RAAJ Latest Update

Successful (at least so I can gather) appearance for Woodley Sider at this year’s RAAJ festival – all sold out by the time we turned up on the Saturday evening!

Better up production this year to cope with the demand, assuming they and the CAMRA beer fest at Reading want some again next year.

RAAJ update

This is one of the siders that will be available at the Real Ale And Jazz festival in a couple of weeks time. This is the summer fruits batch, gorgeous colour (and tastes good too)

image

Tickets available for the festival at www.raaj.info

It’s Official…. Woodley Sider at RAAJ

Yep, I can confirm that Woodley Sider will be supplying a limited amount of Woodley Sider to the Reading Ale and Jazz Festival (http://raaj.info) – the siders supplied will be as per the previous post.

Did a taste test of the summer fruits variety (of some that I bottled) and it’s improved with flavour, with a rather nice smooth strawberry taste.

Get your tickets from the RAAJ website and I may see you there.

Woodley Sider at the Real Ale & Jazz Festival

Awaiting confirmation but it’s looking good for Woodley Sider supplying 40 ltrs of Sider to the Real Ale & Jazz festival (http://raaj.info/).

The following ‘brews’ will be supplied:

Summer Fruits Sider (from the 2011 production) @ 6.6%

WBC Reserva (from the 2012 production, had whisky oak barrel chips added to the secondary fermentation) @ 5.8%

Exciting times….

Woodley Sider will be supplying some cider (4 x 10ltr bag-in-boxes) to the Reading CAMRA beer & cider festival that is taking place this coming May bank holiday.

Need to decide which ones to ‘showcase’ but likely to be production from 2011 which has had time to age.

I am also waiting to hear from the Real Ale & Jazz festival as to whether they would like to source some for their July event.

2012 – Batch 1, 2 & 3 Update (3)

The 2 fermenting bins left over from the 2012 production (batch 3) have now been bottled (well bag-in-boxed!).

All labelling has been done as well, with a few wacky names created for some of the variations created in last years production! Have also labelled up the boxes remaining from 2011’s production.

Labels to be uploaded very shortly to the gallery.

2012 – Batch 1,2 & 3 Update (2)

So just before the new year (i.e. a day before I think!) I boxed up batches 1 & 2 as follows:

Brew 1, Demi 1, 2, 3 & 5 – 1 x 5ltr box each

Brew 2, Bin 1 – 2 x 10ltr boxes & 2 x 5ltr boxes

Brew 2, Demi 1 – 1 x 5ltr box

These will now go through a naming process (got a few ideas) based on the various experimental additions for this year (which have all been quite successful) and then it’s time to design the labels, so watch this space…

Anyone interested in some of the 2010 (yep still got 1 or two 5ltr boxes left) or 2011 productions then let me know – they appear to be aging well… For those of you interested I am looking to do a Sider tasting in the coming months, once it’s warmed a little!

2012 Taste Test

Sampled a couple of this years Sider variations this evening, and below are my tasting notes (as they stand at the moment!)

Brew 1 Demi 1 (added raisins) – soft, dry raisin flavour. Not too overpowering, takes the edge off the sharpness that the Sider tends to come out as.

Brew 1 Demi 2 (light brown muscovado sugar added) – Rich, dark, caramel colour. Nice strong, but soft flavour. Could be quite potent at around 8% abv!

Brew 1 Demi 5 (whisky oak chips added during secondary fermentation) – subtle hint of whisky both in odour and flavour, very tasty one!

Brew 2 Demi 1 (Cinnamon stick added to secondary fermentation) – nice light colour and odour, tastes a little sharp and not enough cinnamon flavour coming through yet (more cinnamon sticks added)

Brew 2 Bin 1 (larger quantity of whisky oak chips added during secondary fermentation) – strong whisky flavour and odour,  but easy drinking. The oak chips have taken the edge off the sharpness that is sometimes present.

More to come when the latest batch of Sider has completed fermentation (currently bubbling away) and another taste of the cinnamon batch in a couple of weeks.

Bottling to take place soon on some of the above in the next week or so…

2012 Batch 1, 2 & 3 – Update

Quick update on this years batches…

Batch 1 – was racked off about 4 weeks ago so should be ready for bottling soon (or a 2nd racking off depending on the amount of sediment remaining) – quick synopsis of the ‘blends’:

1 gallon with chopped raisins added – interesting taste, can taste undertones of raisin (not too overpowering)

1 gallon with 250g of light muscovado sugar added – darker in colour, and pretty strong (8.3% approx) – tasty one this one!

1 gallon with whisky oak chips added – the chips seem to have a little edge off the Sider, and at the same time add a light whisky flavour – very quaff-able!

The 2 remaining 1 gallon demi-johns from batch 1 have been left as-is.

Batch 2 – racked off, whisky barrel chips added to the 5.5 gallon bin and 1 cinnamon stick added to the 1 gallon demi-john to give it a bit of a Christmas flavour.

Batch 3 – approx 600g of dark brown sugar added to the 5 gallon bin which should take it up to a punchy 8% – Thinking of naming this one Duck Fog 2! The 5.5 gallon bin will be left as-is. Yeast added to both and hopefully they’ll kick off fermentation in anger soon, bit chilly in the garage so might be a longer fermentation than normal.