Liquid Mistress (Siren)

JimJiminy · Post by **JimJiminy** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 10:30 am

Had a half of this at Bristol Beer Festival last night and it was amazing. Annoyingly, I discovered it just as the bell went so I couldn't go back for another.

http://www.sirencraftbrew.com/shop/inde ... tress.html

Anyone had a go at brewing something similar? Or can anyone name any similar beers? I don't think I've had anything like it previously

There's been some talk on this forum previously, but it doesn't look like it crystalised into an actual recipe, and it doesn't look like anyone reported back attempting to brew it.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=67581&p=711103&hili ... ss#p711103

Wezzel · Post by **Wezzel** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 1:41 pm

I haven't brewed it but Siren Craft Brewery is just up the road from where I work. I popped in one day and picked up a selection of beers. Not cheap but some interesting and very high ABV ales.

They have a tap room and are very generous with their tasting samples (drivers beware)

JimJiminy · Post by **JimJiminy** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 3:21 pm

I'm jealous, that's a great brewery tap to have nearby!

Post by **Andy** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 3:44 pm

I went to their Halloween Party thing last year. Some pretty off the wall beers going on there

Isn't the Liquid Mistress the Barley Wine which is then aged in various wooden casks and then blended with spirits ?

Good luck with cloning that

JimJiminy · Post by **JimJiminy** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 1:56 pm

Andy wrote:Isn't the Liquid Mistress the Barley Wine which is then aged in various wooden casks and then blended with spirits ?

Nope, it's described as "West Coast bright red ale with flavours of burnt raisins and crackers balanced by citrus"

The difficulty is that is has quite an unusual grain-bill:

"Munich as base malt then Aromatic, Biscuit, Special B, Caramunich 3, Crystal Rye, and a tiny bit of Roast Barley to help with color."

I've basically never brewed with any of those things, so guessing the percentages is pretty difficult. Plus, it was my understanding that munich isn't really used as a base malt (due to it's low diastatic power) so I'm wondering if we are missing something from that list

edonald774 · Post by **edonald774** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 5:51 pm

Someone on the other forum emailed Siren and got this reply.

"The beer is hopped with Amarillo and Centennial and all hops going in during the last 20 mins (no bittering hops) then a big dry hop of the same. The malts in the beer are Munich as base malt then Aromatic, Biscuit, Special B, Caramunich 3, Crystal Rye, and a tiny bit of Roast Barley to help with color. Starting gravity of about 14 and finish of about 3.5-4"

Not sure what the percentages might be for the grains though but guessing it's about 45ibu

I would love to have a go at this but like you I'm not sure about grain percentages.
I've used munich as a base malt before and have no complaints - my favourite malt.

gibbiem · Post by **gibbiem** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 8:47 pm

I brewed something around October which was MO and a bit of roast barley for colour and the same hops and ended up using too much roast barley and thought it was going to be a write off. Left it till well in to January then I tried liquid mistress and couldn't believe how similar it was to mine! Mine had aged so well into a well nice beer which was VERY close to liquid mistress

JimJiminy · Post by **JimJiminy** » Tue Mar 17, 2015 8:44 pm

As well as being amazing brewers, the folks at Siren are super awesome people.

Grain Bill:
72% Munich
8.5% Biscuit
7% Crystal Rye
5% Caramunich III
5% Aromatic
2% Special B
0.5% Roasted Barley

Hops: 135g in total of Amarillo and 115 of Centennial
20min: Amarillo, Centennial
10min: Amarillo
Whirlpool: Amarillo, Centennial
Dry Hop: Amarillo, Centennial

We want to go "up a little" from our suggested 45IBU.

OG: 15 Plato, FG: 4.2 Plato, which I make 1.061 to 1.017 (unless I need to do some extra correction on the FG?). So, finishing pretty sweet, that's 72% attenuation.

It's actually kinda hard to get that many hops in without the IBUs going crazy. The problem is that, the hops are late, and then we need a hop stand for the whirlpooling.

Here's my attempt:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/r ... ess-clone-

Problem is, I've assumed the whirlpool is equivelent to 5min extra boil time This seems pretty conservative. If you up that to 10min, the IBUs jump from 50ish to 70ish. Which makes me think that this recipe is going to vary in bitterness wildy depending on peoples exact process and equipment.

Maybe someone with some experience hop-bursting can give their opinion.

I'm pretty excited about brewing this, but I won't be able to for a few months at least. If anyone has a go, please please report back so we can refine!

Post by **Andy** » Tue Mar 17, 2015 9:40 pm

Blimey! Good stuff, might give this a go myself.

Jocky · Post by **Jocky** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 12:01 pm

JimJiminy wrote:It's actually kinda hard to get that many hops in without the IBUs going crazy. The problem is that, the hops are late, and then we need a hop stand for the whirlpooling.

Here's my attempt:
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/r ... ess-clone-

Problem is, I've assumed the whirlpool is equivelent to 5min extra boil time This seems pretty conservative. If you up that to 10min, the IBUs jump from 50ish to 70ish. Which makes me think that this recipe is going to vary in bitterness wildy depending on peoples exact process and equipment.

Maybe someone with some experience hop-bursting can give their opinion.

I don't have much experience of hop bursting, but it's worth noting that it can take a couple of minutes to get those hops wet and up to temperature.

I'm increasingly feeling that IBU is an awful measurement for home brewers, whatever the formula you use. An experiment on a home brew podcast I was listening to recently found that the lab IBU of a beer was about half of the calculated IBU. As IBU is not something a home brewer can measure at the end I'm increasingly ignoring the IBU in recipes and just looking at the grams per litre of the hops used.

edonald774 · Post by **edonald774** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 7:37 am

I'm going to give this a brew tomorrow, hope it's a good 'un.

JimJiminy · Post by **JimJiminy** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 4:20 pm

edonald774 wrote:I'm going to give this a brew tomorrow, hope it's a good 'un.

Good luck! Let us know how it turns out.

Jim

Post by **Andy** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 5:34 pm

edonald774 wrote:I'm going to give this a brew tomorrow, hope it's a good 'un.

Excellent!

Where did you get the Caramunich III BTW ?

edonald774 · Post by **edonald774** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 7:51 am

Brew UK Online store. They always have a massive range.

edonald774 · Post by **edonald774** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:04 am

And we're off.
Mash is on and I'm having a cuppa. Today I'm going to try to stay relaxed and not sweat about little things.

So... Working out my strike water temp.

Gratuitous grain shot. Grain is all measured.

Mashed in. Didn't hit 66.7 that I was aiming at but I'll take that.

Time for a cuppa and I'll take the bread out the oven so it's cooled in time for lunch.

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