Ölbeat 302: Reittausblogi Höyrysavu - Homebrew

Brewery: Reittausblogi (in Finnish) - Homebrew
Country: Finland
Style: Smoked Bock
Abv: 6,5 %
Won't find this @RateBeer

Continuing from where we were left last time, it's time for the other beer in Harri's delivery. Have to say in this post - if it hasn't become obvious - that from the Finnish beer blogs available, Reittausblogi shows most diversity when it comes to showing knowledge and dedication to beer. I mean the product, not the bullshit around it. The know-how and the experience in brewing, sharing the recipes, the homebrew reviews, the sahti knowledge... and still some exceptionally thorough reviews of commercial beers on the blog.

That would be something to admire... if only he lived elsewhere than Rauma. As all the Finns know, there's a long feud between the city of Pori and the medieval dwelling of Rauma. This shows up especially in the world of sports. Whatever the ball game, there's always a rivalry. In Finland's national sport Finnish baseball, the ladies club Pesäkarhut in Pori fights for medal position every season - and in Rauma the women have surely tried bats, balls and mitts on, too. In football, the European version, the clubs in Pori, Jazz and Porin Pallotoverit, have won some national titles in the past - and in Rauma they know that the ball is round and it's not allowed to touch it with your hands (unless you're a goalkeeper, but that's yet something to be learned in Rauma). In ice hockey, the Pori club Ässät won its last championship in 2013 - while in Rauma they know that you're supposed to skate with skates but using the stick and controlling the puck is still challenging. ;) Get the picture?*

Before we get lost in labyrinth of common knowledge, let's get back to the beer...

Before the review let's give the word on the brew to the brewer himself:

Reittausblogi Höyrysavu (Smoked Bock)
Smoked Bock, 6,5% abv

This is a new recipe I created past summer. A Smoked Bockbeer aimed for the märzen season. It is fermented with a lager yeast, but in low ale temperatures (18 degrees) - so basically it could be considered as a steam beer also, but I prefer smoked bock. Lagers are fermented around 10 degrees normally, but I don't have the equipment for that. The name in finnish. "Höyrysavu", literally translates as "Steamsmoke". For this beer I tried to get a good malty body with clean fermentation aromas, tasty smokiness and balanced hop bitterness. Simple, drinkable stuff for the long and cold autumn ahead. I added some juniper from my own backyard to the end of the boil for some "house flavour".

Malts: Weyermann Beech Smoked Barley Malt (GER), Chateau Munich (BEL), Weyermann Caraaroma (GER)
Hops: Sladek (CZE)
Spices: Juniper twigs with needles, no berries
Yeast: Mangrove Jack M54 California Lager

What about the beer?

Colour is ruby brown with a finger-thick natural white head. Aroma has smoked meat, roast bread and malts. Taste begins with bitter, cured ham flavoured smoke. Meaty smoked caramel malts take over with roasty and spicy side notes. Towards the end slightly wood-flavoured smoky-roasted bitterness gets on top. Aftertaste has strong smoke, roasted bitterness and spicy malty dryness.

Strong and delicious Smoked Bock. Smoke is powerfully present throughout the show. Behind the spicy flavours - effect of the juniper, perhaps? - is a solid malt base. Seems that Harri has hit as near to an authentic Bamberg smoked beer as possible. I would call this a success. Yes, this is definitely a success. Thanks and a big hand for this treat to the neighbour rival, too.

Brewer's Choice

Harri's arguments for the choice are short but profound: Cash, barbeque hut, peace, smoked beer.

Johnny Cash: Heart of Gold (YouTube)

From the 2003 box set Unearthed (Disc 2 - Trouble in Mind), the song was written by Neil Young.

Ölbeat

Since the brew is clearly German style smoked beer that rocks, it doesn't give too many options. And let's say that Harri seems to have a taste for heavy music, so this is partly a tribute to that direction, too. 

Accept: From the Ashes We Rise (YouTube)

From the 2014 album Blind Rage, the song was written by Peter Baltes, Wolf Hoffmann and Mark Tornillo.

* As everyone knows, I'm not from Pori, so I don't consider this kind of opposition funny at all. But in the blog, I take a daily 15-minute break from making fun of people living in Pori, so it was the other town's turn to be laughed at. Basically, the people in Satakunta region are all the same, despite the tribes here are pretty talented in finding differences when there are none.

Ölbeat 301: Reittausblogi IPA 2017 - Homebrew

Brewery: Reittausblogi (in Finnish) - Homebrew
Country: Finland
Style: India Pale Ale
Abv: 6,2 %
Won't find this @RateBeer

(I don't usually write intros to Ölbeats but this and one upcoming post will be well-argumented exceptions.)

Around three-four weeks ago when the blog was slowly reaching the milestone of 300 Ölbeats, I seriously thought of writing a couple of  "Best of the Pest" posts and throwing in the towel after that. The time to keep up posting to the blog has been limited lately, and running again and constantly around 50 beers behind in the posts seriously bugs me. And there will be less time for the blog in the future, since I've found the interesting and important world of coaching kids to play volleyball.

At the same time with these deep thoughts running through my head, the fellow blogger Harri Metsäjoki from Reittausblogi, asked via Twitter whether I would like to have a taste of a couple of his homebrews, one being this IPA and another being a smoked bock that will be in the blog later. As a serious master of homebrewing Harri surely mastered the timing of his offer. Totally astounded, I pushed the thought of quitting the blog aside - "Let's think about that again at 400..." - and answered: "Hellyeah." Couple of weeks later I had a mysterious package in my shaking hands. Last Saturday, ) September 2017, I took the bottle from the fridge and poured it into the glass...

But before the review let's give the word on the brew to the brewer himself:

Reittausblogi IPA 2017
India Pale Ale, 6,2% abv

This is my first homebrew recipe from back in 2013. This summer I wanted to be a little nostalgic so I brewed another batch with a recipe very similar to the first one, just slightly more hops and I used Citra instead of Centennial, because Centennial was out of stock.

I will not lie a lot if I say this recipe is one of the most brewed homebrews in Finland. I wrote the first easily understandable, but thorough, homebrew instructions in Finnish and they became a huge hit, maybe even being a somekind of spark to the current homebrewing wave that is sweeping over Finland. Along with the instructions came this recipe and a lot of people would start their homebrew careers with it. It is still unbelievable and crazy how popular it became and how popular it still remains.

The beer itself is a classic West Coast Style IPA with balanced hoppiness. Malt base is 100% finnish Sahti Malt from the Viking Malt company. Sahti malt is a barley malt mixture with roughly 90% of Pilsner malt and 10% Dark Ale malts. The exact mixture is a secret that the malt house will not share. Sahti malt is sold in 25 kg bags in local supermarkets and is therefore very cheap and the easiest malt to get hold of. And quite well suited to brewing IPA, at least in my opinion.

Malts: Sahti Malt
Hops: Herkules (GER) for bitterness, Cascade (USA) and Citra (USA) for aroma and dry hopping.
Yeast: Safale US-05 (clean fermenting american ale yeast)

What about the beer?

Colour is hazy dark orange with a two-finger thick white head. Aroma has grapefruit, orange and mango. Taste begins with smooth piny fruity bitterness. Bitter grapefruit juice and sweet caramel malts take over with spicy piny side tones. Towards the end bitter pine and sweet citrus get mixed with the grapefruit, while caramel malt retreat to the background. Aftertaste is smoothly citrus fruity and biting piny bitter.

Great and flawless India Pale Ale. Grapefruit clearly leads the game, pine bites in just the right way, fruity sweetness gets nicely through and malts support the game beautifully. The brewer himself has once told that CCCCC IPA was the original brew's role model - there surely are differences in the taste but both are excellent West Coast IPAs. Truly a homebrew worth the rep. This was a privilege. Huge thanks to Harri and Reittausblogi! We'll continue with the bock later.

Brewer's Choice

According to Harri, this great song from the toughest album of 2017 matches his homebrewing hobby well: old equipment, no automation and digital meters. The only digital instrument used while brewing is the kitchen scale.

Accept: Analog Man (YouTube)

From the 2017 album The Rise of Chaos, the song was written by Accept(?).

Ölbeat

Encouraged by the brewer, I jumped right out the digital period to the time of classic rock. Since the beer was the first new Finnish IPA for me that truly rocked in a relatively long time - couple of months, at least.  

Led Zeppelin: Rock and Roll (YouTube)

From the 1971 album Led Zeppelin IV, the song was written by John Bonham, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.

Ölbeat 029: Kotipanimo Hirvi Otso 2.0 / Homebrew

Brewery: Kotipanimo Hirvi - Homebrew
Country: Finland
Style: Stout
Abv: 5,2 %
Won't find this @RateBeer.

It was Teddy 2.0, not 2.0 Teddies...

Kotipanimo Hirvi is the name of a homebrewery of one young dude in Helsinki, Finland. The dude has his beer review and homebrewing blog, Nuorukaisen vaahtosukelluksia (Foam Dives of a Young Man), in Finnish. His own review of Otso 2.0 tells us, that the stout is spiced with lactose, vanilla and cocoa. We should expect a beer with coffee, dark chocolate and roasty aroma and flavour. Let us wait no longer - time for tasting.

What about the beer?
Colour is black with half-finger thick beige head. Aroma has roasted malts on top, black coffee and dark chocolate on the side. Taste begins with roasted, slightly burnt malts and a tiny hop bite. Journey continues with black coffee, dark chocolate and malty flavor. Palate adds some medium-sweet bitterness. Aftertaste offers mild coffee with malty hints and lasts nicely long.

Mouthfeel is nicely silky and round all the way. One could probably ask more edge, but then again there are no overpowering factors present. The start is powerful enough, maybe a late hop (Saaz or Sladek?) or a crazy amount of vanilla could have made the beer strong all the way. Anyway, Kotipanimo Hirvi is on its way from good to great. Cheers until the next time!

Ölbeat

The brew had a nice dark mellow mood. I decided to find a Finnish song that has somewhat shady and heavy - ended up with this:

Sara: Vielä muodostan varjoni (YouTube)

From the 2006 album He kutsuivat luokseen, the song's composition was credited for the whole band and the lyrics wer written by singer-guitarist Joa Korhonen. The music in the song relies on the combination of Korhonen's soft and clear tenor vocals and piano-guitar -based rock. There's a short synthesizer solo in the middle of the song. The song's name translates to "I still form my shadow": the lyrics don't form a coherent story but they might have something to do with need to change and dependance to other people in doing that. There's some uncertainty in the bridge: "Kuinka paljon kestän vielä? / Onnistunko kerran vielä?" ("How much more can I last? / Can I succeed once more?"). The song's mood is shady as it was with Otso brew, too.

Brewer's Choice

The brewer himself thought of big band music from the 30's or the 40's - round and mellow but still energetic. His ultimate choice was this fine classic.

Glenn Miller: Perfidia (YouTube)

Recorded by Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1941, the song was originally written in Spanish by Mexican composer Alberto Dominguez. The English lyrics were written by Milton Leeds. Vocals were sung by 16-year old Dorothy Claire and vocal group The Modernaires. The English lyrics are addressed to a woman called Perfidia (translates from Spanish to 'perfidy' i.e. 'betrayal' or 'treachery'), whom the narrator has loved before finding out her being unfaithful. The orchestration shows Miller and his band in its best with heavy brass in the start and the clarinets following. Smooth and swingy, like the brew.