Mutiny - Dark Lager

Lagers used to be dark, its a fact. Before malting technology allowed for the production of lighter coloured grains, brewers were restricted in what their offerings could look like as well as taste like. This meant that when Louis Pasteur was investigating the storage properties of beer in Germany, it was amber and brown beers he was testing and not the pale, golden varieties available today.

Mutiny is a Munich style dunkel, an interpretation of the historic lagered beers of Bavaria, brewed with richly flavoured Munich malt giving the beer a hint of chocolate and a slight nutty flavour. Marynka hops from Poland added late in the boil provide contrasting floral and honey aromas. Whilst the brewers' trick of adding black malt to the mash at sparge has helped to boost the depth of colour without affecting the flavour, making it stand out all the more.

When I sampled this beer after a week in conditioning tank, I immediately got a few more glasses and brought them into the office. This is definitely one to share, if possible whilst sporting lederhosen.

Smokin' Bock - Rauchbock

Autumn, along with January, can be a quiet time for breweries in the UK. With the festive period looming and the British summer a distant memory trade tends to slow somewhat, particularly in the high %ABV bracket. It was therefore surprising that our MD and sales team were so on board with brewing a 6% bock, a historic style of German beer originating from the city of Einbeck, for November. 

Traditionally bocks are quite dark as well as strong. This is because the technology to produce the lighter coloured malt, necessary in making the pale lagers associated with Germany nowadays, had not been developed. There are now many different incarnations of this style such as, pale maibocks, freeze distilled eisbocks, and wheat dominated weissbocks. Interestingly bock is also German for goat, so it's fairly typical to see one featured on the label.

We decided on a more standard bock, goat and all, with a slight twist by using beech smoked malt. This gives our interpretation a smoky character in order to back up the sweet, malt dominated flavour profile created in ours by using large quantities of Munich style malt and having a high final gravity (necessitating the use of the special hydrometer, see pic).

We have just racked our Smokin' Bock into cask and I'm pretty happy with it. A tiny hint of pear drops on the nose, not what I was after but it should diminish, then that hit of smokiness which I was wanting. The flavour is all treacle and honey with a very low but balanced bitterness. We've decided to keep some back and are oak maturing it as a special treat for the new year, which we plan to bottle as a seriously limited edition. Prost!