Beer Glasses: Norovirus Pale Ale

Adam and I did a brew the other day. We did a clone of Courage Directors Bitter. This is an English Style bitter. We got the recipe out of Clone Brews. I've never had the beer, but it got favorable reviews on beer advocate. It is made by a British Brewing company. I can't really figure out who owns the brewing company because it has been bought and sold several times along with several mergers and other weird managing arrangements. I do know that the name comes from John Courage who started brewing at the Anchor Brewhouse in 1787.

ESB's are a style that don't real get much play in the US. Probably because it is so similar to American pale ales but with more expensive imported ingredients. If you are into pale ales, American or otherwise, you should check out this style. It is similar to an APA but less dry and more British. We did this one partial mash, which is what we will probably do until we transition to all grain brewing once is warms up. We mashed three pounds of Maris Otter malt for this brew. I asked for British two row pale malt, but the guy at the homebrew store subbed in Maris Otter. MO is popular among homebrewers for its low nitrogen. It absorbs water well and is very easy to process. It had a very distinct and pleasant smell to it.

All and all the brew went well. Check the pictures out below (I need to get a real camera, the iphone camera just isn't cutting it). There was one major snafu though. As we waited for the wort to cool to yeast pitching temperature I started to get very nauseous. We ended up finishing the brew fine, but as soon as the lid was on the fermentor I had to run to the bathroom to empty out my digestive tract. As it turned out, I had the norovirus (basically a twelve hour stomach virus that involves sleeping with a bucket next to your bed.) I'm not sure how my illness will effect the beer as far as contamination is concerned. I observed that the beer began furiously fermenting quite quickly and kept up that rapid pace for 36 hours, then stopped dead. I haven't seen a bubble since. I'm not sure what that means. If any homebrewers read this, please let me know if you have any insight or advice.

I'll add one more thing. I was way too sick to clean up after brewing, so I ended up leaving the mess over night, something that I hate to do. It actually was about 48 hours before I was well enough to tackle the clean up. I had the foresight, however, to fill the brew kettle with water. I had dumped in a fair amount of Powdered Brewery Wash. This is a cleaner that I had picked up the last time I was at the homebrew store. Previously I had let it stand in the kettle for a mere 20 minutes. I didn't think it made much of a difference. This time when I went to clean the kettle all the trub and sediment washed right off with almost no scrubbing necessary. I was amazed. I highly recommend this product. I'm definitely soaking my pot overnight in PBW from here on out. That's about it. Enjoy the visuals.