Rockit Cup Scottish 60 Schilling Brewday

Is it Rockit Cup time again already? Dagnabit! While I may be a bit behind on getting this one out, I’m pretty certain that, with the exception of Jeffrey, I’ll be serving the rest of you sucker MCs, since I doubt anyone else will do it. Maybe Tim will play along. I hope so, because I have a wedding to go to the night of the DRAFT meeting, and I don’t want Jeffrey to have to sit at a table all by his lonesome judging our two beers. Insert sad face here. (Note: the included photo is not Jeffrey’s sad face—it is the handiwork of Photoshop master Jay Gewin, and is appropriately titled “Dream Team.”)

104. Rockit Cup Scottish 60 Schilling
Mash:
5 ½ lbs. Muntons Pale Malt
½ lb. Breiss Dark Munich
1 lb. Crystal 40° L
½ lb. Gambrinus Honey Malt
¼ lb. Crystal 120° L
¼ lb. Pale Chocolate

Mashed @ 158° F w/3 gallons of RO water for 90 minutes; collected 2 gallons @ 1.064; pulled one quart to boil down and caramelize sugars
Batch sparged @ 168° F w/4 gallons RO water for 20 minutes; collected 3 ¾ gallons @ 1.018

Collected 5 ½ gallons; topped off to 6 gallons; brought to a boil (80 minute) and added:

w/60 to go: ¾ oz. Sonnet leaf 4.1% AA
condensed caramel syrup from quart of first runnings

w/15 to go: 1 tsp. Irish Moss

Chilled, racked to carboy, and pitched White Labs WLP 028 Edinburgh Ale

Brewed: 11/25/2011 @ 68° F
Secondary: 12/3/2011 @ 1.016
Bottled: 12/16/2011 w/ 2 ¼ oz. table sugar

OG: 1.040
FG: 1.016

Tasting Notes: This beer got second place in its flight at the SODZ British Beer Fest. I’d tell you score it got, but I put my score sheets some place very very safe that I can’t find. So my scores are super-safe, it would seem—safe beyond my ability to deduce or locate. We’ll just say I got a good score.

Rockit Cup Scottish 60 Schilling pours a vibrant, clear mahogany infused with a fair share of orange; the head is thin and dirty white, but has solid staying power and even laces the glass a bit. Aromas are malt-focused with caramel and a touch of earthiness, although there is an underlying biscuit creaminess mixed with toast that I find beguiling. Flavors follow the aroma quite closely, although since this is the smallest of the schillings, there is a slight graininess in the front along with the initial caramel, along with toast. The creaminess comes out in the middle, along with the biscuit, and the graininess returns in the finish, along with a touch of earthiness that ends the beer pleasantly. There might be just a touch of diacetyl, but I am notoriously poor at picking this out. The body is chewy and dry, even with the creaminess, while the gentle carbonation rounds the beer on the tongue. I’m pretty sure I didn’t win this Rockit Cup (at this point, I have no memory of what went down), but regardless, this is a fantastic beer. The small, flavorful malt beers are winning me over.