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