Brew Update July 2008

It’s been a while since I gave the readers a quick update on the Beer Blokes Homebrewing enterprise so for the benefit of those interested in homebrewing, and for Dr Lagers’ information, I will lay out the following brief ramble.

Still working primarily with the malt extract system of brewing, we have managed to keep up a good supply of lagers and ales for the warmer months to come. A Bavarian Lager and a Canadian Blonde are maturing very nicely, thanks for asking, and these brews were made with the addition of flavour, bittering and finishing hops. They were made as an all malt batch so that the flavour and hop balance should result in a tasty but thirst quenching drop. Not adding sugar to get the alcohol volume up to scale means a clean, crisp taste.

The other day I cracked open a sample from our very first batch of common-old-garden-variety straight-from-the-can-with-no-additions-or-palava-style original lager. To say that I was very, very, very, very, very pleasantly suprised by the improvement in the taste since November 2006 is ... well, about exactly how suprised I was. Smooth and refreshing and without even a hint of that 'homebrewyness' at the end of the sip, I am glad that I resisted the temptation to tip them all down my throat in the first few months. Trying hard now to leave all our brews to mature and smoothout for as long as I can. Cheers

I have just finished bottling our ‘tribute’ brew to our mate, Pickles. He was living in Sydney for the past few years and so I used a Morgan’s homebrew can of Blue Mountain lager to reflect this aspect of his life. Growing up and educated in Ringwood, the hop variety Pride of Ringwood seemed a perfect fit. A nice pale golden lager with a very well developed nose already, it should be ready to taste by the middle of August and then we’ll store it away until this time next year.

This week I am putting the finishing touches to a recipe for our first cool temperature yeast based lager. I may have to think of a more condensed name for the brew when it’s done as the labels aren’t really very big. I am planning to use the ‘Magic Box’ (discussed in an earlier post of the same name) to maintain a low temperature for the fermentation and the lagering processes and maybe even to store them away long term. I might have to make a couple more 23 litre batches to use up some supplies of empties I have as they are currently stored IN the Magic Box.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, these bottles aren’t just gunna empty thereselfs.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

P.S. Day 5 of 21 that Mrs Pilsner and the eldest little Pilsner are away overseas and things are going well with the two littlest Pilsners. They have been very well behaved and getting along well and even helped me with the bottling and are sleeping well and I am coping well and all is well and everything is generally well and if I have to watch Yo Gabba Gabba one more time I am going to kill something. Well.

Those Krazy Kiwis

Australians have long shared something of a begrudgingly happy relationship with our neighbours from across the Tasman, New Zealand. At times strained and often based upon varying senses of inferiority and perceived bias, we have managed, nonetheless, to remain civil.

Our respective nations have enjoyed a fierce rivalry on the sporting field and on the fields of battle our combined heroics have seen our soldiers pull the brass out of the poo on more than one occasion. We even share our music stars and celebrities. By the way, NZ, you can come back and collect Russell Crowe and Derryn Hinch whenever you’re ready.

One area in which the Kiwis and the Aussies are in complete agreement beer. Brewin’ it and drinkin’ it. In recent years we have been able to sample more and more of the craft brews that our sheep-shaggin’, er, shearin’ mates have been enjoying on their own for far too long. Two of the Professors’ personal favourites and ones which can usually be found in the beer crisper are Mac’s and Monteith’s.

Monteith’s have been pumping out some fair old beers since 1868 and their Pilsner is among the best I’ve sampled. They put out a terrific series of seasonal beers proving that sometimes a brewer can take a bit of a hit in making a really decent beer which must surely be hard to turn a profit on and this is worthy of a beer lover’s praise. And their Radler is NOT to be blamed for the sudden dam-burst of marketing men’s ‘wet dream beers’ which are little short of a collection of thin pissy lagers spiked with lemon or lime essence designed to attract chicks and poofters to beer. Monteith’s have had their authentic version out for quite a while, they use real juice and the style is based on real beer made in Bavaria in the 1920’s. So there. Monteith’s also has a retail and distribution arm in Australia, Drinkworks, who I assume are responsible for the ease of access to these hidden treasures we now have.

Mac’s was founded in 1981 and has been a leader in the NZ craft brew field winnin

g many medals at international as well as New Zealand beer festivals. I have had the Hop Rocker, the All Malt Lager and the Sassy Red and have been more than a bit impressed. Great flavour, easy drinking and beautifully balanced – and they still have ring pull tabs!! More on this next week. The Hop Rocker and Sassy Red took out Champion Lager and Ale titles respectively at this year’s Australian International Beer Awards.

Mac’s was bought out by Lion Nathan in 1999 and was kept on as a craft brewing unit until May this year when the brewery was closed and it’s operations were shifted to the parent company plants in Wellington and Christchurch. On a positive note, the reason given was the fact that the small brewery could not keep up with demand.

So ‘BRAVO!!’ to our Kiwi mates on their contribution to the quest to get real, well crafted preservative-free beers out into the market. Bravo!! We will accept your marvellous beers every day of the week ... But,

... seriously, what’s with the televisual shit from across the ditch that our networks are dishing up? Enough!!! Stop it!!! Now!!!!! I know it is the fault of our own short-sighted and lazy TV execs that they find it more rewarding to simply import the cheapest and crappiest shows from overseas rather than getting off their fat jacksies and making something decent and entertaining but someone is actually making this shite.

It began, innocently enough with Motorway Patrol, a show in which Auckland highway police compete to see who can be the biggest knob-jockey while attempting to identify New Zealand’s fattest Maori towing the most dangerous load in a trailer with a busted arse or the Kiwi teenager with the lowest suspension and matching IQ. Quite a funny show. Until we realised it was all real.

Then there was the show called City Beat about pretend police who spend the night in the city investigating vomit and catching the kids who belong to the Maoris with the dodgy trailers in the other show until the real police come along only to let them go again to cause more bourbon-fuelled mayhem. More funny stuff. Then it just started getting silly. How many similar shows do you Kiwis produce? Do you actually watch any of them? Do you just send them over to us as a payback for the ‘underarm’ cricket incident in 1982?

We can’t turn our TVs on today without seeing another rivetingly action-packed explosion of boring mediocrity. Police 10/7 (pronounced Pleez Tin-Sivin) is another cop show where police only have interesting things happen between tin a.m. and sivin et night. And by interesting, I mean NOT. An argument over a parking space is not interesting. The drunk punching a parking meter because it wouldn’t give him a beer was a little humorous.

The latest wave of carp is ‘Diddly Surf’ about lifesavers on a beach where ‘drama’ is a bloke hiding in the sand dunes with binoculars, and ‘Rinters’ which is a show about that fat Maori bloke from Motorway Patrol who doesn’t pay his rent but we never see him because by the time the real estate ‘rent cop’ finally gets round there, Big Bro’ has packed all his gear into a dodgy trailer with a busted arse and pussed off. Hopefully Constables Trivva and Ewen will neb hum on the brudge before he causes anymore hevuck. Ay.

Don’t quite know how this post got so sidetracked from a celebration of New Zealand beer to a requiem for Australian TV at the hands of the Kiwi telly makers! Day three of 21 alone with the little Pilsner girls, I guess.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

P.S. Day 4 of 21 with the little Pilsners and all is well. Today we played with blocks and then a puzzle and then we had lunch and played some more and then had dinner and then I had some beer. Mmmmmmm, beer.

Hey, You hear that?

No, of course you can’t. This is a beer blog, not some sort of cyberspace powered hearing-things-that-I-can-hear internetty thingy! But, if it was ... you would hear ... nothing. As in a full blooded, high powered Sgt. Shultz style NUH-THING!!

This morning we drove Mrs Pilsner and our eldest off to the airport for their Big Bangkok adventure – three weeks in Thailand and Singapore visiting the wife’s’ best friend, shopping, visiting the daughters home stay student, shopping, beach bumming and shopping. Which leaves me here at home. With the silence.

Oh, and the four year old and the two year old.

For three weeks.

So, I’m not too sure what I can promise you in the way of intelligent, thoughtful, incisive and entertaining posts over the journey to come. Could be concise well thought out research. Could be witty observations of current beer events. Could be entertaining pieces concerning trends and styles in beer. Could be a distressingly chaotic ramble of blithering dribble. Can’t say.

Needless to say. So I won’t. Shit. It’s started already.

Tomorrow I will endeavour to explore the subtle nuances which separate the respective educational merits of Dora the Explorer and Bear in the Big Blue House. Also, who is hotter; Charlie from the Australian Hi-5 or the Charlie chick from Canada Hi-5 or the chick from Play School who used to be on A Country Practice.

Hmmmm.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner