|BACKGROUND|

As some of you are aware, not only do I brew weird shit, I also like listening to weird shit. Case in point: prog metal.

In decades past, one would be remiss to not acknowledge the impact that bands like King Crimson and Jethro Tull have had on current bands like The Mars Volta or Tool. However, my favorite band happens to be Protest the Hero, out of Whitby, a small town in Ontario. Over the years, their sound has changed in some ways, but they’ve always just been making music loaded with creative yet politically barbed lyrics, heavy drumming and bass lines, and tight butthole arpeggio guitar runs. Pretty much everything someone who didn’t have a lot of friends in middle school could ask for.

Leading up to seeing them last weekend, I made a concerted effort to really take my fanboy-dom to the next level (although, I’m pretty sure tattoos are pretty far up there) with giving the band a semi-practical piece of fan art: their own beer.

It’s almost not worth rehashing such a storied topic (but if you want to, I’d recommend Adam Tepedelen’s Brewtal Truth), but in recent years, it’s become a common sight to see metal bands collaborating with breweries to make special release beers, from Iron Maiden & Robinsons, Unibroue & Megadeth (which is cool because Dave Mustaine’s a homebrewer too!), Mastodon & Mikkeller, and the myriad of collabos that 3 Floyds had done with the likes of Amon Amarth, High On Fire, Municipal Waste, Pelican, Municipal Waste, Eyehategod… The list goes on. Heck, Cigar City has brewed a few beers for GWAR, available exclusively at their annual GWAR-B-Q. Needless to say, I’m not breaking with tradtition or overflowing with creativity by doing this.

There are, however, some points that I wanted to hold myself to for brewing this:

The band is Canadian, so it only made sense to try and use as many Canadian ingredients as possible

The band’s nickname is “Peachy H” (as a jokingly slurred pronunciation of “PTH”), so work in peaches

Use some reference to their music as a name

Relatively little to go off of for designing an idea around. Part of that was pretty easy. Great Western is actually a really good malting company, so using their pilsner malt as the base was a logical choice.

As a slightly easy cop-out on my part, the band has a song called “Tongue Splitter”, which in a world chock full of IPAs, post the IBU arms race of the late 00’s, is such a cheap grab that I decided to avoid doing an IPA at all costs. So, what style of beer should I be making then?

Now, digging a little deeper into the music, they make a reference in the song “Mist“, an ode to Newfoundland, about a beer called “India”, which I had figured out is the Molson-Coors India Beer, a cheap blonde ale. The lead singer, Rody Walker, also has a Twitch channel where he’ll stream games, while not busy on tour, and I asked him what the favorite beer style of the bad was. Admittedly, “Coor’s Light” is a bit of a disappointing answer, but it’s better than just “we hate beer”. Having brewed American light lagers before professionally, it’s easy, it’s cheap, but I hate making them. Going back to the Idia beer, I decided that the best compromise I would make would be a traditional American blonde ale, complete with corn and everything.

Thus, I hatched a mildly hare-brained scheme: blonde ale, with some mild bitterness, and peaches. I can sufficiently say, this is not a beer that I would have brewed of my own volition, but when the deck is stacked against you, play with the hand you’re dealt.

Now, on the prospect of brewing with fruit, I can’t remember how exactly I came across the idea, but I found out about a few brewers using some real off the wall shit: fruit powders. Much like the CryoHop powder craze that picked up last year, fruit powder is literally just dehydrated fruit pulverized into a powder. I ended up reaching out to Milne Fruit Products, which was the name I had come across from an article about a Idaho’s Slanted Rock Brewing, and they were kind enough to send me some sample of fruit powder to test out. So, cool new way for me to get the peach into the beers.

So began my small indulgence into the depravity of pseudo-light lager-dom on my quest to make a Protest the Beero.

Them Digits

Batch Size: 5.5 gallons

Mash Temp: 148 F for 60 min.

Boil Time: 60 min.

Batch Efficiency: 68%

Original Gravity: 1.050 // 12.4 P

Final Gravity: 1.010 // 2.7 P

Estimated ABV: 5.5%

IBUs: 54

Color: 6.5 EBC // 3.3 SRM

Recipe

Malts

5# Great Western Pilsner Malt | 45.5%

3# Flaked Corn | 27.5%

2# Red Wheat | 18%

1# Spelt | 9%

Hops

.5 oz. Nugget @ 60 min | 27 IBU

1 oz. Cascade @ 30 min. | 20 IBU

2 oz. Cluster @ 3 min. | 7 IBU

1 oz.Cascade @ Dryhop (3 days contact)| 0 IBU

1 oz. Cluster @ Dryhop (3 days contact) | 0 IBU

Yeast

Saflager 34/70, fermented @ 70F

Spices and Stuff

1 tab WhirlFloc @ 15 min.

4 oz. Milne Peach Powder (added post fermentation, 3 days contact)

2 Tbsp BioFine (2 days before bottling)

Water Shit

3 mL 88% Lactic Acid

1 tsp CaCl

|BREW LOG|

The batch was pretty easy to mill, considering that only 8 pounds had to get crushed. Flaked corn is very similar to oats, rye, and rice in that you just kinda toss in with much ado about nothing. It’s definitely a strange ingredient to work with because while most other grains are on the tan to brown color spectrum, corn tends to be that very usual yellow, sticking out like a sore thumb in the grist.

While the day finished strong, the brewing go of to a bit of a hectic start. I carefully followed my notes for what temps the mash water had to be, got the water additions in, and followed everything to a T, only to come to a shocking conclusion: this mash was well below the temperature that I was shooting for.

Whether it be the fact that it was colder than a witch’s tit outside because we were stuck in Winter: Part IV or that the igloo mash tun was rinsed out with icy cold water between batches, the temperature ended up clocking in at around 146F with the initial infusion of hot water for the mash. Scrambling quickly, I grabbed another half gallon of steaming hot tap water and tried to raise the temp up, only successfuly managing a meager two degrees, landing the mash at 148F. In light of the situation, I’ll take what I can get, just was going to end up with a drier beer than I had planned. Knowing that I had now diluted my mash a little further than I had planned, I also threw in a little capfull of lactic acid, hoping that I hadn’t gone too far off the reservation in pH world.

Luckily, I at least hadn’t fucked up my water profile entirely, coming in a smooth 5.2 pH for the mash. At least one thing was going in my favor so far with the beer.

Adjusting the sparge for the extra half gallon that was already in the tun, I brought the next kettle up to 168F to prep. After a 60 minute mash, I collected about 2-2.5 gallons or wort in the boil kettle and gave the grains a nice little batch sparge, stirring to ensure heat distribution, and then letting them settle for 10 minutes before collecting the second runnings and bringing the kettle up to a healthy 7 gallons-ish fill. It’s decidedly strange as a homebrewer to see a beer coming out of the tun that looks like the traditional fizzy yellow piss, almost laughable. But, at the same time, it is what I was going for.

Since I was doing this batch as the second half of the day (compliment to the 24 Karrot Magic), I already had the bittering addition of Nugget hops pre-measured out for the .5 ounce. Tossing them in as soon as the boil started, I measured out the remaining doses of Cascade and Cluster, careful to set aside the leftovers that I was going to use for dryhopping.

With such a (comparatively) small amount of hops, the boil went by super easily and with very little effort. Immersion chiller in, dropped the temp down to 65F to start the fermentation slightly on the cooler side, and racked over to the carboy.

For whatever reason, the beer had a really great hot break and cold break, because the wort was coming out brilliantly clear. I was at least optimistic that I was going to end up with a really nice looking beer. Checking the gravity, I hit the numbers I was really expecting, coming in at 1.050 almost on the nose, meaning that I wasn’t going to be making an imperial India blonde ale… at least, not today.

Afterwards, it was pretty much just down the the standard protocol. Using the 2 micron aeration stone hooked up to the oxygen tank, I gave the beer 60 second of pure O2 and then pitched a rehydrated pack of Saflager 34/70 and then let the beer ride it out.

Now, I can hear you saying it to yourself already, “what the fuck, he said it was a peach beer and hyped up this peach powder, where is it?”

Well… that’s a sad tale to spin. In the initial box that Milne sent me, I pretty much got a wide swarth of every berry powder under the sun. Except for the peach powder. So, after talking to the rep, they sent me out another box that specifically had only peach powder in it which, as is mt typical luck, arrived 2 days after I had brewed the beer. Initially, the plan was that I wanted to whisk the powder into the boil, ensuring that I was getting it well dissolved and infused into the beer. So, as one must do, improvisation happened.

Because I wasn’t particularly keen on trying to whip oxygen into an already fermented beer, and I wasn’t going to assume that there’d be enough sugars in the peach powder to kick start off fermentation, I made a slurry with the peach powder and water on the stove and added it to the carboy. Reverse engineering a peach puree, if you will. It only had about 3 days of contact with the beer, which was a bit of a bummer, but perhaps turned out to be a saving grace. Same day as the peach “powder” going in, the dryhops also went in, with a bottling day following soon after. The next night, 2 Tbsp of BioFine got added to the carboy, in an attempt to get the beer to look like the prettiest girl at the dance.

Since I was also going to be bottling the golden ale infused with the herpes of the art world, I opted to bottle this one first. Thanks to the BioFine, most of the hops and the peach powder had settled out, making racking into the bottling bucket super easy. Since I had graduated the side of the carboy, I knew I was going to get a solid 5 gallons of beer out. I primed the batch with a simple syrup using 3.6 oz. (1/2 cup) of sucrose dissolved into a cup of water.

Checking the gravity, the beer ended up clocking in at 1.010, meaning that the blonde ale ended up at 5.5%, a perfectly nice drinkable yet moderate ABV appropriate to the style. It was definitely a bit green for my taste still, but I was slightly let down by the fact that it wasn’t discernibly peachy, at least at the time.

Either way, I know that I need to wait until a beer is fully carbonated and given proper time before giving my final verdict on a batch. However, there was a bit of a time crunch: I was going to see the band live and I had told Rody that I was going to give them some of the batch. The stakes were high.

Now, you would think that I had made sure that everything was set and that I 100% knew what I was giving them. Well, aside from the one or two bottles that I had opened to check flavors and how carbonation was coming along, I was flying blind when I gave the the bottles. I managed to catch one of the guitarists before the show and gave him my paltry offering of the six pack, hoping that they’d really get a kick out of it and would see it a nice tribute to the band. (Note: Jury’s still out on that one, unless they really didn’t like it and are just being polite by not saying anything).

I did open one as soon as I got back home from the concert, which was a great time and a hell of a show as always. Luckily, I didn’t give them an absolute shit beer.

|TASTING NOTES|

The beer pours a nearly clear pale yellow color with a rocky white head of foam that’s reminiscent of a whipped meringue that laces nicely down the sides of the glass. Unlike in the photo, which the bottles got a little jostled on the car ride to work, the beer is bright, borderline brilliant. Having used Biofine professionally, I knew that with a little bit of chilling in the fridge, it’d clear most everything out, but there’s a hint of chill haze from the pectin in the fruit powder since I didn’t add any pectic enzyme to it.

There’s a decidedly floral nose on the beer that has a hint of fruit and citrus, with the light twang of that lager-esque note at the back. Despite getting dryhopped, it’s not bowling me over with aroma, more of a very light and delicate potency, unlike the NEIPAs that assail your nostrils with orange juice and weed as soon as you crack a can open.

The beer has a particularly noble hop kinda earthiness to it, which I am guessing is from the Cluster. The 34/70 imparts that smooth lager flavor that I’ve been lucky to get with the repeated use in traditionally lager styles, despite never getting close to lagering temperatures or an extended cold conditioning post-ferm. When the brew is on the cold end, the bitterness is a little sharper, but as the beer warms up, it gets softer and the peach flavor starts to poke its head out like the rhino scene in Ace Venture 2. Around the proper serving temp, you end up with a super light, drinkable “lager”. Even then, there’s a little whisper of the corn in the middle of the palate, but not the noticeable BMC Macro Lager™ kinda rice syrup/corny adjunct tone. It’s almost pleasant and retro, which in a way it is. Call this a throwback beer, of sorts. No off flavors or anything out of the ordinary.

The mouthfeel is super light and spritzy, but not thin, which I had almost expected from mashing so low. I suppose one of the perks of using such a high percentage of wheat is that it absolutely won’t completely thin out on you. It’s definitely on the dry side, which is good for the style and helps with keeping the beer light and croosh.

For being a style that I’d consider less conventional to brew (for me, at least), I’d like to think that, aside from the liberties I took with hopping and fruiting, it really hits pretty well on being accurate to style at its core. It definitely is one of the brighter/more brilliant beers that I’ve done, but at the same point, I’m also not typically worried about that in most of the batches.

My only regret is when I handed the beer off to the guys that I didn’t include any real contact information about getting feedback to see how they like(d) it. Currently, there’s been no mention on their instagram or twitter (yet), so suffice it to say, I’m just gonna have to assume that they hated it and I should be ashamed to call myself a fan. (I’m kidding, they’re stupid busy on the final leg of a tour and I’m not that petty or needy, but it would have been cool for this post!)