Erwin
@erwinh
👓 Nerds out hard on many topics! 🍻 beer, 🍶 sake, 🥃 spirits; drinking & home-brew 🎮 (retro) games, 🔊 music, 🎬 movies, 📖 reading 🚲 biking & 🥾 hiking holidays 💼 HR professional Talent & Performance 𖡡 Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Seems my favourite festival - Carnivale Brettanomyces - has a sister festival in Brussels this year. 4, 5, 6 December at Be-here Brussels
Unsurprisingly, Amsterdam Craft Beer fest has been cancelled. The end of Borefts festival meant that a big gap in the beer calendar was ready to be filled. Unfortunately poor communication, high prices, and inclarity on the lineup led to poor ticket sales for this event.
Met up yesterday with some of the local sake homebrewers at Nai Pure Sake Bar (Amsterdam). We had 6 sakes to sample; and exchanged rice, yeast, and nerdy process knowledge. I forgot to take pictures, but I did make a picture of the very seasonal Tamagawa Icebreaker.
Asahi, who also owns Grolsch, has just bought Gulpener brouwerij. Another Dutch independent brewery gobbled up by big beer. They have been branding themselves as local, family owned, sustainable. I guess not much of that identity will be left after this takeover. Sad times.
Rice washing I zoomed into the clock for a good reason. The whole timing of the washing, and soaking is completely done based on this little digital clock!
Did I post an update about my one week internship at sake brewery Daimon Shuzo in Osaka, Japan? Oops! I spent one week living in the brewery to learn more about the process of making sake.
After pressing I kept the sake in a fermenter at very low temperatures to make it clear and mature.
I pressed my 3rd and 4th batch of sake early last week. Today it was time to measure and sample them.
Switching to a 4 mini regulator setup for the new kegerator. If it ever arrives that is.
I have been a bit on a brewing hiatus. Our kitchen renovations meant that my RAPT fermentation fridge became our main fridge for the past 2 months. Today they are bringing our new fridge. I am really excited to have this sorted for our kitchen and being able to start brewing again!
Happy almost new year everyone! What is everyone drinking this evening? I just picked up some sake and beer at Sterk / Pasteuning. Got some nice funky cheese at Kef and my parents brought me a box of oysters. Will pair those with the bottle on the left; Terada Honke Daigo no Shizuku.
It has almost become a yearly tradition. For New Year's eve I get a big haul of cheese from Kef. And oysters. Now to decide which bottle of sake to pair this with.
Oh, did I share yet that I enrolled into a 1 week internship at sake brewery Daimon in Japan? Because I did :-) Will take place in Februari. Look really forward to it!
You can now tick and rate your delicious Coca Cola Zero Sugar as if it were a drink worth analysing.
Breaking the seal on a Schlenkerla Marzen from wooden barrel. A rare sight outside of Bamberg.
A group starts with 2 people. Must be someone around you that is at least curious about sake. By the way, Liam sent over this bottle to Jan. It arrived just in time for our tasting. So we'll have some English sake this evening as well ;-)
This evening is another meetup of the Amsterdam sake circle. The concept is simple; everyone takes a nice bottle of sake with them, tells the story of the bottle, we drink it together, and we discuss. The line-up of bottles always is amazing. I'm bringing this Sankan Shuzo Kimoto Junmai.