Desperate Ex-pat in Australia

[Jonny]

Hello All, a first time user here.
Im a frustrated IPA drinker living in Australia who is completely unable to get a decent pint and Im after some help!!

I have a pretty decent micro-brewery local to me and they have a very good set up and a decent range of ingredients.
The down side is that although they have an extensive range of brew's including IPA's of varying types, none of them are on a par with a good cask ale from my old local.. Im from essex so I have very basic tastes so a simple london pride or green king is heaven to me!

I have tried many of the microbrews and they are ok (ish) but firstly they arent very english in there ale taste, and they all have a certain twang which is hard to describe.

A rough breakdown of a typical 50L brew of IPA is as follows (this is from memory and isnt comprehensive by any means!) and I might be missing some obvious things so feel free to point them out...

7 litres of Ale syrup
1.2kg of grain
200 grams of hops?
irish moss?
yeast tablet

Then its cold fermented for say, 4 weeks gased and bottled. Its all done in stainless steel kettles with boiling water and filtered etc etc...

The guy that runs it is a top bloke and is willing to adjust the recipies and ingredients even though its a franchise thing, and I want to try and get something that is a little more representative. The resulting brew is thoroughly enjoyable in terms of quality and strength but its the taste that lets it down. Its bru4u.com if you are interested..

Do you experts think its the recipe or the ale syrup or something in the process that is giving it the non authentic taste... Can anyone suggest a starting point on what to change or where the focus of the recipe should be or even suggest a mix for 50 litres?... I know that Ive used willamette and tetneg (spelling!) hops but should I push for some more english based hops...

Thanks alot people

Jon

[Wolfy]

Brew4U are not really a 'micro brewery' as such but more a 'brew on premises' setup and as such are not known for high quality products.

The flavour you are looking for will most likely come from every aspect of the recipe and process, and since you've given virtually no specific information (as per how brew on premises places usually work) its hard to help directly.
For a start, which of their recipes are you using as a basis for your beer?
The specific grain, hops and yeast in the recipe will all be major contributing factors - so if possible you'll need to find out exactly what is in the recipe and what - English style ingredients are available.

For example what hops are included in your recipe and when are they added, what yeast is being used and what is available to you?

You should be able to brew something similar to London Pride by using the generic 'ale' malt extract and appropriate hops and yeast.
Suggested hops (if they are available) would be Challenger and/or Northdown for bittering and then a Goldings addition later in the boil for flavour/aroma and some dry hopping.
(Since Willamette is related to Fuggles you could use those if they don't have Goldings, but I'm not sure that Tettnang would be suitable.)
The yeast will also be an important factor, so you'll want to use an English style yeast, hopefully they have something like Fermentis S04 or Danstar Nottingham.

Most likely that will get you somewhere closer to what you are looking for but still be within the scope of the brew on premises setup.

[196osh]

I assume the ale syrup is malt extract. Which could account for the twang. Although if you have the facilities I would brew an all malt recpie, to get rid of the twang or at least rule it out as a factor.

London Pride isnt exactly an IPA per say neitehr is GK. But heres a London Pride Clone attempt that was decent.

OG 1048
IBUs 40
SRM 9

4.67kg Marris Otter 95%
250g Simpson's Dark Crystal(approx. 70lov.)

20g Target 11%AA at 60m
18g Challenger 7.5%AA at 3m
18g Northdown 8.5%AA at 3m
6g Goldings 4.75%AA at 3m

WLP002

Mash at 65

Burtonize water with gypsum

Not perfect. This was the verdict.

Discussion Notes:

This is done as a complex partigyle process by Fuller's which was not attempted to be recreated. It was noted that the commercial example has more of an "oversparged" flavor that was tannic whereas the clone did not have that flavor. The above recipe was voted not cloned by a 3-2 vote. It sounded very similar but others reported less malt profile and too much hop aroma. The bitterness of Fuller's was also described as "sharper" than the clone.


I think you need to use WLP002 for the yeast probably to make a decent attempt at a clone.

[Jonny]

Wolfy, the actual brewing process varies, its roughly 15 minute intervals of adding the hops, im pretty sure that can be dialed in... The base recipe ive used is pretty much all of the IPA, English ale etc.. The names of the hops etc used to be (around 4 years ago) on the names of the containers, now however they are numbered as the franchise has changed from ubrewit to bru4u. I can get the details but I dont have them to hand right now... the grain has always been a bit of a mystery though... thinking that I might source my own ingredients and try those... cheers

[Spud395]

Get yourself a few ingredients and a little bit of equipment and try your own by the sound of it.

[Jonny]

Its getting hold of the ingredients thats the problem!!!

[grumpysod]

try craftbrewer they'll ship to the UK so they should be able to ship to you.

you'll need grains and/or extract yeast and hops

There are probably other suppliers that teh Oz based members can recommend

[goldstar]

Where abouts have you moved to Jonny? I think you'll find there are quite a few ex-pats that keep tabs on this forum. Since moving moving over here I've slowly got myself an all-grain set-up where I can try and re-create any beers I want from back home. The aussie inspired BIAB method is working great for me. Funnily enough its only recently I've decided to do a clone brew from Blighty (Hobgoblin). I know it's tough, but I'd keep trying the local beers and see if you can find something you like. Have you sampled anything from Murrays, Little Creatures, James Squires or Matilda Bay yet? They are all quite easy to get hold of in a good bottleshop.

[weiht]

i wld say that generally australia is mainly a lager drinking country, whereas u just came from the land of ale... Australia do have some interesting beers, but its all done with a twist and they ales are more carbonated n hoppy n has a different mouth feel as compared to the traditional english ales. I have drank nice aussie ales that comes on as a pleasant surprise but i dont think they have created an ideal session ale

I saw a few aussie sites before that imports british brews though

[Wolfy]

Its getting hold of the ingredients thats the problem!!!

That's not actually true, while getting hold of the ingredients you want through the BOP shop you use may be difficult or impossible, that is not the case if you brew yourself or (possibly) visit a different BOP shop.
Brewing ingredients imported from the UK are not that hard to find here in Australia (for example I have a bag of TF Maris Otter as well as various hops and yeast all imported from the UK).

If you are in Brisbane, as others have suggested CraftBrewer is a good place to shop if you have your own equipment, but they have just acquired Bacchus Brewing (an 'all grain' BOP setup in Capalaba, Qld) so if that is close to you I'd suggest it would be a very good option if you are looking for specific ingredients to use.

[Jonny]

Im down south on the surf coast... did some investigation yesterday and things must have picked up in the 7 years since I last tried to get the ingredients!
1st shop I rang Grape and grain in yarraville have all of it!
Ive tried all the bottle shop variations, little creatures, james squire, fat yak and many others but although tasty they are over gassed and not really an english type ale.
I think I shall use the local brewing facility once I get the ingredients together...
The bug got me after a recent return to the UK and a visit to my old beer festival and the james and Oz series just starting and his love of the Jaipur IPA... so if anyones got a recipe for that Id be interested!!

[Wolfy]

Im down south on the surf coast... did some investigation yesterday and things must have picked up in the 7 years since I last tried to get the ingredients!
1st shop I rang Grape and grain in yarraville have all of it!

Yep, I tend to drive across the other side of the city just to visit G&G - they have quite a good range (even had a brewing demo running yesterday) you can also order via their website (they have decent postage costs) they'll crush grain for you and all that too.

[goldstar]

James Squires Amber Ale has Pommy routes and might be a winner for you.

I too watched the Oz and James series and from there thought I'd have a crack at a Jaipur. I forgot I'd done it. Here's my recipe - its in secondary now. The samples are tasting awsome.

GSB Empire IPA (American IPA)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.056
Colour (SRM): 5.3
Bitterness (IBU): 47.0

94.7% Bairds Pale Ale Malt
5.3% Weyermann Vienna

0.5 g/l Warrior (15% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (Boil)
0.5 g/l Chinook (11.4% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
0.8 g/l Centennial (7.2% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
0.8 g/l Amarillo (8.2% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)
0.4 g/l Chinook (11.4% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
0.4 g/l Centennial (7.2% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
0.4 g/l Amarillo (8.2% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil)
0.4 g/l Chinook (11.4% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Dry Hop)
0.4 g/l Centennial (7.2% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Dry Hop)
0.4 g/l Amarillo (8.2% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Dry Hop)

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 90 Minutes. Boil for 90 Minutes
Fermented at 18°c with Wyeast 1764PC - Rogue Pacman
Recipe Generated with BrewMate

Have a read through these threads for Jaipur recipe inspiration viewtopic.php?f=24&t=33716&p=363515&hil ... ur#p363515 and Scarer's Bombay IPA here viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12097