This little fellow has been eyeing me up everytime Ive open the fridge for the past few weeks.

His name is the Occultist. A milk coffee chocolate oatmeal stout as the amazingly illustrated can describes.

It's pretty new on the block, a 2017 release from Brewdog, which first caught my eye on the recently published 2017 edition of DIY DOG (Brewdogs recipe catalogue of their beers scaled down to give home brewers chance to emulate/clone)

The Occultist itself pours jet back with a nice Mocha looking head, leaving a slight lacing trial on the glass.

Aroma of coffee, some chocolate and dark roasted malts.

Taste wise the milky chocolate comes through with some coffee notes thrown in, with a slight alcohol hit, with the hint of dark roasted notes, slightly thinner body than I expected. However this improves as the beer warms up abit.

The same kind of after taste as the Jet Black Heart leaving me with a chocolate milkshake mouthfeel however this time with a more prominent alcoholic feel.

Really quite nice, great dessert beer. I would buy it again, if I was to clone it I would want to try beefing (in a figurative way) the body up slightly.

Done well Brewdog!!

Until next time........Happy Brewing

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Happy Homebrew Wednesday!

Today I tried a small bottle of Red Panda, a week on from bottling day to see how things are developing.

It's still not fully carbed and still alittle 'green' where you have a slightly rough bitterness from the hops.


It's still pleasant to drink and still reminds me of certain aspects of commercial beers I've tried in the past. The malt flavours have become more pronounced now which melds well with the fruity hops, the strawberry like flavour of Belma hops appears at the moment the more prominent hop characteristic coming through.

I have two bottles left along with the 1/2 filled keg. I usually give away a bottle of two to Coworkers and my dad but as I ended up with less beer in the bottling bucket than I thought I may end up keeping both. I'll certainly want to try one next week again, if things improve I'll give the last bottle away.

At the moment however, much like my last brew (Punk IPA Clone) it doesn't wow me.

Red Panda however still has sometime to develop.

Until next time......Happy Brewing

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It's been an intense few weeks focusing on a project at work, I had planned to do another post on the second dry hop addition for Red Panda, but after working longer I've been spent in the evenings.

A quick summary now however was that 5 days before bottling I put the galaxy and casade hops in and the Tuesday just gone I placed the fermenter in my cool brewing bag and tried to crash cool it.

Using 4 1.5L juice containers I got it down to 10c, upon bottling I did notice the beer coming out abit clearer and also how the hops caked  together and settled more.

Unfortunately however I underestimated the amount I would loss because of the hops and trub. I did dry hop 12l with something like 60g of hops in total! 

I packaged up 7L, 3 bottles and the rest was naturally carbed in my 9.5L keg.

The initial taste from the dregs were striking. I could taste passionfruit upfront (got to love Galaxy Hops!!) with floral tones, followed by a sweet strawberry taste. Most likly from the Belma hops, finishing with some maltiness.

It faintly reminds me of Staggingerly Good's Pterodactyl.

I have to say I can't wait to properly try the test bottle in two weeks.
If the sample is any indiction this probably will be my best brew to date.

Until next time.....Happy Brewing

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I've been eagerly awaiting this day all week, as today marks the first of 2 dry hop additions to my Red Panda (Red IPA).

As mention in my post brew day post on the Red Panda, it was a tiring but seemly successful brew day as the fermentation was off to a quick start. 

Within my latest recipe I've added 2 hop additions, 1 at 7 days after pitching and another 2 days later (5 days before bottling). Dry hopping 30g Belma and then 25g Cascade with 30g Galaxy. 

By the looks of the air lock, fermentation looks to have stopped or slowed right down. Its hard to really tell for me as I do 1/2 scaled batches (3 gallons or 15/16 litres) so at this point things could be happening but as theres more space in the fermentor sometimes the airlock doesn't move much. It certainly did however during the early part of this week! So I also checked the gravity which came too 1.10 so I now know its done its business. 

The sample taste is quite promising.

Until next time......Happy Brewing

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