I spend some of my Saturdays doing something I love and find it as a great hobby at the same time. I’m talking about homebrewing. Yes, I brew my own beer at home, and I really enjoy it! And today is a day to taste my last beer made a few months ago.
In this case, I was trying to reproduce the recipe of the Scottish brewery BrewDog and their beer named Punk IPA. I assumed that the effect won’t be the same since they are brewing commercially and I’m doing it at home. And I wasn’t wrong. But was I far away from the role model? Let’s find out.
Let’s start with short characteristics and parameters.
Style: India Pale Ale
BLG: 13°
ABV: 5,5%
IBU: 70-80
Malts: Pale Ale, Caramel
Hops: Chinnok (USA), Ahtanum (USA), Simcoe (USA), Nelson Sauvin (NZ), Cascade (USA)
Yeast: Wyeast - American Ale
The label was designed by my brother. It contains all needed information and no complicated graphics. The design was made before Steemit logo changed, that is why there is an old one there.
The first thing that can be noticed when the beer is poured into a glass is high saturation. This causes a beer head to be big, thick and surprisingly very lasting. But it leaves only small lacing on the glass. The color of the beer is copper-amber and it looks great. However, it should be a little bit lighter. The beer is very clear, which is good.
The aroma is a little bit neuter - I can small malts and citrus fruits and almost imperceptible notes of yeast. I was expecting a little bit more considering the used hops.
The taste is however very interesting, but I have to admit that it is dominated by bitterness which is present from the beginning to the end. But this was intentional, so I'm very happy about that :) Besides that, I can taste some citrus fruits and malts. The general impression is more than satisfying. As I mentioned before, the saturation is high which makes this beer very refreshing.
To sum up, I must say that I wasn't able to "copy" the BrewDog's original beer, but the effect I gain is very cool. It's just tasty, drinkable beer.
There is one more thing that I want to show you. I won’t describe the whole process in this article, there will be time for that in the future. But I will share some photos just to give you a brief look at how this work looks like.
So, how was your #BeerSaturday? Mine was great! I hope I encouraged you to read more about homebrewing or even to try it by yourself. Cheers!
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Great looking beer and very nice post.
I must also try home-brewing at some stage, it looks great!!
And it is great! You can start from brewkit or brewing with malt extract, I'm using the all-grain method which is the most accurate, but also the most time-consuming. I will post about homebrewing soon to give you guys more details about it.
I have never tasted homemade beer! I'd love to try some time.
Also, no offence, but your beer's name in my language (greek) means blowjob, so I could not help but laugh. It also means smoking pipe, but the dirty meaning came to my mind first :P
Good luck at the #beersaturday competition! :)
You definitely should! :)
Hahaha, now you made me laugh :D To be honest, in Polish slang, it's a vulgarism and means... vagina :D But when naming this beer I was simply looking for some shortcut of Punk IPA, really :P
Thank you!!! :)
I am impressed :-) This sort of home beer production requires quite a bit of skill, knowledge and commitment.
Thank you, it's always nice to hear that my hobby impressed someone :)
hey! I love your posts. I even understand a little Polish so I can read the non-English ones! I do love brewing as well. Your labels are great, how are you making them, with the printer? I usually order some from Grogtag.com but am interested in making my own at some point.
Thank you, glad to hear that other homebrewers appreciate my work :) The labels are designed by my brother and I print them at home on an ordinary printer, but I'm using a sticker paper (I'm not sure how to call it in English...)
Btw - where did you learn Polish? :)
I went to “Polska szkola” every Saturday as a child and also had courses in college. I cannot speak fluently unfortunately but can read and understand quite a bit.
I’m going to try these printed ones soon. I have a cookies and creme stout ready for bottling. I like making labels but the custom stickers are too expensive
Now I can see that you are from Chicago - that may explain a lot ;) Were your ancestors from Poland?
Mine is really simple and I the only cost is the sticker paper. Try it, you may find it very convenient.
Yes! My mother is from a small village by Lomza. I have visited there many times. Warsaw area 5 times, and Krakow once for a wedding. Such a beautiful place, would like to go again soon.
Cool! I encourage you to visit Wroclaw if you would have a chance ;)
I would love to explore more, usually when I go it's for family. But I would like to a trip and travel around there for sure!
I'm waiting for you in Wroclaw to take you to some cool beer trip :)
Great work mate. I do a bit of brewing myself but haven't created labels myself before. I tried to replicate a Trappist beer a while ago which actually worked out surprisingly well. I did get a lot of assistance from my local home-brew store though.
Our brewing set ups look similar, nothing too complicated but enough to make good beer. Although I don't have that coil that you are placing into your saucepan, what's that for?
Well done for making a fantastic brew! This is an excellent entry for #beersaturday.
Wow, really. Where did you get a recipe? Is it possible to get it from you somehow?
This is an immersion chiller and it is for cooling down a wort very fast. And by very fast I mean from 100°C to 20°C in about 20-25 minutes. I'm sure that you are aware of the fact that this is a very important step in the brewing process. In my opinion, it is absolutely worth to invest in this equipment.
Grate post! thanks for sharing
Stop spamming my posts with comments like that, please. You can only get a flag for this kind of approach. I'm posting about beer and I'm expecting the discussion about beer under my posts, not some empty cliche.
Please don't get me wrong, but almost all of your comments are the same and it brings nothing to the discussion about a post.
There's no harm in flagging spammers. Allow me :)