Defacer - the 200th brew

All the way back in February 2013 we brewed our very first beer, Single hop Chinook. This beer became Boring Brown Beer our Imperial Best Bitter which is brewed once a year at around the same time, but I digress. It took us a full 17 months to get to our 100^th brew. For this we decided to take one of our original core beers, and go big. We went with one of the original home brew recipes, Black Perle, back from when Weird Beard was just a twinkle in the eye. Double Perle was a huge success, and is now brewed around 3 times a year, with a small amount each time going into barrels.

It then took just under 11 months until our 200^th brew was upon us, and this time we thought of something different.

It has been well documented that we at the brewery love Sorachi Ace, that most divisive of hops. It may have started with beers like Fade to Black (Black IPA with Sorachi, Citra and Summit) and Saison 14 (Saison with Sorachi and Pacific Gem) that Gregg brewed as a home brewer, or it may have been the night that Bryan and Gregg met for the first time in the Euston Tap, where the Sorachi Ace version of IPA is Dead was the beer of the evening. Who cares which came first, either way we used Sorachi at every given opportunity, so where did you think we were going to go with this.

Our 200^th brew is inspired by a kind of unofficial beer range we have, that started out life as batch 8 of our Little Things That Kill. This was a low ABV beer hopped generously with Sorachi Ace, Summit and Apollo. The beer quickly got the nick name of Sorachi Face Punch because of the huge Sorachi Ace hit you got from it. We decided to use this hopping on a slightly tweaked version of our Holy Hoppin' Hell, a double IPA, which went by the name of Sorachi Face Plant, and again another brew of ours went down a storm. So for brew 200 we thought we would push ourselves as brewers and go bigger than we have ever before. Taking this hop profile a step further and brewing a triple IPA.

Naming this beer proved to be a bit of a challenge, almost as divisive as Sorachi Ace is as a hop. To some, there was a natural progression from Sorachi Face Punch, to Sorachi Face Plant to Sorachi Skull F*ck, but for better or worse this deemed unwise. We then bashed through a number of other names, such as Sorachi Face Explossion and Sorachi Face Hugger (which our Friends at Mad Hatter beat us to). But we came up with the equally good name of Defacer, which continues one of our other favourite things, music and name beers after songs. It also kind of follows the series name, as the sorachi is ripping your face off this time. And it has of course lead to some fantastic branding and a little twist to the workings of Lup'in, our ever changing skull.

The final beer is packaged today and specially bottled into 660ml bombers. Expect to see it in a few weeks after it has conditioned. Please do drink as fresh as you can, there are so much of our favourite hops in this beer, we wouldn't want you to waste them by sitting on a bottle. It weighs in at 11.1% so beware or it really will rip your face off!

The Spreadsheet Ninja Side of Brewing: Introduction: The Birth of the Spreadsheet Ninja

This is the first in what I hope is a series of blogs giving some insight into the business side of running a brewery.

When Bryan and  I started the brewery in 2013 neither of us were able to devote 100% of our time to the project. I was still running a photography business and Bryan still worked full time at the BBC. At the start we were both involved with every aspect of the brewery operation, brewing, packaging, sales, purchasing, marketing and social media, logistics and delivery and accounts. We were men with many many hats and when we were small this was not a problem. I could deal with sales e-mails in the middle of a brew day, or put together orders in the downtime on packaging days.

As we grew, things became a bit more difficult to juggle all the balls - even when we went fulltime at the brewery. Bryan automatically gravitated towards the brewing side and I to the business side. This led to some tensions as neither Bryan nor I appreciated how much time the other half of the business was taking. At one point Bryan called me a faceless accountant during one of our discussions.  It was time to get some more staff....

So this was the birth of the Faceless Spreadsheet Ninja, Faceless Accountant is the worst superhero name ever but change accountant for spreadsheet ninja and you have the basis for a beer and now a blog series.

Upside to A Down Day

Not many people would admit it, but things don't always go to plan in a brewery. Beer is a living thing and so many variables can effect it, and every so often a beer is brewed that just doesn't want to behave. I could name several very successful beers out there that were born out of error; I won't though.

Back in March our head brewer took the day off, leaving our very competent team to brew the next batch of Black Perle. This happens from time to time with no problem, but on this cold morning the wind must have been coming in from the wrong direction or the planets had aligned badly as we overshot our efficiency. This means we made way more sugar in the wort than usual, which in turn means the yeast is likely to produce more alcohol. 

Picture courtesy of Matt Curtis

Our problems did not end there though; the yeast seemed to really like this beer and did not want to stop consuming the sugars. Usually with a stout you would create lots of long chain sugars that yeast don't like. These sugars are left in the beer giving it a thicker body. This time round, the yeast wanted to eat almost everything and so the beer tasted a little thinner than we would like.

To recap, we had an over efficient brew, meaning more sugar, and yeast that just wanted to eat everything. So after fermentation we were left with a version of Black Perle that is over 1% higher ABV and with a little thinner mouthfeel than we would have liked. At this point, decisions have to be made: can the beer be fixed and released as normal? Is the beer releasable at all? Do we do something a little different with it? Well, we could have added some water to dilute the alcohol and bring it back to the right ABV, but this would thin the already lacking body even more and it just wouldn’t be Black Perle. The beer tasted great, as it always does, so we weren’t going to ditch it. This is where our creative juices start to flow and we get excited. What can we now do to turn this into an interesting new beer; make a positive out of a negative; find the up side of a down day? We tasted the beer and decided that with the addition of some choice dry hops this would be the perfect Breakfast Black IPA. So we chucked generous amounts of Bravo, Apollo and Cascade hops in the fermenter with all that lovely Has Bean Coffee, and gave it some time to take shape.

We think the end product is great. And hope you all enjoy it. But not too much, really don't fancy trying to brew this one again.

Tsujigiri - A Fresh I.P.A that you don't want to mess with

 In December 2014 we were celebrating a good friend's birthday at BrewDog Shepherds Bush. As the beers were flowing so did our creative juices. The bar's general manager, and a friend of ours, Dean Pugh, was amongst the party. He got talking to Chris Taylor, one of our brewer's assistants, and our head brewer, Bryan. With all three having homebrew backgrounds the discussion was on beers they've brewed and would like to brew. Soon the trio were recounting past recipes and churning out ideas for using slightly different ingredients including various yeasts and fruits in possible future recipes.

Dean spoke of a time when he experimented with fermentation using 4 different yeasts, including sake yeast, on a single recipe. He also mentioned how the original recipe using sake yeast evolved and was successfully brewed on BrewDog Manchester's pilot kit, showcasing other Japanese ingredients including sushi rice and Japanese hops. Bryan talked about what he had seen in the sake breweries of Japan, which he had visited a few months before and so, the guys suddenly got excited over using sake yeast to ferment a beer. Things didn't stop there; they hit upon the idea of brewing a fresh IPA, using fruit in the recipe. What we were looking at now was a beer fermented with sake yeast with additions of fruit and since the theme was a "Japan I.P.A", the fruit of choice was yuzu. Then the question of sourcing such an odd ingredient in large quantities was posed, and the conversation went that way...

Months later and after several get-togethers, where the idea of this brew just wouldn't go away, a pipe dream became a reality. Dean came to Weird Beard brewery, donned a Weird Beard overall and brewed this interesting recipe along with Chris and our new lead brewer, Jonny Bright. Here's the photographic proof:

In writing the recipe the guys decided to bridge the citrus character of the yuzu with the lemon-sherbet quality of one of our favourite hops: Sorachi Ace. This hop originates from Japan and aside from being an all-time favourite, was a suitable choice for the hop schedule. They also decided upon adding Chinook to compliment the spicy notes that the sake yeast would create during fermentation. The aim and the result: an easy drinking I.P.A with a considerable twist! Speaking of twists, the name of the beer, which is obviously Japanese, can get you a little tongue-tied.

Tsujigiri literally translates as "crossroads killing" and describes the impulsive act of a Samurai testing out his new sword on a random individual or passer-by. Not too far removed from an 'impulse brew', Tsujigiri is not your everyday I.P.A but can be surprisingly drunk like one. The beer comes to 6.2% and on the nose, it's citrussy because of the yuzu. It also has a subtly herbal aroma with a fresh minty-ness from the Sorachi Ace. Sipping on the beer, you get the I.P.A bitterness through the tangy lemon and fresh herbs, but it rounds off really refreshingly and balanced. It's bang on for the summer and a delight to drink. Tsujigiri will be launched at BrewDog Shepherds Bush on Friday 22nd May from 6pm at their event.

We look forward to seeing you there but kindly request all new katana are left at home.

Single Hop Series: No. 5 Single Hop Centennial

The Single Hop Series allows us to showcase our creativity within the constraints of using a single hop. So far we have got our creative side on with Chinook, Amarillo, Nelson Sauvin and Citra. With these hops, we've respectively produced an Imperial Best Bitter, Belgian IPA, Saison and even a Pilsner. So this time around we thought we better go big: big on flavour, big on aroma and big on ABV.

But which hop did we decide to play around with for the 5th brew of the series? We hadn't needed to look far since we went with a hop you will find in many of our beers, particularly our specials. We decided to give Centennial, one of our favourite hops here at Weird Beard, centre stage. It's both big on flavour and aroma and to 'tick the box' on a high ABV beer, we simply chose the style of a double I.P.A.  

Here we give you Single hop Centennial: packed full of all the citrus and floral notes you would expect, with a healthy bitterness and malt back bone to back it up. It's available to order and you can generally sip it up in bottle and keg. Excitingly, today, the only cask of this beer made to-date, is available to drink at Craft 100, Craft Beer Co Clapham.

Hope to see you there!

Sadako Imperial Stout

Back in July 2014 we released the dark, rich monster that is Sadako: our first imperial stout, onto the world. The beer was originally held back at the brewery for just under 4 months, as we never want to release a beer that we don't believe is ready. We were small and naive back then, and in hindsight feel we let her out into the wild a little early. We had simply run out of room at the brewery and we got a tad bored of moving the pallet around each day. The beer tasted good so we thought we would release it. It generally went down well, but it soon became very clear that it was still improving as it got older. By the time it had sold out, and there were very few bottles still ingaround, it was tasting fantastic!

The next batch was brewed in early September 2014 and packaged in October. Since then, we have acquired ourselves more warehouse space, where we can stick a pallet in a dark quiet corner and forget about it. For the last 6 months, batch 2 of Sadako has been lurking in the depths of the Weird Beard warehouse, watching, waiting for its chance to make a bid for freedom. Now the time has come, the video has been watched, the phone has rung and Sadako will climb out of her box. Are we getting all of these Ring references?

Sadako currently appears on our brew schedule at least 3 times a year. You can tell when we brew it as another of our favourites, Dark Hopfler, comes out of the same brew day. But we will be pre-ageing each batch of Sadako for at least 6 months before pulling it out, waxing, and releasing it. Even if only to make sure we are presenting head brewer Bryan's favourite beer at its best. It has been a long wait between batch 1 and 2, but we hope you find it has been worthwhile. Infact you can rest easy knowing that in that dark corner of the warehouse, there is yet more Sadako waiting for its time to come and get you.

A portion of each batch also goes into barrels. There is no pre-determined time scale on these; when we decide they are ready, they are ready. So you can look forward to seeing Heaven Hill, Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam, Red Wine and Tequila barrel aged versions of our flagship imperial stout coming your way at some point. We may even redo the Ardbeg aged version, but I wouldn't hold my breath....

The Bottle Shop Collaboration Brew

For the past year we have done monthly pop-ups at the Bottle Shop Arch at Druid Street and it has been an all-round wonderful experience. Not only did these bring us closer to the thriving beer community of Bermondsey, but we've built a particularly strong relationship with the team behind the Bottle Shop. We've had many immensely enjoyable Saturdays working alongside them in their space. So when we were approached by our friends from there, Andrew and Ben, to take our working relationship to a new level, we didn't hesitate. Together we've made a beer with other breweries that have 'popped-up' at or are friends of the Bottle Shop, which will be launched at Arch this coming Saturday.

"You taste better when you are scared"; is a Tart Grapefruit IPA, collaboratively brewed with Marble and Bullfinch breweries earlier this year. The idea behind the brew is itself an interesting concept; here we have three breweries working together under the umbrella of another aspiring scheme from the Bottle Shop.

The beer was brewed at our brewery in West London on Friday 13th February. The date, coupled with the  interesting beer which we will divulge later, provided inspiration for the name and the Jason style hockey mask theme for our Lup'in Skull. 

  
So what beer has been born from the minds at the Bottle Shop, Bullfinch, Marble and ourselves? Well, together we've created an I.P.A with a load of Cascade and Chinook hops in the kettle and fermenter. This isn't a scary sort of recipe these days however, and this is where you should be listening attentively, we added 100Kg of acidulated malt into the mash. Using this kind of malt was a first time experience for Weird Beard: both for Gregg, who assisted in the recipe-writing of our collaboration and Bryan, who brought the beer gasping to life on the brewday. Matt Howgate (Marble) and Ryan McLean (Bullfinch) were also contributors to drawing up the recipe and executing the brew.

In concocting this brew, we thought that if we are taking you out of your comfort zone, we'd do it a little bit more. On top of the sour malt, we added a lot of fresh grapefruit juice at the fermentation phase for an extra sharp spike of flavour. The beer both tantalises and shocks your taste-buds with its zesty-ness. You expect it, you know it's there but you go for the sip and it is still frightfully juicy and tart. That being said, it entices you to keep on drinking it.

Our beer is now ready and so we invite you to come to its launch party. Weird Beard's Gregg, Marble's Matt and Bullfinch's Ryan will all be present at the launch, which will be held at the Bottle Shop Arch. Come along, we dare ya!