Dana (Super Styrian) hop

There's not much about this hop online, I presume because it's relatively new.

So, exclusively, my take.

Dana, a super Styrian, high alpha hop from Slovenia. 10.9% alpha acids.
Bred from Hallertau and Magnum in the Slovenia hop research centre.

Fantastic bitterness, very gentle but prominent all the same. As a late and dry hop it imparts a minty/herbal character. Not unpleasant, but not what you'd expect from the lemony aroma when the pack is opened. Similarly, the cat-like aroma that the oxidised hops exhibit doesn't carry over into the finished beer.

I made a Dana / Vienna SMaSH, with Brewferm lager yeast, and I was very impressed with the bitterness, and although the mintiness wasn't exactly what I was expecting, neither was it unpleasant. I'll be brewing an English style bitter with it soon enough, but with Goldings of some sort for the late hops.

To conclude: if you like minty/herbal, go for it. Very gentle bitterness.
Beers to try: Arbor Single Hop Dana, Acorn Dana IPA and Itchen Valley Dana

Harvest Ale #1

Fresh hopped Harvest Pale ale:

5oz, on the button.

It feels like ages ago that I got excited about the first hop shoots nuzzling at the surface of the soil. Now they’re drawing the attention of the council’s planning department! So, after nearly 5 months, I can finally reap the rewards of months of doing nothing; it’s basically looked after itself. Well, ok, I did rig up a zig-zag of Poundland plant wire, but that’s about it. The regular watering thing that plants seem to like wasn’t labour intensive this year, thank you Gulf Stream, and although I did manage to throw on some tomato feed once or twice, it was only because I was feeling guilty about having done, frankly, nothing. But now I’ve a brew day to plan. Some sort of pale ale should prove a hearty canvas for the piney Nugget hops I’ll be harvesting from the one bull-bine. Only one bine flowered, so I’ll probably only have quarter of a pound of wet hops at best, but lesson learned for next year: cut back all bull shoots, not just some. Success favours the brave.

They're all perfect.

The pale will be 2lbs maris otter, 1oz crystal & 1oz wheat, and ¼ oz Northdown (bitter) per 5 ounces of fresh hops. Thinking about it, it’s probably too much, as the equivalent is about 5oz aroma hops in a 5-gallon brew (fresh hops weigh between 4 and 6 times more wet than when dried). Though after consulting the forums where it seems that more is more, more might be enough. Besides, it will be easily spread over the last twenty minutes of the boil.


So on Harvest Ale eve, about three weeks later than the microbrewers who were at the Kent harvests, and nearly a week later than some Dublin homebrewers (I’m quite far north, have I said?), I finally set the alarm clock for an interesting brew day. I haven’t dreamt about homebrew yet, but if it’s going to happen, it’ll be tonight.

Harvest Day: 18-09-2012

Hot, hot, hop.

Woke up to a wet and windy day, and thanks to some sort of bizarre cold, absolutely no sense of smell - hardly conducive to a morning of brewing with fresh hops!

The first thing to do was to measure up the hops, so I knew how much of what to make. As it turned out, my estimate was spot on: 5 ounces of fresh hops. So I set half a gallon of water to heat up, and mashed in the malts. I left it, checking occasionally that it was at the upper end of the 60s (temperature, that is). Then, sparge, boil, and in with ¼ ounce of Northdown hops to bitter the pale ale. Once the wort had been boiling for 40 minutes I begun to add small handfuls of fresh hops and became frustrated at how little I could smell! Was it the lack of hop oils? Was it the small quantity of hops being added? Or was it, hopefully, the absence of my olfactory senses for the day?

The whole with went into a glass demijohn at 1045, which wasn’t far off estimate, and then in with some yeast from a couple of weeks ago. It’s not fermenting yet, but with any luck by this evening there should be a krauseny mess all over the living room floor.

There’s very little I can do now, for a couple of weeks, except the usual bottle palaver. However, in a couple of weeks there will be an honest appraisal of the beer, but in the meantime, there’s bound to be an update on the next beers up, namely:

#4, a hoppy golden ale, with a fantastic citrus aroma,

Chocolate and Passionfruit Porter, which may or may not be a stroke of genius,
WHT Tayleur’s dried Rowanberry brown ale, and finally,
CIDER! If I can get hold of some apples!

And maybe, by next September, I’ll have both more hops and a hopback to really force in the aroma, sense of smell or not!

St. Patricks' Day and other days

Firstly, the Irish Blog Awards ceremony was last night, and though I didn't win owt, I was listed on the site as a contender in the Newcomer category, so I'm happy with that. The blog needed a little tart up anyway. However, in the meantime I've come up with a great idea to get noticed for next year! I'm going to make some beer using only ingredients I've grown myself and blog about it. Seems easy, really, considering barley can grow in most places, and you can’t stop hops growing in others, but that's just the easy bit. I'll also have to malt and toast the barley, dry the hops, and find some way of bottle conditioning the beer. Now do you see where it becomes more challengeing? Anyway, I've got my eye on the 'Food & Drink' category. Read Homebrew Challenge for more information on the challenge.

In addition to that new page, I'm looking forward to receiving a review of the Triple from Richard, which you'll find on Richard's Review page soon. And after St. Patrick's Day, I'm pretty sure I know what it'll say!

17th March is St. Patrick's Day in Ireland (he was Welsh too), and as per our new household tradition, we got all our muckers to parade with us a bit, before spending the rest of the afternoon with a drink in our hands. And like last year, it wasn't long before we cracked open some homebrew. Edward brought down 5 bottles of his Brewferm Pilsner, the same as I’d brewed the year before, and I opened a couple of bottles of the Triple. I think I can say without fear of contradiction that the pilsner went down better. However, there’s a redeeming factor in this. The main problem with the Triple was the strength of flavour and alcohol, made all the more prominent by the fact we’d been drinking canned tasteless lager all afternoon. So, really, in spite of the initial reactions, the triple was enjoyed, and none was left to waste. And as for the pilsner, which was excellent (well done Eddie B.), who will brew next years’ batch?

Oh, and finally, I've finally bottled the cider! I'd been putting it off for ages as I had no idea when it was ready to bottle, but 5 months ought to do it. So, here's to a little more waiting.