On the eve of the release of the Emerson’s
Brewing Co - Regional Wines
collaboration brew R.S.B, I thought it might be timely to outline just how this
beer came into being.
Christmas 2009
Richard Emerson and Emerson’s Brewing Co General Manager Bob King hosted some of the Regional crew to a Christmas function
at the Matterhorn. The idea is conceived that
perhaps since Regional now have a brewer on the staff that perhaps I could fly
down to Dunedin
sometime in 2010 and brew one of my recipes with Richard on his pilot brew
plant. I walk out of the restaurant that night with a skip in my step!
Autumn 2010
I decide that I want to brew an English
style Extra Special Bitter with new world ingredients. I taste a selection of
classic E.S.B.’s as well as the Founders interpretation God Knows Best…Bitter.
I start to brew trial batches of an old ESB recipe I have at my home brewery in
the hills of Brooklyn. The recipe uses New
Zealand Golding and New Zealand Styrian Golding Hops along with a rich malt
profile to create a fruity malt accented beer that will combine drinkiblity
with a warm malt character and a robust fruitiness.
Winter 2010
Brew Day 1
I wake before the crack of dawn on the
shortest day of the year to catch a flight with photographer Jed Soane to Dunedin. I’m excited at the prospect of three
days of fun with stainless steel, big boy’s toys. Richard is at airport to meet
us, excited as ever he is positively bubbling over with enthusiasm. We drive
through the rural hinterland that divides Dunedin
from its airport, Richard chats about other brewers, the weather, and how
quickly the provincial airport is growing. We quickly find ourselves at the
brewery, the warm smells of fresh bready malt fill the air as we sip coffee
from large mugs and chat with Production Manager Chris O’Leary, formerly of
Limburg Brewing Company Fame. In typical brewers humour he is known as ‘Father’
as in ‘Father O’Leary”. Then it’s into the ‘action brewer wear’ of gumboots and
overalls and we start to weight out the malt for tomorrows brew and to run it
though the old mill from Richard’s first brewery that is now used to mill grain
for the pilot plant. Then it’s a spot of what all brewing is about cleaning,
cleaning and some more cleaning.
We retire to Eureka
for lunch and then frequent some Dunedin’s
finest hostelries. Before an early night, there’s brewing to be done tomorrow.
Brew Day 2
My alarm goes off at 5am, I’m awake anyway.
We rug up against the sub Antarctic southern air and set out for breakfast at a
bakery next door to the legendary Inch Bar. An hour later Richard is parked
outside the motel, rearing to go, so am I. We change back into ‘action brewer
wear’ and set about preparing for the brew. The yeast I wanted to use was the
English strain that originated at Fullers who brew the classic of the style,
unfortunately the yeast has decided not to wake up so it’s an American strain
called 1272 (yeast strains have the most romantic names!) to the rescue. We heat the mash tun, and Richard presents me
with the smallest mashing paddle I have ever seen. The one I use at home on my
60 litre plant is about three times as big!
We mash in combining the milled malt with
hot water, brewers call it liquor, its all action, sacks of malt are tipped in,
alternating with me stirring like mad, Richard looks on intently plunging a
thermometer into the grain bed every now and then and adding more hot liquor as
he sees fit, Jed is snapping away with his camera, Bob is recruited from the
office to man the video camera. We nail the temp we want. Lay a blanket of hot
water over the grain and cover her up. It’s time for coffee. The whirl pool and
kettle are cleaned, then we start to run the sugary extract off of the grain
bed, we now call this wort. The wort is a little darker than we intended we can
fix this with tomorrows brew.
The kettle is full enough to start the
burner, or as Richard puts it the ‘Rocket engine’, its seriously loud, the
other brewers hate it, they cant play their music, Richard loves it he can turn
off his hearing aid. The kettle is full and we have a boil, the kettle sits up
on the main brewery gantry and great care has to be taken that it doesn’t boil
over as people could be working below, also the gas bottle and burner are
below. We weigh out the hops, and boil for 90 minutes to increase the strength.
Every time we adjust the burners we lose the hairs from our arms on the side of
the intensely hot kettle.
The boil comes to an end and we release the
beer into the whirlpool, it magically and perfectly dispenses the hops in the
middle of the vessel, as
the whirlpool works its magic we scrub the kettle, back to the fundamentals of
good brewing , cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. We run the brew through the heat
exchanger cooling the hot wort ready for its transformation in the fermentor.
It meets the yeast for the first time in the stainless steel tank that will be
its home for the next 5 days. I shovel out the spent grain from the mash tun,
just in time to watch a farmer collect it for his livestock.
The fermentor is fork lifted into the warm
room, we change, action stations are over its time for the pub. After lunch it’s
back to taste some bits and pieces with the boys, then it’s off to Tonic to
drink many fantastic beers. An Indian Restaurant, Vindaloo and 1812, a
refreshing walk to the motel and sleep, we do it all again tomorrow.