Hop Grist - Bitterness Calculator

Hop hop hooray! I’ve finally got my bitterness calculator to work online. This one is dedicated to those of you who are not American or from the 19th century as it’s in Metric. Working along the lines of Glenn Tinseth’s formula it takes wort strength into consideration and gives an estimation of the bitterness you are likely to achieve with your brew. Up to 6 different hop additions may be entered, plenty even for the hop-heads out there. Simply enter the weight, alpha content, type and boiling times of your additions to get the overall bitterness.

It will likely be some time before I design and brew another beer as a move to London and the world of distilling gin awaits. An apt swan song then given my switch from mashing to macerating. I'll miss wearing white wellies and the dinosaur suit but I'm not so sure about the barrel cleaning and racking! Fear not, there is the potential for a bit of déjà brew with my old colleague and friend Ben Ott of Truman's.

Harvest Moon - Saison

Harvest Moon is a hybrid saison style beer blending both British and Belgian styles to create a dry, refreshing flavourful ale. Plenty of wheat and light caramelised malts have been combined to give a sweet smoothness, whilst a low gravity finish and a brewing liquor high in salts imparts a dry, crisp character. Just to be clear in a brewery 'liquor' is treated water for making beer with, water is what's used to rinse the floor down.

Bottom fermenting British ale yeast was used to produce this batch as the trial brew back in early summer using the traditional continental strain wouldn't stop fermenting and resulted in multiple exploding containers and a very big mess in the warehouse! To counter the loss of peppery, spiced flavours through the yeast substitution fresh coriander and parsley were added to the beer during conditioning as well as ending up in the drayman's packed lunch (fair enough I guess). Despite sounding rather outlandish this addition of herbs is true to style in old farmhouse beers and is referred to as a gruit. Other options for herb and spice additions  in beer include caraway, yarrow, juniper, ginger, aniseed, heather and bog myrtle. Williams Brothers in Alloa are probably the most famous brewery for employing botanicals other than hops to flavour their beer with and I would highly recommend a tasting session.