Moylan's Brewery - California

Moylan's Brewery - California

 

http://www.moylans.com/

One of my favorite brewery's that produces great beer is Moylan's Brewery. They are located at 15 Rowland Way, Novato, California.

The owners Brendan and Jessica Moylan visited Melbourne this year and attended many of the 2012 Good Beer Events. A wonderful couple.

Last year in the 20th Australia and International Beer Awards (AIBA) this brewery won Champion Exhibitor award.

In the 2012 AIBA awards Moylan's again featured well in the judging. Their beers received the following medals:

India Pale Ale - Nor Cal IPA (Gold),  

Specialty Beer - Hop Craic (Gold),  

Dry Stout - Dragoon’s Dry Irish Stout (Silver),  

Scotch Ale - Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale (Silver),  

Barleywine – Old Blarney Barleywine (Bronze), 

Specialty Beer – Chocolate Porter (Bronze),  

International Style Pale Ale – Tipperary Pale Ale (Bronze),  

Double IPA – Moylander Double IPA (Bronze),  

Imperial Stout - Ryan Sullivan’s Imperial Stout (Bronze). 

Imperial IPA – Hopsickle Imperial IPA (Bronze.)

Although Hopsickle only scored a bronze medal, it is currently my favourite beer. Great hop flavour and aromas. It is a triple hopped APA., coming in at 9.2%

Sometimes it is hard to choose which beer to drink. Hopsickle or Imperial Stout - both wonderfully flavorsome beers

Some of my other favourite brews created by Moylan's include

If you ever get a chance to taste any of the Moylan's Brewery range, give them a go. They are all wonderfully crafted beer.

Thanks Moylan's

Stein Brew (with Melbourne Brewers)

 Each year Melbourne Brewers, homebrew club, spend a weekend camping at Big River, and do a "bush" brew - Stein Brew.

Last weekend, Saturday 17th March, 2012, eight families spent the night at Stockmans Reward, on Big River, completing the bush brew. Two brews were done on Saturday afternoon/night.
Brew One was a Linton recipe, a Strong Scotch Ale
Brew Two, was designed by Andy, with a triple decoction, Dopplebock

The process (from the perspective of a first time Stein Brew attendee)
The first job was to get a raging fire going to heat the dozen blue stone rocks, to white hot.

 At the same time, the wood fired heater was lit, to heat the hot liquor tank to the required temperature.

The milled malt was added to an Esky, and hot water added until the required mash temperature was reached. The lid was put an for a 60 minute mash. Great time for a few beers around the fire.

When the mash was finished (60 minutes), and mashout (15 minutes) completed, the wort was transferred to a new vessel for fly sparging. Creative "bush design" was used for this process.

When all the wort had been extracted from the Lauter Tun, the brew was added to the brew kettle and heated until boiling.

Bittering hops were added (these were the only hops in the brew)

After 30 minutes, the white hot "Stones" were removed from the fire (one each 5 minutes) and gently lowered into the brew.

After an hour of "super boiling" the wort with white hot rocks (to add caramel, smokey flavours to the brew), the brew was removed from the heat, and cooled in the river.

Once cooled to 20 degrees (40 minutes in Big River), the beer was transferred to the fermenter, and yeast added.

Brew two then started and repeated the process. This time a triple decoction mash was performed (in a Dutch "camp" oven.

The rest of the process was the same (well nearly, but you would have had to be there to find out about the differences in process!!!).

Now to wait until the club dinner in July to taste.

What a great weekend. Good weather, great company, fun brewing, creative solutions to bus brew problems.
Can't wait until next year!!

We even caught a few trout flyfishing on Sunday morning.

Perfect

My Favourite Craftbeers

Very hard to select my favourite craftbeers, as I seem to like so many.
Also there are so many different styles and mood determines the style you feel like on a particular day.
From my personal ratings here are my current favourite craftbeers.

Pale Ales, IPA, APS

EPIC Armageddon

8 Wired - Hopwired (NZ)

Union Jack IPA (Firestone Walker - USA)
Tuatara APA

Dark Beers, Stouts and Porters
Holgate Empress (Australia)
Holgate Temptress (Australia)
Wild Thing - Murrays Brewery (Australia)

Mikkeller - Beer Geek Breakfast (Denmark)
Dark Force (Imperial Stout) - Norway

Red Hill - Imperial Stout (Australia)
Dieu du Ciel Aphrodisiaque - Vanilla, Coffee, Chocolate Stout (Canada)
Three Boys Oyster Stout (New Zealand)

Beer Blogs, Craftbeer news and Craftbeer Websites

CraftyPint - http://craftypint.com/
Brilliant website and newsletters about Australian Craft breweries and new craftbeer releases

Ozbrewnews - http://www.brewsnews.com.au

Beermen TV - http://beermen.tv/
Beermen TV is a great Video Podcast, and the "Hair of the Dog Breakfast" each year (as part of GABF) is magnificent!

64 Bottles of Beer on the Wall http://64bottlesofbeeronthewall.wordpress.com/
This blog has great beer reviews

The Wobby Thong - http://www.thewobblythong.com/

Beer Bureau - http://beerbureau.com/

Aussie Beer TV - http://aussiebeertv.com.au/
Video of Australian craftbeer scene

Eat, Drink, Stagger - http://eatdrinkstagger.com/

Some of my favourite Victorian Breweries

I try to visit and support as many breweries as possible. As I live in Victoria, I obviously visit more breweries in my home state. When travelling I try to visit other more distant breweries. In July I visited Murrays Brewery in Port Stevens (NSW). I think their beer selection (especially their higher ABV beers) were brilliant!

Here are some of the Victorian Breweries I have enjoyed visiting

Jamieson Brewery - favourite beer "The Beast IPA".

 




Redhill Brewery - favourite beer "Imperial Stout"

Bridge Road Brewery (Beechworth) - favourite beers - all!!!











Mornington Penninsula Brewery
 







Tooborac Brewery

Coldstream Brewery
True South Brewery
Hargreaves Hill Brewery

Buffalo Brewery

2Brothers Brewery

Bright Brewery
Sweetwater Brewery

Boyntons Brewery
Echuca Brewery

Grand Ridge  Brewery
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Holgate Brewery - I love their beer but yet to visit the brewery in Woodend. It is on the list.
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Union Jack IPA Homebrew

After listening to The Jamil Show "You Can Brew It" podcast, I decided to brew the Firestone Walker "Union Jack" clone

On Thursday, 30th  July I made a yeast starter on my new stirplate
Stared at 1035. Ended at 1010

On the 1st August 2011, I started the brew.

The brew session started at 8.30 The method I use is all grain, "Brew in a Bag".
Four grains for this brew.
6240gm Joe White, Traditional Ale
900gm Weyermann Munich Light
380gm Weyermann Carapils
100gm Joe White Cara

Hops
28 gm Nugget for 90 minutes for bittering
18gm each of Cascade and Columbus at 30 minutes for flavour
50gm each of Cascade and Columbus at flame out/whirlpool
There will be 2 dry hop additions

Day 4 of fermentation - 44gm each Cascade and Columbus
Day 7 of fermentation 30gm Cascade and Columbus plus 14 gm of each Simcoe and Amarillo

Boiling the Wort before hop additions

Brew Day

Mashing the grain - 60 minutes at 63 degrees Celcius

Doing the Mash 60 mins @ 63 then 10 mins at 68.5

Boiling the wort with hops

The beer is in the fermenter. Wyeast 1056