SEYMOUR AUSTRALIAN SPARKLING ALE

[seymour]

This is a trial batch using Australian Joe White Traditional Pale Malt (thank you Kent of Missouri Malt!), Australian Ella/Stella hops (thank you Ehren!), and Australian ale yeast.

Joe White Malting supplies the famous historic Coopers Brewery (most breweries in Australia and New Zealand, for that matter) so for the sake of this experiment my brew is inspired by their classic Coopers Sparkling Ale. I know we have many Australian (and Anglo-Australian ex-pat) members on this forum, I’d love to hear any comments/criticisms. Wally, I'm talking to you!

I couldn't source Pride of Ringwood hops, but they are reputed to be somewhat harsh anyway. I used Australian Ella/Stella hops instead, which are a half-sister of Galaxy with some Spalt parentage.

SEYMOUR AUSTRALIAN SPARKLING ALE

6 US gallons = 5 Imperial gallons = 22.7 Litres

GRAINBILL
88% = 9.86 lbs = 4472 g, Joe White Maltings Traditional Pale (Australia)
2.5% = .28 lb = 127 g, Thomas Fawcett Crystal Malt II 62-68L (England)
2.5% = .28 lb = 127 g, Aromatic Malt (Belgium)
7% = .78 lb = 354 g, Raw Cane Sugar Invert Syrup (homemade)
TOTAL: 11.2 lbs/5.08 kg

I struck the grains with 3.25 US gal/2.7 Imp gal/12.3 L water at 165°F/74°C which brought the mash to 149°F/65°C for 70 min, then I drained-off ≈2 US gal/1.7 Imp gal/7.6 L wort, which I brought to boil, then stirred back in to reach 170°F/76.7°C, rested 10 min, around 90 min total. I’m pretty sure the Coopers Brewery only mashes around 45 minutes.

In the meantime, I made some invert syrup using the raw cane sugar and some first-runnings, brought to boil with my little backpacking stove, added a few drops of lime juice and stirred frequently. I eventually added this to the big boil kettle.

I batch sparged a couple times, vorlaufing each time, to collect 7.5 US gal/6.2 Imp gal/28.4 L pre-boil.

I boiled 90 min, adding sugar syrup and a pinch of gypsum at the beginning.

HOPS
.35 oz = 10 g, Ella/Stella, first wort addition
.7 oz = 20 g, Ella/Stella, 15 minutes remaining

I chilled, racked to fermentor, aerated using Ditch’s drill-powered paint stirrer, then pitched yeast.

YEAST
Historic Coopers brewery strain, available as White Labs WLP009 “Australian Ale.”

STATS (approximately 73% brewhouse efficiency, 77% apparent attenuation)
OG: 1051
FG: 1012
ABV: 5.0%
IBU: ≈30
COLOUR: hazy golden with white foam

First impressions of Joe White Maltings Traditional Pale Malt:
Very low aroma, relatively neutral like US two-row pale malt, as opposed to bready/nutty UK malts or husky/grainy German malts. However, the raw malt tasted a bit sweeter than US two-row pale, similar to CaraPils or English Mild malts. As expected, the resulting wort was slightly darker than a typical US pale malt. Unlike some really tough kernels, this malt cracked very easily, placing almost no strain on the grainmill. Considering this low mash temperature, lengthy 90 min mash and lengthy 90 min boil, I was a bit disappointed by only 73% efficiency. Of course, this is a tiny sample size, and could be entirely my own doing.

First impressions of Stella/Ella hops:
Big juicy fruit impression, tangy citrus but not exactly grapefruit, maybe more like lemongrass. Reminds me of aspects of Hallertau, Centennial, Citra (except smoother), as odd as that sounds.

First impressions of Australian Ale Yeast:
I made a yeast starter the day before, which was obviously vigorously fermenting, but there was zero foamy yeast head. I started to panic, but then I read this strain sometimes has no krausen. But after pitching it into the main batch, it has a big krausen. Weird. Has anyone else detected this kinda thing with Coopers Australian Ale yeast?


It was a fun outdoor group brewday hosted by my friend Jason. One of the guys, Timothy, is a member on this forum as well. He brewed a big strong Smoked Scottish Ale using McEwans yeast.

Ingredients


cheap Corona grainmill with electric drill attachment


Driveway brewday


Mike C-Z and Timothy


Timothy sampling, Mike C-Z sparging


Jason and Timothy checking the boil progress


My little allotment


Backpacking stove for quick-and-easy invert syrup


Timothy, yours truly, Gregg, Mike C-Z on a "coffee break"


My poor-man's Yorkshire stone square fermentor, hee hee


Close-up of the krausen

[timothy]

Great post Seymour! As usual, can't wait to try this!

[seymour]

Great post Seymour! As usual, can't wait to try this!

Thanks, man. Same goes for your Scotch Ale. Did that yeast tear right in?

[killer]

Fair play Seymour... Trying out foreign brews !

I lived in Australia for a couple of years - Coopers beers were better than the Bud/ Miller/ Heineken/ Carlsberg that I grew up with - but I have to say that the sparkling ale was always a little gassy and not overly flavorsome - that was nearly ten years ago so it may have changed. I suspect your beer will be much better than the real deal. The pale ale was nicer but doesn't seem to travel well. A very nice Aussie beer was Little Creatures Pale Ale.

[seymour]

Fair play Seymour... Trying out foreign brews!

I lived in Australia for a couple of years - Coopers beers were better than the Bud/ Miller/ Heineken/ Carlsberg that I grew up with - but I have to say that the sparkling ale was always a little gassy and not overly flavorsome - that was nearly ten years ago so it may have changed. I suspect your beer will be much better than the real deal. The pale ale was nicer but doesn't seem to travel well. A very nice Aussie beer was Little Creatures Pale Ale.

Well, I haven't tasted any of the above, so I'll take your word for it. I've read that Little Creatures Pale Ale uses Joe White Malt too, so I suppose this is still a representative trial of sorts. Thanks for the kind words!

By gassy, do you mean highly carbonated? I assume that might be the significance of the Sparkling part of the name?

[wally]

Hi Seymour,

I always associate Australian Sparkling Ale with Coopers Sparkling Ale.

Check out the style guidelines (6.5 Australian Pale Ale) here:- http://www.aabc.org.au/docs/AABC2014Sty ... rStyle.pdf

The grist that you have will make a nice beer. Just not sure what you're expecting the aromatic malt to give to this beer.

My normal grist for this style is as follows:-

Ale Malt 93%
Wheat Malt 5%
Dark Crystal 2%

Then:-

Mash at 63°C - 64°C for 60 minutes for a really attenuative wort.

Pride of Ringwood (POR) at 60 mins to 25 - 30 IBUS.

WLP 009 yeast
Ferment at 16°C, finish off at 20° to 21°C.

From my experience, this yeast needs to ferment cold or otherwise you end up with heaps of esters, banana especially. It also seems to strip the hop character from the beer (some people dispute this, but I am speaking from my experience) and just leave the bitterness. Seems to be why it works well with just a bittering hop like POR. If you pitch a healthy amount of this yeast it will explode out of your fermenter and finish the job in around 4 days. The yeast has a very "bready" flavour and the sediment is best left in the bottle in my experience. It's also really easy to re-culture from bottles.

I can't comment on what the Stella/Ella hops will give to your beer as I have not used them. Given my experience with this yeast you may not end up with much hop flavour in your finished product.

If you would like some POR hops,I'm happy to send you some, provided there are no bio-security issues at your end.

Cheers,

Wally

[Flaneur]

Fair play Seymour... Trying out foreign brews!

I lived in Australia for a couple of years - Coopers beers were better than the Bud/ Miller/ Heineken/ Carlsberg that I grew up with - but I have to say that the sparkling ale was always a little gassy and not overly flavorsome - that was nearly ten years ago so it may have changed. I suspect your beer will be much better than the real deal. The pale ale was nicer but doesn't seem to travel well. A very nice Aussie beer was Little Creatures Pale Ale.

Well, I haven't tasted any of the above, so I'll take your word for it. I've read that Little Creatures Pale Ale uses Joe White Malt too, so I suppose this is still a representative trial of sorts. Thanks for the kind words!

By gassy, do you mean highly carbonated? I assume that might be the significance of the Sparkling part of the name?

Nail on head, Seymour. I have never had a Cooper's Sparkling that wasn't cloudy and turbid. Still a good beer, though.

Your brew day looked like fun. And I'm impressed with the square fermenter. I have some of those boxes and have not considered using them for that purpose!

[Clibit]

Proper brew day! Great pics. Not used Ella sorry. Interested to hear your thoughts.

[wally]

Nail on head, Seymour. I have never had a Cooper's Sparkling that wasn't cloudy and turbid. Still a good beer, though.

Funny you should say that. My experience is that Coopers Sparkling from a bottle pours perfectly clear if it has been allowed to settle for a couple of days in the fridge. That's how I get my sediment to reculture the yeast.

Have the Coopers that you have drunk been in bottles or the draught version? The draught version is generally cloudy.

Where I live, it is customary for a bartender to roll a bottle of Coopers on the counter top to get the sediment into the beer before it is poured. I always ask for it, to not be rolled. IMO the sediment changes the beers flavour in a negative way. It makes it really bready and you lose most of the beers flavour to the sediment.

[killer]

Fair play Seymour... Trying out foreign brews!



By gassy, do you mean highly carbonated? I assume that might be the significance of the Sparkling part of the name?

Well Yes Seymour....But I meant I found it really over the tap gassy, to the point that after a few schooners you were belching non-stop and there was an overly acidic flavour from all the CO2. How much will you gas this up ? I know you are a fan of most english beers - so will you keep the priming sugar low or are you going for gassy lager ?

[seymour]

Hi Seymour,

I always associate Australian Sparkling Ale with Coopers Sparkling Ale.

Check out the style guidelines (6.5 Australian Pale Ale) here:- http://www.aabc.org.au/docs/AABC2014Sty ... rStyle.pdf

The grist that you have will make a nice beer. Just not sure what you're expecting the aromatic malt to give to this beer.

My normal grist for this style is as follows:-

Ale Malt 93%
Wheat Malt 5%
Dark Crystal 2%

Then:-

Mash at 63°C - 64°C for 60 minutes for a really attenuative wort.

Pride of Ringwood (POR) at 60 mins to 25 - 30 IBUS.

WLP 009 yeast
Ferment at 16°C, finish off at 20° to 21°C.

From my experience, this yeast needs to ferment cold or otherwise you end up with heaps of esters, banana especially. It also seems to strip the hop character from the beer (some people dispute this, but I am speaking from my experience) and just leave the bitterness. Seems to be why it works well with just a bittering hop like POR. If you pitch a healthy amount of this yeast it will explode out of your fermenter and finish the job in around 4 days. The yeast has a very "bready" flavour and the sediment is best left in the bottle in my experience. It's also really easy to re-culture from bottles.

I can't comment on what the Stella/Ella hops will give to your beer as I have not used them. Given my experience with this yeast you may not end up with much hop flavour in your finished product.

If you would like some POR hops,I'm happy to send you some, provided there are no bio-security issues at your end.

Cheers,

Wally

So much great info, Wally, thank you again.

I think the Belgian aromatic malt suggestion originally came from a Brew Your Own magazine clone article from many years back, I'm realizing now it may not be authentic to the Coopers Brewery recipe. Oh well, my brew smelled good in any case.

I'm fermenting around 17°C, so hopefully that won't be exceedingly estery. Even so, I'm a huge fan of the banana ester, so if so, I won't personally consider it flawed.

I'd be thrilled to receive some POR hops, PM to follow.

Thanks again for reading and commenting, mate.

[seymour]

...How much will you gas this up ? I know you are a fan of most english beers - so will you keep the priming sugar low or are you going for gassy lager ?

I haven't decided for sure, but I'll probably bottle this batch, intentionally priming with a little more sugar than usual for English styles, for a true-to-style Australian vibe. I'll let you know when the times comes. Cheers!

[seymour]

Last night I primed this batch with ½ cup turbinado for relatively strong "sparkling" carbonation. Ended up with a big box of 12oz bottles and a big box of pint-size and bombers. Gravity was right on target at 1012, which makes it 5.0% abv. I'll give it some time to condition, then update with some tasting notes.

[timbo41]

Good stuff as always Seymour et al. What's the idea of a) the invert...although I know you often use it
B) the "yorkshire"
I know the squares were traditionally used but never why...always seemed counter intuitive to me, greater surface area=greater possible infection, although may be thinking wrong about that

[seymour]

What's the idea of a) the invert...although I know you often use it
B) the "yorkshire"
I know the squares were traditionally used but never why...always seemed counter intuitive to me, greater surface area=greater possible infection, although may be thinking wrong about that

Hi timbo. Our fellow member Wally is far more knowledgeable about Coopers Brewery and Australian brewing in general, so I defer to him. He's already corrected me on several points, and I'd love to hear his take on this too. But based on what I've gathered, many of Coopers' recipes, virtually all clones of their Sparkling Ale at least, contain(ed?) 5-11% cane sugar. So, right or wrong, I thought I was being authentic. I'm beginning to think historic examples included cane sugar, but present-day Coopers brews might all be all-malt. I'm sure part of the confusion stems from the simple sugar which homebrewers add to Coopers kits.

Wally shared that aforementioned link to official Australian beer descriptions (very illuminating, thank you.) On the Australian Pale Ale page it states, "Inferior colonial malt often led to inclusion of sugar." I assume Coopers Brewery also used sugar for the same reasons as their UK brewer forefathers. Compared to all-malt brews, using simple sugar: lightens the body and thins the mouthfeel, thus making the beer more drinkable and "digestive". I'm sure a super quaffable refreshment was especially desirable in the Australian heat. Sugar can also be an effective cost-savings tactic, a method to correct gravity discrepancies after the mash and sparge, a method to adjust colour, etc. But why do I personally use invert syrup instead of just dumping white sugar in the boiler? Cuz' I really like the results, I guess. As you've noticed, whenever I use sugar in my brews, I'll usually perform a quick-and-easy inversion step during the sparge to add a little caramel complexity, increase its fermentability, place less stress on the yeast, and lead to a faster finish.

Here are some of my thoughts on the poor-man's Yorkshire Square. The historic Coopers Brewery used "traditional brewing methods, including open fermentation and maturation in oak casks." I've been wanting to experiment with old-world fermentor geometry: i.e. wide and shallow and relatively open, as opposed to modern-day narrow and tall and under pressure. As you can imagine, these two different approaches place very different pressures on yeast, and can lead to remarkably different results. Perhaps the main difference, which I wanted to showcase here, is an increase in fruity esters. Infection isn't a huge concern during active primary fermentation for several reasons: if you pitch a big hardy yeast starter, it gets to work right away, so even if there are a few undesirable wild cells, they stand no chance to compete. Plus, active yeast metabolism blasts so much CO2 outward, there's not much chance of undesirables blowing in. And this time of year, in my sealed basement, there aren't any contaminating flying insects. Lastly, an unscientific reason: that silly container (with a lid) only cost me nine bucks. Fermentor buckets and carboys with the same capacity were all at least 3x as expensive.

Cheers!
-Seymour