CHIP WALTON: What's going on, everybody, welcome to Northern Brewer HQ in lovely Roseville,
Minnesota.
I'm Chip Walton, the AV Nerd.
This is Brad Segall, the Head Development Brewer, the man behind all of the awesome
recipe kits.
Speaking of recipe kits, what we have before us are the last few ounces of two very special
beers.
Two very big and well-aged beers.
And we could not pass up the opportunity before these kegs are officially kicked to talk about
these recipes and talk about the benefits and the immaculate evolution of ageing a beer
such as this.
So, Brad, what do we have before us?
BRAD SEGALL: Alright, the lighter one here is the Exotic Tropic Wheatwine.
So, that is basically the wheat equivalent of a barleywine.
It is knock-your-socks-off strong.
This one has been ageing for five-and-a-half years at this point.
The other beer is our Northy 12, it's a Belgian Quad.
And this one is just about five years old.
And it's pretty remarkable how they evolved and the flavor nuances have changed over the
years.
This is literally our last few ounces of this.
I'm surprised the kegs didn't blow filling these taster glasses.
CHIP: Yeah, Brad couldn't enter these in the state fair because we like, there's no way
you're getting three bottles out of that.
So, save those for your boy Chip!
Before we dig in, by the way, if you like to see videos of two guys nerding out about
beer recipes, definitely smash the subscribe button, ring that bell, like this video.
So, both of these beer were brewed in 2016.
What is the wheatwine kit.
Give me that stats.
BRAD: The wheatwine kit is original gravity of 1.090.
It's not awfully bitter; it only has one ounce of bittering addition of Amarillo at 60 minutes.
The grain bill is very simple; it's half wheat malt, half pale malt.
100% hopped with Amarillo: right at the beginning, halfway through boil, and a whirlpool/flame-out
addition to get some of those oils in there.
And then it is fermented with the Omega OYL 200, the Tropical IPA yeast.
Otherwise, Imperial calls it Citrus.
This yeast is crazy at producing tropical flavors - mango, pineapple - and I thought
that would pair really well with the Amarillo, and it turns out that it did.
CHIP: We should've mentioned that we're filing this under "Brew Now to Enjoy Later."
The idea being you could brew this now -- being late summer currently -- for the holidays,
or obviously for the holidays five years from now.
But, when it's young, when it's ready to drink, I don't know how many weeks past fermentation
that is, but talk to me about what it tastes like young.
BRAD: When it's young it's almost a little bit boozy hot.
There's a substantial amount of alcohol in here; it comes out to almost 10% ABV.
When it's real young it's a little bit aggressive on the booziness.
The hops, you can really taste that orange marmalade flavor from the Amarillo.
The bitterness is a little aggressive to begin with but that really really really mellows
down, even with just six months of ageing.
And everything seems to coalesce and all these flavors come together.
You can discern all these individual flavors very specifically when the beer is young.
Now that it's aged it's just really really rounded out.
CHIP: You don't get a whole lot of hoppiness.
You do get this, like, tropical zest undertone.
But, it's just like this golden barleywine, very luscious, malty, big beverage.
BRAD: I am sad that there's a only a few ounces left.
CHIP: So, Northy 12 is your nod to the big, boozy quads of Belgium.
Talk about what goes into this.
BRAD: This one is also very simple in the grain department.
This is Pilsner and pale malt.
If you're doing it all-grain you will find that it is Belgian Pilsen and Belgian Pale
malt.
And then there is a healthy dollop of D-180 candi syrup that goes in here.
That stuff is just like motor oil dark.
[laughs] Because it is so well caramelized it gives these awesome flavors of raisin,
fig, stone fruits almost.
Moderately bitter, but we do get a lot of that kind of floral, herbal, almost slightly
earthy kind of hop flavor from the combination of hops that are used in here.
And the D-180, again, gives it that deep, dark caramel and fig flavor.
Then you throw a Belgian yeast on that.
CHIP: And I don't get a lot of that at this point.
BRAD: I think a lot of those esters and all the slight phenolics that this yeast produced,
when it was young those were really front and center.
Once again, as you let it age all of these things just completely mellow and just work
together so much better.
CHIP: I had a mead last week that was made with date and fig syrup and my brain goes
back to that flavor, that figgy date.
This just really seems like -- BRAD: Like fig juice.
CHIP: Like a desert wine, but a beer.
So, these are both kits.
You could brew them now and save them for the holidays.
But I want to talk just a little bit about ageing.
Because Brad, who has the unique advantage of having a bunch of chest freezers turned
into kegerators, and no lack of real estate to let kegs sit for five years.
These are both in kegs!
BRAD: Got more fridge space than your average city block.
CHIP: Yeah.
Most people probably don't have that.
If you do, I say age it in the keg.
If you've got the keg to spare and the space for it.
BRAD: I would say ideally age it in a keg.
It is impervious to light.
It is all ageing in bulk so you're not going to have any variance bottle-to-bottle over
this time span.
And, it's really easy to keep it on CO2 so you can keep any oxygen out of there, keep
it from oxidizing, keep it as fresh as possible.
Sample them here and there every few months, every six months or so.
And you'll see, it's pretty obvious when these beers start to mature and really start to
come into their own.
Because they are a far cry from the aggressive nature of these when they are fresh due to
the high alcohol content, and especially in the wheatwine all the fruity type ingredients
and esters and all the oil from Amarillo that give you that orange, citrus, orange zest.
You can certainly age it in bottles, there is nothing wrong with that.
For that, we recommend using your usual priming solution, whether it's corn sugar or fizz
drops or what have you.
CHIP: And some CBC conditioning yeast or something.
BRAD: Yeah.
Some conditioning yeast.
Just to make sure the yeast that would still be in suspension in the beer is not too tired
and too worn out to carbonate the bottles.
Pitching a little bit of bottling yeast like the CBC would be a great idea.
Prime it like you normally would.
Try to keep these bottles in the dark, ideally cellar temperature around 50 degrees; that's
not always possible for everybody but that would be the ideal way to store it.
You could also put it in the Belgian-style bottles with a cork and a cage because that
looks really cool.
It's super fancy and make it great to give away as gifts.
CHIP: And if you bottle from a keg we don't suggest ageing that.
BRAD: No.
CHIP: You could do that if you plan on giving them next week - or the week after you bottling
for presents.
BRAD.
Or for entering competition.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But if you're going to age long-term, definitely either bottle it right off the bat or just
leave it in the keg, and that's going to give you easily the best results.
CHIP: These are delicious.
I like the wheatwine out of the two I think.
BRAD: Yeah, I do too.
CHIP: After you come back from this one, you're like, oh there actually is some hop in this.
BRAD: It's that Amarillo, baby!
CHIP: That orange, that marmalade to your point.
BRAD: You can just smell that it's a big beer.
It's kind of got that super, super maltiness to it that just lets you know there's a heck
of a lot of fermentables in here.
And you get that real wheat-y type note, too, almost like fresh whole grain wheat bread.
That is quite apparent in the aroma and the flavor because this is again 50% wheat.
If you're brewing this one all-grain I would absolutely recommend using rice hulls in your
mash tun.
Wheat is huskless so you can easily stick up your mash.
Rice hulls.
Because if you're going to take the time and go through the effort to make a beer this
big and badass definitely use rice hulls so you don't stick your mash.
Pitch a lot of yeast.
You're going to want a big starter.
Both of these beers start at 1.090 and that takes a lot of really active, clean, healthy
yeast to fully chew that down and not leave any off-flavors behind.
CHIP: Alright, y'all.
Brew now to enjoy later.
If you have any questions about that kind of brewing and ageing, hit up brewmaster@northernbrewer.com.
You might even hear from Brad.
Either way, I appreciate it.
I drank mine faster because you did all the talking.
Cheers!
Both kits available, extract and all-grain, at northernbrewer.com.
Pew!
BRAD: Age 'em up!