Uilspieel
Glas bier
24 June, 2025

Right, my first update of the year! Which is terrible, but such is life. I have in fact brewed a few beers this year, some quite good. The latest is a Ruby Ale (Irish Red Ale), which was up to spec, but I don't like it much: too sweet and too low on the hops. So I want to brew something else, something dry and hoppy, and honest. I'm considering a plain lager, with pale and abbey malt. "Abbey" apparently being a "biscuit" malt. It has to be a lager, because it is quite cold now, there's a terrible winter approaching and only a lager has any hope of fermenting properly. I'll use the SAB XJA/436 hops for this one, just to keep it real.

30 October, 2024

Yes, it's been more than a year since I last posted. I have been brewing all the time, but in June I had a bout of chicken pox (at my age!), which was ghastly. Anyway, my latest brew is an Abbey Ale.... 'Tis just an ordinary English ale, but I'm using Abbey malt to enhance the malt profile. This malt is supposed to add a 'biscuity flavour' to the beer, much like crystal malt; so I am curious to see how this works out. The picture below is of the test bottle, it is plastic so when I squeeze it, I can judge the amount of carbonation that has taken place.

Ingredients:

Abbey ale

18 August, 2023

Since the Czech lager, I have brewed two more lagers, a Vienna and now a Munich. The Vienna was based on a Vienna ale I made last summer, which turned out very well. So I will do that again. The Munich is still fermenting, so I'm keeping fingers crossed. Next month though, I am revisiting the Castle Ale I made in April (see below). The big challenge will be to be consistent, in other words, it must be the same as the first one. So the ingredients are the same:

Ingredients:

The point is, the ingredients are near enough as I surmise are used in SAB's commercial brand, Castle Lager. Hence the name. As it turned out, my "Castle Ale" tasted a great deal better than Castle Lager. The label I used on my bottles (see picture below), is the Castle Lager label of the 1950's. I just photoshopped it a bit. I know it is probably a copyright infringement, but I do need to remember what inspired this ale. So for now, it is a working title.

So why do this? It was never my intention to recreate Castle Lager; it is available out there in the bottle stores, so there's no point, is there? On the other hand, the ingredients are available in the market, and are in fact much cheaper than imported varieties of malt and hops. So I have been using some of these ingredients in previous beers to see how it works. It turns out the SAB pale malt is as good as anything else, but it is base malt so it does not add much flavour. So I added the CaraAmber and Melanoidin. One glaring omission is that I left out the Maize Extract used to brew Castle Lager.

The hops, SAB XJA/436, is experimental but has been on the market for some years now. THAT brings some the SAB flavour we know and expect, but in the Castle Ale it really comes to the fore and is quite awesome. The Amarillo adds a bit more dimension to the ale.

The point is, from the start my aim was to brew beers that are hard to get, like English Bitter, or have disappeared from the market, like Windhoek Special. Or something fairly unique like the Vienna Ale. And of course the iconic Lion Ale which was only available in Natal back then. I could never discover what went into making Lion Ale, but it did lead me to my own Castle Ale. Which, curiously, never existed, like the unicorn.

Castle Ale

19 June, 2023

Something new on the horizon; a Czech dark Lager, also known as Tmave' Pivo.

Czech dark Lager

Ingredients:

4 May, 2023

I have been brewing, just not updating the site. So the latest was just throwing a few things together; I was thinking of using some local ingredients:

Ingredients:

Which turned out spectactularly. But what is it? It is related to SAB's Castle ale, only much better. So I dubbed it "Castle Ale", something which does not exist (until now).

Castle Ale

Dec 17, 2022:

Yes, the year has went. I think the most important thing I've done, brewing-wise, is create a Vienna Ale.

Ingredients:

See, very simple. And then I tried another version of this using a different hops, as well as some American ale yeast. But although I am still letting it mature, I am not sure is was successful. I will report back!

Contact About 30 October, 2024

Yes, it's been more than a year since I last posted. I have been brewing all the time, but in June I had a bout of chicken pox (at my age!), which was ghastly. Anyway, my latest brew is an Abbey Ale.... 'Tis just an ordinary English ale, but I'm using Abbey malt to enhance the malt profile. This malt is supposed to add a 'biscuity flavour' to the beer, much like crystal malt; so I am curious to see how this works out. The picture below is of the test bottle, it is plastic so when I squeeze it, I can judge the amount of carbonation that has taken place.

Ingredients:

Abbey ale

18 August, 2023

Since the Czech lager, I have brewed two more lagers, a Vienna and now a Munich. The Vienna was based on a Vienna ale I made last summer, which turned out very well. So I will do that again. The Munich is still fermenting, so I'm keeping fingers crossed. Next month though, I am revisiting the Castle Ale I made in April (see below). The big challenge will be to be consistent, in other words, it must be the same as the first one. So the ingredients are the same:

Ingredients:

The point is, the ingredients are near enough as I surmise are used in SAB's commercial brand, Castle Lager. Hence the name. As it turned out, my "Castle Ale" tasted a great deal better than Castle Lager. The label I used on my bottles (see picture below), is the Castle Lager label of the 1950's. I just photoshopped it a bit. I know it is probably a copyright infringement, but I do need to remember what inspired this ale. So for now, it is a working title.

So why do this? It was never my intention to recreate Castle Lager; it is available out there in the bottle stores, so there's no point, is there? On the other hand, the ingredients are available in the market, and are in fact much cheaper than imported varieties of malt and hops. So I have been using some of these ingredients in previous beers to see how it works. It turns out the SAB pale malt is as good as anything else, but it is base malt so it does not add much flavour. So I added the CaraAmber and Melanoidin. One glaring omission is that I left out the Maize Extract used to brew Castle Lager.

The hops, SAB XJA/436, is experimental but has been on the market for some years now. THAT brings some the SAB flavour we know and expect, but in the Castle Ale it really comes to the fore and is quite awesome. The Amarillo adds a bit more dimension to the ale.

The point is, from the start my aim was to brew beers that are hard to get, like English Bitter, or have disappeared from the market, like Windhoek Special. Or something fairly unique like the Vienna Ale. And of course the iconic Lion Ale which was only available in Natal back then. I could never discover what went into making Lion Ale, but it did lead me to my own Castle Ale. Which, curiously, never existed, like the unicorn.

Castle Ale

19 June, 2023

Something new on the horizon; a Czech dark Lager, also known as Tmave' Pivo.

Czech dark Lager

Ingredients:

4 May, 2023

I have been brewing, just not updating the site. So the latest was just throwing a few things together; I was thinking of using some local ingredients:

Ingredients:

Which turned out spectactularly. But what is it? It is related to SAB's Castle ale, only much better. So I dubbed it "Castle Ale", something which does not exist (until now).

Castle Ale

Dec 17, 2022:

Yes, the year has went. I think the most important thing I've done, brewing-wise, is create a Vienna Ale.

Ingredients:

See, very simple. And then I tried another version of this using a different hops, as well as some American ale yeast. But although I am still letting it mature, I am not sure is was successful. I will report back!

© Uilspieel 2023