Canberra Craft Beer Festival

• Over 80 beers and ciders to try!
• Local Gourmet Food Stores!
• LIVE Entertainment!
• Entertainment throughout the day!
• Lots of Giveaways!
• Beer and Food matching!
• Beer Quiz!
• Meet the Brewers!
• Jumping Castle!
• Brewers Table Tennis Championship!
• Charity Auction!

Formerly known as The National Capital Craft Beer Festival it has been held successfully at the Schwartz Family Company owned Mercure Canberra (Formerly Olims Canberra) yearly, since 2008. SFC is committed to heritage, whilst paving the way for innovation in the Brewing industry. This is achieved by inviting the best Breweries to exhibit their wares in accommodating and picturesque surroundings.

Through ownership of ideal venues such as Mercure Canberra and The Fairmont Resort in Leura, Schwartz Family Company are able to continue their support of the craft beer industry, whilst endeavouring to improve and expand their own portfolio.

CCBF provides a great platform for beer enthusiasts and the whole family can enjoy the day, as there is indeed something for everyone.

2012 Festival

The 2012 festival was held successfully on Saturday April 14 and a good crowd of nearly 1300 enjoyed the day. This included winners of the 104.7 radio promotion and media passes.

The Festival received some good coverage in local Canberra press and on various trade related websites, with lastminute.com still to run blog on the event, which will link to their social media network.

The 15 exhibitors on the day all did well, with Schwartz Brewery/Sydney Brewery taking first place, followed by Mudgee Brewing Co, Matilda Bay, Rocks Brewing and Dalgety Brewery.

The Expression Sessions were all packed out, with Mercure Chef James Kirgan first teaming up with Schwartz Brewery's Michael Capaldo in the Porter Pie and Porter session, which led to a stampede on the 400 pies produced and they were all sold before 3.00!

James also ran a food matching session of Asian Scallops with Sydney Cider, while Sydney Brewery's Richard Feyn explained the evolution of cider to a wine style product utilising culinary apples and Champagne yeast.

There was another packed session by Plonk Liquor featuring IPA's and a beer quiz, followed by Craft Beer Industry icon Chuck Hahn hosting a beer & cheese matching session.

As the day wore on, local band Kartel played some fabulous beats, much beer, cider and compatible food was consumed, while the crowd remained in good spirits and well behaved at all times.

Festival organisers Schwartz Brewery did a great job in keeping everything bubbling along and the ground crew led by Jenny Farrell and her son Guy were tireless a usual.

The Raffle raised much needed funds for Eden Monaro Cancer support group & Matilda Bay kindly donated all their ticket proceeds, thanks to Matt Webster. Of course, Dr Jerry Schwartz made his usual charitable contribution, as he does at each Festival

The Mercure management did an excellent job in providing and staffing the food stalls and special mention goes to James Kirgan for his efforts.

All in all, an outstanding day and new exhibitors Pinchgut, 4 Pines, Dalgety, Mudgee and Apple Truck Cider, combined well with the more experienced exhibitors, creating a great canvas for the Craft Brewing industry.

We are sure punters and exhibitors alike will all be back in 2013 and as experienced this year, a great chance to rub shoulders with the who's who of brews!

another cafe sydney production © 2013

AHB,s Canning Line - Sneak Peak

While at the Australian Hotel and Brewery the other day we looked in on the brewery and saw that the canning line has finally started to be installed.

It looks like the empty cans will be loaded into a staging area at the top of the photo near the hand railing. before being sent down a chute on the right hand side into the filling station (The big stainless box in the middle with all the air lines coming out of it).  As it comes out of there, a lid drops down a wire slide and lands on top of the can.

Moving to the left again, the can and lid are rotated while rollers press the edges of the lid on to the can, sealing it. It looks like the cans are then washed before being packed.

Hopefully I will be able to bring you footage soon of the line in operation.

Mead Making Made Easy

We are making today a standard Dry Show Mead.  By standard I mean that there is no fuss -  no extra bits and pieces - just the pure honey.

The ingredients needed are - wait for it - honey, water, yeast and yeast nutrient.  We only need to add the yeast nutrient as honey is lacking in all the key nutrients that yeast needs to perform properly.

The equipment needed:  one 5L fermenter with bung and airlock, funnel, barmix machine or blender, a 3L jug or bowl for mixing and a hydrometer.

The process:  
After sterilising everything needed, pour the yeast into ½ a cup of warm water and set aside. Into your jug pour half your honey and about 1.5L of water. Using the barmix blend the honey and water together (Start with the barmix about 1/3 of the way down and allow the honey to come up to it,  then slowly work the barmix down to the bottom.) Once this is done pour off into the fermenter and repeat with the rest of the honey and the yeast nutrient.

Top up the fermenter to about 4.5L then take a sample and test the specific gravity (SG). Make a note of your SG so you can calculate your alcohol percentage later.  Pour in the yeast, insert bung and airlock and leave to ferment.

Fermentation will take 2 – 3 months and you will need to rack off the mead every 2 weeks after the first month to help it clear.

Once fermentation is complete it’s time to bottle.  But before bottling we need to take a sample for our final SG reading and also to taste. Do not be surprised if your mead smells like paint stripper at this stage, it will probably be about 11 – 15% alcohol and will need to be aged for a least a year before it’s drinkable (I know, it’s a long time but it is worth it).

We have used single source Leatherwood Honey for this mead and I would encourage you to find single source honey where you can, but in saying that we have also used Beechworth honey from the local supermarket to good effect.

This basic recipe can be jazzed up by adding strawberries, blueberries or most fruits by adding them to the fermenter.  Technically they then become melomel but we wont worry about that.

Now grab some honey and get making.

4 Pines new Brewery

You know you’re on to a good thing when demand for your product, both bottled and draught, forces you down the path of expansion. This is just what has happened to 4 Pines Brewing in Manly.

With their highly successful brew pub a by- word of the local craft scene 4 Pines took the next logical choice to retail their bottled beers through such outlets as Dan Murphy’s etc. Up till now to help keep up with this demand, contract breweries have been employed – but with distribution now going national the choice was made to construct a purpose built large scale brewery of their own.

In an unassuming industrial unit in Brookvale, we met up with Jaron Mitchell, the general manager of 4 Pines, and his dedicated team of brewers. While Jaron was a home brewer in the past, in which he learn about styles, malts and hops he actually came to the brewery through the hospitality and business side of things - which has given him a love of good craft beer and an excellent knowledge of how to run a great venue.

From left, Chris - Garrett - Jaron and Andrew

The Brewers

Chris - Chief Brewer

With a background in science, Chris started as a keen home brewer and before joining 4 Pines brewed with Bluetongue Brewing.

Andrew – Head Brewer

Andrew's background is in hospitality. He spent 2 years in Europe serving behind a bar before coming home and working with AIB for 3 years as a brewer.

Garrett – Brewer

A Canadian race mechanic before coming to Australia and starting to home brew, he has since completed both the short and long courses at Ballarat University in Brewing.

The Brewery

The brewery works in 50hL (5000L) batches and has 6 -50hL and 2 - 100hL fermentation tanks, as well as a 100hL bright beer tank which feeds both the kegging line and the bottling line. On the day of our visit the bottling line and labelling machine were being set up prior to their first run the next day. As with most breweries we visit, the spent grain is collected by a farmer to be feed to his livestock.

Up Coming Brews

-         A Scottish Wee Heavy 9.5% will be available for St Andrews Day 30^th November

-         A Christmas Saison

-         Single Hop Series with – Aramis – Galaxy – Amarillo

These will all be available from the Keller Door to have there or take home in growlers.

We finished up the day with lunch at the brew pub with a recommendation to try the Choc – Seaweed – Mandarin Porter, still on tap after the beer mimics food series. In a word it’s FANTASTIC – VELVETY – SMOOTH. Yes I know that’s 3 words I can count. It held it’s own against the open faced steak sandwich I had, while the wife enjoyed the Hefe (which is one of our favourites) with the Mega Manly Burger.

Our thanks to Jaron and the team for taking the time to chat with us and show us around. We look forward to enjoying more 4 Pines brews in the future.

Road Test - Finest Round Hefeweizen

The Finest Round range of beer kits are made and distributed by ES Brewing, and have achieved quite a following in the homebrew community. This Hefeweizen is the latest in the range for me to review and I’m sure it will soon develop a cult following of it's own.

As with the others; making it is dead easy. Pour in the kit, add water to make up 22L, add the yeast (Munich Ale) and the finishing hops (Hallertau). Then sit back and watch it ferment.

Made up to 22L, we achieved a starting gravity of 1.046, and 1.012 when fermentation was complete giving us a 4.9% alc beer after priming.

We split this Hefeweizen into two batches. One with the Munich Ale yeast, and the other with some WLP300 repitched from an earlier Hefeweizen of our own. This allowed us to compare the flavours imparted by the different yeasts. The Munich Ale yeast kept the bannana and clove flavour so often associated with Hefeweizens to a minimum and let the malts dominate, whereas the WLP300 accentuated the bannana and clove helping to balance the malts.

The malt profile in this Hefeweizen at first seems to be too sweet and coats the mouth with a slightly tart finishing flavour and quite a big body. The Hallertau finishing hops are hard to pick up, with just a hint of aromatics coming through.

I would match this beer with a steak or fish and chips - something to have as the sun goes down on a summers evening.

Colour – a light amber and crystal clear. Well done ESB.

Now to the nitty gritty:

Time – 10 min to sterilise the fermenter and tools, 10 min to make up the batch and 5 min to clean up. Priming and bottling took 30min and clean up took 15min.

Total Time – 70min plus 15 days fermenting and conditioning.

Cost – kit $34 (includes the Munich ale yeast and a 12gm packet of Hallertau finishing hops)        Bottles $32 (you need 32 650ml bottles)
Total Cost $34    (or $70.75 with bottles)

Brew Day, Is it a Foreign Extra Stout or an Imperial Stout?

 Is it a Foreign Extra Stout or an Imperial Stout?

This is a question that has been plaguing me since we set the brew day in action, the recipe calls it a Russian Imperial Stout, but we used extra mash and sparge water to bring the gravity and the alcohol levels down.

So techinically it might be a Foreign Extra Stout.

Now looking at the figures from the brew day -       

O.G = 1.066
F.G = not available yet
IBU's = 50
SRM = ? ( I'm not that anal to work them out)
ABV = not known yet but I'm predicting 6.5 - 7%

So when you match these figures up with the style guidelines it would seem that we have a Foreign Extra Stout.

You may notice we don't have an airlock fitted, well the brew went mental throwing 9L worth of krausen (foam) so we had to fitt the blow off tube.

13D. Foreign Extra Stout

Aroma: Roasted grain aromas moderate to high, and can have coffee, chocolate and/or lightly burnt notes. Fruitiness medium to high. Some versions may have a sweet aroma, or molasses, licorice, dried fruit, and/or vinous aromatics. Stronger versions can have the aroma of alcohol. Hop aroma low to none. Diacetyl low to none.
Appearance: Very deep brown to black in color. Clarity usually obscured by deep color (if not opaque, should be clear). Large tan to brown head with good retention.
Flavor: Tropical versions can be quite sweet, while export versions can be moderately dry (reflecting impression of a scaled-up version of either sweet stout or dry stout). Roasted grain and malt character can be moderate to high, although sharpness of dry stout will not be present in any example. Tropical versions can have high fruity esters, smooth dark grain flavors, and moderate bitterness. Export versions tend to have lower esters, more assertive roast flavors, and higher bitterness. The roasted flavors of either version may taste of coffee, chocolate, or lightly burnt grain. Little to no hop flavor. Very low to no diacetyl.
Mouthfeel: Medium-full to full body, often with a smooth, creamy character. May give a warming impression from alcohol presence. Moderate to moderately-high carbonation.
Overall Impression: A very dark, moderately strong, roasty ale. Tropical varieties can be quite sweet, while export versions can be drier and fairly robust.
History: Originally high-gravity stouts brewed for tropical markets (and hence, sometimes known as "Tropical Stouts"). Some bottled export (i.e. stronger) versions of dry or sweet stout also fit this profile. Guinness Foreign Extra Stout has been made since the early 1800s.
Comments: A rather broad class of stouts, these can be either fruity and sweet, dry and bitter, or even tinged with Brettanomyces (e.g., Guinness Foreign Extra Stout; this type of beer is best entered as a Specialty or Experimental beer). Think of the style as either a scaled-up dry and/or sweet stout, or a scaled-down Imperial stout without the late hops. Highly bitter and hoppy versions are best entered as American-style Stouts.
Ingredients: Similar to dry or sweet stout, but with more gravity. Pale and dark roasted malts and grains. Hops mostly for bitterness. May use adjuncts and sugar to boost gravity. Ale yeast (although some tropical stouts are brewed with lager yeast).

Vital Statistics:

OG	FG	IBUs	SRM	ABV
1.056 - 1.075	1.010 - 1.018	30 - 70	30 - 40+	5.5 - 8%

Commercial Examples: Lion Stout (Sri Lanka), ABC Stout, Dragon Stout, Royal Extra "The Lion Stout" (Trinidad), Jamaica Stout, Guinness Extra Stout (bottled US product), Guinness Foreign Extra Stout (bottled, not sold in the US), Coopers Best Extra Stout, Freeminer Deep Shaft Stout, Sheaf Stout, Bell's Double Cream Stout

13F. Russian Imperial Stout

Aroma: Rich and complex, with variable amounts of roasted grains, maltiness, fruity esters, hops, and alcohol. The roasted malt character can take on coffee, dark chocolate, or slightly burnt tones and can be light to moderately strong. The malt aroma can be subtle to rich and barleywine-like, depending on the gravity and grain bill. May optionally show a slight specialty malt character (e.g., caramel), but this should only add complexity and not dominate. Fruity esters may be low to moderately strong, and may take on a complex, dark fruit (e.g., plums, prunes, raisins) character. Hop aroma can be very low to quite aggressive, and may contain any hop variety. An alcohol character may be present, but shouldn't be sharp, hot or solventy. Aged versions may have a slight vinous or port-like quality, but shouldn't be sour. No diacetyl. The balance can vary with any of the aroma elements taking center stage. Not all possible aromas described need be present; many interpretations are possible. Aging affects the intensity, balance and smoothness of aromatics.
Appearance: Color may range from very dark reddish-brown to jet black. Opaque. Deep tan to dark brown head. Generally has a well-formed head, although head retention may be low to moderate. High alcohol and viscosity may be visible in "legs" when beer is swirled in a glass.
Flavor: Rich, deep, complex and frequently quite intense, with variable amounts of roasted malt/grains, maltiness, fruity esters, hop bitterness and flavor, and alcohol. Medium to aggressively high bitterness. Medium-low to high hop flavor (any variety). Moderate to aggressively high roasted malt/grain flavors can suggest bittersweet or unsweetened chocolate, cocoa, and/or strong coffee. A slightly burnt grain, burnt currant or tarry character may be evident. Fruity esters may be low to intense, and can take on a dark fruit character (raisins, plums, or prunes). Malt backbone can be balanced and supportive to rich and barleywine-like, and may optionally show some supporting caramel, bready or toasty flavors. Alcohol strength should be evident, but not hot, sharp, or solventy. No diacetyl. The palate and finish can vary from relatively dry to moderately sweet, usually with some lingering roastiness, hop bitterness and warming character. The balance and intensity of flavors can be affected by aging, with some flavors becoming more subdued over time and some aged, vinous or port-like qualities developing.
Mouthfeel: Full to very full-bodied and chewy, with a velvety, luscious texture (although the body may decline with long conditioning). Gentle smooth warmth from alcohol should be present and noticeable. Should not be syrupy and under-attenuated. Carbonation may be low to moderate, depending on age and conditioning.
Overall Impression: An intensely flavored, big, dark ale. Roasty, fruity, and bittersweet, with a noticeable alcohol presence. Dark fruit flavors meld with roasty, burnt, or almost tar-like sensations. Like a black barleywine with every dimension of flavor coming into play.
History: Brewed to high gravity and hopping level in England for export to the Baltic States and Russia. Said to be popular with the Russian Imperial Court. Today is even more popular with American craft brewers, who have extended the style with unique American characteristics.
Comments: Variations exist, with English and American interpretations (predictably, the American versions have more bitterness, roasted character, and finishing hops, while the English varieties reflect a more complex specialty malt character and a more forward ester profile). The wide range of allowable characteristics allow for maximum brewer creativity.
Ingredients: Well-modified pale malt, with generous quantities of roasted malts and/or grain. May have a complex grain bill using virtually any variety of malt. Any type of hops may be used. Alkaline water balances the abundance of acidic roasted grain in the grist. American or English ale yeast.

Vital Statistics:

OG	FG	IBUs	SRM	ABV
1.075 - 1.095+	1.018 - 1.030+	50 - 90+	30 - 40+	8 - 12+%

Commercial Examples: Samuel Smith Imperial Stout, Courage Imperial Stout, Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, Rogue Imperial Stout, North Coast Old Rasputin Imperial Stout, Victory Storm King, Bell's Expedition Stout, Dogfish Head World Wide Stout, Thirsty Dog Siberian Night, Stone Imperial Stout, Avery The Czar, Founders Imperial Stout, Newport Beach John Wayne Imperial Stout, Great Lakes Blackout Stout

Thanks to the BJCP for the Style Guidelines.

Hop Update

With the days lengthening all our hop plants have decided it's time to grow.

These 4 hops (Golding back left, Fuggles back right and front right, Nugget front left) were all planted at the same time. They are all first year hops and the only difference is that the rhizomes on the front 2 were only about 100mm and as thick as a pencil, compared to the back ones which were 175 - 200mm long and as thick as your thumb. I don't expect to get anything off the front 2 this year but hopefully next year they will be big enough to crop, and needless to say - I won't be using that seller again.

These are 2nd year Cascades and each bed has at least 20 shoots.

These are 1st year Hallertau and Saaz.

So it all seems to be looking good for a reasonable crop this year, so long as we can keep the water and fertiliser up to them.