How much is that in beer?

My fellow beer bloggers in North America are possibly more aware of this following situation than I am and I would appreciate any assistance with further information on this one. We have a problem. And the problem is Starbuck’s.

No real surprise there, but there’s more.

Australia is a fairly dry country, and I don’t mean that we don’t drink, I mean that we don’t tend to get a nice generous and widespread rainfall consistently. We are not referred to as the ‘wide brown land’ because of our suntans. And at the moment the continent is suffering one of its worst and longest droughts.

In homes and businesses and farms across the country people are being asked, encouraged or forced to save water wherever they can. Water authorities are giving householders free timers to encourage three minute showers, gardens can not be watered except at certain times on certain days and cars can only be washed at commercial carwash places with recycling facilities. We are all making sacrifices, because we can’t drink dirt. We are all doing our bit.

Well, except for Starbucks.

You see Starbucks has not yet found its way into the 21st century and does not realise that there is a simple and effective way to clean teaspoons. It’s called soap and warm water and it is simply all the rage out these parts. Starbucks has a better method which involves leaving teaspoons and thermometers in a thing called a ‘dipper well’ which utilises constantly running fresh drinking water to achieve a bacteria free environment. Now I should point out at this point that I have made it a personal choice (crusade) to never ever have a coffee from a Starbucks but I have made a few coffees in restaurants in my time so I feel qualified to comment.

I have no problem with people buying coffee from Starbucks or from any of the many other corporate coffee houses – I just prefer a better cuppa from a place that cares more about quality than quantity. In Melbourne especially we are spoiled for very good coffee places serving great stuff at a much more reasonable price than that slugged with a straight face by the ‘plastic coffee’ people.

And to put it all into a real perspective, here are some interesting figures. The estimated volume of wasted water in just ONE Starbucks is 3 to 5 litres per minute. That works out to around 35,000 litres a day, or one million litres per year. Per store. There are currently 23 Starbucks in Australia. Fortunately for our environment, 16 closed down earlier this year. Probably had no water left to make coffee with. But that adds up to 23,000,000 litres of water each year that goes down the gurgler.

And now to my real point. 23 million litres of water equals a shit load of beer. It takes Fosters around 2.3 litres of water to make one litre of beer. That includes washing the lines and the kettles and the bottles as well as the water in the beer itself. Some brewers use up to 4 litres of water to make a litre of beer and most breweries are using new recycling practices to reduce consumption. But let’s use three as a median measure for the purposes of the exercise. 3 litres to make one litre of beer.

That’s 23,232,232 330m bottles of beer that Starbucks are allowing to flow, not into the mouths of thirsty beer lovers but down the pipe and out to sea. For shame, for shame.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

Why is beer like life?

I was pondering nothing in particular the other day when some erratic thoughts began circulating around the old think box. I know I like beer; drinking it, writing about it, sharing knowledge about it, brewing it, talking with mates about it, pouring it, serving it, choosing and paying for it and even just thinking about it. But what is it about the amber nectar that can generate such esoteric musings? Or generate words like esoteric? Or musings?

Perhaps part of the answer lies in the fact that we sometimes associate beer with thoughts of our forefathers and this leads to a kind of subconscious patriotism. This is probably relevant to Australians as our history is short enough for us to be able to remember all the good bits and because we have a history relatively unblemished by civil unrest or lunatic religious disagreements. We are the fortunate sons of men and women who came or were sent to this land in order to begin anew and not the bastard offspring of warring tribes or God bothering, silly helmet wearing Imperialist snail eaters or goat throwers. Well, that’s my take on it, anyway. Read your history books for more accurate information or visit your local library.

Our thoughts sway between a safe and comforting knowledge that our beer reflects our country’s ideals – egalitarianism*, a fair go and the right to support Collingwood or Manly or the Maroons if you must and an admiration for those folk who forged this great nation under testing and trying conditions. When we raise a glass, we ‘dips our lids’ to the pioneers and the trendsetters and the adventurers and the dreamers who shook their heads at the inequities and injustices in their homelands and said ‘Get Stuffed’ to the bullyboys and political retreads and social engineers of the day and pulled up stumps for an unknown and uncertain future in a country on the bottom of the globe. Good work all of you. Glad you chose the wide brown land. I’ll raise a glass to you.

Our beer delight is also tied into our culture in ways that I don’t think some foreigners understand. Our brewing forefathers had to overcome severe difficulties just to make a drinkable beer. Lack of suitable ingredients, inhospitable climate with no refrigeration and a First Fleet comprising dozens of useless tradespeople but no one who could breed stock or grow crops like barley or hops has led us to think fondly of our ancestors. We should have become more appreciative of the diversity and overall quality of the beer we drink today. And we can be thankful for the fact that we can enjoy beers from all over the country and not be restricted to just local or regional specialties.

And, at its very essence, is this final point. Beer bonds in ways that wine and lolly water cannot. Since the halcyon days of the outback shearer who strode boldly up to the bar in a dusty country pub, slammed his pay cheque down and announced; “Who wants a beer?”, the worth of a man and the respect that his fellows have for him, is linked to the shout. The underlying principle that you are worthy of sharing a beer with. The shout, or the ‘School’ is at the very core of our national beer identity. Its conventions and obligations are bounding and unbreakable, its value incalculable and its ability to overcome all obstacles.

My beer, your beer, our beer. “Beerum, Beeres, Beerest.”

I think the shout just ordered itself another post of its own.

Cheers,

Prof. Pilsner

*Egalitarianism - Another big word which really just means everyone is essentially equal and equally worthy of sharing a beer with. We are all the same wether we are a Bruce or a Bertram, a Shags or a Sharon, a Papadopoulos or a Prentice-Hall. It is also accepted that, while we all start out equal, some are able to make more of their lot in life and that some will turn into dickheads regardless. It is still up to you and not the Country’s fault.

Happy Beer-day To Us

The first Tuesday in November is a special one to Australians. It is Melbourne Cup Day and it is the day on which they run the ‘race that stops a nation’. In describing it, the media has bandied about words like ‘iconic’ and ‘hallowed’ so often that they have had their true meanings diluted. Bruce would probably sum it up best as ‘Spairrrrr-shul’. It really should come already red-circled from the printer when you buy your calendar.

It also marks the genesis of one of this country’s least known and least praiseworthy business ventures. It was last years Melbourne Cup that saw two blokes win enough cash to buy the gear that brewed the beer that made the name - of the Beer Blokes.



And so, on Cup Day a year later, it is fitting that I look back and take stock of the preceding twelve months activities, frivolities, trivialities and beer-ities. Oh, and the tit-it-ties.


I would like to begin by thanking all the people who have happened across the site since we first began with a post (comprising a single line, I think) titled ‘Humble Beginnings’. While some of my opinions and musings may at times appear a little boastful or educated, I like to think that the general flavour and feel of the site has remained essentially humble. As Beer Blokes we have felt the responsibility that the power of the medium holds, even if we are only being powerful to two or three readers. So thank you all, for finding us, for visiting, for staying on and, most importantly, for not slagging us off. There are plenty of sport based blogs and forums for that sort of back-and-forth baiting and puerile point scoring!*

I would love to see any readers who have not yet made a reply to a post til’ now drop us a quick hello, just so that I can get an idea of the numbers we are attracting. No, it won’t stop me from writing this carp if I was to find out that the readership is in single figures, and I certainly don’t have the time nor the inclination to use reader information to sell internet schemes and todger enlargement kits. So don’t be afraid, just be a friend. Better grab a beer and a break. Back soon.

Back. I hope we have been informative as well as entertaining. I reckon we have managed to kick start a few debates and raise the level of awareness about beer brands, beer culture and the mystical beer-sport nexus as well as providing some, at times, humorous insights into the world of home brewing. It is now also a year since we began our home brew adventure and to date, touch wood, we are yet to produce a flat batch, brew any cats’ piss or blow up the kitchen or the shed. So it proves that brewing your own beer is not something that is beyond the average bloke and that you don’t need to be a chemical engineer to produce a very drinkable and enjoyable drop.

The Beer Blokes beer production is about to move into high volume production again. I had hoped to have a greater stock of ‘green’ beer put away to mature by now but some de-cluttering of the brewing premises and a heavier than anticipated general workload has led to a slow down in building up the supplies. Fortunately I have had the time to consume plenty of existing supplies and this has had a two-fold reward. I have got to drink some very tasty beer and smile quietly knowing that I had brewed it, and it has made some extra space in the wardrobe for the next batches. And for some summer clothes. I may be able to have both.

But probably not. Just beer.

I hope, also, that the Blokes have been instrumental in keeping our readership up to date with brew news from various sources, wether it be new product news or brewing and drinking trends or just the general talk from around the bars and pubs and restaurants. And of course, I believe we have unmasked that dreaded and insidious beast who lurks, anonymous and unnamed, beneath the foamy surface of the Beer World creating fear and confusion with his dastardly deceptions – the beer marketing executive and his ever obedient minions- or, The Beer Boogieman.

The Beer Blokes like to think that we have taken on the role of a kind of ‘Canned Crusader’, seeking out this evil doer who would sell his wares at any cost ignorant of any loyalty to the truth. The Beer Bloke has sought to alert the drinkers of the world to the tricks and taunts of this black-caped blackguard and, rest assured, dear readers, we shall endeavour to continue the fight for Truth, Justice and the Ale & Lager way.

So thanks again for supporting us. We hope that you have, and will continue, to enjoy the Beer Blokes unique and lager-charged take on the world of beer, brewing and bullshitting. Cheers.
Dr. Lager & Prof. Pilsner.


*For an entertaining and very funny series of exchanges about the AFL/NRL support debate, pop over to Sportal.com and find this witty and erudite exchange. Dr. Lager has used the name Jabbers64 so that no-one will know it is him. Try not to tell anyone, OK? The internet isn’t global yet, is it?
http://forum.sportal.com.au/viewthread.aspx?t=11984&page=12

Beer Review – Wheat Beer Special

This review is something of a combination report. It has come about as a result of the taste test of the first Beer Bloke’s Wheat beer. You may recall that we moved into the wheat beer production phase of the operation some weeks ago and that this benchmark brew is loosely based on the Bavarian Weizen style generally, and Redback Original more specifically.

In the interests of scientific integrity and standardised side-by-side testing practises I thought it best to compare our starter with some well known commercial examples. The following, therefore, is a beer review and taste test all in one. Clever.

First the Beer Bloke’s offering. A nice tart clean taste at first which was preceded by a nice strong hop/yeast aroma. Didn’t expect that. Like the other Bloke Beers, this one exhibits a little harshness in the finish, shutting down too quickly and with a slightly sour edge to it. Hopefully this will mellow out as did its predecessors.

Now to the commercials. I began the comparison with Redback – I won’t claim to being ‘in’ on the ground floor when this one came out but I did get on board before it became trendy. And I never jammed a lemon in the neck of the bottle. As I noted in a previous post, Redback is not the beer it once was. It also seems a bit odd that it is still labelled as Original when it clearly isn’t. It is drinkable but it is only just passable under the definition of a Bavarian Weizen. It has a light feel to it and its citrus notes are masked by a watery mouthfeel and a flat finish. Really the only thing to recommend it is that served icy cold on a really hot day it would be easy to drink.

Next on the list was the beer voted best in show at this years beer awards, Weihenstephaner Kristallweissbier. Even though the papers reported it as Weihenstephan. Weihenstephan means ‘Sacred Stephen’ and the ‘er’ on the end makes it mean ‘of’ Sacred Stephen. Anyway, I have a whole bit dedicated to this hallowed brewer coming soon. The beer tonight was the Kristall Wiessbier – it just means that it is a wheat beer that has been filtered. Now, unlike Redback, this filtering has not sucked the guts out of it flavourwise. Rich, almost fruity flavour and banana yeast hints as well as some berry notes near the end. And lots of beery notes throughout the middle. Sounds like a bit of a tug but the point is you can taste a lot more going on than you could get a forensic scientist to detect in some other wheaties. See above. Nothing against Redback – all beer by its very nature is good – some are just better than others.

Then I got too pissed and had to stop. The End. Bye Bye.

Only jokin’. Then I took a step further and knocked the top off a Schofferhofer Hefeweizen. I say a step further because the beer ‘with yeast’ or ‘mit hefe’ as the Germans so lyrically put it, is a taste adventure that takes you deeper into the Black Forest of wheat beers than you have been before.

Hefeweizens are the top of the tree in straight up wheat beers because the yeast adds a new dimension in aroma, flavour and taste. Wit or white beers are another category again. Scofferhofer makes the cheeks pucker just a little, it slides sort of like mousse over the tongue as it prepares you for the big tart finish and then, just as you think it might turn your mouth inside out, it finished short and clean and makes you say to yourself, ‘I think I’ll have another sip!’. It has a big fluffy head like all wheat beers should and it looks great sitting proudly in a Schofferhofer badged 500ml glass.

But it is the aroma that the yeast emits that makes this one a stand out. Banana, cloves, bubblegum – depending on your own taste memory bank – one or all will waft towards you as the beer pours. And that’s something you can say that you don’t get with every beer. The finishing touch is to have the beer poured for you by a knowledgeable waiter or mate – like me – with a skilful inversion of the glass over the top of the bottle, a swift, clean flip and the bottle is deftly drawn up out of the glass to slowly reveal the pale golden nectar. Of course the bottle has already been gently rolled or inverted before capping to loosen the yeast and distribute it evenly.

Who says beer can’t have a bit of theatre?

Beer Blokes Beer Update

April/May 07

As the Blokes move into the New Age of Ale I thought a quick update was due. Much research and book looking has been conducted because we wanted to produce a true-to-style Bavarian Weizenbier. That’s a wheat beer. You know, like Redback? Actually, like Redback used to be before Fosters dumbed it down.

By way of a bit of background, Redback was the beer which stole the show at the beer awards a while back and as far as I can tell it was the first wheat beer made in Australia. Brewed originally in Western Australia by Matilda Bay Brewing Company which was taken over by CUB in 1990, it began life as an unfiltered and unpasteurised bottle conditioned wheat beer. It is not the beer it once was. Since shifting to the Fosters stable it has become a filtered and less citrusy wheat beer as well as a kristallklar (called Crystal) which the Dr and I decided was a little light on for taste, flavour and body. They come in at 4.7 and 4.5% respectively.

The first Beer Blokes Wheat comes from a tin of Morgan’s concentrate and a kilo of Morgan’s Master Blend Beer Enhancer. Containing a portion of honey in the extract it had a nice colour and aroma and this time next week I’ll tell you what it tastes like. This is our first attempt at a ‘recipe’ brew where you follow a chart of ingredients including yeast to mimic a commercial product. Of course this is done without the exact yeast strain, computer controlled fermentation and lagering as well as the many scientists in lab coats and marketing men working in a building unaware of the presence of a brewing team.

The number twelve brew is a follow up Pale Ale and is something of a tribute beer. Brewed on ANZAC day it is the offspring to the first Pale Ale which, as reported earlier, has come good after a wobbly start and actually tastes quite good. What the first one lacked, however, was the Pale Ale style hop flavour and enough bitterness to really qualify for the category. Here is where the tribute part comes in. Using Cascade hops for bitterness, Goldings for flavour and Fuggles for aroma the hops represent the three major allies who landed at ANZAC Cove in 1915. I know that ideally I should have used a New Zealand, Australian and English hop variety for true authenticity but a) they were unavailable, b) Cascade, while American sounds like it could be Tasmanian and anyway, it’s got more bitterness than Pride of Ringwood and c) I only thought this all up on ANZAC morning and, of the 13 hops I had to choose from, these were the only non German or Czech ones.

Interestingly, the two recent brews have identical ABV %s but both have quite different gravities. The wheat beer started out at only 1038 but fermented out to 1006 – so good alcohol but not heavy in the flavour department as planned - and the Pale began at 1044 but only fermented out to 1012- same alcohol but more malt character and flavour, again as planned!

The Blokes are next embarking on another breakthrough brew – our first ‘No Can Brew’. Using just malt extract and hops and yeast we hope to create nice Amber Ale along the lines of The Malt Shovel Brewery’s James Squire Amber Ale. It will be an all malt affair and will be a neat stepping stone towards doing a grain addition brew before eventually graduating to a mini mash and culminating in every brewer’s dream of doing a full mash beer brewing extravaganza type thingy.

But, I need more empties.

Who can get me some empties?

Prof. Pilsner.

The Pale Ale comes GOOD!

Regular readers will recall that, of the first ten brews, only one seemed to have suffered the fate that all brewers dread most - INFECTION !! A good, if immature aroma, with a reasonable head and carbonation, it just seemed to go wrong somewhere in the middle of the palate . . . he said, trying not to sound like a wine tosser. We feared the worst. Our second ever batch had gone west. And not in an Emu Bitter or Little Creatures kind of way. Poor sanitation, sour, dead beer kind of way.

Rested for two months I decided to give it another chance. Partly because it is, so far, the favoured Beer Bloke product of Mrs Lager and partly because Dr Lager has been giving her plenty over the fact that the only beer she enjoyed was poisoned. And so I can report that the Cascade Imperial Voyage Pale Ale - straight from the kit with no hop or enhancer additives - has come good. Pouring with a magnificent, rocky head, presenting with a clean, yet fruity aroma and tasting as smooth as a Dr Lager cover drive, the beer was so good, I thought, as I downed it, “I must get a photo of this for the blog.” As I put down the empty glass I thought again, “I must make these decisions a little earlier.” Sorry folks. I put anothery in the fridge last night.
This should serve to teach us all a couple of valuable lessons. Firstly, good beer takes time. Secondly, if you have done all the right things cleaning wise, your beer should turn out OK eventually and, thirdly always trust your beer.

It’s Beer-n a While

A busy time for the Beer Blokes the last few weeks, which is the reason for the lack of web based activity. I promise, though, in the next two weeks to make it up to everyone with some wonderful, beer-fuelled word mayhem.

The last of the first round of lagers has been bottled and is conditioning away nicely. Another strong brew - 6% - a result, I think, of an all malt base. So that’s our tenth brew down and both Dr Lager and I have plentiful stocks of our previous efforts maturing safely in storage. Happy days ahead. Indeed.

I have also begun testing some beer recipes - both food and beer matching and cooking with beer. The first installment of Beer Bloke Kitchen will be ready by the end of this week. Stay tuned, Big Bad Bob.

Also in the beer diverter pipeline is a new series from which our readers may just learn. It attempts (or pretends) to track the history of our hallowed brew from the time the first shod foot landed on our fair shores, to the present day. Australian history like you never got at school. In a bottle.

Also hope a reader or two can give us a review of the Craft Brew showcase held last week at Melbourne’s Federation Square. Having attended, and drunk my way through, the inaugural one two years ago, I have missed the three since. These events are a great way to sample the current Craft Brews around without having to commit to a large cost outlay - for around twenty bucks you get twenty tasting tickets which you can swap for any of the beers on display - and you also have the chance to speak with the brewers themselves. A word of advice, though. Do your questioning early because, by beer number thirty ( I scored a comp. ticket after I bought one) it just becomes a slur-a-thon. And you forget what they tell you anyway.

So there you have your next few weeks entertainment mapped out for you. Don’t thank me, just go out and buy a couple of beers that you never thought you’d try, tip them down the beer hole and thank the bloke upstairs for your bounty.

Cheers. Prof. Pilsner

Pilsner Premium Blonde Export Lager Draught Beer - Part Four

More beer names

We know about lagers and we know about ales. So what’s next. Let’s look at pilsner. Or pilsener. Or pils. Or pilzner. They’re all the same thing no matter how you spell it - but not all pilsners are the same. Not the same as lagers or as each other. While commercially the most popular beer style sold in the universe, the pilsner is relatively young by beer standards. It is probably the only beer, to date, to have it’s own actual birthday - November 11, 1842. And it’s birthplace was Plzen, in Bohemia.

When this town in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) developed this new brew, as clear as the town’s famous crystal it was only fitting that it take it’s name from the town itself - Pilsen or Plzen in Czech. The local brewers considered pilsner to be a beer made at one of two breweries in Plzen but as the beer blazed a trail through, first, Germany and on through much of Europe the name became synonymous with the liquid, not the location. So pilsner became the word to describe a pale, brilliant clear lager, smooth drinking with a rounded hop flavour and a delightful balance between malt sweetness and hop bitterness. And that’s pilsner..

And so to the present. Close your eyes, open the display fridge at any bottle shop and pick a stubby at random. Chances are you will pick out a pilsner. Or at least, a bottle with the word pilsner on the label.

The first pilsner was Pilsner Urquell and I will use this as the descriptive benchmark. A true pilsner should have the following; an alcohol by volume level of between 4 and 5%, a balance between malt sweetness and hop bitterness with an allowance for moderate hop aroma and flavour. Now, I’m not making this up, it’s all documented in the style guidelines for the BJCP - the beer judging certification program - an international standard for beer style identification.
I also reckon a good pilsner should have a natural, earthy sort of hop flavour.

Back to the bottleshop and you are hard pressed to work out what is a pilsner and what is just labelled pilsner. Some lazy beer marketing boys are calling a beer a pilsner because it is labelled “premium” - which is often market speak for ‘a metallic label and add a dollar-fifty‘. They possibly stole the idea from Spanish restaurants who pioneered tapas - a Spanish word meaning twelve dollar olives.

To further add to the confusion, some Premium imports are re-labelled pilsner for their export markets and some beers simply claim premium or pilsner status. I am a big fan of the pilsner and a fair judge of a good quality, well crafted beer. But I’m not so stupid as to think that every beer marked premium is anything close or that a beer labelled as a pilsner is in fact born of the spirit of the essence of the historical trademark of the style. Beer marketers - leave it alone!

For a more comprehensive Buyer’s Guide to Beer - stay tuned, I’m working on it.

Brew News - 101

For those wondering what we’ve been up to, for those new to the site and those still trying to find boobies, I thought I would provide a quick overview of the production machine that has become The Beer Blokes’ Brewery.

After a period of finding our feet and establishing some good cleaning and sanitising habits, as well as finding places to safely store all the finished bottle conditioned stock, the beer machine clicked into all wheel 4x4, turbo charged full steam ahead mode. Boobies.

I realised, as I was brewing one day, that I could re-use at least some of the sanitising water from the bottle wash bin to clean and sanitise the fermenter after a batch. Not wanting to then waste a nice clean fermenter, I decided it would be more economical to brew another batch up. Not wanting to waste this water, I figured I could sanitise some more bottles for the next batch. I then realised I could re-use this water to clean the fermenter. Not wanting to waste a clean fermenter I . . .

This caused an unexpected problem. One man, alone, without any help, on his own, can not hope to keep up a constant supply of empties for such a vast brewing empire operating at such a rate. Well, he can, but it is not easy. Or cheap. Nor can he operate heavy machinery or conduct delicate surgery or engineer a box girder bridge whilst maintaining such a steady supply of empties.

Fortunately a nice spell of very hot and dry and drink inducing weather had gripped our fair town while we were beginning our brew journey and I had plenty saved. But, when the brewbug bites, it bites hard and the train was not to be stopped. A second lager was followed by a second Golden Harvest Lager from the Cascade range which led straight into a first up Pilsner and an Australia Day lager, , then a NZ can kit, a Black Rock Pilsner Blonde, a Draught at 6.66% alc/vol -” That’s a strong beer, chop.” and, most recently a Golden Lager. Bosoms.

The last four brews have seen the Blokes move into the “Cook&Create” phase of the program. We choose a basic can kit and then select hops to add aroma, flavour - or both - as well as bittering hops and malt extracts and/or different types of sugars to round out the body, add to the mouthfeel and keep a good head on the finished beer. The ingredients chosen, we then brew them up in the pot and strain the home made wort into the fermenter along with a selected yeast, rather than the one supplied with the tin. Tits.

We are now becoming as one with our Saaz, Hersbruckers, Tettnangs, Hallertaus and Pride Of Ringwood hops and, while they are fermenting, I am tasting the raw beer I draw off for the hydrometer readings and am really beginning to get a feel for how the finished beer will present. We have about 650 stubbies worth of finished beer which we hope to leave to mature for a couple of months. Having kept some of the first two brews for nearly three months now, and having tasted them at regular intervals, I can attest to the improvement this time allows.

P.S. You may have noticed that I have decided to throw in, at random, as many sly references to boobies as I can. Mrs Pilsner was commenting on feedback from a friend in Thailand who has caught up with the site and mentioned that there was a Google ad at the bottom for a possibly dodgy and non-beer bloke-like product or service. She thought the ads may be demographic and key word generated. This got me thinking. What could I do to increase the likelihood of Beer Blokes coming up in searches so that more folk could be exposed to the site. Beer? Exposed? BOOBIES !! Simple.

Leaving the Land of the Lager

It is with some sadness but also a feeling of excitement and impending maturity that the Beer Blokes prepare to move on from lager brewing. Sad because, in a way, we feel we have become as one with our lager children. We have learned their ways, their personalities, their carbonated friendliness.

Now, far from deserting our roots or forsaking our heritage forever, we are merely moving forward. Batch number 11 will signal the continuation of the beer journey. We have stocks of lagers and pilsners maturing in the cellar - well, under Dr. Lagers’ house - and we are happy with the stock levels and the number of recyclable empties wrapped around these beers.

But, as seasons turn and in the same way that football teams who have had heady premiership eras, so to must the Beer Blokes not dwell in the past but be ready to embrace the future, to test the limits so as not to become stale and complacent. Ever present is the threat of becoming boring brewers. There are enough commercial examples of that to go round.

We now turn our considerable[ly meagre] talents to the art of ale making. And on top of our ‘must brew’ list are a nice traditional bitter - in deference to the original VB - and a wheat beer. For the unsure, wheat beers fit into the ale side of the family due to the top fermenting wheat yeast used although they are served chilled and have a more lager-like taste profile - but with a lot more taste. They are also a favourite of the Beer Blokes and, down the track, we hope to push out a honey wheat as well. I have found a couple of well recommended can concentrates and have picked up a can enhancer which, along with the sugars and malts, lists honey as an ingredient.

I would also like to bridge the gap between lagers and ales - no, not some kind of weird Frankenstein lager-ale monster - maybe just blur the lines a little and create a lager with more taste and intrigue or an ale which is a bit more refreshing and subtle. There are a few commercial, well, mostly craft brewed, examples around doing this and I will expand on this later.

The true ale quest - well, truly out of a can ale - begins once I can do a little more research into the origins and intentions of a good bitter/pale ale. I may need to consult with the Australio-Englander in the family. He has recently re-un-immigrated ( I think that is what a bloke born in Australia, lives in the UK for his childhood and then returns ‘home’ is called; on second thoughts, for simplicity I will call him Gary). This bloke, nee Lad, knows a good drink, nee bevvy, and it is as good an excuse as any to catch up more often.

Stay Tuned

The Beer Blokes.

Brew Update - 101

Beer Blokes Hit Hurdle

As production from the Beer Blokes’ Brewery hits all time highs in both quality and quantity of product, a major stumbling block has appeared. The Blokes have struck serious problems in the chain of supply department. A development which threatens the very viability of the entire operation. More serious, perhaps, than yeast infections (in beer) sour batches or exploding stubbies.

Look, I’ll just cut to the chase, here. The Blokes are running out of empties.

Despite personally improving the value of the stocks of Australia’s two largest retail liquor suppliers in the last two months - (well, how far back do you need to go to remember paying under $30 for a slab of good stuff?) - Prof. Pilsner is finding that he alone can barely keep up with production. The fact that the good Prof is responsible for the production schedule as well as the provision of empties is quite irrelevant. What can I say, I can’t stop brewing.

Now, this is not intended as a dig at Dr. Lager. Why, he rang me just yesterday to say that he had consumed TWO beers the previous night and had been thoughtful enough to keep the receptacles and therefore had contributed two empties to the cause. These will come in handy when we next brew a 750ml batch of lager. It should be made clear, at this point, that the good Dr. is toiling tirelessly in his work and sporting endeavours, so I don‘t wish to tarnish his reputation.

This is a good point at which to let our readers in on his latest triumph. A sterling knock of 130 in a semi-final last weekend is no small feat. Even more of an achievement if you let him tell the story. Seriously, though, 40 degree heat and a treacherous deck combined with an interrupted training schedule due to work commitments coupled with an opposition who set fields with which to curtail his every offensive stroke and bowled so devilishly so as to thwart his every attacking weapon puts the tally achieved into proper perspective. Did I mention that his effort led his team to the final single handedly ?

I wasn’t there, but I am sure that his grateful team mates would have acknowledged his efforts and rewarded his solo match winning innings and made sure he didn’t need to buy himself a drink all night. Probably bought him VB stubbies. Lots of them. Probably drank more than a few. See where I’m heading with this?

I will leave the final word on this to our mate, Bill. In his reporting of the great century by Dr. Lager, he pointed out to me that ; “Geez, he looked alright out there. But, geez, he’s a good size. Reckon he must be drinking plenty of them after a game.”

Where are the empties, Dr. Lager ? Where are the empties ?

Don't make me resort to mugging homeless people for their booty.

Booty meaning the bottles they collected, not, you know, BOO - TY

Pilsner Premium Blonde Export Lager Draught Beer - Part Two

Beer Names
Right. First things first. Victoria Bitter isn’t. But it used to be. Crown Lager is premium. It even says so on the label, but is it a Pilsner ? Pure Blonde is neither. Pale ale often isn’t. And Carlton Cold says it is beer. And is a Dortmunder export that you buy in Dortmund actually a Local ? And is lo-cal beer better for you ?

Is it even really lo-cal?

The naming of beers is something which, for many of us, is a vexing issue. For some it is just an annoyance. Sadly, for many again, it means that they don’t really know what they’re drinking, what they should be drinking or what they’re missing. Misnamed beers are the bastard creation of lazy or foolish marketing folk. Now, I’m quite sure that the parents of these marketing wunderkinds are very proud of their offsprings’ achievements thus far but surely there comes a time when a father must take a son or daughter aside and gently say something like .. “ If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck and it smells like a duck - chances are IT’S A DUCK !! so for f#@*s sake stop calling it a goose.” A goose is like a duck, you see, but it ain’t a duck.

Let me explain. As we saw in part one, there are ales and there are lagers - broadly speaking. And just like there are boys and girls, ales and lagers are different. Although there are a few beer styles which fall just in or outside the style guidelines. I guess these are like a beer which is a boy but likes to dress like a girl and sing Kylie tunes. But that’s not for here. Lagers are made under colder temperature and are best served after a period of maturation, ales like it warmer and can even be served while the yeast is still working. Lagers tend to be more richly carbonated and ales are a little flatter. Beer historians have differed in their broad definitions of beers - some say that the overall term is beer. Ales are any beers made before the use of hops, others say it’s down to the yeast type, top or bottom fermenting, which defines the style and thence the name.

So, put simply, if it is brewed in cold temperatures, with a bottom hugging yeast, matured for a while and served very cold with pizza or chips - lager. Top fermenter with a penchant for warmer places and ready to drink even while still ‘alive’ and goes well with pork pies and complaints about the weather - ale.

So how on earth do Victoria Bitter, XXXX Bitter, Cascade Pale Ale and Toohey’s New come to be so called? In these instances, the beers started out as ales - bitter ales, pale ales and old ales - and when the lager craze began, the brewers just put the new style into an old bottle. Did they think no one would notice? Did they think the average punter would stop drinking altogether if he couldn’t get a beer called VB? Was the name really that special that they were afraid to let it die?

In the case of Toohey’s New the answer is even more simple - perhaps, also, the drinkers of it. Certainly simple were the marketing brains behind it. Toohey’s produced an Old Ale and when the lager style arrived they were stuck for a name for their new product. Imagine that marketing meeting. “ Well, the old ale is old, and this new one is .. is .. Ooh, what’s the word I’m looking for? Help me out Ttrent with two T’s.”

“ Hmm,” says Ttrent, “well Brennt with two N’s we could call it Toohey’s Different to Old Ale. That’s got street cred written all over it. Or maybe Toohey’s I Bet You Haven’t Tried This Yet Cos We Just Started Making It ?” “ Hmm. Label boys might have some issues there.”
So then Tobiias with two I’s suggests they consider the drinker in all this. “Our loyal, devoted consumer is no fool, but let’s not risk scaring him orf. The previous brand was called Old, because it was .. Old. Let’s call this new one .. New. Even those who have been drinking for decades should be able to handle that quantum leap.”

And so it came to pass that the New was born. Then the work experience kid shook his head and sighed. “Why didn’t you just call it Toohey’s Lager?” Knobs.

Pilsner Premium Blonde Export Lager Draught Beer - Part One

Beer History

The Beer Blokes’ latest experiment follows on from successfully producing a Lager in the Pilsner style. We have just bottled our latest and hopefully greatest - Pilsner Blonde. This brew led me to ponder the nature of beers and their naming. In this multi part series we look at how beers get their names and why I don’t really like beer marketing people.
In the beginning . . .

The world of beers, as we know, is divided into the Adam & Eve categories. Ales are the Adam, the original beer and conceived of the Gods in a far off time. They were beers made with yeast which did it’s bit on the top of the brew and worked under warmer conditions creating a generally darker, misty, often cloudy drink best served at warmer temperatures and in stone or wooden mugs so as to not put the drinker off by him seeing what he was drinking. These beers were to be sipped and their rich, sometimes fruity aromas and flavours to be enjoyed in a leisurely manner. But they were susceptible to tasting like rubbish if the warm weather were to disturb the delicate balance of nature or if the yeast was over worked or mutated. And that’s ales.

Then came lagers. Eve.

Eve rocked onto the scene and all the beer drinking men stopped what they were doing to look at her and take in her beauty and say things like, “Fwoarhh ! Have a look at that, that’s a bit special I would like very much to have me some of it.” And the like. As you may be able to tell, lager was unlike anything that the beer world had seen before. Not only was it bottom fermenting, but it also fermented at low temperature and this type of yeasty activity brought about a cleaner, smoother taste complimented by a fine bubbled carbonation.

At around the same time, in what is now the Czech Republic, the makers of fine crystal glassware were able to say, “ Hoo-bloody-ray! At last the punters have something decent to put in our glass and show off it‘s brilliant visage. We might just sell some crystal and then I can get Grandma back from the pawnbrokers’”. So the beer makers were encouraged to create yet more crystal clear, brilliant and bubbly beverages for the masses - and the masses couldn’t get enough. Ales were never to fade away, but their time at the top of the ladder in a league group of one was over.

So, now that you know the ‘who’ of the beer world, in very basic terms, you are ready to venture into the strange and often confusing world of beer names. But be warned - some of the terms and usages are just downright misleading - so stay close to me. And as for some of the people giving out the names, well they’re just knobs.

P.S. The label from the Hoegaarden Forbidden Fruit above was banned in some places for being too raunchy. Wonder what they'd make of Rubbel Sexy Lager with the scratchy bikini panels. Or the upcoming Beer Blokes' Sharsha Boobies Blonde.

MAKING BEER pt4 - 101

Water

Beer is up to 97% water. Water is therefore fairly important to beer. It carries the flavour and makes the drink last longer and you can use it to rinse out your empties for home brewing. It also helps to build the taste - or flavour profile as the marketing men like to call it - of many beers. But it is still just water. Up to a point.

In days gone by, when the town water supply was used for everything from washing dishes to washing the goat as well as drinking, it became obvious to all but the village idiot that drinking beer was a pleasant alternative to dying of thirst or cholera. Or of having your clothes smell like poo. Worse still, someone else’s poo. Breweries, therefore, liked to site themselves near fresh water sources. This was so that a) good water made good beer, b) flowing water could be harnessed to power mills and other brewing equipment and c) the scenery would make good beer labels in the future.

Beer water can be categorised into two types. Hard and soft. This does not mean that hard water makes Carlton Draught and soft water makes any lager from the United States, but that the character and mineral composition of the water makes a difference to the taste of the final beer.

Nowadays, most commercial breweries alter or adjust their water to fit the beer profile. Adding salts and calcium, magnesium, zinc, sulphate and removing chlorine and fluoride all contribute to the finished taste - in general soft water for lagers and hard water for ales. And recycled poo water for anything out of Adelaide that’s not Cooper’s.

Water was also the reason for, or the impetus for, the development of some beer styles in themselves. Pilsener, for example came about as a result of the nature of the soft water used to brew it as much as for the hop flavour and aroma. The mineral rich H2O at Burton-Upon-Trent is as much to thank for the taste of traditional English ales in those there parts as the skill of the brewer. Cascade beers have a certain aura about them arising in no small part to the images of clear, flowing mountain streams. And the less said about Southwark, the better.

This concludes The Beer Blokes’ Guide to making beer - an entertaining and informative look at the process of making beer and the importance of each of it’s ingredients. For more interesting facts about beer, stay tuned to Beer Blokes, read some books, look up some websites or pop into your local bottle shop and drink some beer. You just might learn something.

MAKING BEER pt3 - 101

In part three of our entertaining and informative series about making beer we look at the most interesting, misunderstood and volatile of all the beer ingredients. No, not the pissed idiot in the pub. Yeast. Perhaps no other step of the brewing process is as simple, yet easy to stuff up than the pitching and working of the yeast. This is the step which involves working in harmony with a living organism - one which, treated nicely, will reward you with rivers of golden beery enjoyment and, if mistreated, will curse you with 23 litres of cats’ piss. Yeast



Yeast is, put simply, a single cell micro-creature of the fungus family. It has millions of different sub-groups and are to be found floating free and roaming wide and wild everywhere. Some are good at making bread and some are good at making people sick and some are good at making beer. Some of which makes people sick. But here is why you need to respect yeast.



Yeast is ancient, prehistoric. Maybe a caveman - let’s call him Grog -discovered the natural effect that this airborne miracle had in the right circumstances. Perhaps he left a bowl of half finished grain outside the cave one night. In the morning he awoke to find his porridge in a state of froth and the overnight rain had turned it into a drink of sorts. A taste told Grog that some kind of magic was afoot.

Some anthropologists even believe that mankind’s change from nomadic hunter-gatherer to community group can be attributed to the discovery of the effect that wild yeast had when it infected this source of grain in the right temperature range which then got rained on and magically produced a foamy beverage which, after a few bowls, made Mrs Grog start to look pretty good. For the staying put and planting of crops to make beer - and perhaps some obscure food products, like bread - is thought to be the turning point of civilisation.

Yeast has, since then, been a miracle and a menace to generations of brewers. In the right conditions - temperature, food source and protection from bacteria - it will begin it’s beer making by multiplying rapidly, then feeding on the fermentable sugars and, finally, producing alcohol and CO2 before dropping to the bottom to become a rich source of vitamin B - the very vitamin that beer consumes. Magic! It is also responsible for many of the flavour notes found in different beers.



So there it is. A little miracle. It happens, but nobody can really explain how. Like Jason Gillespie’s 201 not out or the apparent popularity of dickheads who go on Big Brother , yeast is sometimes difficult to figure out - but impossible to ignore.

Next Time - Water

Getting Beer-sy - 101

The Beer Blokes are powering away at present with another lager in the bottle, an Australia Day Commemorative Lager brewing , a new Pilsner Blonde cooked up and fermenting, Original Pilsner ready for tasting and a couple of slabs of Cooper’s Heritage Lager stored away for the winter. All in all a productive few days., what with all the production of empties and everything. And Prof. Pilsner is well under way with the new ale brewing calendar.

The latest effort- NZ Black Rock brand tin - again involved a cook-up; a next-step towards our future challenge of moving from can kits and can kit improver kits to malt extract brewing. Apart from the fact that this can often be a less expensive way of brewing, it also unleashes a myriad of possibilities of style and beer type. We can take the building blocks of malt and add specialty grains for colour and flavour, boil up the bittering hops, choose some aroma hops and tinker with the very fabric of the beer universe. Not yet, but. When we get good. And when we start playing Beer Creator, I promise you all that it will be in a Morgan Freeman in “Bruce Almighty” way rather than in a Dr Evil sort of way.







The Australia Day Commemorative Lager is presenting us with some challenges. A little slow out of the blocks and light on the yeast activity despite a good period of temperature control. We may have struck our first batch of poor yeast. Which brings me nicely to the next topic. We have begun buying yeast separately. This means that we can use more per batch and at only $3 or $4 it adds very little to the unit cost. We have begun with Safale - a fairly common and easy to get brand. Used in the latest brew, it has certainly displayed fierce yeast qualities early on. A feisty foam appeared on top of the brew in only a few hours and the aroma is something special.

Cheers, Prof. Pilsner and Dr Lager
P.S. I apologise for the lack of fine tuning with the pictures on our posts lately. the program running this show seems to corrupt every pic I try to fit in. it all appears as compu-crap instead of as a picture. hope it is all back to normal soon.

The story so far PT 1 - 101

Just a quick update for those of you wondering how the first few runs of Beer Bloke Beer is going.

The very first batch of Thomas Cooper’s Heritage Selection Lager - or ’beer’, for short - is now almost two months old.

Bottled on November 30, and tasted at two minutes past November 30, you will remember that the ‘green beer’ had a slight, though not really unpleasant, bite at the end. After a month and a half we can report that the product is now noticeably better - smoother drinking, finer bubbled, sweet in the front and bitter in the back. It really is heart-warming to see your little ones grow up so well so quickly.

The Pale Ale, or Cascade Imperial Voyage Pale Ale, for long, is maturing at a similar rate, although there is something, here and there, that makes me wonder if we slipped up somewhere in the process. Still can’t quite put a name to it, it’s just a slightly “misplaced” flavour note in the middle of the taste that just seems a bit dud. It does, however, appear to be dissipating with time so we might just store it away for bit and let it get over its’ malaise.



The second batch of Lager will be bottle conditioned by January 24 and we will have a quick taste for note-taking purposes and then put it away for a few months. You may recall that this is the one in which we used liquid malt extract and sugar rather than the dried malt extract. It was also the one which was subjected to higher fermenting temps and we wait to see how this affects the finished product.

Production is now geared up towards building a stockpile and as each batch is bottled we prepare for the next. At the moment this involves buying a bit of the shop stuff for the empties but we’re getting there. It’s tough. We also now have a few mates on board who are keeping us supplied with empties. We have also begun the next phase of the adventure and Dr Lager is beginning to source kegging equipment for the eventual tapping of the Beer Bloke Beer. Watch for the brand appearing in a half-arsed converted fridge near you soon.

Cheers
Prof Pilsner & Dr Lager

Brew update 101

The latest batch of Beer Bloke Beer is the experimental first attempt at a constructed brew. Still using a can kit but with the addition of a “beer improver kit” containing extra malts, grains and hops. We chose a Czech Pils kit because, in line with our earlier brewing philosophy, we will both have a fair inkling of what the stuff SHOULD taste like, having downed commercial quantities of most available pilsners. Plus the style is a favourite of mine. So there.

The basic concept of these kits is that the tinned stuff is great for convenience and for economy of shipping and shelving at the retail end, but they are made to made easily and for the enjoyment of many types of drinkers. They can tend, then to be a little light on the aroma, flavour and bitterness scale desired by some drinkers. Drinkers like us. And you, too, hopefully. So to the beer improver kit.

The recipe is simple. And, put simply, if you read twenty books and twenty articles on home brewing using these kits or similar purchased ingredients, you will find twenty different methods. No two experts seem to agree. Which is why you don’t hear the words ‘beer’ and ‘expert’ in the same breath very often. This is, however, a great advantage to brewers like the Beer Blokes. You just cook it all up and chuck it all in and then add the can and then add water and then add yeast and then look for the text that says you have done it all perfectly correctly well.

The method we employed was to boil up a couple of litres of water, add the malt, grains and bittering hops and simmer for 30 minutes. With a couple of minutes to go we added the aroma hops then let it cool a bit, strained the liquid into the fermenter and continued as usual. The kit indicated that this would result in higher SG readings and a slightly longer fermentation time. Before adding the yeast we checked the specific gravity only to find that it came in at only 1035. The three previous batches were between 1040 and 1046 so we panicked a little at this point. But, such is the relatively unwarranted confidence that we have achieved by getting this far and not blowing anything up, we soldiered on and boldly decided to chuck in a half kilo of brewing sugar and see what happened. After a bit, we had powered it up to 1036 and patted ourselves on the back.

I have to say that, despite the stumble, the beer smells really good - very naturally floral and sort of herby - and has a lovely, if bright, bitter edge to it. I will let you all know in about a month.

Meanwhile, if anyone out there has a recipe that exactly mimics our method, feel free to send it on. Cheers.

The New Year Beer - 2 - 101

In spite of testing climatic conditions, the beer is in the bottle and another waiting game begins. The outside temperature hovered around the mid 30’s for the duration of the fermentation and we await the results with just a little uncertainty.

I was able to monitor the indoor temp fairly accurately and was able to keep this to around the mid 20’s with the fermenter sitting at a constant 26 to 28 c. now, this is about two or three degrees higher than the two previous brews and I hope it doesn’t have too much of an adverse effect. The fact that it brewed out quickly - just on five days - is either a great sign, or a reason to panic. I choose to be an optimist. And I will pray to the beer Gods.

Having said all that, I will now pass on some valuable and perhaps beer-saving information that I wish I knew before I did this. LOOK STUFF UP. Read a book, consult a homebrew website or ask your homebrew shop bloke. What I found out -about ten minutes after securing the cap to the final stubby- was this;

“Remember your beers will taste much better if you can keep the fermenter close to 20 degrees Celsius all the time your beer is fermenting.

KEEPING YOUR FERMENTER COOL: 1. In hot weather wrap towelling around your fermenter like a skirt. Gather the top of the skirt into the lid. 2. It's easy to keep it cool. Pour cold water into the recess of the lid. 3. Add water when it starts to dry out. This simple trick will help you keep your fermenter nice and cool on hot summer days. The hotter the day gets, the better this works. If you want to make it colder, set a fan to blow gently on the fermenter and don't forget to keep the water topped up.”
http://www.brewcraft.com.au This site is a great, easy to navigate and resource rich guide for any homebrewer.

… so now I know for next time.

The New Batch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahhh! Another batch only months away!