Hoppy Seconds

So here we are again. Take Number two.

So far the Cluster hops looks like it is going to be a fantastic new addition to the family. After brewing up a new batch of all three beers (including our new peach beer as per the request of the Twittershpere) and a bit of downtime in the fermenting buckets, the holy water is sitting pretty in their bottles. We did get the chance to sneak in a taster before hand and the outcome is what we had all hopped for (sorry we couldn't help ourselves). We have brewed out all of the unwanted bitterness and off-flavours produced by over hopping. We achieved this by using a muslin bag and reducing the time that the hops were in the brewing process. The end result is a much subtler beer.

We've spent a lot of time sampling different fruit-based beers on the market (and I mean a lot of time) and many brewers have gone for a bitter taste. They have done this by using bitter fruits like grapefruit, this only works when you want to touch upon the fruit flavour. For us the fruit has to be as recognisable as the hops. To achieve this we had to increase the concentration of fruit, However by doing so the beer became just too bitter. (for more on this refer to "The Pursuit of Hoppiness").

Our previous good friend Progress hops just had too much of a bitter citrus taste - fortunately this was an amicable break up so we may see each other once again. On their own, Progress hops would be perfect for a single hop IPA. They have a great citrus-bitterness balance without being as potent as Citra hops. However coupled with sour and bitter fruits it was simply not going to happen.

As for myself, when writing this post we had only 10 days left to wait for the second (and hopefully last) big reveal of our flagship beers.

Fingers crossed we can close this chapter of the Lost Boys story, and move on the bigger and better things.

Soon we will be writing a series on the history of beer and how we got to this point. We'll follow its introduction in AD Egypt/Iran, its commercialisation during Medieval times, its ability to empower people during the prohibition and current craft beer mania.

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Keep drinking.

Your pals,

Lost Boys