Venue – The Arbor House, Ipswich

Attendees – Nick Davis, Colin Miller, Kev Warnes, Justin Dean, Tim Stanton, Steve Bennett, Pete Burgess

After getting a few beers from the bar (very well stocked indeed, as well as having a nice fridge full of cans) we opened up with the Q2 challenge, which was malt focused beers utilizing 75% minimum Weyermann Barke Munich Malt. Our only “entrant” was Tim who presented a pale amber beer of 4.7% strength, utilizing 20% Lager malt and 5% CaraMalt along side the Barke. Hopping was a combination of Mittlefruh and Saaz and fermentation was handled by a Kolsch style yeast. The beer was well liked by all and could have been a very passable Altbier.

In general conversation that followed, Kev mentioned that he had been having issues with WHC Labs LAX yeast and it was thought that a discussion on our various experiences with yeasts, both dry and wet, and what ones we find good for particular styles might be a suitable subject for more detailed discussion at a future meeting.

Some minor updates regarding the shed brewers festival were communicated, namely that as of the week prior, a total of 45 tickets had been sold and the beer delivery to the pub is scheduled to happen on the 13th May or therabouts.

The ACB Homebrew Competition will launch on Sunday 15th June, once some minor tweaking of the website has been finalized. Competition will be a “dark beer” competition, namely any BJCP style where the beer may have a colour of 40 EBC or more. Competition is scheduled for Saturday 21st November at the Briarbank/Isaac’s.

As an aside to the Competition discussion, it was suggested that a future topic of conversation might be about how brewers plan their brewing schedules to meet local group challenges and wider national competitions, whilst fitting in “normal” day to day brews.

Another possible subject for discussion at future meetings is “bottle label creation”. Software, methodology, use of AI, editing techniques. Possibly need to talk to Guy to see if he is able to come up with some sort of presentation.

An update regarding the Q3 challenge (hops) was provided by Colin. Specifically that John Stringer from Charles Faram cannot attend in person our scheduled meeting on 5th July. The suggestion was that he attended remotely via a video conference held via PC/projection system in the pub. How practical this will be in a noisy pub environment is the subject of some discussion and further conversations are taking place amongst the “organizational” team as to how best to proceed. Given that John will not be able to attend in person, it was felt that when we do our tastings of the beers, we eventually select 4 or 5 decent representative samples of our efforts and send them to him to sample. Colin distributed a number of bags of hops during the meeting, some brewers present took their hops, I have 5 bags to distribute amongst the Suffolk brewers.

Pete raised the subject of rousing and what the groups thoughts were on the necessity and frequency. There followed some discussion as to the benefits, risks (introduction of O2) and whether rousing was necessary to keep the yeast in contact with the sugars in the wort.

A short discussion was had on the subject of brewing big, 10%+, beers. Generally for those of us using all-in-one systems where there is ultimately a physical limit to the amount of grain that can be mashed, the primary way of driving additional gravity is by the addition of simple sugars. Techniques where only taking the first runnings from the mash, extended boil times and the addition of other alcohols were also mentioned.

At this time Pete introduced us to his Piraat clone beer, a 9.6% abv beer brewed with Pilsner and Crystal malts along with 500g of basmati rice and lots of coriander and fermented with Mangrove Jacks Belgian Ale yeast. It was felt that the beer was still a little bit hot and needed more time to develop and mellow.

Into A.O.B and Colin presented two versions of a 4.4% Golden Ale made with home grown Cascade hops and in the second version some additional Lemon Drop hops. Generally people present preferred the non Lemon Drop beer, which was a bit cleaner, less resiny and vegetal than the Lemon Drop version.

Kev gave us a bottle of a 4.8% APA, Justin a 5.2% Cascade Single Hop beer, Nick a 5% American Brown Ale and a 4.7% Czech Dark Lager. Justin also provided us with another sample of his Baltic Porter (from the long tail challenge) which (for those of us who tried it in the challenge) certainly was not as sweet as the batch primed bottles used in the challenge. We finished off with Kev’s 10..3% triple.

We then retired downstairs for more pub beers, before a few of us went to the Spread Eagle, via the Arcade Street Tavern, before four of us rounded off the evening with a visit to an Asian/Oriental restaurant.