Sssnakepit Beer: The Recipe
At Signature Brew we create all of our recipes from scratch. In order to create a great beer that fulfills all the requirements of the artist, in this case Enter Shikari, we need to decide what yeast, malt-combo, hop-combo, carbonation and ABV will produce the best result.
What was clear from the tasting session was that we needed to have a beer with an edge, fuse together a few opposing concepts whilst retaining an end drink that could comfortably be drank by all. Fruit beers, especially on the sharper end of the scale and Czech Pilsners were popular with the boys, so Tom our Head Brewer ran with that.
Sssnakepit uses two hops, Saaz hops (one of the Noble Hops) traditionally used in Czech Pilsners like Pilsner Urquell to give the traditional and aromatic lager base. To give Sssnakepit its distinctive edge though the brew is late hopped with Chinook hops, first cultivated in 1985 in the United States, this gives a strong aromatic grapefruit/citrus bite the nose and finish. By late hopping we keep more of the flavour in the smell of the beer.
Carbonation is pretty standard for a Pilsner, below what you would expect for a highstreet lager, after all, who wants their beer fizzing out of control whilst dancing along with the band?
The malt is mostly Lager as you would expect but there is a hefty pinch of Wheat in there too, this helps to give good head (no sniggering at the back there!) retention.
We also pay special attention to keeping things as eco-friendly as possible. Water used in the cooling process is reused, with no wastage and recycling of heat where possible. All the spent grains are sent off to farms to be used as cattle feed, no animal products are used in the process anywhere and our bottles are made from recycled glassware.
That's pretty much all there is too it. The full recipe is securely locked in the vaults of warehouse (that's not true, it's on a piece of paper somewhere over Tom's side of the warehouse, floating around with coffee stains on it)
Anyway, If you have any questions about brewing the beer etc, then send Tom a friendly tweet @mrtombott
