#black lager

Brewday -  Jólfaðr Black Lager

It’s that time of year that most people get on with a Christmas beer, well mine my be dark but it’s not your usual Stout, I was actuall on the ball and got that done in August so that it could be nicely aged by Christmas.

With this time of year being so busy I don’t always get much time for brewing, I took October off as I’d double brewed in September due to all the glut of fruit and the hop harvest, etc. So I knew I’d have a good slot of time to clog up my brew fridge and what perfect way to do that than get some proper lagering time in. The Helles clone I did in April turned out so much better than I expected so I really wanted to lager something again and the idea of a Black Lager was born. I did struggle to find much information online but finally I did decided on a fairly simple malt bill which I ran past a local brewery’s head brewer and he gave the thumbs up to, although it might be a little more like a dark Märzen and I’ve broken style guides by adding a bit of a higher IBU with the hops, hopefully it all should balance well together. I am after a bit more hop flavour coming through to go with the dark malt. It should be an interesting combination, plus our hard water does mean that extra hops are sometimes needed to get the same desired effect as if you had a less hard water profile.

The grain bill was 44% Pilsner, 39% Munich, 9% Carafa Special II, 5% torrified wheat and 3% Crystal. Mashed at 68c and given a good vigorous 70 minute boil. I know it’s recommended for lagers for about 90 minutes on the boil but I just lost too much wort when I did my Helles, so brought it down to 70.

I bittered with Saaz and Hallertauer Mittelfrüh, with mid late and end additions of a combination of both between 30g and 15g each time. I’ll post more specifics up when I put my publish my recipe, as long as it turns out okay, lol.

Brewery : Eddyline Beer : Jolly Roger Style : Black Lager / Schwarzbier Variance : None

9 / 10

Holy shit. I honestly don’t think I can count on one hand how many schwarzbiers I’ve had but now I’m slapping myself in the face harder than an NFL players wife after dinner isn’t ready because now I need to taste more because of how good this is. I am all for pirate themed beers especially when they are sporting artwork as fucking awesome as this can is and now all I want to do is watch every Pirates Of The Caribbean movie, tuck my leg into my my pants and use a peg leg, and shoot a cannon into the air and just see what happens while drinking this delicious brew. A super smooth chocolatey flavor starts this off with some light smoke and campfire flavors mixing in before ending with a chalky dark chocolate mix of bitter and sweet. This tastes like a thinner version of a “grade A” stout with some lager flavors mixing in and honestly the flavor shocked the hell out of me. I want to keep writing more about this beer but due to the fact that it is fucking delicious, I’m going to keep drinking it and leave you with this: If you are a human with any sense of taste what-so-ever, pick this up and drink it because it rules hard. Like real hard. Like SUPER hard. That is all… Argh.

Modelo Negra