Jane and I visited The Beagle (@beaglesabout) in Chorlton last Saturday night to take advantage of their inaccurately named “Midweek” menu – although I’m led to believe this is the menu that is normally only offered midweek but has been extended to Saturdays as a Jaunuary offer, so I’ll let them off. We were both impressed with the The Beagle, the dining area has a good ambience and the food menu was excellent – Jane being a vegetarian had two choices for both the starter and main, which for a set menu is a rarity. We both thoroughly enjoyed our meals, but what put the icing on the cake was the fact that each dish on the menu had a recommended beer pairing. Now we know The Beagle is all about celebrating the best in beers from both near and far, and the thought behind pairing beers with food shows how dedicated they are to living this vision.
Now I digress, and this is starting to sound a bit like a review of The Beagle, which it isn’t. What I’m supposed to be doing is telling you about my next homebrew recipe which was inspired in part by the pairing Jane had with her starter – a Belgian Witbier. I found out later with a little Twitter magic that the beer in question was a Blanche de Bruxelles by Brasserie Lefebvre (@hopus_beer). I have only tried Witbier once before – an Icelandic White Ale by Einstök (@EinstokBeer) – which I thought was amazing, and the Blanche de Bruxelles just confirmed for me that I like this beer style and that I want to make one of my own.
Blanche de Bruxelles by Brasserie Lefebvre
Icelandic White Ale by Einstök
What’s Wit all about?
So, research. Anyone who has read my recent post on A Journey into Brewing Beer will know that making beer is basically doing clever stuff barley, hops, yeast and water, right? Well in this case, no, there’s a bit more to it as witbier traditionally has not only an extra ingredient in the mash – wheat – but also orange peel and coriander seeds in the boil. In terms of hops, the style calls for less bitterness than most as this is said to overpower the flavour of the spices – the general consensus being to add small amounts of bittering hops with most people saying to avoid any aroma hop additions.
So, the recipe I’ve come up with includes the following grains; Pilsner Malt, Torrified Wheat, Flaked Oats and Munich Malt. I intend to use a single hop for bittering at the start of the boil with no aroma hops added. Traditionally witbiers are brewed using noble hops, but for a twist I’ll be using New Zealand “Wakatu” which is actually a New Zealand bred variety of the noble Hallertauer – why? I happen to have some in my hop box! As mentioned above, it’s essential for this style to get the spice and citrus flavours by adding cinnamon and orange peel to the boil – this will be the difficult part as getting the right quantities will be tough – and as I’m adding to the boil rather than the secondary there won’t be any chance to fix it if I get it wrong! Finally, I’ll be using White Labs WLP400 yeast which is a strain specific to the style.
Wit’s in a name?
As with all my beers, I’ll be naming this beer following the “Syco Brewery” theme. I decided on “Wilde Wit’ Fury” – the Wilde coming from Oscar Wilde (famous for his wit). A little cheesy? Maybe, but it works for me!
So, I’ll be brewing this in the near future and will post to let you know how it goes – watch this space!
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