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.

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……

Not Modest at the Modeste