Not Modest at the Modeste

October 14, 2018 by info@gingertipple.com

Successful Festival

A few months ago, I received an invitation from the Antwerp Beer College (ABC) inviting me to have a stand at the annual Modeste Beer Festival held at De Koninck’s brewery. Last year I was offered a stand outside with the T-shirts and the jewelery, as Ginger Tipple is not a proper beer. This year I was offered a stand together with the regular beers, “I am part of Antwerp brewing” was the official explanation.

Named after one of De Koninck’s previous owners, the Modeste is Antwerp’s main beer festival featuring local beers. This year there was also a Polish brewery, Nepomucen.

Tipple on Tap

Although I had produced a few kegs for a customer in Jamaica, this was the first time I was serving Ginger Tipple on tap. I had no idea how to connect the keg to the draft equipment. Furthermore, as I had second-fermented in the keg, which is always a risky business, I was not sure how the tipples would pull.

One of the ABC’s experts connected the two beer kegs, and behold, the Tipples were producing a beautiful head, a light foam which lasted a respectable 90 seconds. You could taste that the head was natural and without the additives used by a lot of commercial beers.

Tap Labels

As a real newbie to kegs, I had not thought of the decal, the label to clip on to the beer tap, so I improvised with using bottle labels. I could not have manned the stand alone and my wife and two sons were there to help. My sons enjoyed tasting the excellent beers on offer from the other breweries.

Tipple Hop & Ginger Quad

The Modeste was also the first major event at which we were selling the 7% Tipple Hop and the 11% Ginger Quad. The Tipple Hop was our best seller. At 5pm with 2 hours still to go, we finished our 1st 30 liter keg and debated whether to open the second. In 2 hours we sold another 15 liters, which is a lot when you are serving tasters of 150ml!

Some visitors remembered Ginger Tipple from 2017 and were happy to see that we had expanded our range and were offering some of beers on tap.

Best Compliment

The best compliment came from the brewer and owner of one of Antwerp’s best breweries, ‘t Pakhuis, Ed Van Den Ouweland, who commented to a few people “De Tipple Hop is het lekkerste bier van het festival” the Tipple Hop is the most delicious beer of the festival.

An Even Bigger Family

September 4, 2018 by info@gingertipple.com

More Types of Tipple

This week sees the delivery for the first time of two new styles of Ginger Tipple, the Tipple Hop and the Ginger Quad. Developing new styles of a beer can be extremely enjoyable and incredibly frustrating. The inspiration for a new beer usually starts with reading about other beer styles and, of course, drinking them. It takes four weeks to brew a batch and then after bottling a further two weeks to second ferment in the bottle. Only then, can I start to taste the finished product.

And if it is not good enough, which is frequently the case, it is back to the beginning and waiting another six weeks to try again. And this is frustrating.

Tipple Hop

Some of the feedback from customers who enjoyed the regular Ginger Tipple was that at 8.2% ABV it was a bit too strong. On the other hand, customers who enjoyed the Ginger Tipple 4 4.5% ABV felt that it did not have the depth of flavour of the regular Ginger Tipple. So I started to design a 7% ABV version.

Also, I wanted to make a ginger beer which was more hoppy, going in the direction of an IPA, or in this case a Ginger Pale Ale.

If you add too much hops or leave them in for too long, you end up with a bitter aftertaste in the mouth. Not enough hops or not hopped for long enough and you miss out on the wonder flavours of the 500 chemical compounds in hops. Get the balance right and it is a real pleasure. Too many IPAs suffer from overhopping.

I had to brew a few batches before I achieved the desired level of hoppiness and citrus zing, but now we are ready to launch.

Ginger Quad

I also wanted to develop a stronger Tipple aged with oak. We tried initially using both French and American oak in parallel batches. The American oak was too harsh; you can taste this in a lot of the bourbons, and even beers aged in bourbon barrels.

The batch with the French oak was more subtle, but as with the hops, timing was critical, if the aging goes on for too long, you end up with a mouthful of oak, a problem common with wines aged for too long in oak barrels.

A further challenge was which hops to use, how to hop and how much. Lastly, there was the quantity and type of citrus juice to be added before bottling. If I tell you that it took two years to reach my desired quality, I am not exaggerating.

At 11% ABV, it is a real pleasure with smoked meats, heavy cheeses or with a cigar.

For the Future

We now have five styles of Ginger Tipple, and in the future I want to develop a 13% ABV winter tipple with cinnamon and a 7% ABV stout tipple with toasted ginger. And I have a lot of demand for a sweet tipple at around 3% ABV.

Watch this space……

Drank 30 Beers in an Afternoon

December 17, 2017December 15, 2017 by info@gingertipple.com

Billie’s Craft Beer Fest

Before you jump to conclusions, I did not drink 30 full glasses of beer. It was 30 tasters and quite a lot of them I sipped and then about half of them I poured away.

It is not often one has the opportunity to drink quality craft beers – unlimited – and Antwerp’ first craft beer festival two weeks ago was a wonderful occasion to imbibe. In fact, it was absolutely amazing, not just because of the wonderful beers, but I now truly believe that Ginger Tipple is a tremendous brew.

Selection of Breweries

There were 50 breweries from all around Europe and North America, most of which had eight beers on tap, two at a time. As I was there for two hours on Sunday afternoon, this meant that there were about 100 beers available. Which is tremendous.

IPAs

As to be expected, there were a lot of IPAs. To be honest, some of them were average ales with a lot of hops, very few had that magic word, body. For the first time I experienced a range of different IPAs, West Coast IPAs which are very hoppy, often with very fresh hops from Yakima, Washington. Then there were the black IPAs which are made with toasted malt, the skill here is not to either the hops or the toasted malt to overpower the other. The German IPA used German hops etc.

Quads & Stouts

There was a varied selection of quads and stouts, matured with all sorts of flavours, although the bourbon barrels were the most common. Coffee, vanilla and cocoa were the popular tastes. Particularly enjoyed the Fantastic Voyage, a milk stout from Penrenial Artisan Ales which was infused with coconut flakes while whirpooling.

I missed the Kentucky Breakfast Stout, from Founders Brewing, which is one of the best on the market, and which commands a premium price of $20 per bottle. I had tasted a bottle six months ago, and it is very good.

Voodoo Brewery had a special brew for the show, which was a refreshing old style ale matured in bourbon barrels.

Estonia’a Pohjala brewery delivered an Imperial Coffee Stout called Cocobänger which uses high quality Costa Rican coffee, coconut and Magnum hops. At 12.5% ABV it was seductive.

Different Beers

Tempel from Sweden had a great sour beer with mango called Manu. With an ABV of only 3.5% it must be great to drink on a hot day, although I am not sure how often that happens in Sweden.

My favourite was Norway’s Nogne O‘s Tripel X Farmhouse Ale which is not boiled before fermentation which occurs at a temperature of 39 celsius.

The meads were not my cup of tea.

Sour Beers

You can travel the world and find sour beers with or without fruit. At this event there were quite a few, but the best were from Belgium. For me, the stars in this category were the Rodenbach Grand Cru Flemish and Caractere Rouge red-brown ales. Nor can you omit Alvinne‘s Gentleman Sour Ale.

Summation

Stéfan Cauwenbergs and his colleagues deserve full praise for arranging the craft beer festival and by setting the entry price quite high it meant that you did not have to by tokens all the time to taste different beers.

Looking forward to next year’s festival.