Yeastie Boys 'Kid Chocolate'

[Stu McKinlay]

Looking for some honest feedback from an awesome beer community here.

Kid Chocolate runs out about now (last of the kegged lots it is on at D4 and a wee snifter on handpump will be on somewhere in Chch soon). Pot Kettle Black is fermenting and should be out in mid-June. We have plans for quite two interesting beers to come out around BrewNZ...

I'd be very interested to know what people thought of Kid Chocolate. Be brutally honest. Tell me what you liked, what you didn't like. Low abv beers are an area a huge interest to me and I personally thought it was our best beer so far.

I knew it was a long shot, being so low in alcohol and not having the excitment of something like Riwaka hops (ala Bookbinder).

I also noted that it tasted quite different from the taps at different bars. Stunning off some, cold far less flavourful flavourless in others. It also changed a bit overtime.

I've heard everything from "I reckon you should make this an all year around regular beer" to "not much cop".

I'd love to see a few see a few of the lurkers come out of hiding on this one.

Thanks for any and all feedback...

Slainte mhath, may your weekend drinking prospects look as good as mine (and my weekend starts today!).
Stu

[jt]

a beer that you concentrate on and appreciate the malt balance and bitterness, etc

Don't you do that with every beer ?

I shouldn't really comment, I haven't tried kid Chocolate anyway ..

Cheers chaps, jt

ps .. but I did brew the domestic version with a few tweaks

[MrC]

I do, but my colleagues are looking for a beer to interrupt the work related conversations with a hoppy "Hello".

[JackoNZ]

Agree with what other people have said about the serving temp of this beer. Had one at D4 in Wellington tonight, it was bloody freezing and fizzy. I kept drinking it, with each gulp hoping it was going to be thick, creamy, slightly chilled, kind of real ale like in England instead I kept getting fizzy cold beer. A shame because I think the beer has got some nice flavour coming through it's just suppressed by the cold temps.

Exactly the same with the bookbinder, first couple I had of this a few months ago really blew me away, tonight, cold and fizzy and a bit disappointing. If we could just get over that not chilled to the max beer doesn't always mean warm beer then the flavours would be coming through much better. I've noticed the same with my homebrew stuff, leave it out the fridge for 30-40mins and it's so much better.

Hand pumped tuatara porter, fantastic! Perfect serving temp and carbonation. That hand pump makes a huge difference.

[Stu McKinlay]

@ Nolen and Sean: that aftertaste. My first taste of the final product was after the Wellington Beer Fest (my third son was born two days before so Craig Bowen of BeerNZ did the honours for us). I was surprised at how much Rakau came through. I'd definitely call it "stony", and possibly a little bit "steely". It was certainly overt but the beer was only ten days old (that is only ten days from pitching the yeast!!! I'd be very surprised if you taste a commercial beer fresher than this - outside of a brewery - in 2009, if ever). About a week later the beer was served at a SOBA tasting and the Newtown Festival. I missed the tasting and arrived 5min too late to the festival (where it went in an hour or two) but I'd guess it was still pretty overt then. I'd certainly not call it metallic but I'd not be surprised to hear people call it this. I can only guess that this is what you are describing. I am absolutely certain that this is Nelson/Blenheim terroir because I get it from all hops (to varying degrees) and almost all clean white wines from this area. Be interested to see if others know this character.

@ Sean. Very sorry to hear that one bad experience means you won't be trying it again. It doesn't matter with Kid Choc, because there isn't any to drink, but it is a sad thing to hear anyway. i hope it doesn't put you off our other beers. We can never make everyone happy, and we'd certainly never try too... but it doesn't mean we can't hope they will be!

@ Kier. Thanks for the feedback. We'd already got the word through various sources, as I'm sure you probably well know. I'll be in contact with Martin soon as I think the beer was a great lesson for us and could well be for you too. I'm pretty convinced in the possibilties of the bag, more so now than ever, but I need to cast the net a bit wider and talk to various people about their experiences (before I invest millions ;-)). I've had the beer from the bag on about a few occasions now, each time it was gone in a matter of ours and it was well and truly loved so I'm really interested in talking to you guys more.

@ Kier and Sean. Very interesting that by far the worst experiences in this list are from the two versions of Kid Choc that I have (by far and away) preferred. Not sure there is much more to say about that than that it is interesting.

@ Mike... I reckon we, as brewers, should be pushing the boundaries about what can be served where, when and how. We're only bound by what we think should happen. I see no reason why you can't have kegged mild, or an ordinary bitter. I'd prefer them on cask but I'd love to see them on keg too. Kid Choc was (to me) outstanding off tap at Bar Ed. Reminded me of the big characterful malt that Bookbinder used to throw off, without the Riwaka of course.

@ everyone that found it too cold. I will pass on the word to anywhere you mention but I hope you all do to. Not just for this beer but everytime you get a beer that is too cold, whether it be in bottle or off tap (or can...?). It is you the customer who is the most important coive for the bar (and for us). "Too cold" was a risk we took 'eyes wide open' when we made the beer. I feel like we failed somewhat here.

@ everyone who tried it... "Thanks". I know every good brewer (commercial or homebrewer) thinks this about everyone who gives their beer a shot. We probably don't get to say it much. And we may not remember it when someone tells us it was overpriced/overcarbed/underwhelming/"too yeastie"/fuckin'awful... or whatever... but we do (don't we?). Further... To those who found what they were looking for, an even bigger "Thanks!". And to those who take thetime to blog about it, talk to friends about it, post their thoughts on ratebeer about it - the biggest thanks of all.

After that big rant... the beer is almost gone... I still think it is the best beer we've brewed. I hope the next one (and every subsequent one) is even better. We'll try our best. Thanks for your support and open feedback. We very much appreciate this community.

[Thanks also to Steve Nally, as always... he's had us sweating a couple of times but that boy sure can brew a beer. He's become a great friend over the years and gives me the most fantastic and honest feedback on any of my homebrewed beers. And he's a bloody good host too. Hardly anyone appreciates what an amazing and talented beer geek we have in Steve.]

Phew.... I'm off for some homemade tomato soup. And sleep.

[Mike Neilson]

No thank you Stu!!! Go the Kiwi Feijoa pity it wasnt a few weeks ago!! I must admit if I was single and a feijoa i would take yours over Mikes $1000 one any day!!

[kier]

Cheers Stu. I'm glad you think the bladder system will be a winner eventually. There are certain advantages with freight that's for sure! If we can help in any way we're more than happy to oblige.

I think it's interesting you mention about the beers you've drunk from the bladder going within a few hours. Perhaps this is part of the issue? In a normal pub (especially one beer among 10+ other beers) there simply isn't going to be the turnover of punters for this to happen? perhaps it's a problem of longevity? I don't know - it was just a thought after reading your post.

Another point I thought of was when you supply a pub how about providing some form of label for the tap/handle? It doesn't have to be flash - even just a bottle label on card and laminated that can be blu-tacked in place would be good. It's just that the vast majority of punters will not have heard of the beer before and anything that can lift its' image will help sales......the fact is that many NZers will still refer to even the likes of Emerson's and Mussel Inn as 'homebrew' and so a professional 'look' is important - the last thing you want is to rely on a landlords homemade (or possibly even handwritten?) label it will scupper the perception of your beer before it's even tasted.

Finally, with the serving temp of beer from the keg - I agree many beers are too cold but I'm sure in 99.9% of pubs all keg product comes from a single chiller where all beers are kept and so a single running temp has to be chosen. This is I suppose a problem for all brewers - produce the beer to suit the conditions that it's almost bound to be served at or create a beer you're proud of but where most customers will not get to taste at its' best.........no easy answer.

[Stu McKinlay]

I was actually thinking about the length of your line. I've only had it off a short line. The same method is used in Invercargill, at a bar/restaurant called Buster Crabb, and I'm sure they're not going through the beer in a couple of hours. I'll do some more research and get back to you guys anyway. We can do the rest by phone/email - out of the way of the forum readers who are probably thinking "here we go again...".

I'm surprised you didn't get a tap badge. Everyone else has... will follow up with Craig. I knw that The Malthouse were sent one but it was thrown out with the packing slip. Simple to solve that one though, olin called me and I dropped one around within the hour.

Thanks for the feedback.

[kier]

No worries email/pm/phone from now on :-)

[Sean]

Hey Stu, I won't stop trying your brews and I would have loved to have tried it from the tap. I might give it another hoon :) I'm no nancy naysayer!! Keep up the great brewing and being the ugly half of the beerstore we always look forward to it.

[Stu McKinlay]

You got to get yourself down to the Ruakura...

[David Wood]

Hey Stu, I just realised that my column in the 9th of March Salient where I wrote about KC wasn't actually published to the web for some reason (maybe 'cos I slammed the festival so hard). So you probably didn't see it.
It was from the taste I had at the Beer Festival, so got in there early. I said: "The beer has delicate chocolate and chestnut flavours, and is incredibly easy to drink."
Since then I've had a few more litres of it, and shared with many friends at my 21st - who all enjoyed it. It suited me perfectly when I wanted to drink beer and then do a bit of uni work without being intellectually impeded.
That chestnut flavour was something new to me in beer, which made this mild stand out from others.
When I wanted to drink a few, it was a good starter but after something strong flavoured it wasn't very appealing for me. These points are probably limitations of the style so are moot, just my thoughts.
Nothing really negative to say, just bring on the PKB!!