Pale Ale Brew Day

Brew day had come around again, and I was on my own for a change. This meant I needed to redesign the set up as there was no way I was going to be able to lift the mash tun or boiler by my self once they were full.

So after a bit of thought while cleaning the kit, I decided on a 3 tiered approach. With the hot liquor tank as high as I could get it ( a bit daunting having 40L of hot water and a gas burner 6ft off the ground on shelving I got 15 years ago ), the mash tun sitting on a table, and the boiler sitting on the bottom rung at  the other end of the shelving.

The day proceeded as planned, I was mashing in just after 9am and the set up was working well. I had picked up some food grade reinforced house for $2. This gave me extra hose allowing a bit more space between components making them easier to get to and with the taps I could control the flow of both the water for the mash tun and the wort coming out of it.

With the mash and a short batch sparge done it was on to the boil. With 40L in a 50L keg I was not confident that there would not be a boil over, and there were a few anxious moments as the foam started to rise, but all turned out ok. The wort got 2 doses of Citra hops at 45 and 15mins. I have been looking forward to using Citra they taste great and have a great aroma.

With the boil done and the cooling finished I split the batch into 2 fermenters, the 14L batch will get a 20gm dose of Citra dry hopped after the primary is done; and the 18L batch will get 160gm of our Cascade flowers (  having been stored in the freezer since harvest ).

Beers of the Week

Happy Goblin Ginger, Australia - 4.9% - A true ginger infused beer, it's not sweet and has a big ginger aroma and a bite to match. Very clear and different.

Sweet Stout, Kiuchi Brewery Japan - 4% - Black with a tan head ( it's a stout ) roasted barley and bitter chocolate, combined with a sweetness that overrides the bitterness.

Malheur Trippel, Mandekenstraat Belgium - 10% - Light gold with a creamy white head and heavily carbonated, this trappist / abbey ale packs a punch and is not for everyone.


Disclaimer - these are not beers we recomend, they are beers we found in bottle shops and decided to try.

When things go POP in the night

You need to check out the photos for this one.

We started out with the best of intentions and ended up creating a monster. We wanted to produce a nice fruity Plum wine and in the end produced bottle bombs.

For those who haven't followed the Plum wine brew, here's a quick recap. We came across an old recipe we had used about 13 years ago, and decided to give it another go. The only thing missing was the total volume and we assumed it would be about the 20L mark so that's what we used. Upon tasting after a lengthy fermentation, the plum taste was washed out so we made the decision to bump it up with some juice. Plum juice not being available we went for second best; grape juice about 4L worth.

After another lengthy fermentation and to avoid making too dry a wine we decided to kill off the yeast with some camden tablets (about 7 or 8 I think it was ). That done after a couple of days we decided to bottle and all seemed well, the wine was tasting a bit grapey but not too bad.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
Fast forward a month and the kitchen gets sprayed with Plum wine. Oh no, what had we done? A second bottle quickly followed ( this time over the bath ) and sure enough we'd created a monster.

Funnily enough once it's "breathed" so to speak, it's not too bad a drink and is excellent for marinades and sauteing mushrooms.

         

In the Brew Room

Everything seems to be firing well this week, 2 Pale Ales were brewed and the Hoptastic is going well. The Blueberry Melomel is looking good for bottling next week and we've just recieved a shipment of Orange Blossom honey which will be made into a couple of different Meads.

This week also saw the first bottle of our Stout opened and we are impressed, served at about 8 - 10*c it has a wonderful bitter chocolate / coffee aroma and tastes of roasted barley with a bitterness that lingures. With a thinish body and 4% alc it leaves you wanting more.

Sydney Craft Beer and Cider Fair

Tickets are available at the door.

We cannot make this event due to work commitments, if any of our readers go and would like to submit a revue we will be happy to post it on the blog

cheers steve

YULLIS The Best Craft Beer Menu by Far

I was told the other day about a bar / cafe called YULLIS in Surry Hills. “So what,” I hear you say “there’s a billion of them there.” Well this is one with a difference and I will tell you why. It has one of the most extensive Craft Beer menus I have ever seen in a restaurant, let alone a bar.

Here is their Beer and Cider list

The seasonal beer was Iron lung Black Imperial Pilsner by Doctor’s Orders brewing.

Stone and Wood    - Pacific Ale
                              - Pale Lager
                             
Little Brewing Co   - Wicked Elf Witbier
                              - Wicked Elf Pale Ale
                              - Mad Abbot Tripel

Brothers Ink           - Skinny Blonde

4 Pines                   - Kolsch
                              - Hefeweizen
                              - Stout

St Arnou                - Pilsner
                              - Light

Bowral Brewing      - Pigs Fly Pilsner
                              - Pigs Fly Pale Ale

Murrays                 - Whale Ale
                              - Punch and Judy Ale
                              - Dark Knight Porter
                              - Grand Cru

Red Oak                - Organic Pale Ale
                              - Honey Ale

Ekim Brewery        - Viking IPA

Dalgety Brewery    - Red Ale
                              - Smoked Porter

Lord Nelson          - Old Admiral

Happy Goblin        - Strong Ale
                             - Ginger Beer
                             - Pale Ale

O'Brian                 - Gluten Free Lager

St Peters Brewery - Greenstar Lager
                             - Cinnamon Girl Spiced Ale

Pipsqeak Cider - Little Creatures
Napoleone and Co Apple Cider - Punt Road Wines
Napoleone and Co Pear Cider - Punt Road Wines
Batlow Apple Cider - Batlow Brewing
Lobo Apple Cider - Lobo Juice and Cider
Somerset Still Trad. Dry Cider - Small Acres Cider

You can see why I am impressed; you just don’t find a beer menu like this very often.

Now for the other stuff, the food is great but, be aware it is vegetarian. We can highly recommend the curry puffs, the grilled haloumi and the toasted bagels with haloumi, mushrooms caramelised onions, tomato and avocado.

It’s quite a funky / hip little place with student housing used as the theme for decoration and furnishing but it works well.

Prices are reasonable with 2 entrees, 2 mains and 4 beers costing us $90

 Yullis

417 Crown St Surry Hills

 http://yullis.com.au/

Beer and Cider of the Week

Original Apple Cider - 4.5% - Redoak Australia - mouth puckeringly bitter and lots of 220 (sulphides) even though the label says " minimum 220 used ". They use "220" on the label as a way of not saying "sulphides". That said given how good their beers are I am willing to say this may have been a bad bottle a give it another try.

Mango Beer - 4.5% - Matso's Brewery Broome Australia - With a mango aroma and big mango taste it's more like eating a mango than drinking a beer with just the barest malt taste.

Saison - 5% - Brasserie De Silly Belgium - Amber colour and caramel notes combined with a slight sour taste remind me more of a Trappist or Abbey Ale than a Saison. It's very sweet and easy to drink with none of the esters that you would expect to find in a Saison.

Disclaimer : We are not recommending these beers, merely commenting on ones we have found in bottle shops.

This Week in the Brew Room

This last week has seen a flurry of activity, with the Ginger Beer and the Siberian Crude ( our Russian Imperial Stout ) both being sent through the bottling line, I say bottling line but in reality I'm filling them and the wife's capping them and productivity is up 50% so its all good.

We have been playing around with bulk priming ( previously we have just been using the sugar drops by Coopers, very easy 1 drop per stubby and 2 per long neck ) and have been using light dried malt added to boiling water, cooled and then poured into the fermenter. This requires a little more prep time but will be needed when we start to keg condition. There is a great online bulk priming calculator, you will find the link to it on our new "Handy Links" page.

We have also started another batch of Hoptastic, this one will be brewed on the bench rather than in the fridge as the temperatures are starting to become cooler and more stable.

Also I picked up some Citra hops to try, having tasted other brews that use them I am keen to see how they go.

Session Beer it's almost un - Australian

We Australians love to have a Beer. In fact we love to have lots of beers according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. As a nation we rank number 5 on the list of beer drinkers, consuming 103.3L of beer per person over the age of 15. This is down from 107.65L in 2005.

If you look at the tables on the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) site,

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4307.0.55.001main+features42009-10

you will see that it's actually the low alcohol beer area where the reductions have come from (in 2005 it was 14.11L per person down to in 8.06L per person in 2010). These figures are all commercially sold beer plus 2.2% added for homebrew.

The ABS defines alcohol levels as;

Low Alcohol - under 3%

Mid Strength - between 3 - 3.5%

Full Strength - over 3.5%

You might be asking why am I giving you all these figures. Well its because we really need to look at Session Beers. Now I'm not talking about full on booze ups. I'm talking about the times you just want to spend an afternoon bending your elbow with your mates, watching footy or cricket or having a yarn whatever without ending up completely rat arsed and not being able to function. This is where session beers come in, designed to be low in alcohol (under 4%) and light in body these beers wont make you feel bloated or knock you on your arse after a couple.

For example Midgee by Hopdog is a spectacular red ale that comes in at 2.9%.

With most Australian commercial beers in the 4.6 - 5.5%, and craft beers trending higher still we need to change our habits, keep our favourite full strength beers for when we are having 1 or 2 and move to the lighter Session Beers for those long arvos. 

So start asking your local craft brewer or pub for a Session beer and check out the difference.

The Man behind the Beer is Gone

Geoff Scharer, the man behind Picton's George IV inn and Scharer's Little Brewery past away last week and is a sad loss for all. Geoff fought for years with the beareucrats before he was finally able to complete his dream of a brewery in Picton.

R.I.P Geoff Scharer may you live on through your beers

Scharers Bock at 6.4% a nice mild dark beer (could easily be used as an entry level beer for those who don't like dark beers. ) the alcohol is not apparent and I was glad that the bar maid pointed out that it is 6.4% as it wouldn't take many to put you over the limit and it's very easy to drink.
Scharers Lager at 4.9%   Lightly hopped with a low malt taste, an easy drinking inoffensive middle of the road lager. 

Beer Excise Changes - Finally

For some time now, microbreweries have been lobbying the federal government to amend the excise rebate scheme. Currently a microbrewery needs to produce less than 30,000L a year (around 770 long necks a week) to be able to claim the $10,000 excise rebate.

After June 30th, 2 things will change, firstly the production cap has been removed allowing microbreweries to grow without losing the rebate. Secondly the rebate has been increased to $30,000. This means that they can now claim a rebate of 60% of the excise paid up to a maximum of $30,000.

What does this mean for us?  It means that we will see most microbreweries increasing their production and hopefully their distribution range further than just their local area.

We need to focus now on breaking the Tap Lockout that is happening at the moment. The big 2 (Sab - Miller and Lion Nathan), lock in pubs and clubs to having only their beers on tap, and putting clauses in the contracts making it a violation of that contract to have other beers on tap. Sounds to me like restraint of trade and gives a very limited choice to the drinkers.

Beer and Cider of the Week

Maxx Blonde Premium Lager - 4.6% - low carb with a thin body and clean malt taste. New Zealand

Steam Ale - 4.8% - Steam Exchange Brewery, bottle conditioned, highly carbonated with a nice bitter finish. Australia

Bilpin Original Cider - 4.7% - Bilpin Cider Co, quite tart with little apple taste, noticable sulphides







Disclaimer - These are not Beers and Ciders we recommend they are merely ones found in bottleshops

Mashing in with Happy Goblin

Based in Mt Kuring-gai in Sydney’s north, Colin aka “Goblin” has been brewing his Pale, Strong, and Dark Ales along with the occasional Bitter since 2006.

I met up with Colin on his weekly brew day in the Goblin Cave to help brew the latest batch of Dark Ale, with a rich malt taste and a nice bitterness from Fuggles hops, this dark amber ale is a good substitute for when you don’t want to go the full stout.

All the grain used is crushed on site, so as Colin made sure that all the brew equipment was ready I took over filling the hopper on the crusher, getting a head full of the rich aromas of freshly milled grain.

With the water ready for mashing, out came the big paddle and it was time to stir, think of porridge, really thick porridge, and you’ll be close to the consistency. It gets better as you add more water and everything gets soaked becoming more like thick soup. So with the upper body getting a workout, Colin made sure the temps were right by juggling the hot and the cold taps and the mash was left to sit for a while.

Colin has brought Happy Goblin to a comfortable level, whereby he only needs to brew once a week. This keeps the customers in beer and Colin only needs to be at the brewery 2 days a week, this also allows him to indulge in his other passion of rock climbing, as well as sharing the brewing equipment with Ekim Brewing.

Currently making 250L batches, equipment is slowly being sourced to bring that up to 600L allowing Colin to brew even less frequently.

You won’t find Happy Goblin’s beers in pubs, but you will find them in bottle shops (check the web site for stockists) and at Paddy’s hop harvest festival and Warners at the Bay Beer Fest.

With the mash complete, it was time to hook up the pump and send the goodness to the wort boiler, batch sparging as we went. That done, the wort boiling and the Fuggles hops added, it was time for a late lunch - so off to the local take away for some Colin burgers and chips (yes, the shop does call them Colin burgers and they are awesome). Settling down for lunch Colin made the big mistake saying “I hope it doesn’t boil over”, and with the next bite of lunch sure enough she starts to come over the top. Luckily it was only a small amount and it was quickly cleaned up but it was enough to keep us on edge through the rest of the meal.

With lunch over and the wort drained it was on to the un-glamorous side of brewing, cleaning out the grain. 55kgs of dried grain doesn’t look much but when it’s been soaked it not only weighs heaps more but takes up a lot more room, added to the fact you have to scoop it out from the bottom of the mash tun and it’s still steaming hot. Fun fun fun, but its part of the process and someone has to do it. All the spent grain goes to stock feed, in this case pigs.

With my time at Happy Goblin running out there was just time to get a few tips for those thinking of starting a Micro brewery. They are: start home brewing and nail your intended beers first (great beers will promote themselves). Try to be financially secure – if you go in owing bucket loads of money there is too much pressure to compromise. Decide on your size – going over 30 000L a year takes you out of the micro brewery excise rebate. And most of all remember beer may be a way of life but it should not be your whole life.

My thanks to Colin for allowing me to help on the brew, but for your time and patience as well.

http://www.happygoblin.com.au/

Beer and Cider of the Week

Radeberger Pilsner - 4.8% - has a very clean malt taste without the hop presence, more to the Lager side than Pilsner. German.

Apple Sunshack Cider - 4.5% - Sunshine Cider - very pale colour, nice apple nose, slightly tart finish but great apple taste with very low sulphides. Australian.

Broo Premium Lager - 4.6% - a clean Lager with a honey aftertaste. Australian.

In the Brew Room this Week

With the onset of colder weather the time had come to set the hop vines up for winter, not much to it really just cut off the vines above ground and untangle them from the frames. This done the beds got a healthy dose of cow manure and compost and a final layer of straw on top to help keep things from drying out to much. During winter I will be redesigning the climbing frames, getting rid of the wire that was holding the vines up and going with string instead. This will mean that come the end of next season it will just be a matter of cutting the vines and string with no need to untangle everything.

The American Pale Ale we brewed has been tasted by several brewers and the conclusion is that it's more of an Amber Ale, with the crystal malt covering the hops so I will be tweaking this recipe to a lower grain bill and maybe some more hops. I will let you know.