Sunburst Bohemian Pilsner in bottle bursts on to the craft beer scene with elegance, panache and and a gloriously Bohemian taste!

I'm very excited today as we're launching our new range of beers today - the Inspiration Series. It's a brand new series of beers which have been inspired by the great beer styles of the world. There are some amazing classic beers out there in the wonderful world of beer and we thought it was about time we made our mark on this field. We asked everyone in the brewery to get together and make up a Beer Development Team to think about some new beers for us to brew and they came up with the Inspiration Series, a numbered list of deliciously diverse and exciting beers. We've got 4 in the pipeline, or grist-case I should say, at the moment, and Inspiration Series No.1 is Sunburst Bohemian Pilsner. You can see we've got a brand new designed look and those of you with excellent 3D vision can tell it's a 330ml long-necked bottle. 

As you know Sunburst on draught has been developing over the last 15 years from a cask-conditioned version originally to a filtered version in keg more recently. I've always wanted to get it into bottles but we just didn't have the maturation or lagering tank capacity. It takes 8 weeks icy cold maturation after its 10 day cool bottom fermentation to develop its exquisite and complex Saaz and Hallertau Hersbrucker hoppy aroma, its smooth malty palate and its soft lingering finish. This fermentation and lagering regime is only possible with our beautiful Czech lager yeast, which I get from my good friends at the Brevnovsky Brewery in Prague. One of my long-term plans has been to get more tank space and get a dedicated maturation cellar, which we now have and at last we can put Sunburst into bottle! Slava, Slava! Hooray, Hooray in Czech!

A happy brewer in his new maturation cellar

It's No.1 in the Inspiration Series because I've been inspired so much by my Beer and Brewery Hunting visits in the Czech Lands to brew this beer. I've had a very long association with Bohemia and the Czech Lands, first learning some Czech in 1968, year of the Prague Spring, so I could sing in the boy's chorus on the stage of my mother's opera company in Smetana's Bartered Bride. Years later I started to visit the country more often and since, as they say in Czech, Hospoda je nejlepsi ucitelka - the pub is the best teacher, my language skills improved along with my appreciation of their wonderful brewing traditions, sowing the seed for my desire to brew my version of the wonderful Pilsner style. Exacting to brew as it's such a delicate, yet exhilarating taste, with no margin for error, but oh, so exquisite to enjoy.
I hope you all enjoy as much as I do. Diky moc a Na Zdravi! Thank you very much and Slàinte, Ken

Beer on the Move - How to transfer beer from FV to Conditioning Tank, Road Tanker or Filter.

Here's a shot I took at a well known Czech brewery, which is famous for the 70 day maturation or lagering of its beer. The hoses coming from the right into the mixing manifold are taking the beer from two 200hl (121 barrel) horizontal cellar tanks to the filtration room through the manifold, which in Czech is called the nanny-goat, because its looks like the goat's udders (!). The beer then goes to the pump in the background and thence off to the filter buffer tank. The wooden beck or large bucket is there to take the overflow from the bleed-off valves on top of the sight-glasses via the small red hoses.

Whereas back at Inveralmond Castle, you can still see the red hoses, albeit with a smaller bore, with the beer coming out of FV8 (Big Bertha) through the sightglass then into the pump and off to the filter assembly. Below there is a similar set up - Conditioning Tank (CT7 - Bigger Bertha, 120 Barrels) valve on left, sightglass, T-piece with CO2 line and 1/4"gas valve then beer hose to pump. Our pump is known by its more prosaic name 'Big Pump' -  two stage centrifical pump for those with an interest in such things, which works by an impeller spinning around inside the stainless housing at the front (the blue rear is just a huge heavy motor) and this impeller flings via centrifugal force the beer up through the outlet on the top of the pump off to its destination. Imagine you were spinning a bucket of beer around your head at 1500rpm and there was a small hole in the bottom of aforesaid bucket - how far would the beer spurt out and more importantly, who would clean up afterwards? But that's simply how centrifical pumps work.    

You'll be asking yourself why the sightglass and T-Piece with CO2 valve, I am sure. Well, the sightglass is to show when the tank is empty and when we're getting to the bottom we watch it like a hawk, as we don't want to send too much yeast or tank bottoms that have sedimented out during the cold-conditioning of the beer off to the filter or to the road tanker, which latter will be going off for bottling. The Co2 line is there to flush the whole Transfer Line or Tx line with CO2 all the way to the destination tank/er, which has its own T-piece, to push out any remaining sterilant (in our case peroxyacetic acid, which is a harmless terminal, ie no rinse needed, sterilant) and most important of all, any oxygen to the drain.

Oxygen, essential to yeast for growth and any successful fermentation, is to be avoided and excluded as much as possible after fermentation as it oxidises, not oxygenates, the beer to cause rapid staling and unwanted off-flavours in the beer. So the CO2 flush is a must before bringing the beer down the line and the first part of the beer goes to the drain first before opening up simultaneously the tank inlet/T-piece drain valve. Below you can see the tanker rear for Ossian from yesterday. Bottom right is the beer line in with the valve handle, then the T-piece with its drain valve closed, and the fittings leading from the 1&1/2 inch line to the 3inch tank inlet valve. On the left is the drain line now attached to the tanker overflow line with its valve out of view, which controls the top pressure in the tanker. We like to fill tankers at about 1 bar top pressure to prevent any fobbing of the beer as it's filling, and to assist in this beer tankers always have a pressure gauge on the overflow line.     

When the tanker is just about full, beer fob or foam will flow down the drain line and when it turns to beer, the tanker is full. Overflow valve off, Tanker inlet valve off. Pump off. Close off beer line valve and disconnect and then wash down with sterilant, close up back door, seal up and send tanker on its way.

With moving beer between FV and Conditioning Tank, the principle is the same - sterilise the CT with the Tx line and pump with peroxyacetic (1/2% solution v/v) first, then drain, take off plug of yeast in FV, connect up sightglass and CO2 T-piece to FV outlet, flush TX line downstream through pump into CT with CO2 to create a blanket of CO2 within the CT to protect the beer form air and oxygen, then close off CO2 line and then open up FV outlet, so that the rough beer can flow down the line into the CT. We let the beer flow into CT as much as possible under gravity but eventually we'll switch on the pump to complete the process as beer doesn't like flowing uphill often! When the FV is empty or the pump starts to suck out the yeasty tank bottoms, it's shut off the pump, close off FV outlet and then use the CO2 to push the last aliquot of beer in line through to CT and then close off CT inlet and CT overflow line, gas off and disconnect gas line. Disconnect beer line from CT, wash down CT valve with sterilant and then connect beer line to drain to allow the cleaning of the FV to place. Have cup of tea, or, in extreme cases, to celebrate another succesful Transfer of Beer retire to a Place of Sanctity and Sanity and enjoy a fine glass of beer, like Aleš below, from aforesaid well-known Czech brewery who celebrates his name day (svátek) tomorrow on April 13.

Na Zdraví & Slàinte! Ken

Tanker Filling Station Revealed

Here's a wee shot of the back of a beer tanker. This one is filling up with Ossian along the red hose from Wednesday's transfer to tanker from Bigger Bertha, our 120 bbl conditioning vessel, and the 30 bbl FV5. The blue-handled valve controls the back or top pressure in the tank as it slowly releases the pressure built up inside as the beer fills up, with the released pressure (CO2/air) coming out to drain through the buff hose. We usually fill the tanker with about 1/2 bar pressure inside. The small red valve is for taking samples from the tanker. The T-piece on the inlet is to allow the first yeasty part of the beer flow to drain rather than go inside. The stainless steel valve to the right of the blue valve is the on CIP (cleaning in place) line which is connected to sprayheads inside the tanker.

When the tanker is full, fob or foam then beer comes out of the drain hose and it's then time to close all the valves and clean up! Filling a 150bbl tanker takes us about 2 hours, always checking and watching and listening...and looking forward to the finished bottles!

Slàinte, Ken