- Carnival Neil
Carnival Newsletter Edition 1
Updated: Jul 29, 2020
Hello and welcome to the first ever Carnival Newsletter. This newsletter has been designed to keep you, our amazing customers, fully in the loop with brewery happenings and news, beer release information, upcoming taproom events, homebrew recipes for our beers and much more.
In this edition:
Taproom Reopening Information
An Interview with Dominic Hope-Smith, Co-founder of Carnival
Upcoming Brew Schedule
Homebrew Recipe for Carmen
1. Taproom Reopening Information
As we all know, the Government gave bars permission to reopen as of Saturday July 4th. The original plan here at Carnival HQ was to throw our doors back open to the public on Saturday July 10th, however our focus has had to shift to getting the full brewhouse fired up after several months of mothballing.
Don't get us wrong, we were confident of our preparedness to reopen safely and according to Government guidelines, however we did not feel that the timing was right. It goes without saying that we needed to get our brewhouse fully operable as a priority after such a long break from brewing.
As you may have spotted on our social media feeds, we are now going to reopen on Friday July 31st. If you would like to join us for a drink, please visit our website here and book yourself a time slot!
2. An Interview With Dom, co-founder of Carnival Brewing Co
Q: Was there a specific experience that made you bite the bullet and start Carnival?
A: I started home brewing five years ago and took over the kitchen, creating recipes of beers i really enjoyed drinking.
After meeting Adrian, my co-founder, who offered his garage as our make shift brewery, we decided to scale up our production so we could get more beer to more people. Lots of encouraging comments from friends, family and people gave us the confidence to keep on developing new recipe ideas using new techniques. We then received a massive vote in confidence from an investor who loves what we were aiming to do and the vibe of a fledgling Carnival.
Q: Were any other brewery names considered?
A: I had loads, as you can imagine: my kids liked the name BEER TALES, which was my first home-brew beer brand. The idea was I would create recipes and make up some sort of faux story and characters on the label to tell a tale of the beer's origins. The kids were very helpful with the storyboarding of these
Q: Music is a big part of life at the brewery. What genres do you fly the flag for?
A: Yep we are all big music fans. Personally I'm big into house music, disco, afro beat and Latino.
Q: What has been your favourite Carnival beer so far and why?
A: Macau is my favourite. It's a fairly mad recipe we produced when we moved into the garage and have evolved ever since. We're brewing another batch again when we reopen things, aiming to get closer to the original recipe and high levels of pistachio.
Our recent small batch beers have been fun to make and share with customers; Matt's DAQ DAQ DAQ Strawberry Daiquiri Pale, and Pash Pash Passionfruit Sour have been really enjoyable and will probably get a scale up on the big kit.
Q: Is there a "Holy Grail" beer style that you would like to brew in future?
A: I really love wild beers and the spontaneous fermentation of natural beers. For me, this is the holy grail of brewing. The art of blending, putting your product in the hands of nature and creating something totally new and unexpected really excites me.
Q: And would you say that is your favourite style to drink, as such?
A: My favourite style is the New England IPA. I love hops, I love haze and the power of the hops, barley, water and yeast combined, when used well and creatively, to create such a massive gamut of flavours, mouthfeel and aroma.
Q: Do you have a favourite hop?
A: This changes all the time. Simcoe has always been in my top 2 and the top dog at the moment has to be Mandarina Bavaria. It's got massive hits of orange and zesty fruit while having that earthy noble hop character. I expect we'll be seeing some Carnival beers with MB in the hop bill soon. Previous top dog was Nelson and I'm looking forward to trying some Nelson alternatives when we get hold of some new NZ hop varieties.
Q: What would be your dream event to host at the tap room?
A: My dream event is a music, food and beer event with Gruff Rhys from the Super Furry Animals performing, food from our favourite street food businesses like Tikka Chance On Me, along with full taps of delicious Carnival beer and lots of happy smiling faces.
3. Upcoming Brew Schedule
So what do we have planned beer-wise? Here's our brewing schedule for the next few weeks:
Week Commencing 20/07/2020
Carmen - Mosaic Pale. Keg and cask.
Maple Swoon - Imperial Brown and Maple Ale. Keg, cask and ageing in bourbon barrels.
Week Commencing 27/07/2020
Alfonso - Mango Sour. Cans (11/08/20).
Pash Pash - Passionfruit Sour. Cans (11/08/20).
Carmen - Mosaic Pale. Cans (11/08/20).
We Are Diamonds - NEIPA. Cans (11/08/20).
Week Commencing 03/08/2020
Unnamed DIPA. Keg.
Macau - Oat Cream Pistachio Pale. Keg and cask.
Unnamed NEIPA. Keg.
4. Homebrew Recipe - Carmen
CARMEN is our beloved single hop session pale we brew predominantly with Mosaic hops. We use a load of wheat and rolled oats, as well as pale ale malt to build up a protein-rich body, while adjusting our water profile to ensure healthy yeast propagation and a maximisation of the flavours from the hops.
CARMEN - 25 LITRES (All Grain) 4.0% ABV | 45 IBU | SRM 4.06
Based on a brewhouse efficiency of 70%
OG 1044
FG 1012
GRIST
3.5kg Maris Otter Low Colour Pale Malt
1kg Torrified Wheat
500g Rolled Oats
HOPS
Brewday hopping
25g Magnum T90 - first wort hop @ 80c for bittering
100g Mosaic T90 - Whirlpool @ 80c
DRY HOPPING
150g Mosaic T90 - day 5 post fermentation at 8c
WATER TREATMENT (add dry to grist prior to mashing)
5g Gypsum
10g Calcium Chloride
YEAST
11g US-05
METHOD
Mash in using strike water at your usual temperature range, and aim to have a settled mash temperature of 67c
Mash for 60 minutes
Sparge at 77c for 10 mins and collect 28-29 Litres of wort at 1040
Bring to the boil, add bittering hops at 80c
Boil for 60 minutes
Chill to 80c and add whirlpool hops
Chill further to pitching temperature and transfer to fermenter remembering to oxygenate wort
Ferment at 20c for 5 days and a steady finishing gravity is achieved
Move into your cooling environment and drop temp to 8c - if you're able to remove yeast do so now
Add dry hop charge and drop temperature to 2c
After 2 days package trying to remove oxygen uptake where feasible
Have a great week.
Cheers!
Neil Ashton
(Sales & Development for Carnival Brewing Co)
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