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RDWHAHB - What Are You Drinking 2017 ?


ben 10

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3 beer were tried at the weekend, 4 if you count a sample of an Ace of Spades Porter. 1st the English bitter i posted couple of weeks ago did clear up very nicley. Unfortunately keg blew on Saturday. Next was the Irish stout first grainfather brew. Like the sample i had at kegging time this is an exceptional brew. Never did i think when i started this journey i would brew a beer of this calibre. Lastly i did a coopers kit porter with a briess porter liquid extract. This was ok but has nothing like the flavour of the all grain brews. The test of the Ace of Spades Porter was great and is now in the keg condititioning.

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Titan8, you sure like them dark!

 

I'm drinking the Pirate Life Pale Ale clone that Xenon posted. I have to source a can and do a side-by-side tasting, but I am loving it.

 

It is the best beer that I have brewed and is drinking beautifully at 3 weeks in the bottle. 1 week in, I couldn't resist a try and it was hoppy, but unbalanced and "green". Can be described as a raw grain taste. 2 weeks in it was better but the hops a bit sharp for the malt in this beer. 3 weeks it’s perfect and I hope it lasts until I finish drinking this batch.

 

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G'Day Drinkers, Me mate an me are slipping into a couple of Coppers Best Extra Stout's with a best after date of 18/6/16, so older then eleven months and yes the time has been good to them, very smooth, good head and lacing with a pronounced coffee flavour. love

 

Time is good to a home brew stout and also good to Coopers commercial version as well. biggrin

Already got next winters cellaring and another one will soon to join it. w00t

 

Cheers.

 

 

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I've got my Citra and Amarillo IPA on tap in the fridge at the moment, so enjoying the a pint of this. It is really good and I would recommend this recipe to anyone who brews kits and likes an American style IPA. If I brewed it again I would probably only make it up to 21 litres instead of 23 - a touch more bitterness wouldn't go astray.

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Hi John

 

I have brewed the Brew A IPA kit twice now. Once was with a 5min boil of galaxy and a dry hop last year. Once of my early brews in my brewing career! It was fantastic, I thought the bitterness matched the malt body of the beer and the late and dry addition of Galaxy really left a lasting passionfruit punch. I liked it so much that I bought another can of the TC Brew A IPA when my local Woolies had it on special.

 

Now that my hop tolerance has increased, I devised this recipe https://club.coopers.com.au/coopers-forum/topic/16534/. I did amend it somewhat from my screenshots. The 1.4kg of LDME I replaced with a partial mash of pale ale malt. The wheat DME I reduced to what I had left, about 250g.

 

I omitted the 15minute addition, but kept the 5min and flameout additions as is. I dry hopped with 2g/L of Chinook (46g) as I am aiming for a bit of piney, resinous dankness, for something different.

 

Only been in the bottle for 4 days, so too early to share tasting notes. Will come back here and post at the 1 week and 2 week mark. Bottling samples were promising - good grain flavour from the partial mash and the hop flavour is not dominated by citrus, but a smoother, pine forest flavour and aroma from the Chinook. Here's hoping my stab in the dark recipe build turns out well!

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Got the new lot of kegs in and on tap now so I've been trying a couple of pilsners and will have a crack at the home malted barley ale tonight as well. Unfortunately I've got a bit of a stuffed up nose so the beers are a bit bland compared to normal. Still enough flavour coming through to be nice though. The porter is carbonating on serving pressure so it won't be sampled until next Thursday. Might grab a couple of pix tomorrow, and hopefully be able to report how the flame out addition of Saaz performed on the pilsner when this nose clears up.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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My Accidental Mosaic Pale Ale

 

I think I am going to have to make the call on this one bandit

 

Tested this tonight on my son and my three son-in-laws.

"One of your top five brews"

"This is something like you'd get at Jack Green's, you should do a tap takeover"

"It has a lot of hop, very fruity"

"This is a very good beer"

 

I'm still getting grapefruit up front, mango in the middle, and a bitter finish again with grapefruit notes. The Malt background has caramel notes that compliment the hops beautifully.

 

When pushed the boys didn't necessarily agree that it was mango, but absolutely that it was tropical.

 

Accidental because this is nothing like I was intending and was really meant to be a tweak of a previous recipe.

 

Accidental Mosaic

American Pale Ale

 

4.30 kg Pale Malt (Gladfields American Ale Malt)

0.30 kg CaraMalt

0.20 kg Medium Crystal Malt

0.10 kg Acid Malt

 

10.00 g Magnum [11.30 %] - Boil 60.0 min

20.00 g Cascade [7 %] - Boil 20.0 min

15.00 g Mosaic [12.25 %] - Boil 20.0 min

10.00 g Cascade [7 %] - Boil 8.0 min

10.00 g Mosaic [12.25 %]

 

20.00 g Mosaic [12.25 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 30.0 min

10.00 g Cascade [7 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 30.0 min

 

US05

 

OG 1.050

FG 1.013

IBU 49.7

 

 

Cheers & Beers

Scottie

Valley Brew

 

 

 

 

 

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I've had a few glasses from each of the kegs over the past few days, and got a bit of a surprise with SWMBO actually requesting a glass of the porter after tasting some of mine. For someone who doesn't like dark beers, this was rather a shock lol. I'm glad she enjoyed it though. I reserved proper judgement of these beers as when they were first tapped I had a slight cold which affected tasting ability.

 

The Boh Pils is its usual excellent self, nice and clear, golden color, with a crisp and clean flavor. The 50g flameout addition of Saaz has definitely had a positive impact on the flavor without being grassy as had been suggested could happen by other regular lager brewers. They have had that issue with very late Saaz additions, but it didn't occur in this instance. I'll keep that in the recipe I think. The batch currently CCing was also impacted positively by this addition without grassiness.

 

Onto the mystery keg, and I still can't bloody tell whether it's the red ale or the pale ale with home made pale and crystal malts. There is a hint of the caramel/toffee flavor of the red ale in it and it is reasonably close to the color as well, but I did use the darkest crystal with it so it could just be from that. Whatever the hell it is, it's a lovely balanced beer. Citrusy hop aromas and flavors backed up by the caramel/toffee. This batch was fermented with 1272, and it has flocculated a lot better this time than it did in the last batch it was used in. The beer has cleared up nicely.

 

And now we come to the aforementioned porter. This one is the Ace of Spades recipe and like the pilsner has turned out as it usually does. There are prominent chocolate tones with a coffee undertone to this beer, something that goes well on these cold (for us!) winter nights. It was fermented with 1469, but it's probably turned out a little dry; I think next time I brew it I might go back to the original S-04 yeast this recipe used. I don't have to worry about bottle bombs anymore, so if it gives up a couple of points off FG I'm not gonna be bothered by it. The malt base for this beer is very close to my extra stout recipe, just the percentages of some of the dark grains are changed around to alter the flavor.

1469 yeast should be ideal for a White Rabbit Dark Ale style beer I'll do at some point though, as that beer is a bit drier.

 

The Bo Pils CCing is due for kegging next week, then the other mystery cube will go into the FV and that will confirm whether it's the red ale or home malted ale in the keg currently lol

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

 

 

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Coopers Real Ale can with LME can, bit of dry malt and bit of white sugar.

150gmCara rye

Citra, Mosaic and Cascade.

50 IBUs, 6%

West Yorkshire Ale yeast

Yum!!

 

Coopers EB can, LME can, bit of dry malt and white sugar.

100gms cara malt and 50gms chocolate malt.

Goldings and Cascade.

Nottingham ale yeast

Yum!!

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Titan8' date=' you sure like them dark

[/quote']

My favorite brews are always dark beer. However i do enjoy a lager every now and again. Keeping the dark beer front, i realy want to perfect a style then move on to another and perfect that. Currently ideal ambient temp in melb for brewing a lager but very green on lager brewing. Will perhaps do one in a month before temp rises.

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My Accidental Mosaic Pale Ale

This sounds awesome scotty… is it anything like a pirate life brew with all that mosaic and cascade?

 

Hey dragit

 

I am sorry to report that even though the PL Pale Ale was my aim it is not like it. Having said that I actually prefer this one.

 

I brewed this one (Linky) as a clone and I reckon I nailed it. My blind tasting suggested that it may need a little more hop aroma' date=' and I overdid it. It has the same bitterness however the FG is higher so it is more balanced IMHO.

 

I'm drinking one now (Accidental Mosaic [img']love[/img]), and I am saying it is my best beer ever.

 

Cheers & Beers

Scottie

Valley Brew

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my best beer ever.

 

 

Love it when that happens!

 

 

Drinking what was going to be a Smurto's Golden Ale but turned into a Golden IPA.

Yum.

Hopped with Amarillo, EKG and Fortnight.

Easy drinking 50 IBU and around 6%.

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I've been sick the last few days, so haven't been drinking anything.

 

Speaking of best beers ever though Scottie ... last weekend I sampled one of my English IPAs from the back of the cupboard. This was the last all-grain batch I brewed last year and it's been in the bottle for about 8 months now. The 330ml bottle lasted me a couple of hours because I was savouring every small sip from my glass. It is a beautiful beer with a very complex malt flavour despite it being 100% pale malt (75% Maris Otter and 25% Joe White), and still has a really nice spicy and floral hop notes (that would be the Styrian and East Kent Goldings at work) to accompany this. There's a firm bitterness and a long lingering finish, but it doesn't really taste like the 84 calculated IBUs Beersmith told me any more. Despite the 8.5% ABV I can't really detect much alcohol, so I think it's all covered up by the big hit of malt and hop flavour.

 

So this beer has come together really nicely with a bit of age! I think I've got 8 or 10 bottles left in the back of the cupboard, so will be looking forward to sampling one each month or so.

 

Cheers,

 

John

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Nice to hear that your IPA has aged nicely John, and hope you start feeling better soon.

Tonight i did a side by side with one of my mates beers, a Celebration Ale clone as per the Coopers recipe, and a Coopers original. I must say that the only thing that is similar is the colour. My mates one has a lovely hop aroma to it that the original didn't, but the original has a nice fresh malt flavour to it that my mates didn't. There are positives and negatives with both beers, but i have to admit that i did find myself picking up the clone beer glass alot more than the original!

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Great stuff John

 

I wish I could age in the bottle but I just don't seem to be having any luck. It could well be that when I bottle these days its a last minute thing, finished kegging and have a litre or so left. Perhaps I rush with preparing the bottles or perhaps I end up with too much trub in the bottles.

 

The test will come this weekend, I have around a dozen Black Night stouts in the garage that I refrigerated on Wednesday (they have been through some temperature extremes since being brewed) so it will be interesting to see how they go.

 

The other issue may be mindset, I think kegs taste better and since I've always got a keg on tap I give up on the bottled stuff pretty quickly if it doesn't wow me.

 

Cheers & Beers

Scottie

Valley Brew

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Cheers guys! I really liked the Celebration Ale recipe pack, except when I made it I accidentally put the whole 1kg of dextrose in (probably a consequence of drinking while brewing), so it was a bit out of balance with the alcohol. I can imagine it would have been really nice made up as per the recipe. Last time I tried a commercial one I couldn't taste the hops, so I imagine it had been sitting on the shelf for a while.

 

Scottie, your kegging setup by far outdoes mine, so not really a fair comparison, but for some reason I prefer my bottle-conditioned beers to the ones I serve from my little Tap-a-Draft setup in the fridge. Maybe I just like the ceremony of cracking open the bottle and carefully pouring it into my glass. Although I'm perfectly happy to drink from either source biggrin

 

Feeling a bit better, so having a Coopers Mild now. It tastes thin and metallic, definitely lacking the malt sweetness that I remember, so I think my tastebuds are still shot unsure

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Spicey grapefruit love yum.

 

Went for an Autumn Session Ale (or two) off the tap. Don't know what it is about me and bottles but this is streets ahead of the Bright Ale.

 

Cheers & Beers

Scottie

Valley Brew

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I don't even waste my energy bottling if there's only a litre of beer left after kegging it, not worth the effort for two bottles. I usually use that litre to clear the tap by pouring 2 or 3 glasses prior to filling the keg, and with having the 10L keg I hardly bottle anything anymore. The surplus just goes into that small keg and I end up with blended beers which most of the time taste awesome too.

 

I still have my Bo Pils, mystery ale and Ace of Spades porter on the taps. Now that the cold/flu thing has pretty well gone away I can properly taste them again and they are all very nice beers. If that mystery ale is the one done with the home malted barley, it has done very well in that beer.

 

I also grabbed a carton of the LC Fire Falcon on the weekend to try. It's a red ale brewed with Falconers Flight hops. Quite a nice beer actually, similar to my own red ale but not as malty. I'll have to grab some FF hops to brew with too.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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I have a selection on hand at the moment - all on regular sampling rotation w00t

 

- An American Brown featuring Gladfield brown malt. Now a favourite malt that I'll also be using it in porters and stouts in the future.

 

- Red/Amber ale featuring Gladfield Shepherds Delight, a caraaroma substitute which I particularly like.

 

- An APA - my first AG 1/2-batch. Disappointing hop-fade on this one but still a very nice beer.

 

Also, had a sneak taste of a recently brewed blonde. Get's the 'thumbs up' from her so I think we have a success with this one. Previous attempts at blondes have not been great.

 

And, just bottled a PM version of the above APA. I will do a side by side comparison of these, though I realise the AG version will be a lot more matured.

cool

 

 

 

 

 

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