Designing A Beer

Many a time we sit drinking commercial beer thinking to ourselves, “We can make better than this.” Or drinking our own brew thinking, “It needs just a little bit more of something.”  Well there is a way, and all it’s going to take is a little bit of time and brain use.

The trick to it all is the starting point – which in some cases is actually the end result. Do you want a particular style of beer? Are you looking for a session beer, or something big to warm you up on a winters night? The starting points are endless, here’s a few to think on:

-Style e.g.; Kolsch, Amber Ale, Stout

-Taste; matching a commercial beer, bitter, sweet, dry, pairing with food

- Using a particular ingredient; fruit, vegetables, type of malt or hop

-Alcohol level; session beers, a few with the mates, one drink wonders (10% and above)

-Equipment; all grain, extract, kits, fridges to brew lagers in

Each choice will take you down a narrowing path…say we choose one drink wonders as our starting point. This cuts down our available styles to about 7, ( Double/Imperial IPA’s; Imperial Stouts; US Barley Wines; Abbey Quadrupels; Strong Pales/Darks and Eisbocks ).

Let’s start with a style - IPA’s are popular now so let’s go with that. First choice is British (big hops and plenty of malt) or American (more hops less malt).  Choosing British, first we want to use one of the specialty malts such as Rye, Smoked, Vienna etc. - our choices here are limited to the lighter malts, so no chocolate or black malts (they add too much colour even in small doses). We are going to use some Vienna malt in this one along with some Pale Crystal and some Pale Ale malt.

So our recipe as it stands so far is –

British IPA

Pale Ale malt 75%

Pale Crystal 15%

Vienna malt 10%

The percentages are of the total grain bill, and allow you to scale up or down the amounts to suit the volume. We are looking at a finished volume after the boil of 25L with a Starting Gravity of 1.060 and a Final Gravity of 1.006 as we want it to finish on the dry side. This puts the alcohol at about 7 – 7.5% and this allows us to work out the quantities of grain needed. While doing this we will also work out the colour.

Ok, cue the hold music here, while I grab the books and calculator - or you could use Brewmate to work it out - right we need a total of 6.5kg of grain total. Broken into percentages it looks like this.

British IPA   25L

SG 1.060   FG 1.006   Alcohol 7 – 7.5%

Body – Crisp, dry with a bit of malt sweetness

Colour – 7 to 12*SRM

Pale Ale malt 75%   4.9kg                   4 -6.2 SRM

Pale Crystal 15%    0.95kg                   2.9 – 4.3 SRM

Vienna malt 10%   0.65kg                    0.6 – 0.8 SRM

Now…the hops.  Do we want a single hop IPA? (Only one type of hop used for both bittering and aroma)  Or multi hops? And here we are limited to obviously: British hops.

We will start with bittering: we want about 60 IBU’s so a relatively high alpha acid hop like Northdown (7 – 10% AA) early in the boil, then some Challenger  (6.5 – 8.5% AA) later on, and then East Kent Golding’s (4.5 – 6.5% AA) to dry hop with. So our hop bill and schedule look like this:

90 min 20gm Northdown 8.5% AA =15.4 IBU

60 min 30gm Northdown 8.5% AA =21.5 IBU

30 min 30gm Northdown 8.5% AA =16.5 IBU

15 min 20gm Challenger 7.5% AA =6.3 IBU

5 min 25gm Challenger 7.5% AA   =3.2 IBU

0 min 15gm E K Golding 5.5% AA   =0 IBU

Fermenter 15gm E K Golding 5.5% AA =0 IBU

1^st Racking 15gm E K Golding 5.5% AA = 0 IBU

Total IBU = 62.9 IBU

Ok so our hop bill has also given us our boil time – 90 minutes, and we have a fair amount of grain to convert, so we will give it 90 minutes in the mash.  To finish dry, we will mash fairly low at about 63*c.  As for volumes, we want to end up with 25L.  We will lose 10% an hour in the boil, so we need to recover about 30L from the mash and sparge. We mash in at 3.5L per kilo of grain - so 23L. As I batch sparge I can work out my sparge water after I have drained the mash. If I recover 19L I will sparge with 11L to get 30L.

The last thing to work out is what yeast to use and for this one it’s a no brainer:  English Ale Yeast.

So now our full recipe looks like this:

TinRoof IPA, a British IPA - 25L

SG 1.060   FG 1.006   Alcohol 7 – 7.5%

Body – Crisp, dry with a bit of malt sweetness

Colour – 7 to 12*SRM

Pale Ale malt 75%   4.9kg                   4 -6.2 SRM

Pale Crystal 15%    0.95kg                   2.9 – 4.3 SRM

Vienna malt 10%   0.65kg                    0.6 – 0.8 SRM

3gm calcium carbonate

1gm calcium sulphate

90 min mash at 63*c with 23L of water

Batch sparge to make up 30L

90 min boil

90 min 20gm Northdown 8.5% AA =15.4 IBU

60 min 30gm Northdown 8.5% AA =21.5 IBU

30 min 30gm Northdown 8.5% AA =16.5 IBU

15 min 20gm Challenger 7.5% AA =6.3 IBU

5 min 25gm Challenger 7.5% AA   =3.2 IBU

0 min 15gm E K Golding 5.5% AA   =0 IBU

Fermenter 15gm E K Golding 5.5% AA =0 IBU

1^st Racking 15gm E K Golding 5.5% AA = 0 IBU

Total IBU = 62.9 IBU

Yeast – English Ale Ferment at 20*c

Now all we need do is brew it - stand by, that brew days coming up.

Italian Beer Day @ The Local Taphouse

Located at 122 Flinders St Darlinghurst, The Local Taphouse is well named. With a bar on each of it's 3 floors including a roof top terrace and many little side rooms for small groups. Each bar is equipped with 20 yes thats right 20 beer taps making it 60 taps in total - as I said - it's welll named considering most pubs would struggle to have 16 taps.

This abundance of taps makes them uniquely qualified to hold events like "The Italian Beer SpecTAPular", comprising 20 different Italian craft beers on tap and complimented by an Italian menu and a 3 piece band.

Alongside the beers we were given an info sheet listing all the beers, their makers, styles, ABV and a brief description of each.

Our favourites were -

Wiessbier by Croce Di Malto - with it's hints of bananas, acidity and sweetness.

Kolsch by Croce Di Malto - with it's light body and sweetness complimented by a pleasant bitterness.

Milk Chocolate Stout by Brewfist - made with lactose and cocoa beans to add a chocolate finish to a roasty taste.

We could not bring ourselves to try the Tobacco Porter by Birra del Borgo made with "king Porter" Kentucky tobacco leaves although now I wish I had as I feel I missed out on something interesting.

With 60ml tasters costing $1.50 each, it was possible if you felt like it to go through all 20 beers for only $30, it's a good way to get a handle on where the Italian craft beer scene is at.

With a great atmosphere, The Taphouse does a excellent job of promoting craft beer to all types of people.

We are planning a return trip to see whats on all those taps when there's no event on, should be interesting.

Homebrewland is here

No it's not a theme park. But thats a pretty good idea. Mmmmm...a homebrew theme park.  I think the only rides you would need would be golf carts.

Anyway 'nuff of that. Back to the reason for this post: http://www.homebrewland.com/ has arrived.

The aim of homebrewland is to promote - you guessed it - homebrew! As well as homebrewing clubs throughout Australia. We aim to have contact details for all of Australia's homebrewing clubs.

We would also like to promote homebrew tourism. "What's homebrew tourism?" Well it goes like this: You're away on holidays or a trip of some sort, you check out homebrewland for the area you're in, find the closest brew club thats on that night and go along and join in. It's not hard, all of the clubs welcome new people and at the very least you will get to imbibe some great beer.

To make it work, we need all the homebrew clubs to send us their details, or a link to their site, and we will publish them on homebrewland.

We are also calling for homebrewers to send us in a small bio of their brews as well as photos (limit 2),  to be published as the "homebrewer of the week".

We are also looking for reviews on various bits of kit, how good they are, are they worth it and what would you change, all that sort of stuff.

So get on it, folks, and help grow our homebrew community.

Beer and Brewer's 5th Birthday BeerGustation Dinner

Tuesday night saw us heading to the East Village Hotel in East Balmain, for Beer and Brewer's 5th birthday party. The night also included a 5 course beer degustation (fancy wording for a 5 course meal with lots of different beers with each course) never having been to a degustation before we were not sure what to expect except that there were going to be some good beers.

Pre dinner drinks saw about 120 people chatting and mingling with the 16 professional brewers who came along to spruik their beers and have a good time.

Alex, Richard (Young Henry), Shawn (Murrays), Matt (St Peters)

Moving through for dinner and it was good to see that the brewers had been spread around the tables and we were lucky enough to be seated with Matt from St Peters Brewing. Matt's a bit of a character and much fun was made of him not owning a mobile but being on twitter.

The first course arrived -

Spiced king prawn & chorizo pizza with romesco aoili - paired with
knappstein reserve lager  - Lion/ Kiren
Witbier - Redoak - this one helped put out the fire (that pizza was FULL of CHILLI) 
PLZ - Pinchgut - this one went well with the flavours

So with some time between the courses to help our taste buds recover we got to hear each of the brewers talk about their beers and how they match and other brewing related info.

We were also told "THE WATER IS FOR RINSING OUT YOUR GLASSES - NOT FOR DRINKING" - I guess you should expect nothing else at a beer dinner!

The second course arrived -

Smoked ocean trout croquettes with apple & fennel salad - paired with
AB Steam Ale (kolsch) - Australian Breweries - light and clean let the trout lead
Smoking French Tart - Hunter Beer Co - the smoky, bacony flavour overwhelmed the trout

Between the courses the lucky door prizes were drawn and we were lucky enough to win a 1 year subscription to the mag.

All the brewers

The third course arrived -

Ale braised osso bucco, mushroom and truffle pie - paired with
Real Ale - Young Henry's - totally cleansed the palate - very interesting
Belgian Dark Strong Ale 8.8% - Schwartz - was much better at room temperature, more coffee taste
Celebration Ale - Coopers

Caught up with Richard from Young Henry's and  Fresh Six is still not yet available in growlers, but coming soon.

The forth course arrived -

Spiced sticky toffee pudding, chocolate brownie and churros with ice cream - paired with
Killagh Stout - St Peters - served at about 10 -12*c the roast and coffee/ chocolate hit the spot
The Ravens Thong - Thirsty Crow Bootleg

Caught up with Neal from Australian Breweries, their canning line is undergoing testing at the moment and should be running in October.

The fifth course arrived -
Pyengana Cheddar, Jacksons Track Washed Rind, Colston Shropshire Blue - paired with
Grand Cru - Murrays - held it's own and didn't take over
Barley Wine No1 - Hunter Beer Co

Cheers to the Chef - Ryan Smith did a great job and we heartily enjoyed the food although we "paid" for the chilli later.  The waitstaff were all excellent as well.

Cheers and congratulations to David Lipman, publisher of Beer and Brewer - an excellent magazine and a great night out.  We look forward to more of both to come.

Italian Beer Day

BEER LIST

Birra Del Borgo

‘Keto  Reporter’ American Porter

‘Duchessa’ Saison

‘Hoppy Cat’ Black IPA

ReAle Anniversario 7

Birricicio Troll

‘Shangrila’ Barley Wine

Brew Fist

             ‘Burocracy’ India Pale Ale

‘Caterpillar’ American Pale Ale

‘Jale’  Extra Special Bitter

‘Fear’ Milk Chocolate Stout

Croce di Malto

‘Hauria’ Kölsch

‘Triticum’ Hefeweizen

‘Triple XXX’ Spiced Beer

‘Temporis’ Saison

Extraomnes

‘Zest’ Belgian Ale

Triple

San Paolo Birrificio

Ipè APA

‘Robinia’ Golden Ale

‘Buxus’ Mailbock

Scarampola

            IPA “Italian” Pale Ale 

TinRoof Amber Ale 2.0

It was time to brew our Amber Ale once more, as our supply had run out - how’d that happen?  We decided to beef it up with a bit more crystal malt (even though the wife liked it perfectly well as it was), as well as increasing the batch size to allow us to spin off 4L for a trial batch (more on that later*).  First the style guidelines:

Amber Ale

Flavor – plenty of caramel malt, delicate hop finish

Aroma – clean caramel malt with a hint of floral hops

Balance – malty to somewhat hoppy

Seasonality – year round

Pair with – wide range of food, chicken, seafood, burgers, spicy cuisine

Gravity – 1.048 – 1.058

Alcohol – 4.5 – 6%

Body – medium

Colour – 11 – 18*SRM, pale to dark amber

Bitterness - 30 – 40 IBU medium

Recipe

TinRoof Amber Ale2.0

27L   SG 1.058

6kg pale malt   80%

1kg crystal 60 (pale to medium)  13.33%

0.5kg quick oats   6.67%

3gm calcium carbonate

1gm calcium sulfate

90 min mash at 66*c

60 min boil

60 min - 30gm Boadicea 10%AA =27 IBU

30 min – 30gm Hallertau 4.7%AA = 10 IBU

Total = 37 IBU

Yeast – Safale US-05, made into a starter over 2 days

*TinRoof Almond Ale

After cooling the Amber Ale above, we split off 4L of the wort into a glass fermenter.  Then we added 200gm of sliced almonds (previously roasted and then soaked in boiling water till they cooled), hoping to infuse a subtle almond flavor into our Amber Ale. It looks pretty cool in the fermenter with the almonds flying around everywhere due to the convection currents, I just hope we get a good almond taste out of it.

Nsw Amateur Brewing Championship

Young Henrys – Young in age but Years in the Making

Young Henrys is one of the newest micro-breweries in town, opening its doors just a few months ago. The brain child of Richard Adamson ( former head brewer at Barons Brewing Co, Woollahra ) and Oscar McMahon ( brewer, collaborator, investor and good mate ), Young Henrys is responsible for some of the best and most innovative brews that we have seen for some time.

These brews currently include; Newtown Brown ( this was the winning beer in a home brew comp held by Young Henrys ), a smooth caramely, hoppy Brown Ale; Cloudy Cider, a tart yet sweet apple cider with low sulphides;  Blackheart, a weisse beer tasting of cloves and when left to warm slightly – bananas, cloves and a hint of citrus;  Real Ale, a laid back session ale with low alcohol and restrained bitterness;  and a Hop Ale, more an English style IPA with an emphasis on the malt and hop aroma, with a calculated bitterness in the 80 IBU range but tasting more in the 50 – 60 IBU range.

Young Henrys is also engaged in a couple of collaborative efforts, the first of which – Black Enmore, a black beer made with wattle seeds and bush tomatoes, was designed with Peter Fenton from the band Crow and is all about King St Newtown at night and its indigenous inhabitants. So popular it sold out in weeks.

The second collaboration – Fresh Six, an ale made with Rye malt and Agave juice is still in the fermenter, but tastes of fruit punch and banana bread with a little bit of rye for good measure and a nice warmth from the 6.66% alc at the end.  Fresh 6 is also the name of Front End Loader’s new album and both will be released of the 14^th of July with Front End Loader playing at the Annandale Hotel.

Future brews should see a Natural Lager ( in the fermenter now ) and the possibility of a big ( Imperial ) Stout at about 8% based on the core ingredients of the Black Enmore.

As for the brewery, it’s all very fresh and clean with new tanks and fermenters from DME Brewing Services in Canada and a 20ft container / cool room covered in murals from a second hand auction site. Brewing in 1300L batches has required a bit of automation, with the grain fed straight from the mill at the front door down some pipes and into the mash tun down the back, where it’s stirred in by mechanical beaters. Sure beats carrying it and stirring it by hand– although I forgot to ask just how they get the used grain back out again, I do know that it goes to a farmer for feed stock. Future plans for the brewery will see the installation of 2 more fermenting tanks and the continual development of the tasting / function area.

At the moment the beers are available in either 2L growlers for $30 ( bottle plus beer ) and $18 refills ( return the bottle for a swap and go ) or in 50L kegs for parties and such. You will need to check their facebook page for which local pubs have the beers currently on tap. In the near future long necks will be available which should make it easier and cheaper to try all the beers at home.

Drop in and see them some time for a tasting or a chat about beer.

Road Test - Island Mist Wildberry Shiraz

Island Mist's Wildberry Shiraz comes with all the ingredients and instructions needed to make a quite passable wine. Each ingredient is clearly labelled and / or numbered for their order of use.

The standard brewing equipment is used - large fermenter, long stirring spoon, hydrometer, racking cane. The difference being, you actually need 2 large fermenters as you need to rack the wine off after the first stage.

At each step, sanitising the equipment took 10 min with a further 1hr of drying time. This time has not been added to the times stated for each step.

Step 1 - combining bentonite, water, juice and yeast. A Specific Gravity ( SG ) of 1.064 was obtained, the instructions quoted  an SG of 1.048 - 1.052. ( This could be due to higher concentrate juice. ) Made 23.5L
Time: 12 minutes.

Step 2 - Check SG is under 1.010, ours read 1.000 so wine was racked off to the second fermenter.
Time: 10 minutes plus wash up of the  fermenter.

Step 3 - Adding the rest of the ingredients - the F pack or wildberry concentrate plus the metabisulphite, sorbate and the chitosan or isinglass ( Stabilising and fining agents ). This step involves a lot of stirring to drive off the CO2 contained in the wine.
Time: 20 minutes.

Step 4 - Bottling a total of 25L     9% Alcohol
Time: 40 minutes.

Total fermentation time: 35 days - 29/5/12 to 2/7/12

Hands on time: 82 minutes plus the 40 minutes sterilising, plus the 30 minutes wash up time for 2 fermenters.
Total time: 2 hours 32 minutes.

Cost: $75 for the kit, $6 for bottle of steriliser and $56 for bottles ( $1.60 a bottle for 35 bottles )

Total Cost: $137 for 35 bottles of wine ( $3.90 a bottle ).

Taste is well balanced, with the wildberry at the front followed by the shiraz, with a restrained tannin level this wine can be consumed straight after bottling, or if aged will mellow nicely.

Worth a go for a bit of fun and Ok wine.