Friday 28 January 2011

Tonight I celebrate my love for you

Another Friday another post-flavour panel flop in front of the lap top. When I started the flavour panel a few years ago, we were tasting around 5 brews. Today we worked our way through 18 tanks. The difference can be measured in the degree of calm exuded by the Head Brewer as he walks back to his office for a pot of lapsang, today is a calm day. I taste the water, the worts and the beers all day, every day and over the week nagging doubts build up about a bit of dryness here or a hint of a flavour fault there. You never really know how you've done until the panel have sat. A satisfactory flavour panel soothes this tension and makes Friday night and my Saturday morning 7:30 lay in worth all the preceding hours of effort.

This week we tasted the beer I sent up to the Brewing Industry International Awards. I selected it personally from the gyles being racked this week. I was pleased that the panel agreed with my choice. All agreed that it was a good example of the brand. The BIIA is the one that commercial brewers want to win. It's judged by commercial brewers on the basis of quality and commercial value. Any off notes, hazes or lack of balance and you're left in the stalls.

Tomorrow I shall be at Hand in Falmouth doing my beer talk. I am very excited about it. Here are the power point slides for the event. 

Finally, the 12 brew project is developing nicely with a few more brewers approaching me to join them for a brew or a day of male bonding. Most thrillingly it is likely that I will get to join Mr White Shield, Steve Wellington for a day’s brewing in his sparkling new brewery at the epicentre of the universe of pale ale. The words honour and privilege are just not sufficient.

The news was nearly as exciting as being invited into Zak Avery’s kitchen!

5 comments:

ZakAvery said...

I keep meaning to ask - does Angerfist know you've remixed a beer in his honour.

Adrian Tierney-Jones said...

Good luck with the BII, I shall be up there, not judging obviously, but observing and blogging about it — I can imagine you and Zak enjoying some of that nonsense that someone somewhere has the temerity to call music, I think his band used plugs, tramps and electric heaters or something like that to get their distinctive sound (all with a 180 bpm background of course). Whatever happened to your great fondness for James BLunt?

Stuart Howe said...

Zak hi,

It's called Angerfist remix in honour of their epic reworking of we will dominate by Kapsparov ft MC Raw. It was a good track made perfect. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb7xi53MmcA The beer was the third revision of 50 Hop using the last of my hop stocks in an all out attempt at humulus brutality.

As I remember if Adrian it was you who had us thrown out of Bier Circus for dancing to 220BPM nosebleed industrial speedcore playing on your Iphone. Enjoy Burton, you lukcy devil!

BeerReviewsAndy said...

Good luck tonight, i've got a petite orval and a Monsieur rock ready in support, might even crack open the matilda too!

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating said...

Will you be collaborating with White Shield on a new brew then?

Saw the News today about Molston Coors buyout and got curious....

www.eatingisntcheating.blogspot.com

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