Tell us how bad our beer is

If you were at Alex's party the other night you were probably drinking some of our homebrew. I think we had the following in the tub:

1. Ginger Binger. Had 'GB' on the cap. Tasted like ginger
2. Powered by Centrelink. Had a dollar sign on the cap
3. Wild Beery. You will know what this one was if you have a functional tongue
   

Leave a comment and tell us what you thought of the beer. We didn't put our best brews into the tub because we don't like any of you that would have cost too much money. So feel free to say they were awful.

Personally I loved the ginger beer. Very gingery and very sweet, much more flavour than Bluetoungue's version. Powered by Centrelink was okay but nothing to be very proud of. Wild beery was a bit of a disaster and I hope we can all forget about it soon.

edit: Either we have no readers (likely) or no one can work out how to comment (less likely). Anonymous comments have been turned on!

To the Extreme! - Tom's extremely brown

Hi Everyone,

Tom's extremely brown was actually an amber ale wort bought from out local brew shop. We bought the wort for $40 and the yeast for $5. I gotta say, totally awesome.

Basically a wort is a pre-made solution of everything you need that comes in a giant 15 litre jug. All you need to add is yeast and 5-7l of water and you are done.

It was actually our very first brew, but, being that it was a wort we didn't need to do anything to it and it turned out awesome. Totally worth the extra moolah. This beer was elementally drinkable and had everything you want from a malty darker ale: the nutty/chocolate after taste, the raw yet smooth bitterness, low carbonation without being flat and that kind of heady palate that goes right through your nose to your brain without saying goodbye.

While it is a little more pricey than a lot of hte brews we make the extra money does show in the quality. As with most things you get what you pay for. Kits make really good beer, but you can spend up to $55 on a kit if you want to or as little as $8. The better the kit, the yeast and the malt solutions you use the better the beer will turn out. In this case it was excellent.

It had a very dark brown colour, with a good head (however head retention was surprisingly low; meaning that the head disapeared quite quickly with drinking) and a great aroma.

Better than: James Squire and practically everything else we have made apart from Bodens Belgium
Worse than: Chimay blue. I was racking my brain for any dark beer that wasn't a bloody tripaste or whatever they are called that was better than this. Chimay blue still has that extra alcohol but isn't as pretentious.. however it costs 160 a case so Tom's Extremely Brown is one eighth the price.
The same as: maybe something from another micro-brewery. There is a place in Sydney called the Lord Nelson, in the Rocks. They make their own beers and a few of theirs would match up to TEB, however again the price is prohibitive being that those are around 7 dollars a pint. The Australian, also in the Rocks, has a lot of Australian dark ales from all over the country, a couple of those would also match but again would be expensive.

[Boden note: We just put a second batch of this on. Can't wait! 26/06]

Colonel Jesus' Fruity Temptation: Straight kit, straight brew, straight up.

Hey guys, just a short one today.
This brew is just yet another example of how brewing kits can be fantastic without any alteration or creative assistance.

For CJFT we used a Brigalow cider kit, 1kg of table sugar and kit yeast. The result was a surprisingly authentic-tasting English-style cider; a very dry fore-taste accompanied by a sweet after-taste that made for good drinking.

The result of this uninventive endeavour was a beverage that was good for sipping, binging and excellent for refreshing, even if you aren't in the mood for something alcoholic. We definitely recommend this for any fans of cider, or even fans of refreshing drinks filled with good, old fashioned alcohol.

Are Kits worth buying?

You may have read on the net, like we have, that Kits are not even worth the effort. Part of the reason that we started this blog is that that is utter crap.

So far we have only used Kit beers. While we wouldn't mind trying the other way, which is to say using grain, we don't have the room in our house to store it nor the kitchen space to make it. But we were disheartened to find out that the internet is jam packed with nay-sayers and snobby kit haters. We couldn't find a decent recipe using Kits anywhere on the net, appart from on actual selling sites. We began to think that we were somehow worse, that we weren't getting the full experience, that our beer was crap and that we only thought it was good because we were making it.

But then we realised, no, our beer is bloody good. All our friends, who are fairly harsh but fair critics, like our beer, we love our beer so SCREW YOU INTERNET! So we started this blog to let you all know that 'Yes. you can make very drinkable beers with Kits'.

Using kits is not as hard as grain but it is still not as easy as making cordial. There is still all the sterilisation and proper temps needed to make a really good brew. We have made our fair share of mistakes, but we have also made some cracker brews so it can be done.

What you have to understand is that the Kits will taste good if you treat them with care. We view it more like an art than a science, but it definitely has scientitian aspects that make a big difference. Some kits are better than others, yeasts are definitely different. It all comes down to personal taste. If you like lager's make lagers.

Some things to watch out for:

• All kits come with Ale yeast. That is ALL. Kit makers don't trust your average joe bloe to regulate the temperature to the degree that you need in order not to screw up a lager.
• Kit yeast is fairly crap, it can be used but when you can buy good yeast for 3 bux do it.
• Kits vary mainly in flavour. If you want a subtle range of flavours then you need to spend a little bit more, but the main range is between 8 and 22 dollars so none of them will break the bank.
• Listen to your local brew shop guy for recipes - he knows what he is doing.
• Follow the instructions and it should turn out ok.
• Clean and clean and clean. But that stands for all brewing.

Basically these are good. Kits work. Use them

Tom

Kit Yeast v Bought Yeast: Wanderful = Wonderful! Centrelink = Pretty Good

G'day boyo's and girlo's,

So here's the thing. Coles, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to stop stocking Wander beer kits and have been marking down their remaining stock to rediculously low prices in order to get rid of them. By rediculous I mean that the other two bought 4 kits for 2 dollars each.

With this beer we thought we wanted to test whether Kit yeast as opposed to the more expensive 'special' yeast made a difference. So we tested the principle. We did two identical beer kits Wander Ale with Cooper's Brew Enhancer 1, one with kit yeast and one with 'special' yeast.

The results:

Pre lim testing showed that the kit yeast was still very active (smelly) where as the special yeast was far more smooth. The tasting was that the beer we dubbed Centrelink (as funded by student monies and costing a whopping 7 dollars to make) tasted something like VB as opposed to Wanderful which tasted like a crisp James Squires.

After bottling we left them for a week and a half. We then cracked them last night and they were ready!

Post bottling results were fairly astounding. Centrelink tasted sweet, as though the yeast hadn't eaten all the sugar, but in no way yeasty. It wasn't bad, very drinkable, bitter, though like VB but with a sweeter fore taste. However, it was completely outclassed by Wanderful.

Wanderful is a great beer. It's crisp, far more clear and goes down like a nice draght. Basically drinking this beer, which cost us $12 (including caps and sugar drops) for 2 cases, is a down right pleasure. When we opened it there was talk of bathing in it, but we didn't want to waste the beer.

The colour of both is a lightish brown, but where Centrelink looks as murky as Reches Wanderful is much clearer, more like a darker Boags.

The conclusion: It is worth the extra 3 dollars for special yeast as opposed to kit yeast. It is far more effecting and provides a much more rounded finish. However, if you can't find it (or can't afford it - that goes out to Uni students) using Kit yeast isn't the end of the world.

Centrelink -

Tastes like - nothing on the market, but with elements of VBness. Kinda like VB mixed with white sugar. Not as bad as it sounds.
Better than - taste wise I would say, and my compatriots may shout me down, but nothing on the market. However, when you weigh the cost vs taste, since it tastes like the lowest commercial beers but costs around 15 times less per carton, its definitely better.
Worse than - Wanderful.

Wanderful
Tastes like - A bit like James Squires but with out the malt. Definitely an Aussie brew. Actually, a lot like a beer called 'Waju' which just came out on the market for $50 a case. Quite nice.
Better than - low shelf commercial beers. I would pay 40 + for a case of this. (professional pride not withstanding)
Worse than - Boden's Belgium, Tom's Brown and Brew Mow. Commerical I would say it is worse, but only just, than James Squires. Probably almost on par with Uberbrau without the hint of banana that adds that mistique we miss from Uber.

Brew-ski - A tale of dismal failure and ignorant mistakes

G'day guys

So, let me say from the beginning that we really screwed the hooch with this one (and by we I mean Quester...). The devilishly clever name stemmed from the fact that this was was a straight kit made from Cooper's Canadian Lager.

Our (Quester's) inventive approach for testing the gravity for this batch was to open the lid of the vat and insert the gravity tester directly into the brew. An unfortunate side-effect of allowing this much oxygen into your brew is that all your delicious alcohol into less-than-delicious vinegar. Thus we ended up with a brew that tasted like an overly-dressed salad, minus the salad, that delivered immediate heart-burn for any poor fool who was brave enough to try it.

We are, understandably, reluctant to try this kit again, even when armed with the full knowledge of our complete and utter blame in the matter. We offer no opinions or advice based on this brew other than this very important lesson: always read the instructions before leaping wildly in the general direction of ignorance and failure.

Boden's Belgium

Surprisingly simple. A few of the bottles tasted a bit bitter and weird but we thought this brew was bloody fantastic. Definitely going to try this again.

1x Brewcraft Belgium Wort
1x Coopers Light Malt Extract
1x Belgium yeast. No idea what type but it was purple! Hope this helps.

The friendly chap at the homebrew store tried to get us to add finishing hops but we couldn't afford it. Turned out really well anyway. Very malty flavour with that distinctive Belgium aftertaste. Good mouth feel and very Belgium head!

Brew mow m mow mow, brew mow m mow mow - It is the real ale.

Hey guys,

This was a surprisingly good beer. It was simply a kit beer, bought from Coles (the supermarket) and using the recommended cooper's dextrose mixture. All up this beer cost about $15.

We used the kit yeast, nothing fancy was done.

The beer had a good colour, was extremely drinkable with good head. It tasted something like Resches with a little more crispness. It had a rather nice, sweetness to the after taste that really mellowed it out and melted the first taste bitterness of the brew.

Being 'real ale', as one may think it rounded out like a 'real' australian ale. It had all the earmarks of the ausie brew; no real subtlety, relatively shallow pallet but otherwise drinkable. In fact, it was very drinkable.

Conclusions: I would definitely do this one again and would have paid around 40 dollars a case for it commercially.

Tastes like: A mixture of James Boags and James Squires - crisp but definitely aley
Better than: lower shelf
Worse than: Anything foreign... well that's not true, anything imported that i have tried from mainland Europe.

Thoughts?

Tom

We have the technology, we can make him stronger, faster - The tale of Uberbrau

G'day boys and girls.

For those of you who don't know me I am one of the founders of HeBrew, the name's Tom.

For a few months now we have been brewing beer. It started with one vat. Then expanded to three, then to four. We now have seven Vat's going at the one time.

While you probably already knew that I wanted to set the scene.

Now I will tell you about our first real forray into experimentation - Uberbrau.

Uberbrau was about our 7th or so Batch. We had been reading online that you could make your beer stronger by adding extra sugar. Apparently each Kilo of sugar extra equals about another 2-2.5% alcohol. This sounded pretty damn awesome to us seeing as we would get extra bang for our buck.

Our first (and not last attempt) is Uberbrau which has just come to fruition in the last week or so.

We used the cheapest kit (Wander Munich Lager for $4) we could find and table sugar (2kg) for this and some Brewers Choice European Lager yeast.

While brewing we kept the vat at a stable 16-23 degrees centigrade (which turned out to be a mistake - see [future post on mistakes and successes]).

Drinking - This beer turned out OK. Drinkable (which isn't to say especially good), but with a slight banana flavour which detracts somewhat. Fairly bitter but full bodied with a good ale colour and with good head retention. This beer wasn't polished but...

It is strong! After just 2 I could definitely feel it, after 8 I was singing on the bus home (sorry commuters).

The plus side - It works and doesn't seem to detract from the taste.
- We learned something about Lager yeast - keep it below 14 degrees (10 for preference) to stop it tasting like bananas. Other beers we have had which we have kept under 10 degrees are now in bottle but prelim testing shows that they do not have this defect.
- Table sugar works but malt and dextrose/malt mixes don't have the same raw/bitter after taste that sugar does. We will soon be testing beers with Malt and extra table sugar, figuring that the malt will round out the tast while the sugar can provide the oomph we are looking for. Stay tuned for results.

Conclusions - A satisfying result. Drinkable but not sip worthy so we can just piss it up against the wall and give it to friends. A good forray into the realm of stronger beers.

The Same As - Probably rates about the same level as Carlton Draught in pure drinkability, maybe a little higher given that there is no chemical after taste.
Not As Good As - I think I would prefer to drink Reches or, definitely something like James Squires.
Better Than - VB, New, Toohey's extra dry; while it is a little raw it certainly doesn't have the sewage taste that is found in these garden variety commercial beers, and for 1/5 the price and +2% alchohol it is a much better buy.

Tom

Welcome

Here's a blog about my housemates and I brewing huge amounts of beer. We're terrible and don't really know what we're doing but we're making a lot of great beer so we've decided to share what we're up to.

Here's what we've got brewing at the moment:

• 3x Wander Munich Lager + Coopers Brew Enhancer #1 + European lager yeast
• Wander Draught + Coopers Brew Enhancer #1 + Ale yeast
• Brewcraft Blonde Pilsner + Bag of sugers the homebrew-shop-guy gave us + European lager yeast
• Irish Stout + 1kg Dark Malt Extract + Ale yeast
• Irish Cream + 1kg Light Malt Extract + Ale yeast

Stay tuned for more tales of brewing.