Beer

Since bottling the honey bock last month, I’ve tried a bottle last week and this week. While it is a very nice beer, the honey flavour is not very noticeable. That said, the second bottle I tried had a slightly stronger honey flavour than the first so it might just need to mature for another month or so.

If I was to do this beer again, it would make sense to use a stronger flavoured honey or just use more honey. Then again, perhaps it isn’t worth trying honey flavoured dark beers.

One beer I’d like to make again is Chilli Beer.  I haven’t seen any commercial equivalent to it, and it was great on a hot summer afternoon.  Since there were chilli pieces in the bottles of the last batch, it got hotter as it matured.  It is an interesting experience where taking a sip of the beer cools your moth down, but it starts heating up again once you swallow.

Yesterday I bottled the honey bock that has been brewing over the last week. This one was made with the following ingredients:

1. A Black Rock Bock beer kit.
2. 1kg of honey
3. 500g of Dextrose
4. Caster sugar for carbonation

The only difference from the standard procedure was replacing part of the brewing sugar with honey. Before being added, the honey needs to be pasteurised, which involves heating it up to 80°C and keeping it at that temperature for half an hour or so. This kills off any any wild yeasts or other undesirables that might spoil the brew.

I’ve used honey in a few other brews over the years but had not tried it with a dark beer, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. The previous beers had a stronger honey flavour than commercial beers like Beez Neez, which is probably a good thing for a dark beer.  I guess I’ll find out after it matures for about a month.