The Session - Best at Home

This month's iteration of The Session is being hosted by Ray and Jess over at Boak and Bailey, and the theme they have presented us with is:

"What's the best beer you can drink at home right now?"

Until Mrs V and I decided to encumber the universe with children, the vast majority of our drinking was not done at home. We had several regular haunts to sit and have a pint or two; whether the original Three Notch'd Brewery tasting room, Beer Run, or even the bar at Whole Foods - seriously, at one point it was social central as we invariably ran into folks we knew and so another pint was had. We still do a fair amount of our drinking outside the home, often at Selvedge, Patch, or still Beer Run. Even though we used to drink mostly at taprooms or pubs, I always had a very well stocked cellar, often including lots of my own homebrew, but going out was the norm. Times however have been a'changing, and drinking at home has become almost the default for various reasons that I am not going to bother going into here.

I still have a pretty well stocked cellar, including a couple of dedicated booze fridges, one for beer, and one for wine and cider. There are still beers in the regular fridge, and I have shelves lined with Fuller's Vintage Ales of various, ummmm vintages, as well as other strong ales that I haven't got round to drinking yet. And then there is the kegerator...

It might be a single tap setup, but given that I am usually the only person drinking beer at home these days, Mrs V being more of a wine drinker, a single tap suffices for my needs. I do have all the necessary gear to run commercial beer through it, but to date I have only used it for my homebrew. As a result of having the kegerator, I have been brewing a lot more in the last couple of years, which brings us back to the question from Ray and Jess, what is the best beer you can drink at home right now?

The word "best" is no doubt going to get an awful lot of interpretation in posts for The Session. While I wouldn't make any claims for my homebrew being on a par with the professionally brewed stuff that is available in Central Virginia, it is decent. When I have something in the kegerator, pouring an imperial pint or a half litre - pretty much all my glasses are one or the other - of something I brewed is an absolute pleasure.

So, I am going to re-phrase the prompt a little and make it "what is the best beer to drink in my home, from my kegerator"? Sadly I have to leave off the "right now", as I kicked my most recent keg last weekend and have nothing to take its place for a couple of weeks. In terms though of the best VelkyAl beer to drink from my kegerator, it is probably the beer I brew most often, my house best bitter.

If you have ever travelled much in the US, you will know that best bitter is rarer than the proverbial hen's teeth, as are various other styles that I love and therefore brew my own versions of those too. My house best bitter began life as a collaboration with Three Notch'd Brewing, was originally called Session 42 but became Bitter 42. That first iteration was heavily influenced by the paler bitters of the North of England, think Timothy Taylor Landlord, as well as the divine Bitter & Twisted by Harviestoun in Scotland. The aim was to brew a best bitter using US ingredients rather the classic Maris Otter and East Kent Goldings. At one point Session/Bitter 42 was brewed almost annually, but inbetween those brewings I made my own batches and kept on tinkering.

For a long time now, I have had most of the recipe nailed down and largely repeatable:

• 88% Murphy & Rude English Pale Ale malt
• 12% Murphy & Rude Biscuit malt
• 19 IBUs of something for 60 minutes
• 10 IBUs of something for 15 minutes
• 8 IBUs of something for 5 minutes
• Safale S-04 yeast

The original gravity is always 1.042, yes I have my process so dialed in on my homely brewing "system" that I know what I am going to get before I even begin, and I invariably end up with a 4.2% abv best bitter. Until recently though, the "something" hops constantly changed. My initial batches used US Goldings, but I have played with Cascade, Galaxy, Citra, El Dorado, and Motueka, and most recently I have found the hop that really makes the beer everything I want it to be - Endeavour.

Endeavour is a modern British hop that is a cross between a hedgerow hop and Cascade, so you get the blackcurrant and red berry character of something like Bramling Cross with the citrus notes of Cascade, not quite grapefruit, but not entirely lime either. Chuck in some fantastic spiciness, think cinnamon and maybe even a hint of all spice, and you have an absolute dream of a hop, one that I have used to several recipes lately and in each of them it has shone.

If I had a batch of my house best bitter on tap right now, that's exactly what I would be drinking at home today, either from the keg or perhaps from one of my 5 litre mini-kegs I use to approximate gravity poured real ale. That pint would look something like this...

Yeah it would have a touch of chill haze from the kegerator, but I am not fussed about that when it tastes so damned good. 

Thankfully I can say that about several of my homebrew recipes, whether my blonde ale, stout, or Vienna lager, and I hope to add a house lager to my regular lineup on the keg this year - first batch starts carbing this weekend for a middle of March tapping. So to come back to Ray and Jess's question, the best beer to drink at home right now for me is my own, especially as the price of a pint creeps ever higher...but that is a conversation for another day.