Tollymore Woods Vanilla Porter as your tour guide

This beer takes you on a walk through a forest of moss covered oaks, Sitting at the northern most foot of the Mourne Mountains.  The appearance of the beer is dark as the bark on one of the damp old growth oak trees, with it's off white to brown head arching it's way over the beer as the cobble stone bridges do over the Shimna River.   In the distance there is a smell of someone baking a sweet vanilla bread over a wood fire, roasty yet sweet.  You can't tell if that's the smell of the air or the smell of the beer, all you know is it smells so good. You take a sip of the beer and go a little further in to the woods, you taste roasted chocolate malt, burnt black malt, that is all mellowed by vanilla, with a finish that is smooth and clean. The beer felt and tasted so good in your mouth that you sip a little more and the forest is so beautiful you walk a little more. All the sudden you are out of the woods and you are out of beer. The forest you just walked through was Tollymore Forest Park of Northern Ireland and your tour guide was my home brew Tollymore Woods a Vanilla Porter.

Brew today, See you tomorrow.

 

The brewer, The baker and the conversation maker

The brewer, The baker and the conversation maker

A few weeks ago I wanted to bake some bread.  I had just finished brewing my Beoir dorcha le blas vanilla porter, so I had a lot of spent grain leftover. So I thought, I have heard of people using spent grain in bread and I wanted to do it too.  I wanted to use this malt from the time I was mashing in with it because of its smell, Black Paten and Chocolate malt being so dark and roasty.  Just great for bread.  

WOW. The bread was really good 

Spent Malt Grain Bread Recipe 

1 cup warm water                  
4 Tbsp sugar                        
2 cups spent grains              
1 Tbsp salt                          
2 Tbsp oil (I used coconut oil)

3 - 3.5 cups bread flour           

1 pack of bread yeast             

       

1. Combine warm water with sugar and yeast and let sit till the yeast is dehydrated.
2. Add salt, oil, grains and 1 cup flour and mix well. 
3. Slowly mix in the rest of the flour.
4. Mix till you have a dough ball.
5. Flour your counter top and knead dough well.
6. Cover dough.
7. Let dough rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
8. Punch dough down and shape in to loaf.
9. Cover dough and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled.
10. Bake at 425 degrees F for 20 min then reduce heat to 375 degrees F for 10
11. Eat you AWESOME bread.

Brew today, See you tomorrow.

      

beoir dorcha le blas

Today I transferred my Vanilla Porter to secondary. This is the beer I blogged about in The unnamed one stout porter and now it has been named beoir dorcha le blas. 

Beoir dorcha le blas
Vanilla Porter
O.G. 1.058
F.G. 1.022 (could still drop a little)
ABV 4.7

Want some cake?

Wyeast 1084 yeast cake.

Brew today, See you tomorrow.

The Unnamed One. Stout Porter.

Take a step back in time with me. Imagine we are in Ireland in the late 1700's and we want a dark strong beer. All the street and river porters are drinking these amazing looking beers. We ask one man what he is drinking and he says " Oh this is a Porter".

 So today I will brew a Stout Porter.  I used European grains  with the addition of Flaked Oats.  I did "Mericaize" it.  I use American Hops, Mount Hood pellet and Centennial whole leaf. 

Brew today, See you tomorrow.

Quick History of Stouts and Porters

Come sit down and let me tell you a story

Originally back in my day a man who walked tall and protected his family, we called a stout man. Now back then the word Stout meant brave or proud.  Around the start of the 14th century the word stout transitioned to mean strong, but was not used in referring to beer till 1677. Written in Egertons 1677 manuscript he wrote about a strong beer, calling it a stout beer.  The expression stout porter was first applied in the 18th century, just meaning a strong porter. Later in 1820 Guinness used the term stout porter.

Now going back to the 1720's in London there was this brown beer that was real popular with the street and river Porters. Being so popular with the Porters, the beer got the name porter.  This beer had a strong flavor and took longer to spoil.  The beer would increase in alcohol as it aged and was one of the first beers that was aged at the brewery and shipped to pubs ready to drink.   In 1776 porters began to be brewed in Ireland. These porters were stronger in flavor. Shortly after  that in 1780 Guinness started brewing porters. .



Sit back down, this story is almost over.


  We are going to go back to modern times. In my young adult adventures in the 19th century I saw stouts and porters go from being brown beer to dark brown to black beer. This change in color was due to the introduction of Black Patent malt to the beer.

Moving to modern day. Are you still with me?....... Okay good. Now in the 21st century you can step in to your local tap house and order a porter and get a dark strong tasting beer, not always strong on alcohol but strong on flavor.  Or you can order a stout and get a even stronger tasting beer that will run most of the time stronger on alcohol than a porter.



Brew today, See you tomorrow