"Guinges Go Home"

[GuingesRock]

Continued from above.

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Window:

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[GuingesRock]

Walk in the woods today. Note the ivy growing on the trees nd the big wild holly trees with the silver white trunks.

[GuingesRock]

Heading back today to Canada today. Bracing for another culture shock (and temperature shock no doubt). It's been nice to come back home and see my family. Max discovered a whole new crowd of relatives. Back to the grind when I get back.

I wanted to go back to St. Austell brewery yesterday but it is closed for modernising. Taking out all the copper and old wooden fermenters and replacing with Stainless ...how depressing! I'm glad I went in 2013 before that happened (I posted pictures and an account in the thread which is linked in the OP). I did bump into a brewer from there in Tesco's yesterday and he gave me the run down of what's going on there. One interesting piece of information I got from him was the beer (real ale) is fermented for 7-10 days (7 for low abv and 10 for high abv) and then put in casks. It's fined with isinglass and shipped off to the pubs where it is left to settle for 24 hours for serving. It's quite possible that a bitter could be in the pub and being served when it is just 10 days old. No filtering of course, and no artificial carbonation of course as it's real ale. No dry hopping in the cask, but they do have a huge hop back which is a mass of leaf hops put in a mash tun, and the hot wort is run over the bed of leaf hops.

10 days grain to glass! a lot of breweries in Canada would kill for that! That's more or less how I do my home brewing except I go from fermentor to keg with shortened dip tubes. That kind of keg set up is similar to a cask, and produces similar results. I think one of the reasons I do reasonably well is because I try to incorporate UK techniques that make the most of the yeast. Different from the N American philosophy of getting the yeast out ASAP.

Hope you found the pictures interesting.

[MitchK]

I'd love to try making a cask ale at some point. Might go for a cubitainer though.

[mcgster]

Fascinating pictures, looks like it was a great trip.

I think you would be shocked at how common it is for Canadian Breweries to turn over a beer in 10 to 14 days, in my experience this is more common than not outside of lagers. One of my critiques of many new craft breweries that are starting up is the quick turn around time for strong beer. Turning around a 4 to 5% beer in 10 to 14 days can be done quite easily, i routinely do this for all my pale ales and ordinary bitters, but turning around a 7+% beer in 14 days is going to produce a harsh beer that isn't well balanced. It may still be a good beer, but certainly not the best beer it could be.

I think racking to a keg after 7 days or so is quite a bit different from true cask ale, 99.9% of the yeast activity is done then, and following a cold crash to near freezing temperatures the yeast floc's out and turns into a compacted sediment, whereas true cask ale uses horizontal casks with large surface area to prevent compaction of the yeast, warm temperatures to encourage continued activity and eventually lead to autolysis of the yeast and the release of their metabolic compounds. I follow a very similar method to the one you use, and i find that the flavor profile in my beer from the yeast stays very stable as soon as it is chilled down. I have always wanted to try a split batch of my english pale ale using my kegs and a true cask to see the impact on it, maybe i will get around to it this summer.

[GuingesRock]

Yesterday morning ... A small corner of Heathrow where a plane takes off and lands every 45 seconds.

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[GuingesRock]

Yesterday afternoon ...Halifax airport. Hardly a sole around.

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[GuingesRock]

Not much response from the pictures of the trip tried to update, you all busy brewing or just hung over LOL? Happy New Year brewers! I haven't brewed for a few months, I'm tentatively thinking about getting back into it. Went a bit crazy brewing this year. Enjoying the break. Garrison is the big looming question. Should I, shouldn't I. Is this site getting a bit dead? seems a bit that way. Perhaps I've out grown it? or perhaps you have outgrown my contributions. Good luck all and wish you all success with your brewing and see you around ...maybe at Garrison ...and maybe not.