Recent content by Northern_Brewer

Supposedly the story is that after the Wehrmacht paid a visit to Rochefort they had to start from scratch after WWII with the help of some of the other Trappist breweries, they tried some of their yeast but they didn't really work. So a consultant working for them some 15-20 years after the war...

Apologies for the DailyMail link : Florida man's colon EXPLODES after coughing and sneezing at the same time in a diner - causing his intestines to fall out of his body Talking of Floridian colons, Larry Colon is the name of the dog owner here : Florida man avoids jail after French bulldog...

It has British origins but is probably similar to WLP540, which may or may not have origins at Rochefort. But actual Rochefort dregs give a far more complex result, presumably because they're using a multistrain whereas the yeast labs generally just sell single strains.

Personally I'd go for Fermentis BE-256. Abbaye is a S. cerevisiae x kudriavzevii hybrid like WLP500 Monastery and 1214 Belgian Abbey (“Chimay”?). The spec sheet says at least 5 billion/g - it varies by strain but typically dry yeast within the best before is up at somewhere around 20 billion/g.

Don't forget US pints are smaller, they're not far off an Aussie schooner.

Remember most of the classic European hopgrowing areas are at the same sort of latitude as Vancouver or Seattle, so their idea of a cool spring may be rather different to yours. To take some examples, in an average March temperatures in Žatec (Saaz) range from 34°F to a high of 50°F, in...

Assuming that in a lifetime of drinking cask beer, most of it has been in spec per Murphy's ("The acceptable range of pH for cask conditioned beers is 3·7 – 4·1 units") then I'd disagree. However, having seen how even illustrious US commercial brewers abuse their English styles with...

Remember that hops are temperate plants - the classic hopgrowing regions are around 45-50°N and the conventional wisdom is that they grow down to 35°N. Wikipedia says that Cullman is at 34°10′N (about the same as LA or Atlanta), so automatically you're on the margins of the classic hop-growing...

But let's start with the continent; given the pollution (or is it just mist) - Asia?

It's also a reminder that the average quality of cask in London is quite possibly the worst of any major city in England, although there are some notable exceptions. Go north young man...

You shouldn't be a prisoner of your preconceptions...

As I say, something seems to happen around 4.2% where the alcohol takes over the role of supplying body, so while it never hurts to do everything one can to maximise body, I was mainly thinking of <4%. But the task at hand is to impress the brew club with an 8A, so we need all the tricks. So...

A hop plant is never going to freak out over some rain, they're thirsty things. Whereas the first thing I see is some holes in the topmost full leaves. So it looks like something is eating them, but it's not something we get here, so it's over to the US contingent... But I'd look carefully on...

Apropos of nothing, I was just looking at Yeastman and our old friend WLP037 is on release again, along with WLP022 Essex which feels like the first time in a long time. However, WLP038 Manchester appears to have become a non-yeast, it's no longer even on the White Labs website, so last year's...

FYI WLP037 is on release again