Brewer’s Blog – Alex on Brimstone

Brewer’s Blog – Alex on Brimstone

by Libby Ridley Blog Topical

Hello Bishop Nick drinkers, Alex here again after a long delay since my last blog – things have been a bit busy between Easter and Summer and I’ve struggled to find the time to write something witty or informative.

We’ve had a very successful Revelry Day and the special edition brew seems to have gone down well.  The Revelry Day beer gives me a few nightmares as it’s such an important day – dreaming of 800 people walking around looking like they’ve been sucking on lemons after a pint woke me up once or twice at 3am.  We have a good stock of bottles in our shops – it’s a golden summer ale with plenty of the fruity American “C” hops: Cascade, Centennial, Chinook and Comet, backed up by a rich maltiness.

With Revelry behind us, the Chelmsford Beer Festival is the focus of our attention this week.  I know a few attendees have asked about my whereabouts.  The answer is “in the brewery”.  Unfortunately making beer doesn’t stop for beer festivals!  To make up for my absence I’ve done my best to brew a nice beer to be launched at the festival called “Brimstone”.  I’m always happiest when I get the chance to brew a beer I think I’ll enjoy drinking myself.  I know that sounds a bit selfish, but it seems to have saved me from any major mishaps during my career (a peat smoked beer called “Goldfinger” in 2002 is the only exception!).

Too many breweries are trying to reinvent the wheel at the moment by raiding the kitchen cabinet and producing something wacky, simply in the quest to have a USP to make them stand out from all the other breweries.  Experimentation is fine, but not when it comes at the expense of drinkability.  A balance of sweetness, acidity and bitterness is key for all good drinks, but what works well for a soft drink may not work so well in a beer.  The modern trend seems to be strongish blonde ales with a huge, almost bubble gum fruity hop aroma, but with little evidence of malty goodness.

For “Brimstone”, in view of it’s lower strength (3.9%), I decided to add plenty of crystal, caramalt and Vienna malt to give it a good biscuity, malt body to balance the fruity citrus flavours and bitterness of the Simcoe and Crystal hops.  Hopefully it’s balanced, drinkable and moreish – I’ll let you be the judge of that (bottles will be available from next week) – if it’s not, do let me know and I’ll try harder next time…

BRIMSTONE

BRIMSTONE

by Libby Ridley News Topical

Here’s introducting BRIMSTONE.  Our latest Limited Edition now available in cask (couple of weeks in bottle). A fabulous 3.9% amber ale full to the brim with citrus hops – Crystal, Simcoe and Mandarina Bavaria giving it orange zestiness.  This balanced with caramalt, vienna and wheat malts it has sticky-toffee top notes. Quite delicious, easy drinking and 10/10 for thirst quenchability.

Father’s Day

Father’s Day

by Libby Ridley News Topical

Are you all set for Father’s Day?  We’ve got it covered if not.  Open today, tomorrow and Sunday. We have brand new glass pint tankards which are GORGEOUS. And we have a new Limited Edition – REVELRY 19 now in bottle. New bar towels and of course gift vouchers for the undecided – these can be redeemed in our shop against beer or merchandise.

If you’re in the area on Sunday and are looking for family entertainment, head over to our REVELRY DAY (from noon-4pm on site). It promises much jollity.

Dark Mild Ale for May

Dark Mild Ale for May

by Libby Ridley News Topical

Dark Mild for May. CAMRA promotes Mild Ales in the month of May every year and this classic beauty has proved really popular with our customers so we’ve brought it back again.  Intense, dark and devilishly moreish, this magnificent mild is dominated by Chocolate malt. It’s not an overly hoppy beer but nice and dry and refreshing.

Dark Mild is flying out in cask as it always does. We expect it to be ready in bottle in a week or so so keep an eye out.

So that’s 3 dark beers we currently have in bottle – Dark Times – a 4.5% milk stout, Witch Hunt – a 4.2% porter and Dark Mild – 3.7%

Remember that you can select from our full range of core and limited edition beers at our Brewery Shop on site.  Open weekdays.

Beer for Easter

Beer for Easter

by Libby Ridley News Topical

Are you sorted for beer for Easter? We’ve got a stonking range of THIRTEEN!!!!! different bottled ales available – something for everyone. (Haze is converting the most ardent of sceptics!) We’ve also made up some mini-casks with Ridley’s Rite, Heresy, 1555 and popular favourite EAST STREET (blond 4.2%).  One of these egg shaped little wonders will see you through the Spring break no probs. 9 pints perfect for a family gathering.  Cask conditioned ale direct from the producer – how authentic can you get?

We can also make up bigger quantities for the thirsty – 18pt mini-pins and 36pt poly-pins are very popular for home entertaining.

So crack it open when Spurs kick off vs Man City on Wednesday and see if it lasts till East Monday!

Bottles and mini-casks are available online through our web-shop as long as you factor in delivery times but our brewery shop is open weekdays through to next Thursday if you can come by and pick something up.

If you quote EASTER15 we’ll even give you 15% off beers through to end of 21st April. (Aha! – glad you read to the end of this post??)

Happy holidays everyone.

Revelry Day 2019

Revelry Day 2019

by Libby Ridley News Topical

Gearing up for Revelry Day 2019. What better way to celebrate Father’s Day than at a Brewery Open day complete with tours, real ale bar, local wines, hog roast and family entertainment? Something for all the family. Free entry, ample parking and easy access from Freeport and the town centre.

Visit our facebook event page for updates and to see some pics from last year.

This time Company of Runners have mapped out a ‘fun run’ route setting off and ending back at Bishop Nick to coincide with the event so sign up for that and properly earn your pint and afternoon in the sun (fingers crossed).

All our beers will be tapped for the afternoon including a brand new recipe for Revelry 2019 – a lovely 4.3% golden ale brewed with US hops this time.

We’ve got Molly Moo’s booked with their gorgeous vintage van and delectable home made ice-creams.

There will be a super inflatable obstacle course for the little ones. It will be supervised at all times.

Nelion and Alex will be offering tours of the brewery for those who want to learn a bit more about the Real Ale brew process and the ingredients we use.

And, of course, our shop will be open for purchases.

EAST STREET is back

EAST STREET is back

by Libby Ridley Blog News Topical

Brewing an untried, untested beer is always fraught with risk, but I’m happy to report that the Belgian style wheat beer “Haze” turned out better than expected.  Keith and Trevor (my loyal assistants in the brewery) were initially slightly sceptical, especially after seeing samples from the fermentation vessel with orange bits floating in it.  However, a few weeks later they were hovering around the brewery sample minipin like wasps around a jam jar and they gave the “Haze” a big thumbs up.  I hope our customers who’ve tried it have enjoyed it too.  We still have some available in firkins and we have plenty of bottles in the brewery shop.  I suspect that it’s a style of beer that will mature nicely in bottle, so grab some whilst you can!

With the arrival of Spring and longer, warmer days, we have brewed our annual Easter favourite “East Street“.  It’s not one of my recipes, but I won’t hold that against it, it’s a damn fine beer – extra pale Maris Otter barley gives it a clean, biscuity crispness and copious amounts of Cascade, Crystal and Aurora hops pack a refreshing, aromatic aroma and finish.  For an extra zing we add further Crystal hops after the fermentation has finished.  We brewed it early last week on a Brew Day Experience with a very enthusiastic home-brewer called Peter helping out.  It was a real pleasure hosting the day for him.  Although he had a knowledge of brewing already, he asked plenty of questions and it was very satisfying having someone in the brewery who shared a passion for good beer.  I don’t think the passion quite extended to digging the hops out of the copper at the end of the day, especially after he saw the volume that went in at the start of the boil!

After just over a week in the fermenting vessel, the “East Street” was racked into firkins last week and is now available.  The bottles will be on sale in two weeks time.  I’m off on holiday next week, so Nelion will be taking the reigns whilst I’m away.  Meanwhile we have a brew of “Heresy” to do tomorrow, and the very popular American Pale Ale “Martyr” will be brewed next week and hopefully be available in firkins in a fortnight.  Bye for now, got to go and skim some yeast…

Brewer’s Blog

Brewer’s Blog

by Libby Ridley Blog News Topical

Things haven’t quite gone according to plan this morning.  Normally we brew Ridley’s Rite on a Tuesday, but for the first time in Bishop Nick history, one or more of our hot liquor tank heaters expired overnight which meant the hot liquor wasn’t hot enough.  We’re not ones for cutting corners with our beers, so the brew has been postponed until tomorrow.  Every cloud has a silver lining as it gives me time to catch up on some neglected jobs, like writing a blog.

Today was also meant to be a “Brew Day Experience” for a lovely chap called Peter, but alas, that had to be postponed too.  These “Brew Day Experience” seem to be very popular and I’ve enjoyed entertaining (I hope) enthusiastic guests.  Some have home-brewing experience, many don’t – they just want to know how bags of malt and hops become pints of bitter.  A question I always ask is “do you mind if your pint of beer has a haze?”  Everyone always says yes – they want a crystal clear pint.  During the brewing process I then demonstrate the great lengths brewers have to go to to ensure every pint that is served in the pub is completely clear.  Low nitrogen barley, boiling, seaweed, silicate auxiliary finings and the swim bladder of a fish (isinglass) are all required to remove protein and yeast.  Some breweries go further and use filtration for bottling, canning and kegging.  Unfortunately finings and filtration also remove flavour, which is why brewers outside the UK often don’t bother trying – their drinkers are perfectly happy with hazy beer.  Protein and yeast give the beer a haze, but in moderate amounts they don’t affect the flavour of beer negatively and the all important flavour is not stripped out by the use of finings.  “Drink with your mouth, not your eyes” is always my policy, if it tastes good, drink it, if it tastes bad, return it.  However, the majority of drinkers still crave for a pint of crystal clear beer, so all of our beers are sold that way – apart from our latest one-off special appropriately named “Haze”.

“Haze” is our attempt at a Belgian wheat beer – and it’s the first time I’ve brewed one.  After a bit of homework we fleshed out a recipe that included extra pale malted barley, wheat malt, malted oats, coriander, orange peel and Mandarina Bavaria hops, but no finings.  The first hurdle was trying to avoid a set mash due to the large proportion of huskless wheat in the mash tun (husks aid run-off and natural filtration), but by taking things slowly during run-off and sparging we succeeded.  The next challenge was to add the right amount of coriander to the boiling wort – we are only looking for hints of spice, not so much that all the wheat and hop flavours are swamped.  The third leap of faith was adding the orange peel to the fermenting vessel – we didn’t want Kia-Ora and a blocked up outlet, but we needed to add enough to impart a pleasing, marmalade zestiness to the finished beer.  The final hurdle, as with any brew, was the fermentation.

Well I’m happy to report that everything worked out very well.  I racked the “Haze” yesterday and gave the beer a thorough tasting and a big thumbs up.  It’s a good hazy, entirely natural, vegan friendly wheat beer, with an initial coriander aroma, followed by a nutty, bready wheat taste, with orange zest and citrus hops following in the aftertaste.  It’s a refreshing pint, easy going, but flavoursome – even more flavoursome than normal thanks to all that haze.  It will also be available in bottles soon too – unfiltered and packed with flavour.  Look out for it.  Bye for now….

Brewer’s Blog

Brewer’s Blog

by Libby Ridley News Topical

Hello, my name is Alex and I brew beer for Bishop Nick.  The wonderful team here thought it would be a good idea for me to step out of the cold brewery once in a while and write a brewer’s blog in my nice new warm office!  So here goes…

It’s been exactly one year since I started at Bishop Nick, after 17 years or so at Mighty Oak Brewery in Maldon.  So rather than cycle up Market Hill in the morning to get to work, I now pedal from Maldon to Braintree every day.  It keeps me fit and warms me up nicely at this time of year so I’m ready for a day brewing, racking, cask cleaning or indeed writing blogs.

I hope the customers have enjoyed the beers over the last 12 months.  It took only a short while to adapt my taste buds to the new beers I was tasked with brewing, but now they’re like good friends, especially on a Friday afternoon when a pint of Ridley’s Rite, 1555 or Heresy aids my recovery from digging out the hot mash tun and copper!  The monthly specials seem to have been popular and we like to keep them varied to cater for all tastes, from the fruity, hoppy golden/amber ales (Revelry 2018, Brazen, Wiseman and Virtue), through to the complex rich maltiness of Respect and Festive, and the darker, roastier stouts, porters and milds (Black Cloak, Joust, Witch Hunt and Dark Mild).

Yesterday we racked one of the darker types called “Dark Times”.  It’s a milk stout and is back by popular demand.  I brewed it 10 days ago and because it’s a style of beer I’ve never had the opportunity to brew, I was both excited and slightly nervous, but everything seems to have worked out.  To put it simply, a milk stout is a sweeter, fuller bodied type of stout, with the addition of unfermentable lactose sugar to the boiling sweet wort.  This milk sugar balances the harsher characteristics of the roasted malts and makes it appealing to both stout and non-stout drinkers – a perfect pint for the cold winter evenings, and at only 4.5% and being easy drinking, you may be tempted to have seconds.  We’ll be bottling it too and should be available well into the spring when we get the first whiff of warmth and lighter times.

That’s all for today, time to get back into the brewery where I’m brewing Ridley’s Rite today.

VIRTUE

VIRTUE

by Libby Ridley News Topical

We have a new beer for the new year. VIRTUE – our optimistic ale – brimful of vim, busting with vigour – signalling the start of 2019 and the gladest of tidings. Crystal, Centennial and Comet hops shout grapefruit and tangerine. This combo, balanced with sweet malt results in a gorgeous light amber beer. The perfect resolution.

This brew is Limited Edition and is available in cask and bottle while stocks last.