One of the wonderful things of brewing and beer is the mutual passion that you’ll find amongst fellow brewers.

One of our favourite things in beer is the great Brewing Network,  a homebrew/beer radio show broad cast from California.   A mutual fan of this show is Jeff Rosenmeier of the highly regarded Lovibonds brewery in Henley on Thames – the humour of the BN’ and the ambitions we have for our beer, sit common to all three of us.

Jeff and I have joked as soon as we have the chance to brew together, we should do something that we really want to. 1, there aren’t enough brown ales out there.   2, there aren’t enough over 5% beers out there.  3, there aren’t enough brown, +5%  and american hopped ales brewed in the UK!   So, F’it… we brewed a 5.5% Brown Hoppy thing.

Mike "Tasty" McDole

One of our mutual friends is the wonderful brewer – Mike “Tasty” McDole – winner of the Sam Adams Long Shot and successful pr0-am brewer with Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River brewing.      One of Mike’s beers is the excellent “Janet’s Brown Ale” a NHC Gold Medal winning recipe – so we took the recipe that Mike makes available out there on the interwebs, and tuned it for a more English “tax regime” and well, 7.2% Brown ales can be a little hard to handle for most.   So, we went for a 5.5% drinkability – I hate compromise, it’s a route to mediocrity – and the next few beers will be more back in line with norm.

We took the original recipe, built it with English and German Malts – figured out where we could squeeze more hops in it and doughed in.  Jeff, a native American straight outa Wisconsin, had to be kept out of our hop room – such is our stash.       The mash tun loaded, coloured malts subtly staining the wonderful maris malts.    Jeff and I scratched our heads as to the likely colour, doubting our recipe construction techniques as well as the water chemistry – but to quote the great Charlie Papazian – relax…  The wort came out a fantastic dark mahogany hue, screaming rich chocolate and biscuit notes.   Time to drown some fantastic fresh green american hops!

Over the course of the next hour we drowned in copious amounts of hot brown wort, about 3kg’s of Magnum, Chinook, Cascade, Columbus, Apollo and Centennial.     We think that’s about right for a nice hoppy ale, we’ll probably dry hop a few casks.  (watch our tweets for the release of those ones) – here’s the Tasty webpage,

After the brewday, realising some snagging issues, we moved out side to the brewhall where we wet our whistles with a couple of jugs of Hoptimum and Goldfish Bowl, then delved into Jeff’s bottles; a fine selection of smokey porters, wheat beers, sour beers, and IPA.  We were joined with faces from our mailing list, some of London’s beer bloggers and British Guild of Beer writers, homebrewers, fellow brewers of London and more American beer lovers on tour.   It was a great evening, a great brew day and something we are planning to do more and more – sign up below and come along.

The beer was transfered over to ferment, pitched with an american ale yeast – where they were allowed to have sex in their own way.

What we learnt:

jeff in the mash tun, cleaning!

1, we can actually get into the copper.   A closed copper is not easy to get into.   I need to lose 2 stone, and I will fit.   I can get half way in.   2, we need a spray ball.   3, we need a hot liquor.

4, and most importantly – it’s frikken great having another brewer in the ‘house.    The  opportunity to reflect, swap notes on process and mutually improve ones own practice and share insight is beyond everything of the actual beer – is a truly incredible experience.

We would recommend sharing a brewhouse with a like minded brewer, at any junction, don’t worry about it being a perfect day – it’ll always be fun!

Thanks for coming in Jeff!

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We’re brewing!

We’ve been looking for a brewhouse for some time and by jove good people we’ve gone and been offered a chance at something that was going to be stupid to say no to.

a brewery that shall remain under our hat for the moment will be the brewhouse for our efforts, more news will follow!

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