Bitches Brewing – Brewbitches bitches bitch – Isosceles #Twissupdate 5

Beer folk are ace, fact!

On the very night I pitched my idea of holding the Macc Twissup to the proposed venues, the idea of this brew too was conceived via twitter whilst sat at the bar of The Wharf. I was chatting to folk about the idea and mentioned to Brian of Huddersfield’s awesome beer establishment The Grove.

Brian or @GroveBrewBri as he is now known has had a few handles over the last few years, originally “GroveBri” he graduated to “BrewBitchBri” whilst on a mammoth tour of work experience for want of a better description, at some, or most of the UK’s finest breweries, with a view to starting a brewery back in Huddersfield. During this time he was renowned for being every brewer on the tours “brew-bitch’, and as such on his return Bitches Brewing Co was born.

Since then, Brian has gone from strength to strength cuckoo brewing with Gadds creating Graduation IPA and at Quantum where he and Jay produced Chameleon IPA and the awesome Choc & Chilli Stout, one of my favourite beers of Indyman 2012.

For todays brew he joined forces with Rob Hamilton at Black Jack another relatively new brewery a rather handily (hefty) stones throw away from The Marble Arch in Manchester. So on a warm sunny day, Wednesday 5th of June I took a day off work and headed to Mancunia..

The idea was set, I wanted to try to create a Belgian style IPA hopefully with an American twist, I say hopefully as although this was my second brew day in four days, I’d previously done none at all and hence hadn’t got a bloody clue. We were also joined by another Grove dweller Matt, who was promptly named the brew-bitches bitches bitch.

Team assembled, we promptly set to work…

Actually Rob set to work while Brian was checking out his hop store..

Larking about aside, the three of us had a good old rummage through the Black Jack hop store, which barring a couple of pre beer destined bags of hops Rob gave us free rein to use what ever we wanted. This was a great learning experience for me as although I love hoppy beers, it’s very difficult to pick individual varieties out without normally getting the chance to handle the fresh raw product.

After half an hour or so of rubbing and sniffing (hops) we narrowed it down to four, which were used in two separate additions of three if that makes sense. Apollo, Columbus and Pheonix first, followed by Amarillo, Columbus and Phoenix.

Many of you reading this may have already realised the significance of the brew date, Wednesday 5th of June was the day of Simon “Scoop” Johnson’s funeral and celebration of his life. Sadly as we only had this date on which to brew this beer it was decided that we go ahead, a decision on which I’m sure he would have approved. Suitable refreshments were taken however to raise a glass at the appropriate hour.

I doubt Simon would have disapproved too much on the glassware having after apparently chugging one at Orval, straight off the bottling line, directly in front of the head brewer.. He would however I am positive, guffawed muchly at my piss poor attempts at pouring… (well it was a little warm, that’s my excuse)

Brewing finished and checks made it was looking like ending at around 6.8% ABV which was slightly higher than we anticipated, as it goes after a little dry hopping with more Columbus it finally finished at a quaffable 7% ABV. 🙂

Isosceles IPA is now the second completely new brew we will have for you guys on the 29th and is for me the most exciting, having had such an involvement in it’s concept, production and of course it being named after the beery day itself.

This beer will be launched at our last stop of the day The Wharf at around 5pm, a full itinerary to be confirmed later this week (watch this space).

In terms of other beers Chris has lined up, he’s keeping things pretty close to his chest, but did let slip that his hop rocket will be out and fully loaded and that he also has a cask of Old Manchester brooding somewhere in the darkest corner of the cellar…

Be afraid…