Have you ever had a feeling that it might be a futile job to brew a beer to someone who doesn't like beer? Well, yeah, I had that feeling, too. But I'm always up for difficult tasks, so I tried it. I brewed this beer to a Polish girl who means a lot to me, for her birthday. Luckily I know her taste in foods and drinks, so I could customize the beer to her taste, and I was sure that at the end I could give her a beverage that she finds awesome. (Spoiler alert: I could.)
I knew that she liked spirits, so it was clear for me to make a higher ABV beer. Double IPA? No, definitely not IPA, she wouldn't like the vivid bitterness of it. Russian Imperial Stout? A bit closer to my goal, she would like heavier texture, the black color, but still not good enough. Everybody brews Russian Imperial Stout. I wanted to make something unique. And I found it. And it was perfect.
Baltic porter. The lovechild of the English porter and the Russian Imperial Stout. It packs rich malty sweetness, pumped up by the unmistakable taste of dried fruits and a tempting Port-like aroma, meanwhile the roasted-malt bitterness is on the lighter side. And the best part? It's originated from the Baltic region, so it has a historical connection with Poland. Many breweries in Poland have Baltic porters, even the big ones that are also producing the usual watery lagers. Żywiec is a great example. They make the forgettable lager you can find anywhere, but they also make Żywiec Porter, which is awesome. Seriously, try it if you have the opportunity! And of course many craft breweries favour this beer in the country, but who can blame them...
But my mind didn't stop at finding the perfect style. At the moment of deciding to brew a Baltic porter, I started to think about a way to customize it, to make it special. Easy-peasy. The birthday girl and I had inside jokes about rum and pirates, so... yeah... why not make a pirate beer? With rum!
So I went to the local supermarket and bought a Bacardi Superior. Ha! If you think that the cheapest quality rum is enough for me, you just don't know me. I wanted the rum to be as special as the beer itself. So I went out to the night to discover the perfect rum for this beer. I've tried many of them (just for the sake of the beer and science, of course), and found the winner: Pyrat XO Reserve.
This 15-year-old beauty comes from the Caribbean, from the island of Anguilla. If you are not a rum expert and taste it, it redefines everything you thought about rum before. Yummy!
Before brewing this beer I have never tasted a Baltic porter. I knew how it should taste and studied other recipes, and after several versions I came up with the following recipe.
The ingredients for 12 liters (without rum):
- 2,6 kg Munich I malt
- 1,5 kg Vienna malt
- 0,3 kg Caramunich II malt
- 0,125 kg Carafa Special III malt
- 0,1 kg Special B malt
- 0,1 kg Karamel Dunkel malt
----------------------------------- - 10 g Marynka (60 min)
- 5 g Marynka (30 min)
- 5 g Marynka (15 min)
- 10 g Sybilla (10 min)
----------------------------------- - 1 pkg Fermentis S-04 yeast
Est. OG: 1.088, 31.5 IBU, 60.8 EBC (data source: BeerSmith 2)
None of the recipes I found online used these hops. I just thought that if it's a (so-so) Polish style for a Polish person, I may as well could use Polish hops. I've never used Polish hops before this beer, so it was another research to find the appropriate ones. But if you know Polish hops, you might ask: why not Lublin? Well, because it's too mainstream, that's why.
The planned mashing temperatures:
- 54 °C - 20 min
- 70 °C - 75 min
- 74 °C - 20 min
54 °C for protein rest, to avoid haze in the beer (actually you can skip it), 70 °C for a higher temperature saccharification rest to produce bigger body, and 74 °C for mashout.
Some photos from the brewing day:
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| Leutering |
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| The boiling wort |
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| You may see it as black, but it's actually dark copper |
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| High original gravity - a lot of sugar in the wort (20 m/m%) |
Before fermentetion the measured OG was 1.084. Since Baltic porters are usually fermented with lager yeasts or with ale yeast on lower temperatures, I moved my fermentation bucket to my sister's house, where I can reach lower temperatures. Even there the fermentation happened between 19-20 °C (wort temperature). It could have been lower. Oh, and if I ever make this beer again, it's sure as hell that I won't use S-04, because it's a son of a bitch. The fermentation stopped after 14 days at 1.032, which means it still had a lot of unfermented sugar in the beer.
3 days after that I transferred the beer into a secondary fermenter (gravity is still 1.032), and added 2 dl of rum, and pitched another package of S-04 yeast. Which turned out to be dead. Wonderful! 5 days later I pitched Fermentis F-2 yeast, which could finish the job. So 35 days after the brewing day, I bottled the beer.
The FG became 1.027, which means that with the added rum the ABV is ca. 8.1%. I put enough cane sugar (pirates and rum, matey, so forget your usual table sugar now!) into every bottle to reach the carbonation level of 2.5 (I usually use this online calculator).
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| Everybody's in line, let the fun begin |
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| Cane sugar syrup for bottling |
I also had to make sure that it looks like a beer. First, I needed a name. The Polish Pirate came natural and I kept it. Then came the designing process of the label, finding the perfect fonts, shapes, and the appropriate layout. But I was satisfied with the result.
And when this beer will be ready? It was bottled half a year ago, yet I can't tell you that it's ready. It's a higher ABV dark beer, and it needs aging to balance out all the flavors. So the most of it is in a distant cellar (ca. 50 kms away from me), so I can't get tempted to try it very often. Fool-proof. But of course there are special occasions when I (and sometimes other people) try this beer. For example right now, while writing this post.
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| Do you remember that I've told you that it's not black? |
This beer is so multi-layered. The aroma is full of dried fruits and malty sweetness, while the flavor also packs these tastes, but with even more complexity: nuts, caramel and licorice are also present. And what does the rum give to this beer? A subtle, barrel-like flavor, which really fits into the composition. While drinking it you just always find something new in it.
Although it was a half-year-long job to design this beer, I happily share it with you. Because there is a secret ingredient that I haven't listed among them, the very ingredient that makes it unique. I've put my heart in it.
And the best thing of all? The birthday girl loved it.
