Something's Brewing

I've been up to something in the kitchen.  Yes, folks, I'm learning how to brew beer.  Recently, the Otago University Brewers Association formed and I was there to help them spend the grant money on things like pots, fermenters and bottle cappers.  We purchased most of our items at Dunedin's Malt House, but Tiff was an awesome brewing buddy and she went out of her way to pick elderflowers (flowers of the elderberry) for our pale ale. 

  

We met up at 4pm to buy the malts, hops and yeast.  After all the steeping, brewing, and sparging was done we had a nice wort to pour into the fermenters.  So, by 10pm-ish we had gone from this:

To this: 

All the action took place in a kitchen on campus.  Boy, did the Clubs and Societies building smell GREAT from steeping the malts!  I believe our pots are 24 liters each... that's going to be a fair amount of awesomeness (the girls' Elderflower English Pale Ale and the boys' Saku Porter) to split between the 5 of us who bought in on the first brew ($20/person).

As luck would have it, I was able to take advantage of an Emerson's brewery tour the very next day and THE owner, Richard Emerson, was the tour guide!

I asked him about sharing his pilsner recipe; he just smiled and said they use a very special kind of yeast.  You can't blame a girl for trying!  At least I know one of the ingredients. 

Richard Emerson was a great tour guide - he just oozes contagious passion for beer.  At the end of the tour we sampled: Pilsner, Bookbinder, Brewer's Reserve, London Porter and Dunkel (the banana flavor was unexpectedly tasty!).

I certainly appreciated the tour more now that I've started brewing myself.  I had all sorts of questions about how various things affected the taste of the beer, but you know what?  Asking an established brewer how "bad" it is to add yeast before the wort cools to the desired temperature is like asking an established surgeon related advise on frog dissection in a high school biology class.  I need to just enjoy the process of discovery for myself. M'mm, and what a fun process it will be!

Folks interested in brewing should check out The Beer Less Traveled blog (the writer is from my part of New York and is over here in New Zealand, too!) and The Beer Less Traveled Facebook page (lots of pictures!).  Cheers!

Speight's Birthday Brewery Tour

Jeez Louise!  How did I forget to write about my birthday brewery tour?  Back in June, I organized an adventure to Speight's Brewery, right here in Dunedin.  What more could a girl ask for besides beer and quality time with friends?

The cost was $20/person because we had enough people for a private tour.  Our guide was a perky woman who lead us around and eventually set us free in the tap room to pour our own beers.

The first bit of educational-ness that we encountered was a display on the history of beer.  Thank you, Egyptians, for your contributions! 

I decided to pose for a picture with Mr. Speight. 

Unfortunately, a fair amount of time has passed and I've been busy doing this, that, and the other thing, so I don't remember much about the tour.  Plus, my camera was being dodgy, so there aren't any pictures to wow you with. Sorry. 

Basically, you've got some stuff to make the beer... 

Then stuff happens here... and then it becomes beer.

And, when it becomes beer, this is one place where you can go and consume it: the tap room!

But, alas, all good things must come to an end.  Eventually, the tap was turned off and we were escorted out.  I was a wee bit sad about this.  In my defense, would you blame me? I was the birthday girl, after all, and I wanted more beer.

If you're a beer drinker and you'll be in Dunedin then definitely check out this tour!  We had loads of fun.  Even non-beer drinkers can have a good time.  The folks in our party that fit in this category enjoyed their history lesson and the walk around the buildings.  A tip for the beer drinkers: strategy is key!  I believe they had six beers on tap (one of them was a cider, actually) and so I had to delicately balance enjoying each beer and quickly moving on to the next one to taste in the 30 minutes we were allotted in the tap room.  Bottoms up!

Green Light for Green Man Brewery

M'mm. I love beer. And, I love brewery tours.  Thankfully, Dunedin is home to Green Man Brewery!   I purchased a GrabOne voucher a little while ago: $32 for two tours, two pint glasses, and three beers to crack open and drink on the tour.  This weekend was the perfect opportunity to check out what they have to offer.

The brewery is really close to Abbey College, about a 20 minute walk towards the city center. It's definitely on the quant side as far as breweries go (at least out of the ones I've been to).  In fact, it's size made it a little hard to find at first because it blended in with the student flats on Grange Street (luckily, the Green Man mural on the outside gave it away).

Green Man prides itself on running a sustainable business.  Their efforts to be "green" are commendable, but I think their real pride and joy should be their tequila beer.  It's deeeelicious! 

I will spare you the details of beer making.  But, I will share with you a photo of me looking into the container that holds a beautiful mess that ultimately has the mush removed and eventually gets bottled. 

Beer lovers should definitely plan a stop here.  "Joe" was a friendly, chatty tour guide that entertained us with his out of control hand gestures and enthusiasm for Green Man Brewery.  Aside from the tequila beer, I tried a stout and a pilsner.  I liked the pilsner better, but I think it's only because my tummy was still recovering from the vino the night before and so it didn't really want stout - it actually only really wanted something fried to the point of not being considered food anymore.  

Hence, a trip to the Flying Squid was in order (thank you, Mandy, for the recommendation!).  

This little fish 'n' chips stop is known for having the best (cheap!) fries in Dunedin.  But, I didn't stop there. Ohhhhh, no siree!  I got a vegetarian burger and I was not let down.  Typically, I avoid white bread and fried brown patties of "stuff"... but there was something about those ingredients plus a slice of tomato, a few shreds of lettuce, a slice of cheese and a fried egg (yes, a fried egg) that made my day complete!