Bulldogs triple tykes

Bottling one this weekend will report back

Before I start I'm going to come clean and admit that this was only my second kit so please forgive any naivety.

I previously had a disastrous Razorback IPA which ended up down the sink. Nothing wrong with the kit, I suspect it ended up acrid having brewed it at 28-30 degrees in the heatwave (remember that?).

Not wishing to make the same mistake again I waited until the weather cooled down and invested in an immersion heater for this one.

The kit itself is similarly impressive to those from Festival. No additional sugar with this as it comes with a hefty 4kg of malt. Other ingredients are the hop teabag and sachet of yeast.

The bag of malt itself is simple yet of genius design with basically a screw cap to pour the malt out, then put your rinsing water in, replace cap, shake, pour out the remainder.

Everything peachy so far. SG 1055, yeast pitched, left alone.

Wouldn't call it a particularly lively fermentation and the krausen didn't reach spectacular proportions. It mainly just looked very flat with no foam. Herein lies the issue. I got it down to around 1022 after around 8/10 days prior to adding the hop teabag which produced another bout of fermentation to take it down to 1018.

The target FG is 1012 so it was getting there. After a couple of days I checked again and it was still at 1018 so I slightly agitated affairs and left it alone for another couple of days. It eventually went down to (generously) 1016 and would not move any further.

This isn't that far away but I'm a pedant and was concerned that it hadn't gone all the way and finished me off with a happy ending. (Insert further innuendos of your choice here).

The temperature was a constant 22 degrees so should have been ample but it refused to go the last little bit.

Batch primed with 100g T&L and all bottled (40 pints).

The sneaky taste of the leftovers boded well but had a very strong malt taste to it which I hoped would go away following secondary and conditioning.

After a couple of weeks conditioning I moved it into the garage and left it for another week before a cheeky tester. Not bad but still overpowering maltiness.

Since then I've had one every week to see if its getting better. Now six weeks in and still very malty with a pronounced "home brew tang". If you can get through that though it's a reasonable bitter with a good head and certainly tatstes of the north. Imagine drinking liquid coal whilst stood out in the mist on the top of the moors and you'll get some idea of what I mean.

Overall nice kit, perfectly drinkable bitter but very malty. I suspect it may have stuck slightly.

I'm going to leave it alone for a few weeks now to see if the tang and the malt disappear with time. Will report back!

These are sold on the basis that they're all malt and have specialised yeast strains to ferment it all out. My first thoughts are that it's not quite there yet, I'd rather have had less malt and a full fermentation.

Back to a Festival Pride of London Porter now!

A good review Brian ; after reading it i had to check my "to do" list to make sure this beer was not on it. I really would not expect to have the dreaded "homebrew" taste on a kit of this quality nor would i really want to muck around with hop additions if i am paying the sort of money these premium kits command. Be interested to know what others think.

Regards

I made one of of these when they were first launched. It's turned out to be a great bitter, much better than the wherry I made. I added the aroma hop pellets after 5 days in fermentor, then left for a further 8 days before bottling. I then conditioned for a further 4 weeks.
It has good bitterness and plenty of malt and a thick cream coloured head that lasts right to the last drop. I've made 3 of the other kits in this range and they have all turned out well.

In the middle of drinking mine at the mo, If I remember rightly OG was 1050 and FG was 1008 so a fairly decent brew. Tea bag went in after 5 days and activity stopped after a total of 9 which after the Festival beers I am used to is quite a short ferment. Batch primed with about 80g of dextrose and stuck in the keg inside for 3 weeks and its been in the cold shed for a fortnight. I have to say I really quite like it, not overly flavoursome (again compared to the festival ones) but its thick, frothy and a light hoppy taste (no twang at all). I liked it so much I've just got myself Bulldog Northern Brown to do next.

Update.

Now nearly ten weeks in since bottling. Still a faint hint of maltiness and HBT but it has turned out to be a good drinkable bitter. Perhaps the initial problem was to do with it not fermenting out fully hence needing longer to condition(?)

Agree with Maffa in that it's not overly flavoursome but a nice drinker nonetheless.

Have learnt my lesson now that time is the key and not to expect too much too soon. Am going to leave it until Christmas if I can resist that long!

I am just 4 days into this kit and fermenting is not that active as I would suspect.. when i am home tonight I will pitch in the hop teabags and wait for an other few days :).

But have to say its a nice kit, the bag is very easy to pour into the fermenter and adding some warm water cleans it out very good.

I give my beers at least 12 weeks after botteling, I have noticed that the taste is better if you leave it for a longer period.

I think this is one for the patient types.

I brewed this in June and after a month in the bottle I was wondering if I'd got the northern brown ale by mistake, didn't taste of much although not unpleasant.

Left it another month by which point it was a lot clearer (my conditioning temps aren't great) but seemed to have developed quite a twang. Wasn't particularly happy at this point.

However after 3.5-4 months in the bottle its completely different. The taste has developed a lot and now has some fruity aspects although is still quite malty.

I'd recommend it if you're a fan of dark, heavy ales with more complex flavours but be prepared to wait for it. I'm saving the rest of mine for Xmas as it will make a nice winter ale but without the novelty Xmas flavourings they put in the Christmas kits.

Hi All,

I have just made this kit and it is still at 1020so I am thinking of adding another sachet of yeast and maybe some yeast nutrient to it to see Ican try and coax it down a bit more.
Big D 2657