BrewNZ 2006
Another great event, thank you Kerry Tyack and Diane Falconer for all your hard work. The setting this year was Bellamy’s at the Beehive. Yet again proving it is the show case event for beer awards in New Zealand.We entered this years events with some trepidation as we had moved to our new site and all the beers would be from our new brew house. We secured a great brand headquarters at Scopa Caffe Cucina, Cnr of Ghuznee and Cuba St. Thank you Lorenzo, your pizza’s are fantastic! Our Anniversary Pale Ale went down well, especially on the beer engine.
We receivied 12 medals and 3 best of class:
Best of Class
- Taieri George
- Oatmeal Stout
- Dunkelweiss
Gold Medals
- Taieri George
Silver Medals
- Oatmeal Stout
- Dunkelweiss
- Heffe Wiessbier
- Old 95
- Bourbon Porter
- Anniversary Pale Ale
- Pandora’s Bock
Bronze Medals
- Organic Pilsner
- Ancell Bock
- Bookbinder
- London Porter
Emerson’s Bourbon Porter
It has been three years since we brewed Whisky Porter. The last batch was number 547 and since then its been very difficult to source quality barrels. We thought this was the last time that we could produce Whiskey Porter. A chance conversation with a friend in the liquor industry lead us to purchase 12 almost new bourbon casks just freshly emptied. This was a rare opportunity we couldn’t beer to miss!The London Porter brew was decanted into the barrels at the old Grange Street Brewery on the 14th of July 2005 and trucked over to our new site for what was meant to be four months maturation. But now, nine months later, in May 2006, we have managed to find the time to rack the beer out of the barrels into the “marrying tank” to blend the individual barrel flavours. After our previous experience, we’ve got to know that checking the quality of each barrel before decanting into the tank was pretty darn hard work but oh, the flavours! The differences between each cask! The oakiness, charcoal, the bourbon - the tasting check certainly was a sensory experience.
Because we have only twelve casks left, we are researching extending the life of those barrels for a possible further batch of Bourbon Porter. In the meantime, do try and obtain some bottles of this limited edition rare breed. The Bourbon Porter will be released in July.
First Annual Emerson’s Brewery Queens Birthday Pie Off
Well what an event. What started off as a small idea to create a bit of staff morale and some fun for friends and local clients expanded quickly into a full-blown competition, over 40 pies in two categories; Amateur and Professional. People were very secretive about their pies, one person even importing ingredients.The idea was that people made pies and each pie needed to include an Emerson beer, which was or had been commercially available. We had pies of many descriptions; Fish Pie with Maris Gold, Steak and Mussel Pie with London Porter, Apple Pie with Whiskey Porter. Every beer had a pie made for it, but the Old 95 and Taieri George seem to be the most popular.
Judging was done by the contestants, the Professionals judged the Amateurs and the Amateurs judged the Professionals. It was a bracing -1 degrees but we all wrapped up warm and got on with eating pies and drinking beer.
Winners:
- Amateur Division: Our own James Falconer with a Venison and Kidney pie made with an Old 95, a mash potato top garnished with parsley. He is already planning his defence. A clear winner.
- Professional Division: Adrian Woodhouse, Levito Bakery won with an Almond Tart using Taieri George.
First Million Litres
One of our Company Directors, Graeme Berry, pointed out in February that we were just about to reach our first million litres during the Month of March. This little bit of information took us by surprise so we decided to dust off the pilot plant brewery to brew a small celebratory batch of American Brown Ale for Eureka Bar. This Beer was a ‘one-off batch’ with hoppy characters balanced by nutty malt sweetness and complemented by the way it was served creamy from the Beer Engine.The celebration night on 30 March 2006 was a gastronomic delight. The resident chef, Andrew King whipped up some savoury dishes. One of those, Roast Duck on polenta dribbled with fruit marinated in beer. Richard found it hard to believe that there were no spices in the fruit and was pleasantly surprised to find that the beer, Maris Gold, was the secret ingredient. Another chef, Steve Hotton, a former Otago Rugby player, displayed his skills with a Chicken stuffing pie and a Beef Mushroom pie with our beer as part of the ingredients. Those pies were a real work of art. Thanks Steve!
With the new plant, we reckon it won’t be long before we have the excuse to party again for the next million litres!
The First Brews
Only seven days had elapsed before we could commence brewing again. Unfortunately the new mill systems were not quite ready so we had to drag out the old Grange Street malt mill. This took fours hours to crush a tonne of malt for the usual 5000 litre batch on the previous day. Then the bags had to be carried up the stairs to the mash mixer on brewing morning. This went on for six more brews… phew!We were pleased with the performance of the new Brew house built by the Dunedin Firm, Farra Stainless. Usually we start the brewing day at 6am, firing up the boiler with a pint of freshly brewed coffee in hand. At 7am the milling starts crushing the malt directly into the Mash mixer where it sat for an hour with the malt enzymes converting the malt starch into malt sugars, about 9am, it was pumped over to the Launter.
The Launter is basically a strainer, separating the sweet wort from the grain with some additional spraying of hot water to rinse off the adhering malt sugars. By 12:30pm the kettle would be full, with steam on raising the temperature to a 60-minute rolling boil. The hops are added in several stages depending on the recipe. Usually with Pilsner a large quantity is dropped in at the end of the boil for maximum. By 2pm, we’d be pumping the hot hopped wort from the kettle through the Heat Exchanger. This cooled down to 20 degrees on the way to the 5500 litre Fermenter, which already contained yeast, really to chew down the malt sugars to Carbon Dioxide and alcohol.
By 4:30pm everything is all cleaned up… Aha… it’s Beer O’clock, just enough time to check the previous batches of beers… mmm quality control sure is hard work…
The Opening of the Brewery
When we invited Peter Chin, the Mayor of Dunedin to the Opening on the 7th of December 2005, he rang to say that he was a little worried about being late from a prior function. He wanted to be present, as he knew some of our shareholders from school days. Not a problem!Richard was certainly chuffed to hear Peter Chin talk about the Brewery and what it has achieved for Dunedin. The feeling was great after all the months of hard work and planning. Our elation called for a few celebratory beers.
The next day was a larger event involving seven local Dunedin bands, which played into the early hours of Sunday to a crowd of some 200 Emerson’s fans. Celebrating the new brewery site required 13 kegs of beer and plenty of food cooked on the barbeque by our local Deli Butcher Micco Meats (Thanks Mike, for the delicious meat - sorry your wife had to take you home!)
Most of those bands had solid connections with Richard Emerson. He went to the same Logan Park High School with Martin Phillips from the Chills www.softbomb.com and former classmates played in several bands that night. It was certainly a night to celebrate all these things: Dunedin, the beer, the music and the locals.
The Band list is below. They are a fantastic lot and we would like to support them in the near future…
- By Pass - A winning band of the Smoke Free Rock Quest. Well Done.
- The Fifth Wheel - New group based around five music teachers.
- In a Circle - First reunion after a hiatus of twenty years, great to see you guys play again! Thanks Phillip Hurring and David and Darren Stedman.
- Luxury Ocean Liner - Original Dunedin Sound Founders (Stephen Stedman, David Stedman, Jeff Harford and Shane Gilchrist) in a new band.
- The Tomahawks - Mix of experience and youth influenced by Neil Young and Velvet Underground Operation Rolling Thunder - A loud band with little to say… a Bnet finalist.