England via Montreal to Cape Breton

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BrooksCB
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England via Montreal to Cape Breton

Post by BrooksCB » Thu Nov 03, 2022 11:28 am

Hello,

Very recently arrived in Cape Breton, originally from the UK and must've gotten homesick for pubs so I have been trying to recreate cask ales and British style ale more generally. I have been home brewing and making cider for about 6 years. After watching the guys from the Craft Beer Channel I imported a beer pump from the UK and have been conditioning ale in those 10litre wine-in a-box type bags, the set up worked pretty well! I liked it anyway!

Now I'm in Inverness, CB and once settled in I cant wait to start brewing again. I was spoilt living in Montreal where I had a great homebrew supply shop up the road from me. Are there any online shops that deliver grain/hops/yeast etc.? Ideally i'd like to try and use anything local, Nova Scotia or Maritimes. I don't do huge batches I have a 20litre kettle and a few fermenting buckets.

So far I have been very impressed with the quality of the Cape Breton craft beers I have tried, Big Spruce is an absolute gem. Interested to see if the water differences between Montreal and CB affect some of my recipes.

Anyway, just writing to say hello and looking forward to getting involved in the beer/cider scene here in Nova Scotia.

Cheers,
Alex

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John G
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Re: England via Montreal to Cape Breton

Post by John G » Sat Nov 05, 2022 8:17 pm

Welcome Alex. For local online shop with shipping you can try BrewHQ.ca They are based in Halifax Regional Municipality. :welcome:

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wcturnedec
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Re: England via Montreal to Cape Breton

Post by wcturnedec » Sun Nov 06, 2022 5:40 pm

Welcome Alex!

Excited to pick your brain about the cask in a bag, I’ve seen the Craft Beer Channel videos on the cask ales at home and was very interested!


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On tap: APA, Dubbel, Dark Mild
Fermenting: Brett Saison 2022, Schwarzbier, APA, Sour Brown,
Coming up: American Wheat (Fruited), Vienna Lager, Dortmunder
Bottled: Brett Saison 2020, Brett Saison 2021, Baltic Porter

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Re: England via Montreal to Cape Breton

Post by BrooksCB » Thu Nov 10, 2022 12:38 pm

wcturnedec wrote:
Sun Nov 06, 2022 5:40 pm
Welcome Alex!

Excited to pick your brain about the cask in a bag, I’ve seen the Craft Beer Channel videos on the cask ales at home and was very interested!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hey no worries, yea I gave it a go and found it worked pretty well. I even bought a small fridge, put it in the basement, and made a discreet hole in the back of it to feed through the pipe, which made its way up to the beer engine, which i installed in the kitchen (I'm sure it'll get referenced in the divorce proceedings, if that ever happens :lol:).

I was fermenting in the basement (consistent temp around 18C) in a bucket, for 1 week, usually dry hopped with EKG or anything else I was experimenting with. Then I would transfer to the plastic 10l bag and add a small amount of priming sugar to the bag (I also did some without priming sugar and didn't notice a great difference, i didn't want the ale too carbonated anyway). I would then leave the bag for 1 more week to 'condition', then put the bag in the fridge (5C) the day before drinking and hook it up to the beer engine. The beer engine came with the correct attachment to clip straight on to the wine bags. One downside I've noticed recently is that those bags are difficult to get hold of and not cheap, they claim to be re-useable but I could to get the tap off without damaging the flange. So I've looked at next trying to use something i can clean and re-use.

There were some cold winter afternoons in Montreal where I had the fire going, some rugby on TV and a cask(ish) ale in hand where i could've closed my eyes and been in a nice country pub in the UK :lol:

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Re: England via Montreal to Cape Breton

Post by wcturnedec » Thu Nov 10, 2022 1:00 pm

BrooksCB wrote:
Thu Nov 10, 2022 12:38 pm
wcturnedec wrote:
Sun Nov 06, 2022 5:40 pm
Welcome Alex!

Excited to pick your brain about the cask in a bag, I’ve seen the Craft Beer Channel videos on the cask ales at home and was very interested!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hey no worries, yea I gave it a go and found it worked pretty well. I even bought a small fridge, put it in the basement, and made a discreet hole in the back of it to feed through the pipe, which made its way up to the beer engine, which i installed in the kitchen (I'm sure it'll get referenced in the divorce proceedings, if that ever happens :lol:).

I was fermenting in the basement (consistent temp around 18C) in a bucket, for 1 week, usually dry hopped with EKG or anything else I was experimenting with. Then I would transfer to the plastic 10l bag and add a small amount of priming sugar to the bag (I also did some without priming sugar and didn't notice a great difference, i didn't want the ale too carbonated anyway). I would then leave the bag for 1 more week to 'condition', then put the bag in the fridge (5C) the day before drinking and hook it up to the beer engine. The beer engine came with the correct attachment to clip straight on to the wine bags. One downside I've noticed recently is that those bags are difficult to get hold of and not cheap, they claim to be re-useable but I could to get the tap off without damaging the flange. So I've looked at next trying to use something i can clean and re-use.

There were some cold winter afternoons in Montreal where I had the fire going, some rugby on TV and a cask(ish) ale in hand where i could've closed my eyes and been in a nice country pub in the UK :lol:
This all sounds amazing! Where do you get the 10L bags from? I have a 5L bag I got from a homebrew shop (Noble Grape) here in Halifax but haven't taken the plunge to "cask condition" any of my beers in it yet.

This is more or less what I have, but I assume these are one time use:
https://www.noblegrape.ca/products/wine ... ckage-of-5

I've seen the polypins online in the UK but can't seem to find them readily available in North America, perhaps they are re-usable?
On tap: APA, Dubbel, Dark Mild
Fermenting: Brett Saison 2022, Schwarzbier, APA, Sour Brown,
Coming up: American Wheat (Fruited), Vienna Lager, Dortmunder
Bottled: Brett Saison 2020, Brett Saison 2021, Baltic Porter

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Re: England via Montreal to Cape Breton

Post by LeafMan66_67 » Fri Nov 18, 2022 9:06 pm

Welcome!
"He was a wise man who invented beer." - Plato

BrooksCB
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Re: England via Montreal to Cape Breton

Post by BrooksCB » Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:08 am

This all sounds amazing! Where do you get the 10L bags from? I have a 5L bag I got from a homebrew shop (Noble Grape) here in Halifax but haven't taken the plunge to "cask condition" any of my beers in it yet.

This is more or less what I have, but I assume these are one time use:
https://www.noblegrape.ca/products/wine ... ckage-of-5

I've seen the polypins online in the UK but can't seem to find them readily available in North America, perhaps they are re-usable?


Sorry just getting around to responding, for the 10l bags i was lucky that the local craft brew shop had some in stock, once they ran out i think i got some off Amazon, but then they started getting expensive and difficult to get hold of, i think it was tied in with all the shipping/covid stuff that was going on, it might be getting easier/cheaper again now.

I was also keen to try a polypin, they are very common in the UK but cant seem to get them in North America, weird. They would be perfect. The beer engine kit also came with the polypin attachment. The closest I have been able to get here is a 25l collapsible water storage bag type thing, the type that you can get for camping from Canadian tire/Walmart etc., but I think the tap/spigot is different to the polypin types so I would have to use a gator clip or something to attach to it. I figure they could work just as well, the only issue is the pressure build up in the bag while its conditioning, they probably would leak slightly. The low tech way around this I found was to store them with the taps on the top, i.e. upside down, any leak just escapes as gas, I didn't find it affected carbonation or taste.

I have even looked at buying a small oak barrel, that would be very cool, I can only think that the taste would be getting back to something historic as I'm guessing all beer barrels would've been wooden/oak until not that long ago. The British style ales tend to have a hint of oxidation to them and wooden barrels would've definitely encouraged that! It was actually a flavor I didn't particularly like when I was there but now I miss it, kind of gave a slight sweet/sickly flavor, I've heard it called 'sherry like' flavor which is close to how I perceived it, it was subtle in any case. I'd be interested to see if the oak imparted any tannin flavors too? anyway, all experiments I'm looking forward to drinking one day :lol:

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Re: England via Montreal to Cape Breton

Post by chalmers » Thu Dec 01, 2022 9:41 pm

Welcome Alex! That setup sounds absolutely fabulous, can't wait to get back to the UK for a proper pint on a handpump. I wonder if BrewHQ aka Noble Grape may have something, as their spot in Burnside has a trio of handpumps on the go, though I'm pretty sure they're using kegs with a cask breather.

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