Wood? In Beer? In A Spin Dryer?

Wokingham & Emmbrook 0 v Virginia Water 3

Combined Counties Football League Premier Division North (Step 5)

Saturday 11 November 2023

Sometimes, you choose a ground/game to tick. And then find a convenient pub, bar, brewery tap, beer.

Other times, you find a pub, bar, brewery tap, beer and then find a convenient ground/game to tick. It's DEFFO this one we did today.

And that's how we found ourselves at Wokingham and Emmbrook’s rather rustic Lowther Road ground. The 457th ground I have watched football on.

This is how we fucking live.

Beer Bucket List.

Siren Craft Brew have their brewery and Tapyard out in Finchampstead. South East from Reading (catch the bus from there). And South West from Wokingham (catch the same bus to there).

Once every year, (narrator - but it's not been every year has it Phil), in the lead up to Christmas, Siren release a series of Stouts called - Caribbean Chocolate Cake. The 2023 series has four beers. They are launched on tap and in tins at bars and offies all over the country. And, this was launch weekend.

Readers may be aware of Stouts with Stuff. There's nothing new there. Chocolate, coffee, vanilla, plums, oysters, the lot. Readers may also be aware of barrel ageing. Once you've made the beer, you can whack it in wine barrels, whisky barrels, bourbon barrels, port barrels, any fucking barrel you can get your hands on. That adds some “wood” flavour to the beer (think oak) and some booze flavour.

Siren do it different. The base for Caribbean Chocolate Cake beers includes our good friends barley & oats. It's a Caribbean Chocolate Cake beer. So they add chocolate. But, it's a special beer, a celebration beer. So, not any old chocolate. They add Cacao Nibs from Trinitario beans from the Rio Caribe Estate, ten hours East of Caracas in Venezuela.

And. There's. More. Traditional barrel ageing puts the beer in wood. For Caribbean Chocolate Cake, Siren put wood in the beer!!!

You know how beer is made, you boil up stuff in a big pot. Siren put wood in the big pot as part of the recipe. Yes, wood. No mate. Not big planks of 4 by 2. They use spirals of wood. Because that helps the brewing beer to get all around the wood, to get out more of the flavour. The main wood Siren use is Cypress.

And, they also use Amburana Cearensis - Brazilian Oak. Amburana is used in the ageing of the Brazilian sugarcane rocket fuel spirit, Cachaça.

And Siren have also built a new type of big pot to boil and mix all the Cacao, Cypress and Amburana into the beer. In the past, they used a sort of big tea bag to dip the Wood into the beer, and let the flavours develop. Now, they use a Spinbot. Yes, a Spinbot.

Think food processor. Think liquidiser. Think spin dryer. Think whisk. Siren (and other Breweries) found that by just leaving wood in beer it took 7 to 11 days for oak flavours to develop. By recirculating and recycling and mixing ingredients in a Spinbot it only took 24 to 48 hours for the same oak flavours to develop. And. The guys n gals who know this shit, thought the flavours were actually better out of a Spinbot.

Over the years, Caribbean Chocolate Cake variants have included White Stouts, Pancake Stacks, Ginger Cake, Orange Cake, Kendal Mint Cake, Christmas Cake.

I'm not going to embarrass us both with hipster tasting notes. All of the beers were luxurious and indulgent. There's an inevitability that the more Siren describe what's in ‘em, the more you search for the flavours, and sometimes you can't find them. They're tweaked beers from a glorious base. You don't need me to say - Sweet Stout - every time.

Siren Craft Brew, Caribbean Chocolate Cake 2023 on Nitro at 7.4%

Three hours of boiling. 480 Cypress Spirals. 130kg Rio Caribe. 156 hours of spinning.

Siren Craft Brew, Death by C.C.C. on Keg at 10%

Ten hours of boiling. 1.5kg Madagascan Vanilla. 500 Cypress Spirals. 100 Amburana Spirals. 200kg of Rio Caribe. 168 hours of spinning.

Siren Craft Brew, Caribbean Salted Cherry Chocolate Cake on Keg at 7.4%

Three hours of boiling. 200kg of Montmorency, Morello and Balaton Cherries. Pink Himalayan Sea Salt. 480 Cypress Spirals. 130kg Rio Caribe. 156 hours of spinning.

Siren Craft Brew, Caribbean Chocolate Cupcake on Keg at 5.4%

Three hours of boiling. Chocolate Rye in the grist. 3kg Vanilla. 360 Cypress Spirals. 120kg Rio Caribe. 132 hours of spinning. Unusually for Caribbean Chocolate Cake beers, that one comes in under the 7.4% core. Some special one off beers have been as high as 30% abv.

Right. After all that. I went to football. FFS. Virginia Water fully deserved that three niler - from what I can remember!!!

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