AS YOU MIGHT have heard, Smithwick’s are running a Homebrew Challenge in the run-up to Christmas.

People around Ireland were encouraged to submit their Christmas ale homebrews to win the chance to brew in the pilot brewery at St James’s Gate.

With that in mind, we decided to give it a go ourselves.

And to make things a little more interesting, we decided to pit our three publications against each other – with journalists from TheJournal.ie, The42.ie and DailyEdge.ie all competing for the chance to be Journal Media’s best brewers.

(Oh, and members of our tech and commercial teams joined in too, of course.)

Yesterday was the big day, with the journalists assembling in our office kitchen overlooking the back of Dublin Castle. Out came the three brew kits – all with the same set of ingredients, including Admiral hops, malt, yeast and plenty of water.

We asked in a seasoned homebrewer, Garret, to show us the ropes and – with a lot of kettle-boiling – off we went.

First off, here’s a quick video of the chaos in the office kitchen. (Can you spot your favourite journalist?)
https://vine.co/v/e0ZH1PJYZaK

Let’s take a look at how we did it. Here were our kits (minus the buckets):

First up was the key step of sanitising the buckets. Members of our tech and commercial teams were on hand to help:

Fiona Hyde / TheJournal.ie Fiona Hyde / TheJournal.ie / TheJournal.ie

Once we had some boiling water in our buckets, it was time to add in our Scottish Heavy grain extract – which looked rather like thick, dark honey. In the picture below, we had added some more hot water to get the last of the gloopy syrup from the tin.

We made some hop tea in a muslin cloth, which we let sit for ten minutes. Then it was strained and into the bucket it went.

Malt time. (Plenty of this was passed around, amid exclamations of “It DOES taste like Maltesers!”). A tip from the Smithwick’s and National Homebrew Club masterclass was to use spray malt instead of sugar for a better result with your brew.

The three publications – all competing against each other in this, don’t forget – decided to add different flavours to their ale. TheJournal.ie went for chocolate:

The42.ie added some mandarin peel (from the office kitchen fruit bowl, no less) and will also dry-hop their fermenting brew in a week’s time to add flavour.

DailyEdge.ie opted to add coffee – and also extra sugar, which will make their beer more alcoholic.

In goes the yeast, last of all:

If we can do it – anyone can…

If you would like further information about the Smithwick’s Challenge visit www.smithwickshomebrewchallenge.ie or to learn more about homebrewing and to pick up some tips visit www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie.

Happy brewing!

Now read: 6 things you never knew about Irish beer>

7 handy tips to get you started with homebrewing>