#ISBFHeroes8 - Into the shed of Dreams : The Birth of a BEASTIE
It’s not often you go on a brewday that’s been 3 years in the making. And there’s a reason for that, which won’t be revealed in this post, but will be when the beer is tried on the 1st October at ISBFHeroes 8… (it wouldn’t be a proper ISBF post without a tease would it?).
The idea for the beer came from a ‘slightly’ drunken conversation at Sunfest, the excellent beer festival run by Abbeydale Brewery at the The Rising Sun pub in Sheffield, in 2018. Sat with Steve (@_lowest01) and Malcolm of Five Towns brewery fame, we started discussing odd beer ideas. And thankfully I came up with the best idea I’ve ever had for a beer, even if slightly ‘different’ (Steve claims he came up with the idea but given I’m doing this post I get to write the history I want :-P).
After a few false starts, and repeated refusal from Jim to allow it to be brewed for ISBF despite a long-running campaign even more persistent than @thegreatcubbio’s for a re-brew of Damage Plan, finally the green light was given. Which meant an early start (despite what Jim might say 6am is early for me!) to head over to the Wakefield Shed of Wonder, aka Five Towns brewery.
Arriving at exactly the same time, both me and Steve headed into the garden at Malcolm’s, knocked on the back door and were led down to the ‘shed’. It’s definitely bijou – a tight little space that has no right to produce the quality of beers it does under the tutelage of Malcolm. Even being forewarned it was ‘compact’ I was still taken aback at how small it is. But, there was work to do (yes Jim, we did do some work!!).
Mmmmmmmmm…… Chocolate Porridge! - Ed……
So first was the mash-in, and a pretty full mashtun it’s fair to say – this will be a decent strength beer 😉. A mix of malts (chocolate, black, Maris Otter, Oat) with a small addition of oat meal and roast barley. While the sparging was happening, it gave us a chance to discuss the ‘additions’ we were going to add to the beer that would make it distinctive – and particularly the quantities given there was a danger of overpowering both the aroma and flavour of the final beer. As you can guess, some punchy stuff is going in but to say what would spoil the surprise… And then a break for a mid-morning snack 😊
After refreshment, some magnum hops were added for bittering and then Nelson Sauvin for aroma and flavour, which smelled incredible as ever. And then, despite Jim’s constant refrain that me and Steve are workshy fops, we had to dig out the mashtun. Actual evidence of hard work that is incontrovertible!
After that, the mystery additions went in. After some googling around quantities there was a collective decision not to overdo it (with the wrath of Jim on our minds as we deliberated…) and with that we were pretty much done. There was only one final task at hand – which was a trip to the chippy next door :-P. If you’re ever in the area Tony’s is a must (the spam fritters are immense)!
The beer we’ve brewed will be part of #ISBFHeroes8 so even more reason to buy a box, as all will be revealed on the night 😊
Lastly, many thanks to Malcolm for being such a great host and to Steve for the help and being great company as ever.
See you on the 1st October.
Cheers all.
James.