Black Rock, Golden Ale

Lesinge · Sep 29, 2013

Got this as part of a birthday present at the end of August. Brewed to 23 litres with 1kg of Muntons beer enhancer, no other additives except for a level teaspoon of sugar for the bottles. Initial brew for about 10 days and then racked into the bottle bucket for a day. Initial tasting before pitching was very thin, a little bit sweet but I was not expecting anything great from this one can kit. Bottled at just over 1010 and taste at this time was better, citrusy and reminded me of one of those badger summer type ales. Quite pleasant and I ended up having a couple of small glasses at this stage even though green beer doesn't do my stomach any favours!

Kept in house for seven days and moved to the garage yesterday. Couldn't hold off my curiosity and had to try one to see where it is going last night.

It s lovely and clear and a really nice colour. Has carbonated quite well already and there was a small but lively head on the beer. Smell and taste still slightly "homebrew tangy" but nice hop flavours there, quite smooth, floral and with a hint of sweetness (probably still there from the conditioning sugar).

I reckon that this is going to be a really nice session beer if left alone for a while..although that depends on if I can keep my hands off it!

Overall, a really nice kit so far.

Lesinge · Nov 15, 2013

An update on this beer. Now its been a month or so in the cold garage and it really is a nice little beer. Clean and a bit fruity and any homebrew taste gone. Would recommend it.

Lesinge · Dec 5, 2013

Further update two months down the line. This beer is really nice. By now it is very smooth, has hints of spices with a slight bitter aftertaste (really slight), it is almost an after dinner wine taste and feel to it. I am so gutted that I don't have more left for after Christmas dinner. Will definitely buy more of this and leave it longer to mature!

jphil123 · May 30, 2014

I came across a video on YouTube on this kit where they brewed just the can plus 10 litres of water. As I was running low on DME and/or dextrose at the time, plus my stack of empty bottles was running low (my favourite "drinking' problem to have) I wanted to give this very simple brew a go.

Here is what I did:

-14/05 heated can in hot water, poured into fermenter and rinsed with 1.5l boiling water. Topped up to 12 litre mark with cold water, reducing the temperature to 22*C. SG 1.045. Sprinkled yeast and closed lid.

-23/05 checked gravity, only dropped to 1.020 with hardly any air-lock activity. Swirled fermenter a couple of times. Activity seemed to pick up.

-30/05 checked gravity again. It dropped a little further, but not much, to 1.016. Air-lock is active, but very slow. Sample tasted surprisingly dry for this high SG, not sure why. Quite bitter too, which I actually liked.

Although I like the taste, I am a little concerned about bottling now at this SG. Just wonder if not adding any DME and/or dextrose will result in more unfermentables and a higher FG. It has been in the primary now for 16 days, so perhaps I transfer it into a secondary for another week or so to see what happens. Would welcome any ideas/observations/comments.

jphil123 · Jun 26, 2014

About time for a little update on this experiment.

On 07/06 (after 3.5 weeks), the SG had reduced to 1.015 and I decided to bottle. I batch primed it with 72g of dextrose. The carbonation worked great, alcohol is just slightly above 4%. I think the result is quite different from what this beer is intended to taste like. It is quite full bodied, with a strong bitter note, but smooth and pleasant. Perhaps the bitter note will reduce with further ageing.

Still, I would not recommend this experiment, as it is a little unbalanced. Will definitely try this kit again, but then brew to the 20 litre mark and perhaps dry-hop with some nice New Zealand hops for the aroma.

jphil123 · Sep 18, 2014

My 12 Litre experiment turned out okay, but not great. It was simply not balanced (or not how I imagine a golden ale to taste like). Still, to give this kit a fair chance, I picked up another can at my LHBS and decided to brew this to the instructions on the can. Well, something close to it. I happened to have 500g of Amber DME left and added 750g of cane sugar. In addition, I had a sachet of Safale T58 left in the fridge that must have been sitting there for some time, so decided to use that instead of the kit yeast.

OG came in at 1.050, temperature pretty steady at 20*C and fermented down to 1.010 in 20 days. Probably sooner, but I tend to aim for 3 weeks in the primary in general. I bottled with approx 5.5g/l of dextrose.

Colour is a little darker than what I would describe as gold. Guess the amber DME caused this. It actually looks pretty amber coloured to me. But that is not the main thing. The taste is extremely estery/fruity and lacks some acidity/freshness to balance that out. This is more imbalanced than my original 12L experiment. Perhaps T58 is not the yeast to use for this kit, although I cannot taste the spiciness this yeast is supposed to produce. It also tastes a little soapy/chemical to me.

I will leave this one alone for quite a while, to see what happens, but I have little hope for this batch to turn into something palatable.

Lesinge · Sep 18, 2014

If you do it a third time why not try it straight and then leave it for a few months. I remember it being a nice little beer, not top of my list, but quite interesting and very drinkable.

jphil123 · Nov 8, 2014

Nearly 2 months in the bottle now, so decided to see what happened. To my surprise, turned out quite nice (just like Lesigne predicted). Much cleaner now. Pretty straightforward beer that is quite 'sessionable'. Nothing memorable or outstanding, just a nice pint of beer.

Black Rock, Golden Ale

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