Norwegian Homebrewing Competion 2009

What: The annual festival where homebrewers serve their own beers to the public, which get to vote for their favourite beer of the evening. Homebrewers also compete in five other categories (bottled entries submitted earlier), including strong/specialty beers, light lager, dark, larger, light ale, and dark ale. The winners are announced towards the end of the evening.

When: Saturday March 28th 2009, 19:00-00:00 CET
Where: Studentersamfunnet Bislet, Pilestredet 52, Oslo, Norway.
Cost: 130 NOK (100 NOK if you're a member of Norbrygg)

This year's event is going to be a great one as the best beer from the strong/specialty category will be brewed at Nøgne Ø and will later be available at Vinmonopolet (the government liquor shops). Cred to Nøgne Ø for doing this! Also, the 30 best beers served at the event will be awarded with 12 liter brand new Cornelius kegs. Plus there'll be lots of other prizes. In another words, there is no reason not to participate this year.


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I'll be there serving my beer. This year I'll have the Imperial Kölsch (brew #66), Russian Imperial Stout (brew #67 with Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans and MacAllan 10 yo cask strength single malt whisky) and Raspberry Melomel (brew #70) on. See you there!

Brew #70: Raspberry Melomel

I have been planning to make a mead for a long time, and have had 4 kgs of Argentinian honey lying around for almost a year, and I have now finally done something with it.

It went pretty well, but I made a couple of mistakes along the way. First I miscalculated the final volume. Originally I had aimed for 13 liters of water and honey, but ended up with 18 liters (21 liters after adding the raspberry). I also ended up fermenting the mead a too little cold and the sweet mead yeast crapped out at 1.060 (I suspect because of the pH level), so I had to add some really old Lalvin D-47 from 2005(!). That boosted the fermentation, and it went down to 1.008 just a couple of days later.

The melomel is now in the secondary, but I'll keg it soon. From the samples I've had so far it is promising, and I'm sure I'll try making more meads in the future. I plan to serve it not carbonated.

The batch was brewed 2009-02-06.

Style:
Raspberry Melomel
Type:
21 liters. No heat.
Ingredients:
4200g Argentinian honey
500g Norwegian Raspberry honey
2840g Red Raspberry puree, Oregon
1.5ts Fermaid K (day 0)
1ts Fermaid K (day 2)
1ts Fermaid K (day 5)
Yeast:
2 packs Wyeast 4184 Sweet Mead, and 2 packs of Lalvin D-47 after a few days
Boil:
180 min
Fermentation:
17 C and 22 C

OG: 1.085 FG: 1.006 abv: 9.0% (estimated)

Brew #69: Russian Imperial Stout

This beer is a straightforward Russian Imperial Stout, which I gave a long three hour boil. Because of that I got a reasonably good mash efficency given that I only did two batch sparges. I have bottled a couple of liters, but will put the rest of it in a keg with two Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans infused with MacAllan 10 yo cask strength single malt whisky.

Added 1ts CaCO3 (calcium carbonate) and 1ts to boil.

The batch was brewed 2009-02-03.

Style:
Russian Imperial Stout
Type:
25 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
100 EBC (Black)
Bitterness:
49 IBU
Malts:
4500g Golden Promise, Thomas Fawcett
4100g Pale malt, Pearl, Muntons
800g Aromatic malt, Dingemans
500g Roasted Barley
500g Special B
500g Flaked Barley
300g Crystal malt, 150 EBC, Thomas Fawcett
150g Carafa I Special, Weyermann
350g Wheat Malt Extract (for OG correction only)
Mash:
65C, 75 min
62% efficiency
Hops:
50g Magnum pellets, 14% 60 min
40g East Kent Goldings pellets, 4.8%, 10 min
30g East Kent Goldings pellets, 4.8%, 1 min
Yeast:
2 packs Safale US-05 (rehydrated)
Boil:
180 min
Fermentation:
19 C

OG: 1.092 FG: 1.026 abv: 8.7%

Brew #68: American Pale Ale

I love hoppy beers, and here we have another one. I haven't really dry hopped my beers for a long time now. I did it on two IPAs earlier, but was not happy with the results. This time, I can say after having tasted the result, the result of dry hopping is quite impressive. The beer ended up with a great hop aroma and flavour. I guess I could have left the dry hops on the beer for a longer period, but I'm very happy with the result, and will definitely dry hop many more beers in the future. This is also the first time I've dry hopped with pellets. I've been a little afraid of getting too much hop debris in the beer, but that seems to be no problem as the hop pellets sank to the bottom quickly. The beer is still young, but there is quite a bit of yeast still in suspension in the keg, so I'll leave it in the kegerator a little longer before a draw a final conclusion. The FG is surprisingly high, even though the beer does not taste sweet at all.

Added 1ts CaCO3 (calcium carbonate) and 1ts to boil.

The batch was brewed 2009-02-03.

Style:
American Pale Ale
Type:
25 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
23 EBC (Amber)
Bitterness:
39 IBU
Malts:
5700g Pale malt, Pearl, Muntons
400g Melanoidin malt, Weyermann
400g Crystal malt, 150 EBC, Thomas Fawcett
Mash:
67C, 90 min
65% efficiency
Hops:
40g East Kent Goldings pellets, 4.8%, 60 min
40g Centennial pellets, 9.1%, 15 min
40g Centennial pellets, 9.1%, 1 min
60g Amarillo pellets, 8.4%, 1 min
56g Columbus pellets, 12.2%, dry hop for 4 days
Yeast:
1 pack Wyeast 1272 American Ale II (0.9 liter starter on magnetic stirrer)
Boil:
75 min
Fermentation:
19 C

OG: 1.053 FG: 1.017 abv: 4.7%