28 Pale Ale from Burleigh Brewing
Hawthorn Bewing Co Pale Ale
So, everyone loves a pale ale round here then?
Pale Ale is my fave style but I was really disappointed with many of the ones I tried when back home last month. Little Creatures and Stone & Wood are mainstays, but so many have no body, just thin and watery. Try Wolf of the Willows XPA, thatās a pretty new, quality local drop.
Love my Pales Ales.
In order:
Stone N Wood
Hawthorn
Burleigh Brewing
Little Creatures
Coopers
Stone N Wood and Coopers are only ones iāll really drink it really hot weather.
Anyone getting stuck in to Kooinda?
the APA is amazeballs.
Yes. Thatās pretty good. Used to get it free with every haircut at some hipster joint in thornbury.
Anyone have any thoughts on the Aldi beers? St Ettiene and Storm?
Their Pilsener was pretty good, havenāt drink it in a few years though. I donāt think they sell it cold, which is kind of annoying, and aldi in Qld donāt sell booze. Whatās up with that?
Anyone getting stuck in to Kooinda?the APA is amazeballs.
I really like the Black IPA, Full Nelson is it called?
Anyone getting stuck in to Kooinda?the APA is amazeballs.
x1000
Iām dirt poor at the moment so canāt afford anything other than my home brew. Itās been over 18 months since Iāve had a Kooinda. Would love to try a few again to help me see if I can brew a clone.
Ā
I'd avoid high ABV such as that RIS until you had fermentation temperature control - a fridge with digital thermostat. Big ABV + high fermentation temps = awful beer, headaches, etc, etc...
Thanks, you are the 2nd person to tell me to watch out for temperature control when brewing a high alcohol content beer. I'll have to have a think about it while I perfect the basic stout home brew.Ā
Ā
Really can't stress it enough, indeed, for all beer. My beer was hit and miss, then one day i scored a free brew fridge off a mate of fellow blitzer Fents and my beer improved 10 fold.
The two most important factors are cleanliness and yeast management, and the most important aspect of yeast management is temperature control. Most people that thinks keeping the yeast warm, but it's not. Warm yeast throw off more methanol, butanol, propanol, etc - the stuff that gives you headaches (and if you want to get into distilling (illegal!!) makes you go blind).Ā
Look around on gumtree you can find fridges cheap/free. Then a $30 digital thermostat and you're set. It's an investment though.
Ā
In the absence of a fridge, I used to put my fermenter in the laundry sink and i'd swap in some ice bottles morning/night, cover it with damp towels, etc. Nowhere near as good/flexible as a controllable fridge, but even that simple thing made a massive difference in beer quality.
Ā
I know of other brewers who wrap ice bottles and what not up in an old doonah, sleeping bag, etc. Heaps of options when starting out...
Ā
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions
Zebba,
Hopefully this doesnāt come across as too dumb of a question, but does this rule apply to high temperature ale yeasts? E.g. Saison yeast with a range up to 32 degrees? (I used Mangrove Jacks Belgian ale yeast). Obviously they need a high temp, but it was not a controlled temp, so there was daily variation. Although it did stay within the 26-32 degree range for the duration of fermentation (at least according to my sticker thermometer).
Iām curious as to why a brew of mine turned out ā ā ā ā ā , but there are plenty of other reasons why it might have:
*Sorghum liquid malt extract
*3 kilograms of CSR white sugar
*~ 11% abv
It could be anyone of those things, or a combination. I last tasted it at five weeks in the bottle and couldnāt take more than a few sips before pouring it down the sink. Iām going to try it again after about five months and hopefully something magical has occurred in that time.
This is the first time I have tried sorghum, so maybe I just donāt like the taste, this is the first time I have tried white sugar, maybe that imparts a taste I donāt like; and at 11% maybe the beer taste is being overwhelmed by the ethanol taste.
Anyone getting stuck in to Kooinda?the APA is amazeballs.
x1000
Iām dirt poor at the moment so canāt afford anything other than my home brew. Itās been over 18 months since Iāve had a Kooinda. Would love to try a few again to help me see if I can brew a clone.
They open up their brewery in Heidelberg Heights every Friday evening with 10 buck jugs which is great value.
I go once a month. Take the kids who play jenga and table tennis.
MrJez they have the full Nelson and Half Nelson. Delicious.
28 Pale Ale from Burleigh Brewing
In Burleigh ATM and going to that brewery on Friday night long way from Tassie but loving it up here.
Love my Pales Ales.In order:
Stone N Wood
Hawthorn
Burleigh Brewing
Little Creatures
CoopersStone N Wood and Coopers are only ones iāll really drink it really hot weather.
Yep had a few Stone Woods in Melb loved it big fan of the Matilda Bay beers as well Fat Yak is my beer now
28 Pale Ale from Burleigh BrewingIn Burleigh ATM and going to that brewery on Friday night long way from Tassie but loving it up here.
mmmm German Sausages and fresh beer.
Iāll be there too.
Firstly to your question, I've brewed once with the Belgian Saison yeast from wyeast which is notorious for needing high temperatures or it will fall asleep and stop fermenting. I wrapped the fermenter in a doonah with just the top exposed (I cover with gladwrap) and put a heat pad on the side (don't put on the bottom). I then adjusted the positioning of the heatpad over the next day or so (by exposing more or less to the inside of the doonah) to keep a relatively constant 26-27 degrees.Ā
I'd avoid high ABV such as that RIS until you had fermentation temperature control - a fridge with digital thermostat. Big ABV + high fermentation temps = awful beer, headaches, etc, etc...
Thanks, you are the 2nd person to tell me to watch out for temperature control when brewing a high alcohol content beer. I'll have to have a think about it while I perfect the basic stout home brew.Ā
Ā
Really can't stress it enough, indeed, for all beer. My beer was hit and miss, then one day i scored a free brew fridge off a mate of fellow blitzer Fents and my beer improved 10 fold.
The two most important factors are cleanliness and yeast management, and the most important aspect of yeast management is temperature control. Most people that thinks keeping the yeast warm, but it's not. Warm yeast throw off more methanol, butanol, propanol, etc - the stuff that gives you headaches (and if you want to get into distilling (illegal!!) makes you go blind).Ā
Look around on gumtree you can find fridges cheap/free. Then a $30 digital thermostat and you're set. It's an investment though.
Ā
In the absence of a fridge, I used to put my fermenter in the laundry sink and i'd swap in some ice bottles morning/night, cover it with damp towels, etc. Nowhere near as good/flexible as a controllable fridge, but even that simple thing made a massive difference in beer quality.
Ā
I know of other brewers who wrap ice bottles and what not up in an old doonah, sleeping bag, etc. Heaps of options when starting out...
Ā
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions
Zebba,
Hopefully this doesnāt come across as too dumb of a question, but does this rule apply to high temperature ale yeasts? E.g. Saison yeast with a range up to 32 degrees? (I used Mangrove Jacks Belgian ale yeast). Obviously they need a high temp, but it was not a controlled temp, so there was daily variation. Although it did stay within the 26-32 degree range for the duration of fermentation (at least according to my sticker thermometer).
Iām curious as to why a brew of mine turned out ā ā ā ā ā , but there are plenty of other reasons why it might have:
*Sorghum liquid malt extract
*3 kilograms of CSR white sugar
*~ 11% abvIt could be anyone of those things, or a combination. I last tasted it at five weeks in the bottle and couldnāt take more than a few sips before pouring it down the sink. Iām going to try it again after about five months and hopefully something magical has occurred in that time.
This is the first time I have tried sorghum, so maybe I just donāt like the taste, this is the first time I have tried white sugar, maybe that imparts a taste I donāt like; and at 11% maybe the beer taste is being overwhelmed by the ethanol taste.
Itās a notoriously slow yeast but I was letting it go about 3 weeks and drawing samples and it was going nicely and I was almost ready to keg it. Then my kids found it and had a bit of a splash. Que seraā¦ Itās now in a keg with some lambic yeasts to see if it can be salavaged in any way. Been there a few years nowā¦ I should check it one dayā¦
So yeah, SOME yeasts like high temps. But only some. Some saison yeasts you want warm but even most Belgian styles I wouldnāt generally go over 22. Just because the yeast says it can operate at 32 doesnāt make it a good idea. And the higher the ABV the lower temperature you want to go.
But seriously that recipe? Youāre making rocket fuel. It was never going to turn out nice. White sugar will really just give you ABV. Itās not going to give nice flavour. And at those quantities, itās just going to give you cidery flavour and massive headaches. Although Iām just going on anecdotes Iāve heard/read, Iāve never tried a recipe like that before myself!
Unless you have your yeast and temperature management down to a freaking tee, and you are doing all grain brewing with some control over your final gravity, avoid going that high on the ABV. If you really must go high ABV but donāt have the time to go all-grain, then I suggest doing something I tried once with very good success:
- Brew a good beer in the 6-7% range. Donāt go too heavy on the hopping or bitterness. I brewed an english bitter using 1968 yeast, golden promise grain and challenger hops.
- Put it into a plastic container of some sort with a tap on it
- Put it in the freezer
- Leave it a couple days, giving it a shake every once in a while. You want it to turn into a nice thick slurpy
- Pull it out, and slowly pour some boiling water over the tap to defrost it
- Drain off the unfrozen stuff - that is your high ABV beer
- Let the rest defrost, give it a try and potentially bottle it too. That can be a quaffer.
This is called fractional distilling and to the best of my knowledge itās not illegalā¦ Donāt ask me to front up to court as an expert witness though! 
I ended up with about a dozen bottles of 11% (tested using refractometer and hydrometer) strong ale which was freaking delicious. Like seriously, arguably my best beer ever. The rest made a very nice mid strength beer.
Youāll need to add a little yeast to each bottle though with the sugar for carbonation. Some yeast will make it through but it will be a crapshoot.
Other high ABV beers Iāve done Iāve never added more than a kilo of sugar, and that was a mix of jaggery and white sugar. (Jaggery adds a nice creaminess to the beer and some great caramel notes, just donāt go too over the top as it can overpower in a big way). IMO, unless you are doing all-grain brewing where you can control the fermentability of your wort with appropriate mash temperatures and procedures, you shouldnāt be going higher than 7 or so % ABV. Higher and I found in my limited experiences with extracts it was either too full bodied or headache inducing.
Feel free to ask more here or PM me. Although if youāre using Sorghum Iām thinking you might be celiac, in which case I have no knowledge at all about gluten free brewing or gluten free beer in general.
Firstly to your question, I've brewed once with the Belgian Saison yeast from wyeast which is notorious for needing high temperatures or it will fall asleep and stop fermenting. I wrapped the fermenter in a doonah with just the top exposed (I cover with gladwrap) and put a heat pad on the side (don't put on the bottom). I then adjusted the positioning of the heatpad over the next day or so (by exposing more or less to the inside of the doonah) to keep a relatively constant 26-27 degrees.Ā
I'd avoid high ABV such as that RIS until you had fermentation temperature control - a fridge with digital thermostat. Big ABV + high fermentation temps = awful beer, headaches, etc, etc...
Thanks, you are the 2nd person to tell me to watch out for temperature control when brewing a high alcohol content beer. I'll have to have a think about it while I perfect the basic stout home brew.Ā
Ā
Really can't stress it enough, indeed, for all beer. My beer was hit and miss, then one day i scored a free brew fridge off a mate of fellow blitzer Fents and my beer improved 10 fold.
The two most important factors are cleanliness and yeast management, and the most important aspect of yeast management is temperature control. Most people that thinks keeping the yeast warm, but it's not. Warm yeast throw off more methanol, butanol, propanol, etc - the stuff that gives you headaches (and if you want to get into distilling (illegal!!) makes you go blind).Ā
Look around on gumtree you can find fridges cheap/free. Then a $30 digital thermostat and you're set. It's an investment though.
Ā
In the absence of a fridge, I used to put my fermenter in the laundry sink and i'd swap in some ice bottles morning/night, cover it with damp towels, etc. Nowhere near as good/flexible as a controllable fridge, but even that simple thing made a massive difference in beer quality.
Ā
I know of other brewers who wrap ice bottles and what not up in an old doonah, sleeping bag, etc. Heaps of options when starting out...
Ā
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions
Zebba,
Hopefully this doesnāt come across as too dumb of a question, but does this rule apply to high temperature ale yeasts? E.g. Saison yeast with a range up to 32 degrees? (I used Mangrove Jacks Belgian ale yeast). Obviously they need a high temp, but it was not a controlled temp, so there was daily variation. Although it did stay within the 26-32 degree range for the duration of fermentation (at least according to my sticker thermometer).
Iām curious as to why a brew of mine turned out ā ā ā ā ā , but there are plenty of other reasons why it might have:
*Sorghum liquid malt extract
*3 kilograms of CSR white sugar
*~ 11% abvIt could be anyone of those things, or a combination. I last tasted it at five weeks in the bottle and couldnāt take more than a few sips before pouring it down the sink. Iām going to try it again after about five months and hopefully something magical has occurred in that time.
This is the first time I have tried sorghum, so maybe I just donāt like the taste, this is the first time I have tried white sugar, maybe that imparts a taste I donāt like; and at 11% maybe the beer taste is being overwhelmed by the ethanol taste.
Itās a notoriously slow yeast but I was letting it go about 3 weeks and drawing samples and it was going nicely and I was almost ready to keg it. Then my kids found it and had a bit of a splash. Que seraā¦ Itās now in a keg with some lambic yeasts to see if it can be salavaged in any way. Been there a few years nowā¦ I should check it one dayā¦
So yeah, SOME yeasts like high temps. But only some. Some saison yeasts you want warm but even most Belgian styles I wouldnāt generally go over 22. Just because the yeast says it can operate at 32 doesnāt make it a good idea. And the higher the ABV the lower temperature you want to go.
But seriously that recipe? Youāre making rocket fuel. It was never going to turn out nice. White sugar will really just give you ABV. Itās not going to give nice flavour. And at those quantities, itās just going to give you cidery flavour and massive headaches. Although Iām just going on anecdotes Iāve heard/read, Iāve never tried a recipe like that before myself!
Unless you have your yeast and temperature management down to a freaking tee, and you are doing all grain brewing with some control over your final gravity, avoid going that high on the ABV. If you really must go high ABV but donāt have the time to go all-grain, then I suggest doing something I tried once with very good success:
- Brew a good beer in the 6-7% range. Donāt go too heavy on the hopping or bitterness. I brewed an english bitter using 1968 yeast, golden promise grain and challenger hops.
- Put it into a plastic container of some sort with a tap on it
- Put it in the freezer
- Leave it a couple days, giving it a shake every once in a while. You want it to turn into a nice thick slurpy
- Pull it out, and slowly pour some boiling water over the tap to defrost it
- Drain off the unfrozen stuff - that is your high ABV beer
- Let the rest defrost, give it a try and potentially bottle it too. That can be a quaffer.
This is called fractional distilling and to the best of my knowledge itās not illegalā¦ Donāt ask me to front up to court as an expert witness though!
I ended up with about a dozen bottles of 11% (tested using refractometer and hydrometer) strong ale which was freaking delicious. Like seriously, arguably my best beer ever. The rest made a very nice mid strength beer.
Youāll need to add a little yeast to each bottle though with the sugar for carbonation. Some yeast will make it through but it will be a crapshoot.
Other high ABV beers Iāve done Iāve never added more than a kilo of sugar, and that was a mix of jaggery and white sugar. (Jaggery adds a nice creaminess to the beer and some great caramel notes, just donāt go too over the top as it can overpower in a big way). IMO, unless you are doing all-grain brewing where you can control the fermentability of your wort with appropriate mash temperatures and procedures, you shouldnāt be going higher than 7 or so % ABV. Higher and I found in my limited experiences with extracts it was either too full bodied or headache inducing.
Feel free to ask more here or PM me. Although if youāre using Sorghum Iām thinking you might be celiac, in which case I have no knowledge at all about gluten free brewing or gluten free beer in general.
Strewth, many thanks for the quality and amount of info Zebba.
Iām not a coeliac myself, was doing it for a friend and also because I like to experiment. Yes it turned out to be rocket fuel, not beer.
On the saison yeast, Iāve used it a few times over the last few months in Brisbane. Iāve read a few stories about stuck fermentation and taking 3-4 weeks, but itās gone through pretty quickly for me (Iāve checked with a hydrometer). But as you say, the lower temperatures will generally make a better beer, even with a high temp tolerant yeast.
I think I was encouraged by the ācan be used to brew beers up to 14% abvā on the yeast packet. But as you say, ācanā doesnāt necessarily mean āitās a good idea toā.
In addition to the sorghum, I did a wheat beer, an Amber Ale with some Rye, a Pale Ale and an India Pale Ale with with the Mangrove Jackās M27. All turned out good, but no extra sugar added to those! All were two cans of LME up to 30 litres. Saison not a yeast of choice, but of climatic necessity/saving time giving it an ice bath every day. Iāll happily use it again next summer, but perhaps reduce the number of beers I āneedā to brew over the summer.
Would love to know how your spoilt (and possibly saved) batch has turned out! Youāve got an excuse to try it now.
And the higher the ABV the lower temperature you want to go.
Thanks - this is an āah haā moment for me. I tried (drinking not brewing) an eisbock once and fell in love with it, but it didnāt occur to me that bock being a lager, as opposed to an ale might have something to do with a high alcohol beer tasting good, as opposed to what I came up with.
Might give the eisbock fractional method a go sometime. Sounds more than promising.
Thanks Westing Wuckman.
I know of at least one competition winning brewer in Qld who uses a sleeping bag and ice bottles for temperature control. You donāt have to spend money for quality
The whole point of temperature is in controlling ester production. Esters are what produce that āaleā flavour, vs the lager flavour. Higher temperatures mean more ester production. You need to know the yeast and know what you want to produce in order to get the beer you want.
My favourite yeast, Wyest 1968 ESB, is a perfect example. Go too low and it will fall asleep. 18 degrees you get a nice minerally flavour to your beer with just a mild fruitiness. 20 degrees it getās very fruity but you lose that mineral refreshment - still a great beer, but very different. 22 it starts throwing bananas and IMO becomes tippable. Itās a fine line. Meanwhile, something like Safale US-05 will give you a clean dry psuedo-lager @ 15 degrees and a clean dry only-slightly-less-psuedo-lager beer @ 22 degrees - itās a very popular beginner yeast for psuedo-lager or hoppy ales.
I have no knowledge of the Mangrove Jack range. I used to use the SAFLAGER and SAFALE range of yeasts. Now I use nothing but wyeast smack packs.
If using the eisbock method, just remember it concentrates EVERYTHING. Colour, body, bitterness, ABV - all of it is concentrated. And any flaws in the beer will be concentrated as well.
28 Pale Ale from Burleigh BrewingIn Burleigh ATM and going to that brewery on Friday night long way from Tassie but loving it up here.
mmmm German Sausages and fresh beer.
Iāll be there too.
actually scratch that, itās mainly outdoors and the heavens will be opening up.