Southampton 750 Series - Scotch Ale

The fourth and final beer in the 750ml series was Southampton's Scotch Ale. I saved this one for last because I'm a big fan of "British Isle Style" ales. Scotch Ale is named because...ta da!...it was first made in Scotland! The Scotch Ale is a lightly hopped and sweetly malted brew. They traditionally will have roasted malt flavors as well. Beersmith tells me something quite interesting: "Any caramelization comes from kettle caramelization and not caramel malt (and is sometimes confused with diacetyl)." Note to self...when you make a Scotch Ale....boil for the caramalization (don't use caramel malts).

Appearance

The color reminds me of dark toffee or perhaps copper would be the correct term...Like the last brew this beer produced a very small amount of head, which did not stick around for very long. Lacing on the glass was very slight.

Smell

First thought...yum!! If this beer tastes the same way it smells, it's going to be hard to not buy 4 more before the end of the trip. There are definitely scents of roasted caramel, perhaps light coffee/chocolate. There is a nice sweet fruitiness in the nose as well. It's an overpowering smell too.. Don't plan on smelling much after this! It fills the nose, and sticks with you.

Taste

The beer has a very nice medium mouthfeel. My mouth instantly recognizes caramel and perhaps a bit of a buscuitness. The brew on the tongue feels sweet, but after the swallow there's a very pleasing bitterness. There was a bit of a strong alchohol flavor on the end of the taste as well. You can tell this beer has some UMPHH to it at 6.5%. I'm not sure if it was my mind playing tricks on me, but after a few sips, I was definitely getting some smoke flavor shine through as well.

Etc...

This is a very nice sipping beer. Especially say sitting in a cottage overlooking the Scottish highlands!! I'll definitely have to explore this style some more in the comming months.

Southampton 750 Series - Cuvée des Fleurs

Well the name should give it away. Like the last 2 the Cuvée des Fleurs is another one of Southampton's French farmhouse ales. This is the first beer I've ever had that is an "Ale brewed with Flowers and Rose Water". Fancy eh? Cuvée translates to "wine" in French, and Fleurs translates to "Flower". So I'm guessing the name of the brew would translate to "Wine of Flowers". Reading from the back of the bottle: "Cuvée des Fleurs is a unique brew of our own imagination. We flavor this distinguished ale with a variety of flowers including L. angustifolia, A. nobilis, C. officinalis, and a generous amount of H. lupulus". By the way... H. lupulus is the common name for hops :-)

Appearance

The beer pours a nice golden yellow. The 2 fingers of head very quickly dissipated. The head on this beer was very thin...more like that of a carbonated soda. I almost wonder if that was an effect of the flowers that this brew is produced with. Needless to say...no lacing. Even with the yeasties a bit stirred up from the bottom of the bottle, this was still a fairly clear beer.

Smell

Holy Flower Power! You immediately get a very diverse aroma that smells like a summer garden. The floral aromas are exceptionally strong, however they don't overpower too much. There is a slight yeast scent in there as well.

Taste

Another blast of flowers, this time on the tongue. It's hard to determine how much of the flowers used by the beer contribute to the flavor, or if it's mainly a large dose of floral tasting hops. The flavor is so complex though that I have to think that there has to be some contribution from the flowers. It eventually works its way into a dry well bittered finish, albeit still a strong aftertaste of flowerbox.

Etc...

While this was a good beer to try, I have a feeling I could only enjoy one on very rare occasions. I struggled to finish both glasses, mainly becaue the floral component was so overwhelming, I just couldn't drink anymore. I would recommend for the avid beer drinker to try this very brew at least once though, as this is a very unique style of beer that one will not be able to find in many places.

Southampton 750 Series - Biere De Garde

The second brew to try for the 750 series is Southampton's Biere De Garde. So other then a very fancy way to spell Beer...what makes this beer unique?

The Bier De Garde or "keeping beer" is a farmhouse style beer that was first brewed in France. The farmhouse style was originally brewed by and for farmers and their hands, brewed for taste with readily available ingredients and served as a reward for a hard day's work. Biere De Garde's literal translation is "keeping beer" as in "keep it for awhile as it gets damn good later on!" The Biere De Garde is Category 16D in the BJCP

Appearance

This beer pours a nice light amber to copper color. The cork came out with a nice solid pop, as this beer was quite well carbonated. A bit of a over anxious pour left me initially with about 4 fingers of head! Have to be careful of the pour as it seems all of the 750ml series are carbed in the bottle, and have a good size yeast cake on the bottom.

Smell

A very fruity aroma is present right away on first sniff. There is some nice sweet malt scent as well.

Taste

A medium body gives way to a semi-dry finish. Definite hop spicyness on the tongue. Overall a very clean taste that leaves the mouth with a nice clean malty flavor. Doing a bit of research online shows that SHPH uses the French Strisslespalt Hops for this brew.

Etc...

Very drinkable beer!! I could easily have polished off another 750ml bottle if I had one! This brew looks to hit the style dead on, and does a great job doing it. I'd give it about a 4/4.5 out of 5.

Southampton 750 Series - Saison Deluxe

Well, I'm up in Long Island for the month. While it sucks being away from home, there's always a great oppurtunity to try some new brews. After hiking the Mashomack Preserve on Shelter Island, I made my way to the Southampton Publick House. After eating some great dinner, and trying 7 of their on tap brews, I brought home all 4 bottles of their "750 series". These brews were not available on tap, and only available in corked and caged 750ml bottles. Over the rest of my trip I will try all 4 of these brews, and give my thoughts on each one

Saison Deluxe

Mmmmm...the high temp fermented Saison. Full of those nice fruity and spicy esters. Saison is the french word for "season". So when you say "Saison" make sure you say it with an outrageous French accent! Especially when you've had a few...it makes drinking it that much more fun! BJCP 16C is reserved for the Saisons. These brews came before the refrigeration. As these brews sat in the 85 to 90 degree heat, the yeast would produce strong esters and phenols that would drive these beers to be very unique.

Appearance

This beer pours a nice dark golden yellow. The cork forced itself out nice and strong. I had a feeling that this beer would be very carbonated and it was. The large amount of yeast in the bottom of the glass shows the brewer bottle carbed. A careful pour still yielded 3 fingers of long lingering head on the glass. The beer was a medium turbidity

Smell

An immediate yeasty aroma fills the nose. There is a light hint of phenols there as well.

Taste

MMMMMmmmmm... This was a great flavored brew. Yeast dominates a complex flavor that includes a nice sweetness with light phenols. A moderate mouthfeel gives way to a bitter and long lasting finish with spicy pepper powering the taste.

Etc...

This is an extremely flavorful and complex ale. The 7.4% ABV is masked extremely well. The finish makes me find myself wanting more, and I could easily find myself pouring glass after glass of this if it wasn't for the hefty price tag. $14 will yield 2 glasses. While this may be a bit depressing for the wallet, you'll make your mouth very happy!

Strawbery Wine

On top of cider, we made some Strawberry wine before I left for NY. The strawberries at the local grocery store were buy 1 get 2 free....kind of hard to pass up the oppurtunity.

Here's our basic recipe:
30 lbs strawberries
3/4 tsp tannin
5 lb corn sugar
4 lb cane sugar (unfortunately we ran out of corn sugar)
2 gallons of water
1 pkg K1-V1116 Lalvin dry yeast

OG of Total: 1.078

We started off by adding all the ingredients to the 6.5 gallon carboy. In order to make sure your fruit (now must) is sanitized, you need to add sulfur in the form of Campden tablets. The goal is to get 50ppm of sulfur into the must. This will kill any bacteria. Since we were using 6 gallons, I needed to get 300ppm for 1 gallon in order to equal 50ppm for 6 gallons. Since my Campden tablets give 30ppm per gallon, I used tablets...this gave me my 300ppm for 1 gallon or my 50ppm for 6 gallons. After waiting 24 hours for the sulfur to dissipate, we're ready to pitch the yeast.

Using a carboy for an initial fruit wine fermentation was my first mistake. If you're going to make wine, make sure to do it in a bucket, not something with a narrow neck.

Here is why:

The fermentation was "vigorous" to say the least!! Upon filling the carboy up to about 6 gallons, I capped it with an airlock and bung. However, one thing I didn't think about was that the strawberries would float. Once the liquid underneath the strawberries started to produce CO2, the strawberries on top were pushed up the neck of the carboy. The airlock quickly plugged with strawberry gunk, and eventually exploded out of the neck, and into the air!! The carboy then spewed molten strawberry lava for the next few hours!!

However it wasn't all bad. The strawberry lava, actually tasted great! They tasted like strawberries dunked in wine, and covered with pop rocks (the CO2 they released made them fizzy).

Needless to say, we had quite the mess to clean up. However when all was said and done, the wine kept on bubbling away without spewing anymore. It's now aging in the cupboard waiting for its first rackings.

Hard Cider

For the month of November I'm going to be working at the New York NWS office. Unfortunately that means I can't brew ....sad.... However, that I can still do some cider!

Leah's parents came down to visit before I left, and they brought 9 gallons of unpasteurized cider with them from a cider presser in MI. The sweet cider tasted great. Hopefully that translates over to a good hard cider, however in the most recent issue of BYO, I read that sweet cider doesn't usually make good hard cider. We shall see.

Here's the recipe I came up with:
4 1/2 gallons unpastuerized cider
1 lb buckwheat honey
1 pt maple syrup
1 lb clover honey
2 cups brown sugar
1 pkg EC-1118 Lalvin Dry Yeast

OG of Cider: 1.050
OG of Cider w/ all fermentables: 1.090

First, we added 1 gallon of the cider into a pot on the stove, and warmed it up to 160 degrees. We then added the honey, syrup, and sugars. After the sugars have dissolved, we cooled down the mixture, and added it along with the other 3 1/2 gallons of cider to the carboy.

I've read that by not pastuerizing unpastuerized cider, the results can be unpredictable, however the best yeast to use for cider is generally the natural cider yeast already found in the cider. I'm hoping that by adding in a packet of wine yeast, the wine yeast will work witht the wild yeast to produce a nice enough product. However this is a big if. For our first cider though, I think it will be an interesting experiment.

Another problem may be that our cider may turn to vinegar. Bacteria turns cider to vinegar, Yeast turns cider to hard cider. However bacteria cannot survive in a CO2 environment. Hopefully the bacteria is poisoned by the yeast producing tons of CO2.