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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Following on from my other post this week I've cracked open another beer in a similar style Jet Black Heart, however it doesn't either call itself a stout or really fit into the style quite right either.

Batemans Mocha Beer isn't a bad beer, however after the initial wow (taste of coffee and chocolate) within first 1/4 of the bottle I felt then kind of bored with it.
It smells much like it tastes. Coffee with a chocolate, almost syrupy like flavour. Some little dark malts. Pretty fizzy actually, kind of like Coca Cola on the verge of going flat.

The head dissappeared very quickly, the colour is black however has some deep red hues when up to the light.

Given the choice I would choose Jet Black Heart. For a few reasons, one was that the mouthfeel was better, it left me thinking I just had an milkshake. There was more 'layers of flavour ' with the malty and berry like aspect as well.

Until next time.....Happy Brewing

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I thought to do a different kind of post, a quick post looking into styles that I could try to clone an existing beer or create a recipe of my own of this style.

This time I'm trying a bottle of Jet Black Heart from Brewdog, bought from Tescos Extra.

Ive read and watched alot on this beer and thought it was a good starting point to the style as I generally like Brewdogs beers.

As for the important sniff and taste test!

Well its very enjoyable, especially after a long but productive day at work.

It pours very dark brown, almost 'jet black'  with a little tan head that disappeared quickly.
Smell is of dark, roasted malts with faint coffee almost nutty notes and slightly sweet.
Taste wise I get dark, roasted malts followed by some slight dark berries and vanilla then what I can describe as a lingering chocolate milk flavour.

Very good indeed! I've got more of these to try coming up but it's certainly a great entry point into the sweet stout beer style.

The recipe itself is also so vary excesable given the fabulous DIYDOG.

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

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While Mrs Panda (aka wifey aka Mrs Brann) was away for a friends hen do I thought to get a cheeky brew on.

Few weekends ago I had a bottle of 5am Saint, a very enjoyable Red IPA from Brewdog.

I generally like what Brewdog produce even though some of what is out there is abit too bitter (in a hoppy way) for me.

What it did do for me is wanting re-evaluate  my previous attempt of this style (in the form of Red Baron). The malt bill I generally left along as I was quite happy with this, however I did find it lacking in some hoppy flavour.
This now will now be dry hopped with a combined 85g of hops (30 Belma, 30 galaxy and 25 cascade), actually the whole hop schedule carries this theme using Belma, Galaxy and little bit of cascade to balance out the pure tropical fruits a bit. Its going to be one hazy tropical fruit bomb! 

As for the name change? Well we all have to have a brand don't we? I'm in the process of coming up with new names for some of my beers and new designs for the labels. Essentially Panda's rule!

So Red Baron....now becomes Red Panda and follows in the footsteps of Galactic Panda.

As for the brew day? 

Well it went pretty well, even if I was tired (waking up early to catch the F1) it went well. My Ace Boiler Grain bag finally gave up though, by my next brew day though I should have a Stainless Steel grain basket which should generally help matters of spillages on the kitchen floor and sparging, I did however get 5% more efficiency than my other brews with the boiler.  

Unfortunately some of the sugars scorched the bottom of the boiler so I had a job to clean this off this morning even after a good soak overnight. 

The grain basket should help with this too as it has 2cm feet to sit up from the bottom of the boiler. 

Another thing I did differently was that I used a fan to cool the outside of the boiler while a chiller took care of the rest, so after 15 mins or so hop stand it cooled to about 24c in roughly 30 mins. 

Hydrometer sample actually tastes better than my current brew I'm drinking.  Which I'm quite surprised about. 

I also let gravity take over when I transfered to the fermentor, I watched on a youtube video in the week where someone did this and got a massive load of foam in the fermentor due to the sloshing and spalshing, it saved me alot of work stirring it and it seems to of worked.

It was around 6pm-ish when I pitched the yeast, 8am this morning airlock is nicely active, even with the brew bucket being 1/2 fall (due to me only ding a 16l batch)

Two dry hops one at 7 days then 5 days before bottling. 6.2% expected ABV don't know if to bottle most or keg most. I might try natural carbing the keg this time as I'm not overally happy with how force carbing went in my current brew. 

I can smell the fermentor standing behind me, smells glorious! I'll do an update at the dry hopping point.

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

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