It's Phil's Ale
IPA - Hanging around
Early one cold morning in January about a dozen members of the local CAMRA branch joined James and I to brew a beer in memory of our good friend Philip Roberts. As well as being our BLO, Philip was a good friend and I have accompanied him on his forays on the canals many times; spending much of the time putting the (brewing) world to rights in the lovely pubs along the way.
Philip had been a very keen and competent home brewer and Jane (his widow) and the local branch asked us to try and repeat one of his recipes for their Beer Festival in January. Jane dug out his brewing notes for an IPA he had brewed fairly recently and I scaled it up to our brew length. The recipe needed Pale, Crystal, Cara and Wheat malts along with Cluster, Magnum, Bobek, Challenger and Citra hops (thanks to Charles Faram for finding these for us)
Back to the brew day – a 6am start is late for James and I, but all credit to the local branch, most (including Jane) made it in time for mashing in – thankfully it was not one of the snowy mornings we suffered from in January. There is a limit to what the uninitiated can do to help with the
IPA - Clearing up
brewing and I had warned them that the process involved lots of waiting around so we provided a kettle and a pin of Dob’s Best to distract them during the day. However they helped with stirring the mash in; we introduced them to the hops and left them in charge of weighing them out (we have never used so many hops, indeed we were very worried that the volume would clog the sieve at the bottom of our copper). Digging out the mash tun out was done by those who wished to help, including Jane; despite instructions some had omitted to bring wellies and had to miss out on that pleasure! There were so many hop additions that most people got a chance to add some hops to the copper. Transfer to FV went smoothly, we needn’t have worried about the hops clogging the sieve; but we didn’t allow any others to handle the yeast; indeed the instructions were for anyone in the FV room not to breathe while James weighed out and pitched the yeast. Finally we came to the clean up and all credit to our CAMRA friends they stayed and helped with that until the bitter end, thank you – all in all a nine hour day well spent.
Philip (judging beer at the Maltings)
Having not brewed this beer on this scale, we were anxious to see how it turned out; It’s Phil’s Ale’s first outing was to the Exeter Festival of Winter Ales in the third week of January and it was well received by those who were lucky enough to get some before the two firkins that had been ordered ran out. Many local pubs have taken the beer and it has had some rave reviews, a testament indeed to the knowledge and skill of Philip. Indeed such has been the interest that we have brewed another batch to satisfy demand and we have orders for it to go to the Bristol and Maltings Beer Festivals.
Early one cold morning in January about a dozen members of the local CAMRA branch joined James and I to brew a beer in memory of our good friend Philip Roberts. As well as being our BLO, Philip was a good friend and I have accompanied him on his forays on the canals many times; spending much of the time putting the (brewing) world to rights in the lovely pubs along the way.
Philip had been a very keen and competent home brewer and Jane (his widow) and the local branch asked us to try and repeat one of his recipes for their Beer Festival in January. Jane dug out his brewing notes for an IPA he had brewed fairly recently and I scaled it up to our brew length. The recipe needed Pale, Crystal, Cara and Wheat malts along with Cluster, Magnum, Bobek, Challenger and Citra hops (thanks to Charles Faram for finding these for us)
Back to the brew day – a 6am start is late for James and I, but all credit to the local branch, most (including Jane) made it in time for mashing in – thankfully it was not one of the snowy mornings we suffered from in January. There is a limit to what the uninitiated can do to help with the brewing and I had warned them that the process involved lots of waiting around so we provided a kettle and a pin of Dob’s Best to distract them during the day. However they helped with stirring the mash in; we introduced them to the hops and left them in charge of weighing them out (we have never used so many hops, indeed we were very worried that the volume would clog the sieve at the bottom of our copper). Digging out the mash tun out was done by those who wished to help, including Jane; despite instructions some had omitted to bring wellies and had to miss out on that pleasure! There were so many hop additions that most people got a chance to add some hops to the copper. Transfer to FV went smoothly, we needn’t have worried about the hops clogging the sieve; but we didn’t allow any others to handle the yeast; indeed the instructions were for anyone in the FV room not to breathe while James weighed out and pitched the yeast. Finally we came to the clean up and all credit to our CAMRA friends they stayed and helped with that until the bitter end, thank you – all in all a nine hour day well spent.
Having not brewed this beer on this scale, we were anxious to see how it turned out; It’s Phil’s Ale’s first outing was to the Exeter Festival of Winter Ales in the third week of January and it was well received by those who were lucky enough to get some before the two firkins that had been ordered ran out. Many local pubs have taken the beer and it has had some rave reviews, a testament indeed to the knowledge and skill of Philip. Indeed such has been the interest that we have brewed another batch to satisfy demand and we have orders for it to go to the Bristol and Maltings Beer Festivals.
