Beer Drinkers For Obama

On the 19th of October at a new beer bar in KPH I will with a few other brewers (including Shaun Hill of Nørrebro) offer 1 keg of beer to support a fun event known as, "BEER DRINKERS FOR OBAMA" , I will bring a cask of a dry hopped American Pale Ale. I hope to see alot of friends there to support Obama and perhaps have a beer with me as you may have heard I am out of here at the end of the month...

I cant think of a better way to promote US politics and beer at the same time!

here is the link to the event: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gshs8y

Location: See www.blackswan.dk

Moving back to Italy...

Finally I am able to announce that I will be moving to Italy the 1st of November. I will be joining my friend and fellow brewer Leonardo DiVincezio of Birra Del Borgo- http://www.birradelborgo.it/ I will be taking over as brewing Director and will be responsible for the day to day productions and the brewery expansion, as well as a new product line. I have been eagerly awaiting my return to Italy and at the same time look forward to a continued involvement at Gourmet Bryggeriet in Denmark as a project consultant.

Hopefully I will be frequently seen in and around Copenhagen in the future and I always have a few more irons in the fire. As I said when I left Italy "I will be back"... I hope the same is true for Denmark.

I will miss seeing my coworkers at Gourmet Bryggeriet, I will miss seeing my Danish friends. I welcome any one traveling to Italy to get in contact with me for a beer!

(hopefully this will turn into a Rome - winter / Spring, Denmark Summer / Fall....;-)

Ungstrup's Reserve Release Party!

So if you can recall we made a special beer for a special person, Jens Ungstrup has achieved 10,000 beer ratings on ratebeer.com So I invited him to come and brew a special beer with me and we will try to make it something special for his tastes. He was interested in a smoked beer with over 10% alcohol, hence Smoked Barley Wine. The beer was brewed back in early march, left to mature a bit and now ready to let the public try it and hopefully they can give it a good rating!

Thursday night at Brewpub Køpenhaven after 17.00 the beer will become available for consumption. I will be there along with I hope many other Local beer lovers. So I look forward to that.

This beer's proceeds have been promised to Jens's friend who helps remove land mines in Angola. Here is more info if you can understand it in Danish: http://www.noedhjaelp.dk/sider_paa_hjemmesiden/her_arbejder_vi/afrika/angola/det_goer_vi

Here is Jens's announcement:
Ungstrup’s Reserve
Ølfabrikken/Gourmetbryggeriet har brygget denne øl i anledning af at Jens Ungstrup 8. Marts 2008 blev den første ølanmelder i verden til at offentliggøre 10.000 ølanmeldelser. De 10.000 anmeldelser er tilgængelige på www.RateBeer.com.
Øllen blev brygget 8. Marts og har lagret siden for at modne, men bør kunne holde sig mange år fremover.
Øllen er en Smoked Barley Wine brygget af: Pilsner malt og røgmalt, såvel Bamberg som peated, brun farin og Mt. Hood humle. Den holder 10,3% alcohol. Ølstilen er valgt af Jens og har været et flerårigt ønske fra hans side om at smage en røget Barley Wine.
Dog har der så vidt vides tidligere været brygget noget lignende 2 gange i verden, også begge gange som en specialøl tilgængelig i et begrænset tidsrum.
Der er brygget 1000 liter af øllen, som vil være tilgængelig på nogle af landets bedste barer og i nogle af landets bedste ølbutikker henholdsvis på fad og flaske.
Al overskuddet fra salg af øllet går til Folkekirkens Nødhjælps arbejde med minerydning i Angola.
Baggrund
www.Ratebeer.com er verdens største øldatabase med over 80.000 forskellige øl fra 8400 forskellige bryggerier registreret, som har næsten 1,8 millioner anmeldelser, foretaget af mange tusinde brugere fra hele verden. Danmark er det næstmest aktive land på RateBeer kun overgået af USA. Det skyldes blandt andet den eksplosion af nye danske bryggerier og nye danske øl, som vi har set over de seneste år, men også at internet penetrationen er blandt verdens højeste og at der findes et meget stærkt netværk blandt de danske brugere af RateBeer.

Brewing a Fresh Hopped Beer

Hello, it's been a while with anything news worthy and well it was a nice summer here in Denmark ...

I have decided to finally brew a "wet hopped" beer Euro style. (Since I can’t really get a hold of wet hops from the USA). I am at the moment mashed in for the one time brewing of this beer. I will hope to make 25hl of this beer which I haven’t a name decided yet but I’m tinkering with these 2... Hopfenzupfer meaning hop picking or Hopfenhammer which means Great hops. I will hope to have this beer ready for the European Beer Festival in Copenhagen, so I will have to push it a bit.

A few details about what I'm doing:

The beer will be a simple Pilsner or "Kellerbier" which will be the frame for the massive amount of hops going into the brew. I will use over 50kg of wet hops Hallertau Mittelfruher type this hop is a wonderful aroma type. I picked them up this morning around 1030 in a little town not far from Munich, I then proceeded directly to the brewery in Roskilde (10hours later) I am starting the brew. The reason I am not waiting until tomorrow is that these hops don’t last long unless they are dried... Hence the name “Wet Hop”. They weigh quite a bit more than dried hops so the 50kg I use is more like 10 -15 kg of dried hops. I wish you all could smell the inside of my car! I was loving it all the way home.

I will update about this beer and I am eagerly waiting to taste it....

formed pellicle - Sour beer project

Well its been a while since I have updated the sour beer project, but these things do take time. The pH has been steadily dropping its around 3.3pH at the moment. My goal is 3.0pH.

It has formed a rather attractive pellicle as you can see it the photos. The smell is there as well, but still it's going to be a while before its ready to bottle.... then it will take some more time to naturally carbonate. But I am patient.

Interview in Italian

My good freind from Rome (Andrea Turco) who also has a blog has begun a series of interviews regarding beer and Italy.
www.cronachedibirra.it

Bjergtrolden Saturday the 17th- Beer and Grill day

On Saturday I will be at Bjergtrolden in Roskilde to offer a few rare Ølfabrikken beers, I have the last keg of 100 gram IPA and a few other casks which we will be pouring and enjoying while listening to live music and turningon the grill. Everyone is welcome to come by for a beer and a sausage. Of course there will be other new beers from Ølfabrikken and GB there as well.

The address is:

Ringstedgade 30

Roskilde

-tel- 46 35 01 07

www.bjergtrolden.dk

In (out) of the barrel!

Fruit Explosion! as you can see I had huge fruit explosion as the Lacto bacillius has begun to kick in on the fruit sugars...

the ph Has droped from 3.9 down to 3.5 just a few more points to go.

Peter's last day

Today Im sad to go to work as it is Peter Sonne's final day with us. He came to work here last year and has been a solid brewer and person to have around at the brewery.

He will be joining Shaun Hill the new brewer at Nørrebro Bryghus (the brewpub) and hopefully they will create some great beers together (Im sure).

Peter's main project at the moment is halsnaesbryghus start up, they are currently contract brewing over at Herslev Bryghus.

We will enjoy our last work day together by cracking open a keg of Halsnæs Pale ale and turning on the grill. His hard work at the brewery will be missed!

Tom is a TV star

Tom Sand Kristensen and his long work week exposed Here is a link to the national Danish television brodcast that aired last night after the prime time news.

In this show an American Timothy Ferris (Author of the 4Hour work week) has studied Toms work week and deduced that he spends way too much time on emails and cell phone usage and can minimize his work days to less than 6 hrs...

Since the show was shot a few weeks ago I have noticed that Tom has been going home a little earlier and he doesnt respond to emails so much any more....

Have a beer

the brewer of Cantillion enjoys the pale ale...

In the Barrel- More fruit needed

After a quick weekend trip to Bruxselles and speaking to Armand Debelder / owner of Drie Fonteinen and Jean Van Roy of Cantillon, I have to add more than just 5 kgs of fruit to these barrels, Thankfully I have about another 40 kg of raspberries and I will perhaps add all to the barrel as I got lucky and drank one of these-hommage...

Here is a photo of the beer before and after when the proper amount of raspberries were added.

Currently the beer is not acidic enough, but with the addition of Lacto B. and a little more patients we should get it down to the correct level.

In the Barrel

Framboise (raspberry) Sour Øl

Today I added 5 Kg of Fresh (Frozen) raspberries to a barrel of aging sour beer. Hopefully with in a month or two it will become super sour and I can get it into bottles, I only will have 2 barrels of this or around 400 liters.... I'll post more as it develops.

Ungstrups Smoked Barely Wine

So we finished up the special brew, we have yet to lable it and perhaps it still needs a while to mature in the bottles. we made 540 x 750ml corked bottles and 26 x 15 liter kegs. Its finished around 10.3% alcohol which is well hidden as there is a massive amount of residual sugar (Body). It's smokeyness is not as strong as I had thought would it would be, It has a definate smokey aroma and a bacon like flavor.... I'm going to let Jens do the rest of the reviewing on this beer.

Jens of course will distribute the beer to his favorate beer events, bars and shops.

Una Bella Sorpressa

Venerdi sera sono passato per salutari il mio amico birriao (tra un po famoso) Shaun Hill chi lavora da pocissima a NørrebroBrygghus a Copenhagen. Entrata Stefano il birriao di Birrificio Italiano con sua ragazza e amica (Lavara per Carlsberg)....

E stata una bella serata picato non abbiamo avuta pui giorni di vederci...

Per troppo non riessco andare a Pils Pride a Maggio...

Ølfabrikken web site

Its finally up and running...There is another blog there too...

Ølfabrikken blog

Ølfabrikken now available in cans

That's correct!
What you don't think a good beer can come out of a can? Soon you will drink your words...

Today three Ølfabrikken beers Pilsner, Pale Ale and Porter are available in Kvickly stores throughout Denmark, the price will be almost as attractive as not having to lug extra kilograms of glass home when you purchase your next beer!

Photos from the brewery

While I was making the last post I thought it would be nice to show the photos from around the brewery, we are a small brewery not a large one like many success haters have lead you on about...

You can see the tops of the fermenters and the filling line. we have stuffed every sq ft of space as tightly as we could to maximize the use of our brewery...

Brewer of the Year

Ølfabrikken has been voted best brewer of the year according to a popular vote by Danish Ølentusiaster (Beer Enthusiasts)...

Of Course this award for me is bitter sweet, I would like to enjoy this award with Christian and GB, unfortunatly the sell off / buy out of Ølfabrikken to GB has caused some Ølfabrikken beer lovers to emotionally turn on the brand and GB. But as you can see the quality hasnt been an issue, winning brewer of the year and the fact that GB has brewed the Ølfabrikken beers since last April go to show that the beer has not been comprimised.

I would like to say congratulations to Christian for this award it is as much to his credit as the "new" Ølfabrikken (GB).

Link in Danish:

http://www.ale.dk/

Ølfabrikken blev Årets Bryggeri. Ølfabrikken blev Årets Bryggeri i 2005, og nu er det altså sket igen. I mellemtiden er bryggeriet overtaget af GourmetBryggeriet, som har fortsat Ølfabrikkens linie med mange og meget specielle bryg. Det er da også stemmer spredt over utroligt mange forskellige øl der har givet Ølfabrikken titlen som Årets Bryggeri 2007.

Celebrating 10,000 reviews on Ratebeer

Saturday the 8th of March we had a special guest come and brew a small batch with us at Gourmet Bryggeriet / Ølfabrikken.

Jens Ungstrup celebrating his 10,000th documented beer rating on the infamous beer rating site ratebeer.com, he is the first on ratebeer to reach so many ratings. As a brewer I have always respected Jens's ratings as they are thoughtful and honest. All 10,000 of them!

I have spent time with Jens seeing him on a rate rampage believe me he is very commited to seeking out new beer to rate, he is hardcore!

We promised to brew him a beer which strangely enough fell on Gourmet Bryggeriet's 1001th brew... so another milestone was passed that day as well. He asked for a smoked barley wine, thats what he got...

The beer ...

Grain bill:

330 kgs Pilsner malt

100 kg Weyermann Smoked malt

25 kg Castle malting's peated smoked malt

25 kg Thomas fawcett Crystal malt

Hops:

Bittering (60 mins of boiling) 2 kg Chinook hops

Flavor / Aroma (15 mins) Mt. Hood hops

Adjuncts:

50 kg Brown sugar in kettle full.

Yeast:

Wyeast London Ale

Orginal Gravity: 24 plato

Final gravity (Still fermenting today it was down to 9 plato)

in the fermenter we put 1000 liters of cold wort.

I will update the beer as it is finishing up.

This beer will be given to Jens to celebrate how he likes! I hope Im invited to the party...

Mike