Kid Chocolate Bounces Back Off The Ropes

As well as a lot of tasting of the Yeastie Boys' latest ale 'Kid Chocolate', there has been plenty of talk about the beer and some of you may have already heard the word of our first knock down. Our first attempt at Kid Chocolate - our autumnal mild - came out short of our very high expectations but we fought on to come out with (what we think is) a knock-out beer.

Here's some background...

After testing and then tweaking the recipe in my Seatoun laboratory* using UK pale malt as a base, Steve Nally and I discussed having a crack at brewing the final product on a base of locally grown and malted Canterbury barley. I'm all for giving local ingredients a first shot, if they fit the bill, so we tried our hand.

Steve's own small trial batch, which we tasted the day before brewing, was very close to what we were looking for so we went ahead with the idea on brewday. However, a few days later, we discovered that the translation from 40 litres into our 1,200 litre commercial brew had come up short on fermentation attenuation - leaving a beer with a very different balance (and even lower alcohol, at 2.7%) than we were expecting.

Still wanting to create the mild we knew Kid Chocolate was meant to be, we decided to re-brew again the following week, this time with Maris Otter - the famous UK pale malt variety. We felt this one has hit the mark perfectly. It is a very different beer on tap, off beer engine and in the bottle - but unique and tasty in every form.

Prepared to take a loss to get our beer right, we agreed with Steve that the 'failed' first brew would be at Yeastie Boys' cost, unless Steve could develop it into a beer that worked for him and Invercargill Brewery. Steve has worked his magic, through aging the beer a little longer to integrate the flavours, and ended up with "Not On Your Nally" - an interesting and quite unique hoppy low-alcohol dark ale that he is very happy with. I can report, from a personal taste, that it is well worth investigation... as much for it's uniqueness, and the background story behind it, as for its flavour. Compare it with your memory of Kid Chocolate (or drink them side by side if you've stored some Kid chocolate away for a rainy day).

So despite our first knock down, both Yeastie Boys and Invercargill Brewery have ended up with winners (as have the drinkers!). Contact the Invercargill Brewery shop for your own taste of "Not On Your Nally".


* laboratory could read 'back deck' (and brew days are, it seems, always in a howling southerly).