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Check out the top seven scoring category winners in the Australian Amateur Brewing Championships (AABC), plus three bonus recipes and brewing techniques from down under.
Full-bodied amber ale with crystal, carastan and carapils providing subtle dark fruit malt character and Willamette, Cascade and Tettnang hops giving a subtle fruit hop character.
Cooper’s Sparkling Ale is the bar that all others are measured when brewing an Australian sparkling ale. According to Coopers, “Little has changed since Thomas Cooper brewed his first batch of Sparkling Ale in 1862. It’s still naturally conditioned in the bottle with our unique strain of Coopers yeast.”
“My philosophy on brewing these days is to keep it simple and allow the ingredients to shine through.” – Michael Meissner (New South Wales)
“The German crystal malts are not traditional but provide richness without the cloying quality of some of the currently available English crystals. The amber invert sugar adds a bit of flavor complexity and helps dry out the finish. Hopping the mash and first runnings worked well for this one – it retained appreciable hop character despite being fairly well aged when judged.”
—Ross Mitchell (Australian Capital Territory)
“The recipe was inspired by a fellow brewer. The spicy character of the rye really makes this beer as it balances beautifully with the strong malt and hop flavors.”
“I’d like to dedicate this beer to my wife Samantha for putting up with all the brew gear in the bedroom.”
“This was my first Belgian Ale. I had no spare fridge space, so it was fermented at ambient temperatures, getting up to 86°F (30 °C) on day 2 and it was all over after 3 days. I didn’t really like the beer, but all who tried it thought it was great, and so did the judges!” – Michael Carter — Queensland
“This recipe was constructed for us by John Strantzen, one of Australia’s most successful and generous homebrewers. We’ve been tweaking it for a decade and seemed to be particularly blessed with this batch — it wasn’t an easy decision to offer up bottles for judging!”
One of the winners of Boston Brewing Company’s LongShot contest.
Many recipes for Altbier use a large percentage of Pilsner malt along with some Munich malt, but in this recipe Munich II as the base malt lends a fantastic malt presence that blends beautifully with the hops.
Based on the winter specialty brewed yearly by Anchor Brewing Co. , with different spices each year. When tasted young the anise was dominant, but the nutmeg became more noticeable with age. The base beer supports the spice with moderate hopping, good attenuation and a hint of chocolate.
Based on the Russian River Brewing Company’s Pliny The Elder, this recipe has two hop additions (Northern Brewer and Cascade), a higher starting gravity and a 153 °F (67 °C) versus 151 °F (66 °C) mash temperature. One of the winners of Boston Brewing Company’s LongShot contest.
One of the winners of Boston Brewing Company’s LongShot contest.
Wish you could grow hops, but don’t have a suitable in-ground location? With a little knowledge of container gardening, you can grow hops virtually anywhere — including your deck, patio or driveway. Growing plants in containers presents some added challenges, but the basic principles of container gardening are straightforward.
Just because you work in a cubicle doesn’t mean you can’t grow some high-rise hops.
Controlling the temperature of your fermentations is one of the best ways to improve the quality of your beers; we’ll show you how — from low-tech tricks to high-tech equipment.
One of the first things you learn about most styles is whether it’s an ale or a lager. This month’s featured style — Irish red ale — can be either.
Here are the top seven scoring category winners in the Australian Amateur Brewing Championships (AABC), plus three bonus recipes.
It’s a mash tun . . . and a brew kettle? Using the brew-in-a-bag method of Australian homebrewers, one vessel can serve both purposes.
This article takes a look at Australian pale ale, as typified by Coopers Sparkling Ale — a beer with an unlikely name and an even more unlikely yeast sediment. Michael Jackson once described this beer as an Australian classic.
Three homebrewers who won at Boston Brewing Company’s LongShot contest and the beers they brewed.
