Fuggled Virginia Cider of the Year

Ah...cider, in many ways my first love booze. 

In common with many Brits, or at least the Brits that I grew up with and/or know from my travels, our first sip of booze was cider, proper cider that is, you know with alcohol. Fun fact, under Virginia law there is no such thing as "hard" cider, just fermented apple juice with a maximum abv of 10% abv without "chaptalization" - which is the process of adding sugar to bump up the booze. So...go stick your "hard cider" nonsense where the sun doesn't shine. In Virginia, there is cider and sweet cider (cough, cough, apple juice, cough, cough), nothing hard about it really. 

Anyway, sermon over - the collection plate will be around momentarily - this year my first book was published by Arcadia Publishing, "Virginia Cider: A Scrumptious History", there's a link in the right rail to the Amazon page where you can buy said book. As a result of the research I undertook for the book, cider has come roaring back into my drinking world - I have always had a few bottles floating around the house, and I make my own from time to time, but today the "wine fridge" that Mrs V bought a couple of years back has been colonised by an ever rotating selection of great ciders from around the Old Dominion.

In trying to decide how to break down my review of Virginia cider for 2024, I figured that the basic classifications I used in the book would be my template, with an addition category for pommeau and strong cider. As such, I'll have a short list of three for the following categories, as well as any honorable mentions:

• Single Varietal
• Apple Blend
• Flavoured
• Pommeau/Strong Cider

I will take the winners of the categories and decide on the Fuggled Virginia Cider of the Year, so let's get started...

Single Varietal

• Malus X Dolgo - Troddenvale, Warm Springs
• Wickson - Albemarle CiderWorks, North Garden
• Kismet - Ciders from Mars, Staunton

Honorable mentions: 21 Bent Mountain - Patois, Charlottesville; Virginia Hewes Crab - Buskey Cider, Richmond; Dabinett - Blue Bee Cider, Richmond; Northern Spy - Big Fish Cider, Monterey; GoldRush - Buskey Cider, Richmond; Harrison - Albemarle CiderWorks, Charlottesville; Virginia Hewes Crab - Albemarle CiderWorks, North Garden.

We have an inordinate number of fantastic single variety ciders being made here in Virginia, and to be honest I could almost have had a separate category for just Virginia Hewes Crab single varieties. As it is, in selecting my short list I chose three ciders that every time I go to, or speak with, the cideries in question I ask if they are available. However, of those three, only one inspired me to add a tree to my little backyard orchard, and so the Fuggled Single Varietal VA Cider of the year is the simply magnificent Malus X Dolgo from Troddenvale. Made with 100% Dolgo crab apples from the mountains of Highland County, this stunningly blush cider looks glorious in the glass, and when you inhale the aroma you get Alpine strawberries, cranberries, and very little foreshadowing of the taste explosion that is about to go off in your mouth, this is a riot of acid with a healthy dose of tannins to bring it back from being like sucking excessively sour lemons. I have a bottle in the fridge that at this point is going to have to wait for a charcuterie project to be finished before opening, maybe a duck prosciutto...

Apple Blend

• Cidermakers Choice #6: Dabinett and Harrison - Albemarle CiderWorks, North Garden
• Crabbottom Pippin - Big Fish Cider, Monterey
• Malice - Winchester Ciderworks, Winchester

Honorable mentions: Charred Ordinary - Blue Bee Cider, Richmond; Farmhouse Dry - Potters Craft Cider; Charlottesville; Wild Meadow - Big Fish Cider, Monterey; Cidermakers Table - Big Fish Cider, Monterey; Crab Apple Cider - Daring Cider Co, Stuart; Comeback Kid - Lost Boy Cider, Alexandria

I still remember the first time I tried the winning cider in the "apple blend" category (I need to think of a better term, but that can wait). Straight from the tank in the cidery where it was aging after primary fermentation, a beautiful crisp early spring day, the sun was shining, and I had a sense then that when it was released I would be enjoying it often. That day was a couple of years ago now, and whenever Mrs V and I make the trip to Albemarle CiderWorks I hope that the Cidermakers Choice #6 is still available, The marriage of the American Harrison and Dabinett from the West Country of England is just about perfection in so many ways, Harrison brings a quince like character with gentle tannins which more than stand up to the astringent black tea notes of the Dabinett. The blend is a complex, multi-layered joy to drink - I think I need to stock up.

Flavoured

• Whitetop Spruced Cider - Tumbling Creek Cider, Abingdon
• Stocking Stuffer - Sage Bird Ciderworks, Harrisonburg
• Sinners Cider - Winchester Ciderworks, Winchester

Honorable mentions: Wassail - Big Fish Cider, Monterey.

As I mentioned in my book, my taste in cider "doesn't so much veer to the dry side as it jackknifes like an 18 wheeler on I-81", and this fact makes ciders with added flavours something of a challenge for me. I have the same challenge in the beer drinking world, I like classic, you could say simple, drinks. That said, as I was researching the book I discovered many ciders with other fruit, vegetable, or even tree flavours that I really enjoyed. The other day I took my family, parents are visiting from the UK, on a little day trip to the Shenandoah Valley specifically to pop into some cideries. That Mrs V fell in love with the winning cider, made up my mind. Stocking Stuffer from Harrisonburg's awesome Sage Bird Ciderworks is simply Christmas in a glass. Flavoured with tangerines, oranges, juniper, and clove, the first time I stuck my nose in a glass of it I was transported, Anton Ego like, to being a kid making clove studded oranges as Christmas decorations, which my own kids had done just a few weeks previously. The oiliness of the citrus peels plays really nicely with the dryness of the base cider itself, so it doesn't become overly sweet, and the clove note is bang on point, present but not omnipresent as clove can so easily be. As long as Zach and co are making Stocking Stuffer, it will be part of our festive season menus.

Pommeau/Strong Cider

• Long Light - Sage Bird Ciderworks, Harrisonburg
• Firecracker - Blue Bee Cider, Richmond
• First Watch - Tumbling Creek Cider, Abingdon

Honorable mentions: Dark Night - Sage Bird Ciderworks, Harrisonburg.

Pommeau is on the verge of becoming something of an obsession for me, a blend of freshly pressed apple juice with apple brandy and then aged in oak barrels, it is a lovely night cap, aperitif, or even digestif, being about 18%. They are great on their own, but also blend with regular strength ciders nicely to make cider cocktails. The winner though of this category is not actually a pommeau, but rather a strong cider, although the cidermaker refers to it as a "sipping cider". When Mark the photographer and I drove down to Abingdon in the far south west of Virginia for a booking signing event at Tumbling Creek Cider's taproom, Justen brought over a bottle of First Watch for us to try, and explained the production process. Taking inspiration from how maple syrup is made, Tumbling Creek reduced the pressed apple juice before fermentation, resulting in a 15% abv "sipping" cider that is so focused and punchy in its flavours it's all too easy to polish off a whole bottle, especially sat by the fire. It is the luxuriant drink that demands comfortable surroundings.

How on earth do I make this decision then? Four fantastic ciders that I am always more than happy to drink, and I recommend you all go and hunt them down, whether that's online or getting to the cideries themselves for them, as I would with every cider and ciderworks mentioned in this post, we really are spoilt when it comes to cider in Virginia. But I will insist on deciding on an overall Fuggled Virginia Cider of the Year, a prize unencumbered by financial considerations, and so the inaugural winner is Cidermakers Choice #6: Dabinett and Harrison from Albemarle CiderWorks - a stunning cider from the cidery that I consider both the standard and flagbearer of real cider in Virginia, and even beyond.

Fuggled Beer of the Year

So 9, erm 8, has become 3, but as ever there can be only one Fuggled Beer of the Year, a prize entirely devoid of monetary value or media hype. Our illustrious finalists therefore are:

• Pale: Coat Czech 12° - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville, VA
• BOAB: Sommerbier - Bierkeller, Columbia, SC
• Dark: Pro Seam Please - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville, VA

Ah...the glories of Czech style pale lager, the second best thing to actual Czech pale lager. When a brewery makes an absolute banger of a Czech style pale lager, they are always going to appear in my end of year review. This especially true when said Czech style pale lager is either a 10° or 12° - side note, it has started to seriously annoy me when breweries bring out a "Czech" or "Bohemian" pilsner with a starting gravity of 14° or above. For as long as Bohemians have been drinking pale lager, it has predominantly been 12° or below. Any way, I could wax lyrical for days when it comes to Selvedge Brewing's stunning Coat Czech that came out in the middle of spring this year. Absolutely reeking with Saaz hops, with a rock solid bitterness that scrapes the palate clean with every mouthful - again a reminder of our friend Mr Swiveller's maxim that "it can't be tasted in a sip". I think from the day the final půllitr flowed out of the Lukr taps, I have been bugging Selvedge about when it would be re-brewed, and I know when it is back I will drink lots of it, again.

There is part of me that wishes Bierkeller were closer to me than a 6 hour drive, but then I also love the fact that on the few times a year that Mrs V and I get to Columbia to visit family I have a place to go where I feel resolutely at home. I commented on some social media outlet recently that despite being British, I really only became comfortable in drinking spaces when I moved to Prague in 1999. Prior to that, I had been a guilty drinker, being a practicing Christian who liked a pint meant sneaking off to the pub for a couple of jars of Guinness or Caffrey's whilst hoping nobody you knew saw you, especially given you were studying theology with a view to being a minister of some kind. In Prague nobody knew me, nobody cared, and so I could find who I wanted to be - hence becoming an indifferent agnostic who feels most comfortable in central European beer halls. Any way back to the beer. Every time I sit in the beer hall at Bierkeller, usually with a maß in hand, I feel at ease, knowing that Scott and co get it, they know and value Central European beer culture and see no need to mess with perfection. Long may it continue.

I remember a former girlfriend of mine in Czechia telling me that Czechs consider dark beer as being "woman's beer" because it is sweeter, and er reputedly enhances the size of the bosom. Whether or not there is any truth in that folklore I don't know, what I do know is that I love a good Czech style dark lager, assuming of course that Pro Seam Please is a Czech style dark lager...Wait, what? Is there heresy about? No, not really, just the inherent complexity that is central Europe and the inability of stylistas to accept that reality. As I mentioned in the previous post, Pro Seam Please was inspired by the Fabián Tmavý 14° from the imperious Pivovar Hostomice, just an hour or so from Prague, so obviously it's a Czech style dark lager, right? Right? Well, according to Hostomice's own website, their 14° tmavé is "Tmavé speciální pivo bavorského typu" - that's "special dark beer in the Bavarian style", aka Munich Dunkel. Whatever you want to call it, it's a great beer and in common with Coat Czech, I am looking forward to its return.

So there we have it, three beers that would stand up to any competition in the lager brewing heartlands of Europe, from a pair of breweries that I would love to see do some kind of collaboration brew together such is their shared love of all things Central European (hint, hint). As it is, I can only choose one brew to be the Fuggled Beer of the Year, an award, as mentioned, bereft of monetary value - well, other than the cash I have spend on said beers throughout the year. For the first time in Fuggled Review of the Year history, we have a brewery holding on to that crown, though with a different beer. Where last year it was Tabolcloth, this year the winner is Selvedge and Coat Czech 12° pale lager. There is a very good reason why I recently sang Josh and Selvedge's praises in an article by Evan Rail on Vinepair, they are simply knocking it out of the park and Coat Czech is a home run.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Dark

Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to sup with you again...

Having run a spectrum gamut of orange and brown, wherever those edges subjectively blur, we are back on more solid ground, good old fashioned dark beers. Let's dive on in.

Virginia

• Porter - Port City Brewing, Alexandria
• Midnight Train Porter - Superfly Brewing, Charlottesville
• Pro Seam Please - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville

Honorable mentions: Tweed - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville; Fritz - Superfly Brewing, Charlottesville; Leatherbound Books and Rich Mahogany Porter - Three Notch'd Brewing, Charlottesville.

I have had so many good porters this year, but in all honesty, there is one dark beer that I simply cannot overlook for the Virginia dark beer of 2024. It only had a single flaw, and that was being released in the middle of our gloriously brutal Virginia summer. Otherwise, it was a 14° tmavé that transported me back to one of the finest drinking dens on the planet, which out of respect for a friend I shan't mention. It's not surprising then that Selvedge complete the clean sweet of pale, BOAB, and dark beers from Virginia for this year, taking the accolades with Pro Seam Please. Influenced by Hostomice's superb Fabián 14° tmavé, which inverts the usual proportions of Pilsner and Munich malts, making for a thicker, more unctuous beer that is perfect for sitting by an autumnal fire, while the rain gently pours outside, Pro Seam was just as satisfying under the awning on the back day at the end of a summer's day once the heat had finally cooled off. Mrs V nodded appreciatively when she tried it, and that is always a sign of good Czech style beer.

Rest of the USA

• Dunkel - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC
• Tmavý - Notch Brewing, Salem, MA
• Rauchbier - Bierkeller, Columbia, SC

Back at Thanksgiving I needed to fill growlers, eight of them. Said growlers are the 1 litre kind that would usually just be traded for already filled ones, but seemingly the good folks of Columbia, South Carolina haven't got the hang of that eminently civilised practice yet. So as I waited for the staff at Bierkeller to wash out my existing growlers before refilling and sealing, I ordered a pint of Rauchbier and pulled up a seat at a table. Bierkeller had been open for all of 10 minutes at that point, and there was already a reasonable crowd of folks, all drinking beer (pet hate that I see all too often is groups in a brewpub with a single beer drinker and everyone else drinking some form of soda). Bierkeller's Rauchbier was one of the first beers I tried from Scott Burgess and co several years ago when they were brewing out of the defunct Swamp Cabbage Brewing - we had been talking about German beer and he graciously let me try some of his then soon to be release rauchbier from the lagering tank. Then as this year, it reminded me of a slightly darker version of the Spezial rauchbier in Bamberg, and there really is no higher praise than that, so I had a couple more while I waited as Bierkeller was by now pretty busy, a sight that's cheered my soul no end.

Rest of the World

Ummmm...well this is a touch embarrassing. Going through my records it seems I haven't drunk a single dark beer from outside the US this year that left a lasting impression. Sure I've had several pints of Guinness to varying standards, and maybe even an O'Hara's Stout, though I am not entirely sure. Rather than try to cobble together a short list for the rest of the world, I think I'll just resolve to do better next year, and hopefully get abroad again soon. A trip to Europe would be very welcome...

So with just a pair of excellent dark beers to choose from, the decision doesn't really get much easier, especially given both beers are apt to give me Anton Ego moments back to some of the best drinking experiences ever. Though as the immortals from Zeist would say, there can be only one, and that would be Pro Seam Please from Selvedge Brewing, I kind of wish I had a couple of crowlers in the fridge to tuck into before Hogmanay.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Between Orange and Brown

With pale out the way, let's move up the colour spectrum a little, into the realm of amber, orange, reddish hues, and even veering into brown - yeah baby, it's BOAB time...

Virginia

• Loden Vienna Lager - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville
• Trilby Best Bitter - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville
• Rules of Civility No. 73 - Dynasty Brewing, Ashburn

Honorable mentions: Tabolcloth - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville; Houndstooth - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville; CU Later - Patch Brewing, Gordonsville; Rules of Civility No. 99 - Dynasty Brewing, Ashburn; 1841 Steinlifter - Devils Backbone Brewing, Nellysford.

Given the breadth of the colour spectrum here, this could very easily have turned into the Selvedge show - they are knocking it out of the park with their Central European lagers, indeed Loden is currently my go to beer whenever I am in the taproom...however, for all my Mitteleuropaphilia I am still at heart a Brit, and best bitter is such a rare beast in these here parts, that Trilby nicks it by a short nose. Hopped with a modern British hop called Endeavour, served from either Lukr tap or the beer engine, Trilby is an absolute delight, with blackcurrant and spice being very much to the forefront, but with classic British biscuity notes giving structure and depth to a stonkingly easy beer to drink. I have become so enamored with Endeavour that I have started using it in my own bitters, and I think EKG just relegated to the Championship...

Rest of the USA

• Bauern Bock - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC
• L'il Nator - Tröeg's Brewing, Hershey, PA
• Sommerbier - Bierkeller, Columbia, SC

Honorable Mentions: Ungespundet - Notch Brewing, Salem, MA; Perpetual IPA - Tröeg's Brewing, Hershey, PA; Tumbler - Sierra Nevada, Mills Creek, NC.

I am just going to put this out there, I don't understand sampling culture. The idea of going from brewery to brewery every weekend and just doing flights seems pointless to me, as Dickens had Mr Swiveller say in "The Old Curiosity Shop"..."it can't be tasted in a sip!" I quite agree Mr Dickens, I quite agree. If I do a flight it is to find the beer I want to have a couple of pints of. Anyway, the winner of best BOAB beer in the rest of the USA is the absolute antithesis of sampling culture, is it a beer that requires the devotion of a maß. With a starting gravity of "only", if memory serves, 9° Plato, leading to an ABV of "only" 3.6%, I drank an awful lot of Bierkeller's majestic Sommerbier when I was in South Carolina over the summer, in a maß, naturally. Oh and I bought about 5 litres of it home to Virginia too. It is simply the perfect summer lager. Crushable, flavourful, and demanding of being drunk at length and in volume. Perfekt.

Rest of the World

• Maibock - Privatbrauerei Ayinger, Aying, DE
• Oktober Fest-Märzen - Privatbrauerei Ayinger, Aying, DE
• Kráľovská Taberna 12° - Nestville Beer, Hniezdne, SK

Even though my drinking tastes definitely lean toward the sessionable, there are times when I want something stronger, and so on one of my fairly regular jaunts to Northern Virginia for work I popped into the Wegmans at Gainesville to see what they had available. Unlike our local Wegmans, they had Ayinger's inordinately easy to drink Maibock, and of course I picked up a few 4 packs and enjoyed them in the early spring sunshine, sat on the front porch watching the kids run around like maniacs. Beautifully clean and crispy, but still full bodied and luscious, ideal for relaxing afternoons...

Unlike over categories, there is a clear winner here, for a few reasons. Obviously because it was a simply superb beer, but also the fact that while it was available and I was in that neck of the woods it was practically all I drank, and finally the fact that it has inspired me to make my own version of such a beer in my homebrewing plans for 2025, given a week or 2 of it is not enough. So Bierkeller Sommerbier take the BOAB crown, and I hope to see more beers like it in the future!

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Pale

I know, I know, I haven't posted anything in a while on here. In my defense I have been out and about promoting my book, "Virginia Cider: A Scrumptious History", and life has had a way of late of getting in the way of me writing much. As the year is drawing to its end though, the traditional reviews are in order, and while that won't save 2024 from being the complete year with the fewest number of posts in Fuggled history, it will at least be an outlet for some thoughts...and as ever, we begin with pale beers, as in those that aren't noticeably too amber or orange, a nice subjective line there for sure.

As has become my tradition, I will pick beers from Virginia, the rest of the US, and the rest of the world, eventually leading to a best in category beer which will go forward for the overall beer of the year. That said, let's go...

Virginia

• Coat Czech - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville
• Krypto Pilsner - Decipher Brewing, Charlottesville
• Found Artifacts - Wheatland Spring Brewery, Waterford

Honorable mentions: Pylon Pilsner - Patch Brewing, Gordonsville; Export Golden Lager - Devils Backbone Brewing, Lexington; Das Gut German Pilsner - Caboose Brewing, Vienna; Wharf Hill 1906 Pre-Prohibition Lager - Wharf Hill Brewing, Smithfield

Every year, this category gets harder and harder, mainly because more and more breweries in Virginia are stepping up their pale lager game, and that is, as you well know if you have followed me for a while, is my sweet spot. Said sweet spot particularly hones in on Czech style pale lagers, I absolutely love them, especially if said lagers are brewed to 12° Plato or less - personal bugbear is seeing breweries putting out beers labeled as "Czech Pilsner" or "Bohemian Pilsner" and it turns out to be a 14°, or more, lager. The vast majority of lager brewed and drunk in Czechia is 10° or 12°, so please can we have something akin to what your average Jan or Jana would drink in the pub?  Anyway, gripe aside, Selvedge Brewing brought out a 12°, double decocted, extensively lagered Czech style pale lager earlier this year that was right up there with the very best in Czechia, no that is not hyperbole, it was simply superb - I waxed lyrical here.

Rest of the USA

• Notch Pils - Notch Brewing, Salem, MA
• Central Artery Helles - Trillium Brewing, Boston, MA
• Urhell - Bierkeller Brewing, Columbia, SC

Honorable Mentions: Captain Jack Pilsner - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC; Sunshine Pils - Tröegs Brewing, Hershey, PA; Bavarian Pilsner - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT; Kellerbier - Bierkeller Brewing, Columbia, SC; Lollihop IPA - Tröegs Brewing, Hershey, PA.

Everything I just said about 10° Czech style pale lagers obviously points to winner for pale beers from outside of Virginia. I have had Notch Pils many times in cans, usually muled down to VA from friends in New England, but in May I was up in Boston for work and so took the opportunity to get to their Brighton venue to try out their wares on tap, and fresh from the Lukr, topped with a cap of glorious wet foam, it was an absolutely delight. Had it been closer to my hotel and conference venue I would have gone every night for more, and now I keep half a sneaky eye on Boston for work related stuff...in the interests of science I am sure you are aware.

Rest of the World

• Kaltenecker 11° - Pivovar Kaltenecker, SK
• Icelandic White Ale - Einstök Ölgerð, IS
• Martins 10° - Pivovar Martins, SK

A combination of having not had a work trip outside of the US this year, and the continuing improvement in pale lagers, ahem beers, in the US has meant that the international pale beers of the year are from really slim pickings. That's not to say they are second rate beers, just I have mostly been drinking American this year. That said, it is to Central Europe that we head for the international pale beer of 2024, and so obviously it is Slovakia, and in this case a brewery I had tried in Prague before heading across the ocean to live in Virginia. Kaltenecker 11° might not be the most well know beer on this side of the Pond - I only had it because my best friend effectively overloaded my suitcase with Slovak beer last year - but it is definitely an excellent pale lager in the pilsner vein. Beautifully bitter, using Premiant in addition to the classic Saaz, it is something that I wished I could bash pint after pint of. I only had one though and so I took it slow and savoured every drop.

Being an unreconstructed lover of all things Central European pale lager, this category is invariably the most challenging each year to settle on a winner. This year though, it is made a little easier by the fact that I can simply choose the beer I had the utter joy of caning for several weeks in a row, reveling, both in the tap room and at home, in some Czech based Ostalgia because the beer is that good...Selvedge's Coat Czech it is then, and it truly is not hyperbole when I say it is as good as anything in Czechia, including the sublime Únětické Pivo 12° that was its inspiration.

Decocting an Idea

At the beginning of this year, I made myself a couple of promises when is comes to my homebrew. Firstly I committing to brewing with Murphy & Rude malts as much as possible, partly because I want to support a local business, but also partly because I think fresher malt leads to better beer, and you can't get fresher than locally grown and malted grains. It also helps that Jeff and co now sell direct to homebrewers, so I can support Jeff's business directly, a fact that I very much like. My second promise to myself was that this would be the year when I finally start brewing lagers regularly, which meant buying a small chest freezer to be my fermentation and lagering chamber, and a desire to get to grips with the ins and outs of decoction mashing.

I know there are some who hold to the idea that decoction mashing is an un-necessary relic from the past, when malting technology wasn't at the level it is today, specifically when it comes to the levels of modification in the malt itself. The argument basically goes that since modern malts are more highly modified that in the distant past, then decoction mashing has become redundant as a way to maximise extract from the grains. I don't want to get into the weeds of Kolbach, Lintner, FAN, and all the other elements of malt - I am not being facetious there, malt is endlessly fascinating, from barley varieties to the levers a maltster has at hand to great unique products.

My biggest issue with the "decoction is not necessary" argument is that it makes a tacit assumption that the entire point of the mash is to extract as much fermentable sugar as possible from the grain and that it you really want some decoction character then just chuck in some Melanoidin malt - because most people won't tell the difference anyway. performing a decoction though is about more than just increasing the temperature in the mash from one rest to the next. If that were the sole aim of decoction, then just do a step mash. There is, however, magic in the boiling of the decoction...

The picture here is from my first stab at decoction mashing, the left hand side having just taken a third of the mash from the mash tun, and the right hand side, the same decoction after 30 minutes boiling. The boiling process creates a load of Maillard reactions, caramelising the sugars in the grain, adding depth of malt character. There is more to the mash than just getting your hands on sugars to pass on to the yeast for fermentation. The character might be elusive, it might be hard to nail down, and really define, but that doesn't mean negate its impact and value.

How then to do decoction mashing when your homebrew setup is basically brew in a bag? It helps to remember that the bag side of things, at least for me, is a cheaper and easier to use false bottom in a fairly traditional 5 gallon water cooler mash tun. I will admit that I was intimidated by the idea of trying decoction mashing, and my first couple of attempts were all over the place with learning about the properties of thermal mass and temperature loss in my mash tun, oh and it definitely helps to remember that the various rest temperatures are ranges rather than absolutes. 

My first time trying a decoction mash was a good lesson, I mashed in to give my grain a protein rest at 125°/51.6° and naively thought that my first decoction would spike the temperature to a saccharification rest of about 150°/65.5°. I was crestfallen when it "only" hit 144°/62.2°. Having drained the first runnings of my mash, I added my first load of sparge water, which only raised the temperature to 149°/65°, and even my second sparge only ever got the mash to 161°/71.6°.

As I have continued to learn, both through reading and by brewing, I have come to a couple of processes that seem to work for me, depending largely on the amount of time I have to commit to my brew day. If time is short, then I will do a single decoction, if plentiful then a double. My single decoction looks basically like this:

• Mash in for a saccharification rest at about 150°/65.5°
• Pull a third of thick mash after 30 minutes, and boil that for 30 minutes
• Returning boiling decoction hits mash out temperature of 160°/71.1°
• Let full mash sit for 30 minutes before draining and batch sparging, twice

A double decoction goes more like this:

• Mash in for beta-amylase saccharification rest at about 143°/61.6°
• Pull a third of thick mash after 30 minutes, and boil that for 30 minutes
• Return decoction to hit alpha amylase saccharification rest of 150°/65.5°, rest for 30 minutes
• Pull a third of thick mash, boil that for 30 minutes
• Return decoction to hit mash out at 160°/71.1°
• Let full mash rest for 30 minutes before draining and batch sparging, twice

So a 90 minute mash versus 150 minutes.

This may sound odd to some, but my lager brew days have by far been my favourites this year, and doing the decoction process makes for a more engaging day than the standard single infusion for my top fermented beers. It does help that when it is time to tap my lagers they look like these...

Cidery of the Month: Blue Bee Cider, Richmond

A couple of posts ago, I produced a list of what I think are the best 7 ciders I have had in the last 12 months, many of them discovered as part of my research for my book, "Virginia Cider - A Scrumptious History", which you can pre-order by clicking the cover in the right rail there.

As I pondered the many, many ciders that could have made that list, seriously people Virginia is a hotbed of great cider at the moment, I decided that I needed to highlight more cideries on here, especially as cider becomes even more of a regular tipple. There would be but one rule, that I have to have visited said cidery in the month in question, any way...onwards.

I mentioned in the post about the 7 best ciders that my recent visit to Blue Beer Cider in Richmond was off the cuff, and also the first time I had been since meeting with co-owner Mackenzie on a dreich November day when the building was still an empty shell. For those curious about the name, Blue Bee is named for the blue orchard bee, a native species of bee that is a more efficient pollinator that the invasive honeybees imported from Europe by the early colonists.

Now that Blue Bee are back up and running in their new location, very conveniently placed close to I-64 for those us who don't live in Richmond, it was great to see the spruced up interior, with comfortable seating, high tables, and a beautiful bar space. I will be honest, I don't recall how many ciders were on tap the day that we swung by, but they offer both flights of 4 ciders as well as cider by the glass. Mrs V decided to do a flight, while I grabbed a glass of Harrison, one of the workhorse cider apples in Virginia.

Even though I am primarily a beer drinker, in common with most Brits I know cider is always something we are happy to delve on into, and single varietal Harrisons are often a delight. Blue Bee's weighs in at 8.5% is decidedly dry - yay, I love a bone dry cider - with a subtly tannic character that give the cider beautiful structure and a lingering finish that practically demands you drink more. In terms of flavours, I mostly got tropical fruit with some zingy orange peel, which put me in mind of my mum's pastry recipe for our Yuletide mince pies, if you've never zested citrus peels into short crust pastry for sweet pies you are missing out.

Next up was another single varietal, this time an apple more associated with the West Country in England, Dabinett. Rather than repeat myself from the previous post I have reference a couple of times, here is what I wrote about Dabinett:

"The star though for me was their single varietal Dabinett cider, made from the eponymous bittersweet apple from the West Country in England. Pouring a golden colour, the nose was spicy with hints of vanillin, weird reference here perhaps but my kids are big fans of vanilla and cinnamon yoghurt, and that was what popped into my mind straight off the bat. That sweet spiciness carries on it the taste realm as well, but joined by some heavily hitting apple flavours - think apple pie made with wildflower honey. Being a bittersweet, the tannins add a lovely structure and depth to the cider that stop it from being overly zingy in the finish."

By this point I was deep in conversation with Mackenzie and fellow co-owner Taylor, Mrs V had joined us and the conversation and cider was fairly flowing. It was almost like being in the most convivial country pub you can imagine, though being in very urban Richmond. I continued to work my way through the draft offerings, and in my time honored approach not really taking any notes, but just reveling in the aromas and flavours of good cider. It never ceases to amaze just how much diversity there is in something as seemingly simple and ubiquitous as the apple, and likewise that so few varieties are available in the store, and the majority of them overly sweet to my taste.

One thing I have discovered by virtue of the research side of writing my book is that I love pommeau, a mix of apple brandy and freshly pressed sweet cider, so of course I was going to try Blue Bee's two offerings. Firecracker is made with Gold Rush apples and infused with ginger, while Harvest Ration harkens back to pre-industrial times when an agricultural worker's pay was partially paid in cider and brandy, the former to keep you hydrated, the latter to deal with the aches and pains of a hard life. It was while sipping on the Firecracker, which in and of itself is stunning that I had a mad idea, and thankfully the folks at Blue Bee were willing to let me try...putting a measure of Firecracker in a glass of Harvest Party, a blend created by their cider club. It was an absolute knock out, and when the heat of Virginia finally dies off (hurry up please), you bet I'll be creating it as a nightcap to hopefully rain sodden days.

Having stocked up with bottles of more single varietals, including a Yarlington Mill that I am particularly looking forward to tucking into soon, we headed home knowing that when we make it down to Richmond, Blue Bee will certainly be high on our list of places to visit.