Castaway - Oak & Coconut Conditioned Strong Ale

July has arrived and the sun has got his hat on. Most breweries will produce a hoppy pale beer for mid summer, not DBC. Instead we've followed suit with our strategy of trying to do something different to everybody else (e.g. not making a mild for May) and brewed a 5.5% burgundy coloured ale. Castaway tastes as close to rum without actually containing possibly the worlds greatest and all too often overlooked spirit as I could get.

Motueka and Amarillo hops during the boil have lent a spicy, earthy and delicate pine aroma whilst plenty of crystal malts have given this beer a sweet treacle backbone. Following fermentation oak conditioning with coconut chips has rounded off the flavour and produced smooth nutty, stewed plum and charred character. This dangerously moreish beer is really something.

On another note we've decided to continue with our one off casks for our brewery tap in Dorchester after the success of our beetroot beer in spring. So for summer we have a firkin of Jurassic dry hopped with the new American variety Mozaic heading over there for next weekend. I enjoyed a sample with some friends from University last week, hopefully the Tom Brown's crowd will approve.

Oh-T-Tea - Kristalweizen

June’s special is a rather curious brew called Oh-T-Tea. It's an American style Kristalweizen that has been infused with select botanicals in order to give a zesty, herbal character.

The backbone of this recipe is a standard Bavarian-style wheat beer using malted barley and wheat, and copying the water profile of Munich. From there the American twist is to ferment using ale yeast rather than classic weiss yeast in order to avoid the banana and clove dominated flavour and produce a crisp and refreshing, bright beer with lots of body.

Things got a little crazy as Italian bergamot, Madagascan vanilla, Thai lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves were all added to the kettle in the giant ‘tea bag’ pictured to produce citrus, earthy and grassy notes. Couple this with English Challenger hops added throughout the boil for bittering and aroma, and as a dry hop addition in fermenter has resulted in a beer that smells like iced tea with a slice of orange and a stick of cassia. An ideal thirst quencher in my opinion after a hot summer day.