Image source: ForDummies

How remiss of me. All this time blogging without a guide to getting into homebrewing. It is far too easy to get bogged down in detail. Homebrewing should be easy. Seriously.

The most simplified, bogan-proof method of bucket and spoon production will still make great beer, very cheaply, as long as you follow the correct procedure.

There is a lot of information out there on the web, on commercial sites and homebrew forums. In my opinion, Ausiehomebrewer is by far the best site, with a great section for beginners.

But be wary, as a novice it can be hard to distinguish the basic, essential lessons you need from their beer boffin hair spitting arguments. Hopefully I can set you straight.

I promised bogan proof. Here goes:

Buy an $80 homebrew kit It has EVERYTHING you need to make good beer. It comes with the raw ingredients for pale ale. Available on line or at Big W.

Buy $6.50 bottle of Idosolphor . Available online or at homebrew stores. This is to sterilize your equipment. It is magic stuff. There is no need to rinse the solution off before brewig and bottling and I cannot tell you how much easier it is than the stuff you need to wash off.

Failing to sterilize your equipment means your yeast is going to have to fight off all the resident bacteria lurking about. Yeast produces alcohol, make its life easy. A hard life leads to weird plastic band-aid flavours.

Following the idosolphor instructions, rinse your fermenting bucket and spoon. Tip you can of concentrated beer, 20 litres of tap water and the brewing sugar provided in the kit into the bucket, stir it around till dissolved (5 minutes work).

Tip in the sachet of yeast, fit the lid/airlock and keep in your bedroom to ferment at an even temperature. This means the yeast doesn’t get hot and cold extremes to deal with, which can produce funky flavours in the beer. And your bedroom will smell like beer.

The water filled airlock will bubble away, releasing pressure created by the fermenting beer. After 5 days or so, the bubbling will stop.

Repeat the idosolphor treatment on the bottles that come with the kit. There is a tap at the bottom of the fermenting bucket to use for bottling.

Once the beer is bottled away, you put the ‘carbonation drop’ in each bottle and tighten the lid. All this does is initiate a small, secondary fermentation which traps fizzy bubbles in the beer for when you come to drink it, when it is ready in two weeks time.

Drink beer.

Strangely, the premium beer market is defying this trend. Sales for the ‘fancies’ have risen at 10% for the last five years and now account for 12 % of the market.

Just like wine, there is a growing appreciation for beer in Australia. People are interested in flavour as well as an alcohol delivery system. Testimony to this, brew-on-premises businesses have cropped up around the country over the last couple of years. One franchise has 19 locations.

Here’s how it works. You rock up, they have all the gear and ingredients, you mix the malt/hops/water/yeast and they make sure the beer doesn’t get too hot or cold when the beer ferments. You come back in 2 to 6 weeks and bottle the beer.

By getting the customer involved in the brewing process the excise tax is reduced, as the ATO classes the beer you make as non-commercial. So the bottomline: $20 for a case of 24 stubbies, with a minimum 6 case purchase.

The ingredients used are the same as the most basic homebrewer would use. I’ve tried the beer from The Brewers Den in Mona Vale, made by some tipsy relatives on a bucks day outing. I would rate it a cut above the VB/XXXX/New standard.

But deadest, if you’re going to bother to go and pay someone to help brew your beer, why not just spend a little to start your own homebrew operation?

Which leads me to the next installment….

PET homebrew bottles courtesy of Kwaree.com

Using plastic soft drink bottles for homebrewing is much easier and cheaper than glass. No bottlecaps, no scrounging recycling bins for longnecks. They are cheap, even when filled with fizzy drink supermarkets sell 1.5 litre bottles for 70 cents.

But this doesn’t sound so flash….

A toxic chemical used in plastic drink bottles, Bisephon A (BPA) has been in the news recently. BPA has been linked to neural development in foetuses, obesity, thyroid malfunction, breast and prostate cancer.

It was originally developed as a synthetic sex hormone to mimic oestrogen.

It is accepted fact that chemicals leach into food and drink in minute amounts from their containers. The industry watchdog Food Standards Australia and New Zealand has declared BPA safe, saying the dosage consumed is too low to pose a risk.

Some experts disagree, saying that BPA is consumed at a higher rate than previous testing has shown. What makes me feel a little better is that scientists seem to agree that when very hot liquid hits a PET bottle the most chemicals are leached, not from reuse.

But I still can’t find any info on alcohol and BPA. The standard homebrewing fermentors are made from type 7 plastic, which contain the chemical.

Does alcohol release BPA into the beer? I bloody hope not. I don’t want prostate cancer, and I really don’t want to go back to raiding the neighbours recycling on bin night for dirty longneck bottles.

The internet has thousands of instructional websites and videos. Online forums are full of dedicated members who actively assist each other, building the knowledge base. The web has made homebrewing easy. Any potential problem, no matter how specific, will be explianed by a forum, several instructional videos and maybe a blog posting or two.

Previously, homebrewers had to join a club or if they were lucky seek the help of their local homebrew shop to hear answers. It was a lot harder before homebrewers took to the web. In Sydney, for example, there are half a dozen homebrew stores and only two of them are actually helpful to novices.

No homebrew blog could fail to mention to the influence of the homebrewing sites. Their chief benefit is to keep people brewing who would have once turned away after their first batch ended up tasting like mould.

This is a good thing. To be sure, homebrewers with their appreciation of diverslty, quality and natural ingredients are influencing beer culture. Especially in Australia, as we move away from a market of homogenous products to a varied range of small craft breweries and mass produced beers that are marketed as ‘all natural.’

In the Sydney CBD I can count on one hand the pubs that serve Old. The Equilibrium hotel, with 64 beer taps does not serve even one dark beer. Perhaps publicans remove it from their range to meet a preconceived notion of consumer tastes.

Tooheys Old is my favourite mass produced beer. It’s earthy, uncomplicated and unrefined. Like comfort food. Except better. Because it’s beer.

I rate it over all those identical lagers – VB, Fourex, New etc etc. I like it more than the more expensive “fancies” – James Squires ales, Tasmania’s premium lagers or Coopers’ unique yeasty brews. Tooheys Old is a balanced beer, not too heavy to dink in mild weather, like stout and not too light to pair with flavourful food, like many lagers.

At 4.4% alcohol with a modest level of hop bittering Old is an easy drinking session beer. So it’s not overpowering like a stout. However, its dark malt flavour gives a depth of flavour which is a perfect accompaniment to robust dishes like casseroles, roasted meats, chocolate, sourdough bread and sausages.

Old is a time honoured recipe. Dark roasted malt, gives a toasty smoked flavour while adding a touch of bitterness, which is balanced by the rounded, sweeter profile of chocolate malt.

Old has been brewed in Sydney since 1872, when it was the sole product of the brewery and simply called ‘Tooheys’ beer. Over time, Old became known as Hunter Ale, due to its popularity on the coalfields.

It is too warm to brew lagers in Sydney, but the invention of commercial refrigeration changed that. In the 1930’s Tooheys launched their lager, calling it their ‘New’ beer, while their original recipe became known as Tooheys Old.

Here’s a rant against low-carb beer.

VB Raw, a new offshoot of the VB brand has been launched. As you can see if you clicked the link, they are chasing the young and trendy market of beer drinkers with a flash website and sleek logo.

The beer itself tastes identical to Pure Blonde and the raft of other low-carb beers recently on the market. It’s no revelation. Drink it if you like, but I still view this as the beer you choose if you don’t really like beer. Raw tastes like a low alcohol beer with a refreshing clean taste.

The crisp palette comes from using a combination of hops for bittering and flavour, which essentially hides the lack of malt flavour. You need to reduce the amount of malt if you’re making low-beer, because malt carries kilojoules.

Problem is, subtracting this key ingredient from beer is evil. You see, making a beer low-carb beer means you end up with hops, water, a bottle and not much else. Except alcohol. So low-carb beers, obviously not drunk to savour the flavour, are a merely a means to an end. An alcohol delivery system.

Is this why Carlton & United are targeting the youth market? The most impulsive, image conscious consumers with a proven taste for excessive consumption.

And low-carb beer doesn’t deliver a beneficial reduction on kilojoules-per serving, unless you consume an excessive amount. These news pieces, here and here, quote credible sources on the topic.

So drink responsibly. Champion flavour and skilful production, just like we do with wine. And forget the low-carb crap.

Why are books about beer so boring? I might be slightly biased, but I don’t believe it’s the subject matter.

These book come in two categories: guidebooks to breweries in a certain area or a catalogue of various beers – Three Hundred Beers to Try Before You Die – that sort of thing.

They are, almost without exception, the same. Australia’s most prominent beer writer, Willie Simpson, has a new guidebook on the craft breweries in Australia. It too is duller than Weetbix with water.

And yet this is far and away the best Aussie beer book to date. It has a few stories on how the breweries got their names, a little history on a few breweries and some basic explanation of various beer styles. This news story gives has a good description.

The reviews have been favourable. However, Simpson’s book reads as though he has compiled a press release from each brewery and pasted them, two to a page, alongside a photo of beer paraphernalia.

In terms of value for money, it doesn’t rate. Why fork out fifty bucks for a book that tells you nothing more than the breweries website, with inevitable blurb extolling the virtues of it’s hand-crafted all natural full flavoured blah… ?

There’s not much candour here. I wish all the breweries were as good as he says!

For mine, the benchmark is still Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion. Independent (and extensive) research shines through. Able to find fault, which is much more engaging to read than “this is a great beer” page after page.

The Fermentor was recently in Far North Queensland, sweating it out in 27 degree mid winter heat. Watching cane trains rattle into the Townsville docks – cold jugs of lager dissappearing effortlessly, is a great way to convince yourself that cane sugar a great ingredient in beer.

These newly released beers have all received rave reviews:

Moo Brew Imperial Stout Crown Lager Ambassador Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale Little Creatures Pale Ale

None of them use cane sugar. Beer is alot cheaper to make if you substitute the traditional barley malt with some inexspenive cane sugar.

Beer has ‘thinner’ mouthfeel if brewed with a bit of cane sugar. This pure sugar almost disappears when the yeast has finished eating.

Malt, on the other hand, is not pure sugar. Residual malt is left in the beer, adding a rich flavour and texture. German lagers are a perfect example of the all-malt lagers.

VB, Fourex, Tooheys New are all the bloody same. But when it’s hot? You want a beer that slides down easily and is refreshing. German lagers, like their food, can sit a bit too heavy in the stomach for summer down under.

Hahn, along with many others, claims that lighter bodied beers, which result from the use of cane sugar, are more drinkable and suited to hot climates.

I really don’t care myself. Beer is beer I reckon. If it tastes good it is good. Belgium, or “the Disneyland of beer” as homebrew guru Charlie Papazian calls it, has used all manner of sugars and adjuncts for years. And everyone seems to agree they make a pretty good fist of the brewing caper. The Chimay pictured below is brewed using candy sugar and the Hoegaarden uses coriander seeds and orange peel.

My two cents worth – I reckon the debate is fuelled by pedants who have learnt about the German Purity law, or Reinheitsgebot and mistakenly assume the law was created to ensure quality beer. The stipulations are that beer can contain only barley, hops, water.

The law was actually set to ensure a supply of wheat to make bread available at a reasonable price. Wheat supplies were in huge demand from brewers of the popular wheat beers. Tooheys Old is pretty decent mass produced beer in my opinion, and it uses 20% cane sugar but manages to keep a nutty, roasty flavour.

The business almost went under in the ‘70s, but was turned around when they branched out with products for the undeveloped homebrew market.

My Grandad loved beer and he was a passionate tightarse. During his retirement in the ‘80s he was able to combine his twin loves when Coopers released their malt concentrate cans.

Making your beer was cheap as chips, and if you drank enough of it you actually saved money. Quality control was low on the agenda. Merely making a potable, intoxicating brew which survived the hot weather was hard enough back in those days.

I can recall hearing my Grandad curse bitterly as whole garage-loads of his beer exploded during the summer months.On a real scorcher one summer, about age seven, I watched with awe what appeared to be a surprise Lilliputian missile raid hit his lawn, as puffs of dust exploded with a dull thud randomly across the backyard.

The spontaneous attack actually turned out, somewhat disappointingly, to be Grandad’s experimental extra-strong recipe taking a turn for the worse. He had buried it in frustration to escape the heat after his last garage load was lost to yet another round of shattered glass.