Reprise / Homebrew

So if you don't already know I drunk a bunch of beers over Christmas that I won in a label design competition, they were all home-brews, all brewed by Mr Andy Smith of Redemption brewery (one of my brewers to watch out for in 2012) and pretty much they were all excellent.

I failed in my mission to drink a beer a day by missing the one on the 24th of December. For me the whole thing was to see if a little side blog with built in parameters (a post a day) would be interesting to people, would make me a slightly better writer and would allow me to try a couple of different things that I could use in NBBB. It was difficult to write every day especially among the combination of the Christmas rush at work and the inevitable merry making that goes with it, and I won't be likely to do it again, unless I win another case of 24 different beers of course! 

I got to the last beer yesterday. It was a wassail - a celebratory brew, which was a blend of most of the other beers I'd drunk over the 23 days previously. It was a combination of sourness, porter type flavours, spice, fruit and a multitude of sweeter flavours. It was very good and half a bottle made me feel rather... enhanced. 

I think the point of this whole endeavour for me is that Andy as a professional brewer is churning out some brilliant home brews, some which could be easily bottled and sold on a larger scale if someone could back it up with a bit of cash. That aside the brews were very experimental and well, on paper I was expecting some to be rough, but they were pretty much all delightful. Experimentalism is the key to home brewing for me, I've always found that smaller breweries tend to make more interesting beers and in expansion many breweries can lose some character. 

So the good news for home brewers is that providing you follow some simple rules and don't piss about with the basics you can brew some outstandingly bonkers and delicious beers to share with your mates, enter in competitions or bring to thirsty bar managers to elicit some form of opinion. It's a noble art!

For those who are interested, here's the completed blog... Cheers!

Mephistopheles - Partizan's Advent

Hooya!

Alright so I'm writing this on the 3rd of Jan. So, reader, you can surmise that the partizan's advent was a little bit of a failure in terms of being able to write every day. But it was very much an experiment and I've likely learned a lot. What that lot is, however, I will have to think on some.

So, if you will let me transport you back to the dark days of December, back, back... Way back to the 17th... When I had a total god fucker of a hangover. You know one of those when you wake up knowing you've done something severe but aren't quite sure what. All you have is a terrible feeling of guilt, broken nails and a bastard behind the eyes. 

Yes at that point there was no way I was drinking a 17.5% turbo yeast beer. Nuh uh, not me! So I blobbed and just went to work and felt like a twat all evening. 

But now. 

Rejuvenated by a whole 5 days off in two weeks I'm ready to wrestle the demon. Not even the nagging cold I developed (on Christmas fucking eve!) is going to stop me now. Actually, like the cask strength malt I was drinking last night I'm hoping that this will actually get rid of the cold and fortify me ready for a shit arse January. We'll see.

I've tried this beer before, but never on its own - just when it's popped up in a session when Andy has been in the bar that's how we roll over here:). It's a bruiser for sure but fuck the alcohol, especially as I can't really taste that much alcohol except that warmth in the chest that we got in the Milou. Very pleasant. My immediate impression of this is sherry - Pedro Ximenez to be prescise. It doesn't have the thickness of PX but many of the nutty, fruity and slightly bitter characteristics. 

There's a touch of smoke and vanilla that works a treat and with the sherry-ness this beer, more than any other, is the one that you could peg as a barley wine. It's as good as any beer I've tried of this strength, and there are few so there's some more praise to pile on the praise pile for the Partizans advent calendar. 

Perhaps I should take heart from yr man Goethe 

Hail him, who keeps a steadfast mind!

Thou, else, dost well the devil-nature wear:

Naught so insipid in the world I find

As is a devil in despair.

Partizan's Advent Day 14

Phew, so I'm two weeks in to Christmas and two weeks in to my case of brilliant beers from Andy Smith at redemption.

If you're interested in some thoughts on Andy's brewing, thoughts on pretty much every style of beer you could imagine or just how I'm managing to keep up another blog over Christmas when clearly there's a fuck load of work to be done at the bar and even more boozing in-between then hop on over to Partizan's Advent...

Partizan's Advent

So this is a run of short posts about Redemption Brewery's Andy - @partizansmith and his amazing home-brews. Pretty much everything that I have tasted that Andy has brewed has been brilliant, whether it's been part of Redemption's output or as a home brew.

I was super lucky to win a case of beer for entering his design a label competition on Facebook. This is an extremely good idea and I encourage every home brewer to do the same.

My thoughts on the beers are on this 'sub blog' right > here...

Thanks to Andy and Eve x