Dutch Courage Brewing
In 2016 we were gifted a One Gallon brew kit by family. One of those boxes with a big bottle and all ingredients included. We got to work in our kitchen, completely underequipped, and made a mess of the whole kitchen. The result, about 6 weeks later, was that we had around 15 bottles of Belgian Blond to sample. And… we were pleasantly surprised. It was actually drinkable! We didn’t attempt another brew like that, because f*ck mashing and boiling grains across three pans and sparging it with a sieve….!
In 2017 we finally bought ourselves a 30l Bulldog Brewer basic all-in-one system and haven’t looked back. Over the years, we have discovered many intricacies of brewing, had some best sellers and ‘meh’ beers along the way (no vinegar yet…), and have even built ourselves a ‘core range’ that we brew on a regular basis because they are just amazing. And it’s not just us saying that! Our next steps for these are focusing on consistency in ABV, taste an mouthfeel.
There are also some of our one-off recipes on here, that you could use yourself if you want to. They often come from trying new things, or because we have old malts that need using up! We have many more styles to try out, but in the new house we will finally have the space to experiment more, grow our own ingredients, and also invest in some temperature control to help us try out some beers that were up until now not a realistic option.
Our 'Core' Beers
Illegally Blonde
Strong Belgian Ale
7.4% ABV
Name:
A play on the film ‘Legally Blond’
Description:
Dare we say a proper Belgian Strong Blonde. It is sweet, without being too overpowering. One of our favourite brews.
Make that the Cat Weiss(bier)
German Weissbier
4.4% ABV
Name:
A ‘Dunglish’ (Dutch English) literal translation of the saying ‘Maak dat de kat wijs’. Literally translates as ‘Please go tell that to the cat…’, which means ‘You’re not fooling anyone’.
Description:
A light, fresh German Weizener. With soft banana notes.
Outdoor Season
French Saison
7.1% ABV
Name:
The first time we brewed this beer, we did it outdoors, in the garden! As it was a ‘Saison’, Outdoor Season was born!
Description:
By far our most versatile beer. Summer sunshine in the garden? Outdoor Season! Dark, Autumn evening? Outdoor Season! Grey Sunday need cheering up? Outdoor Season! It’s both warming and fresh, and the colour is lovely amber.
Naughty
Chocolate Milk Stout
6.6% ABV
Name:
Stout, when used as such in Dutch, would translate as ‘Naughty’
Description:
Our first ever attempt at a darker beer. It’s silky smooth, and the head is proper dark and foamy. It’s really dark in colour, pitch black almost, and a bit syrup-ey.
Dry-Hopped January
Citra Smash IPA
8.1% ABV
Name:
A dry-hopped ale, brewed for the first time in January
Description:
Our best attempt at a hop bomb. While still room for improvement, it is a lovely aromatic brew. One that really gets better after a few months on the bottle.
One-Off Beers
sunlit uplands
Sweet Orange Session IPA
3.5% ABV
Name:
We got our hands on a ‘Brexit Yeast’… the rest of the name we hope won’t need explaining.
Description:
Just like Brexit itself, this beer was a bit of a let-down. Although we could have guessed that, of course. It got better over time, but it wasn’t as fresh as we had hoped. The orange peels also didn’t do much.
Note: The recipe says London Ale III from Wylabs, but it was actually this Brexit yeast from WHC Labs, but it wasn’t £30….
Have a little rest
session-ish IPA
5.2% ABV
Name:
A brew made from all sorts of leftover grains and hops. Leftover in Dutch is ‘Restje’, a diminutive. So… in Dunglish that made ‘Have a little rest’
Description:
monk-ey Business
Belgian Abbey-Style Beer
6.5% ABV
Name:
Monks work in an abbey making beer…
Description:
A bit similar to our Belgian Blonde, but a lot less sweet and darker in colour.
Plan bee
honey tripel
9.5% ABV
Name:
If everything else fails, have a 9.5% beer. Made with a lot of honey.
Description:
Fat pants & LeftOvers
belgian strong ale
8.5% ABV
Name:
A left-over beer. Googling ‘leftovers’ we came to this GIF from Friends, and the name was born.
Description:
Belgian STRONG ale. This was a very strong tasting beer. You could just smell and taste it was strong. It was a bit yeast-ey in taste as well because we made a mistake with our measurement and thought it was under-fermented. So we wanted to give it a bit of a boost. In the end, at 8.5% it wasn’t really needed.
Don't worry bee hazy
hazy hoppy Session Ipa
3.5% ABV
Name:
The taste had some hints of honey, and it was a hazy ale, so… that was that imaginative name sorted!
Description:
A very light beer, also made out of rest grains and malts. It was intended to be a bit fuller in taste, and ended up being light in both body and taste.
UnCommon
California Common-style
4.2% ABV
Name:
This was supposed to be a California Common, but it didn’t turn out as we expected, so… it was rather Uncommon…
Description:
improvised pale ale
American-ish pale ale
6.6% ABV
Name:
We ended up not having all the ingredients on brew day, so, we improvised a bit…
Description:
Can’t remember much of this brew at the time of writing it up, apart from that it was rather bitter!
Blonde v1.0
Brew Kit Beer - Belgian Blond Ale
5.5% ABV
Name:
Before we got into the whole pun-thing
Description:
Our first ever beer.
We got a 5 gallon kit as a present. It was quite the adventure to get this brew underway, as we didn’t have any of the kit yet.
But, in the end, this Blonde turned out rather fine. It, literally, tasted of more. A lot more than the 5 gallon that we had. So, we started to look for a proper brew kit where we could brew our own recipes and experience a lot less stress while doing that!