for it to settle down in the bottle. The priming sugar reawakened this beast-of-a-yeast, producing fairly intense esters and phenols which added to the already boozy impression (and not really in a good way, at least when young.) BUT now it's finally tasting great. Strong, still a little wild, but great. Like a good Scottish ale should, right? Last weekend a mate had me over to pair it with a good single malt Scotch whiskey. So delicious.


Cheers!

[seymour]

Bump.


So the analysis is in. No infections, despite using a multi-strain yeast. And even more alcoholic than I thought. I was hoping for a true IBU, but oh well.

Hey, sorry to take so long. Long story short, my phone died and the photo was on it! That combination of yeasts got you from 15.41°P all the way down to 1.53°P. Hardy buggers!

It's snowing today, so I took a pic of my winter warmer. It looks much redder in this light.



The finished beer continues to improve with age, as to be expected given it's high gravity. It has a very strong yeast impression, combining the "Adnams twang" with black peppery, fruity McEwans traits. Clove and nutmeg too. I thing it is spicy enough that most American drinkers would likely classify it as a Belgian ale. Definitely alcoholic, too much so for some people probably, but no harsh fusels. Like a spiced rum.

Some perceived malty sweetness but bone dry finish. Toffee, burnt caramel, molasses. Tart, almost acidic. Blackberries, black plums, black currants.

These Phoenix hops are interesting. Very aromatic, perfumey. Floral, earthy, leafy, herbal tea and honey-soaked pipe tobacco. Almost none of that worn-out citrus essence. Reminds me of some of the Styrian Goldings brews I've tasted, a special-edition dry-hopped Duvel for instance.

[Clibit]

Looks fantastic that, very different from any beer I've made really, difficult to imagine exactly what it tastes like, but it looks great and it shouldn't be over-caramelly, looking at the grain bill.

[seymour]

Thanks, Clibit. You're right, I followed UK brewing techniques using UK ingredients, but it came out tasting very different than any UK beers I've tasted. I shared the last of it at the homebrew club meeting earlier this month. Sad to see it go.