Welcome to night life, the first hour.
Philip: Well, forget as face some of our toughest time as a nation. Many of you decided to get into bread baking and that's fine, too, but plenty more of decided to get out of their home brewing kit. As pubs have to limit their numbers and some of you are locked down at home. What a better time to take up a hobby, such as home brewing. Home Brewing shops right now, are making or doing a roaring trade, but how easy is it to make a home brew? Tonight, We're going to talk beer and cider but we're not talking about say how to start this. Look, there's an art and a science to brew your own beer. If you're a man Home brow give us a call. Tell us your secret to Brewing the perfect batch or if you have a question, give us a call, chance to have your questions answered. 1300 800 222 is the number. We're talking home brewing in this first hour, joining us tonight Australian Craft Brewer and owner of the Australian home brewing shop in Victoria, Hamish Rogers Wilson.
Hamish. Good evening. Welcome to nightlife.
Hamish: Good evening, Philip. It's so good to be here. We'll talk about something fun.
Philip: Great, exactly Bottoms Up. If you've got a coldy beside you?
Hamish: No, (Laughs) It's probably past my beer o'clock.
PHILIP: That's fair enough. He may be lying to us everyone but we won't care also joining us tonight Crista Flanagan this he likes all things. that our homemade in food and drink. She's an enthusiastic home brewer. She makes snags as well. Although we're not going to talk about that and it is also co-owner of a restaurant called The Sausage Factory in Sydney. Chrissy, good evening to you and bottoms up.
Chrissy: Good evening Philip. Keeping it sober.
(a joint laugh)
Philip: So I think Both of you are lying quite fickle. Home brewing, it's often said, I mean, Hamish that it's easy, it's easy to make beer. It's Very very difficult to make a good beer. Do you think that's true?
Hamish: No, it's certainly not true. But it's true that it's often said, yes.
Philip: Yes, like well, that's one that's one of the things that I want to unpack alright. Let's go back to the beginning when we think of Gough Whitlam. We might think free education, the dismissal and no one will forget the governor-general. But we should also think of home brewing, why? Gough wasn't known as much of a tippler. was he?
Hamish: I'm not sure about Gough in terms of yourself drinking prowess, but he certainly was on the job very early just not long after they finished singing, it’s time. He went straight to Parliament, changed the legislation to allow Brewers, Australians, anywhere to make small batches at home, legally.
Philip: Because prior to that it was illegal. Wasn't it?
Hamish: It wasn’t illegal. When it was a giant cartel between the brewery. So as you many of your listeners would remember and I certainly growing up as a teenager in Victoria. You are either drank red cans or green cans. That's it and in New South Wales, you had your to ease and and in Queensland you had your Forex and they owned every tap and every Pub and it was just a giant conspiracy with the with the government which Gough broke, which is one of his great achievements.
Philip: Yes. That's right. Of course, it was all, it was all the new thinking wasn't with the Trade Practices Act and the abolition of retail price maintenance and the smashing of cartels everywhere. The beer the beer cartel also that he was right for smashing as well. So basically from then on, it's been legal to make your own beer. hasn't it? But not you can't make as much as you like. What are the legalities anyway?
Hamish: Well, the legality is that you could make beer for home consumption or share with your friends, but if you were to make it to sell the product then that would be commercial brewing and you would have to pay excise tax on the alcohol and you need to have a license to do that. I'm sure Christie could tell us a little bit more about that. But for home consumption and really home brewing really is all about sharing with your mates. That's how I see it and that's how many of our brewers see it.
Philip: Right, so how much is too much? I mean, is there a limit on how much you can make?
Hamish: No, not that I'm aware of that but it's always you know, as long as you don't sell it.
Philip: Okay, alright. who brews anyways, men, women, older, younger?
Hamish: That's a really good question. We're seeing all sorts of people brewing and particularly now during this COVID period, when a lot of the transactions, a lot of people are buying online. We're seeing a huge spread right across the age group, but I'd say that the biggest age group would be, the sort of, the 30s to 45s, but it goes all the way up to the 70s and the 80s. We've got brewing friends that have been with us for over 50 years and they are still coming back and they would like the original pioneers.
Philip: Well okay. Chrissy, how did you get into it?
Chrissy: Well, I'm actually semi recent to be a drinking having only taking it up some five or six years ago. When I was particularly in the first year at the soccer’s match, you know that the Sun hits you in the right way and it's finally beer time. So, I started home brewing some three Christmases ago, like a summer project, I like to be oversubscribed. So I did a pile of kits over one Christmas and really enjoyed that. And I've had my bar for just over three years. So I've been buying a lot of beer so that got me more interested in, how it all comes to be made.
Philip: So do you brew regularly?
Chrissy: Yes, I brew about every fortnight. So at the moment, I believe I have a New Zealand cream ale that's ripening and I also have a question when we get to the question part because, I have a sour that is in the process in the process of failing so it is it is a little trickier than it says on the packet.
Philip: I'm sure it is. What do you love about it Chrissy what’s there, because beer is not a hugely expensive product and it's readily available. Why do you make your own?
Chrissy: Well, I thinking it's up for what, well, it depends what kind of beer buying of course and I do like very glamorous and expensive beers. But um, I think it's the pleasure of making anything and I mean that's been sort of my origin of story with the sausages. Well as you mentioned, it's wonderful to make something from scratch when your day-to-day life particularly is often in an office (although not recently), and with a computer and it can all feel very very abstract. The sort of grace of taking a bunch of materials and turning out something that is pleasurable and that your friends enjoy. There isn't really anything that compares with that. Yeah, but I mean you get a lot more friends with beer, then you do with Kieffer and Kombucha, in my experience.
Philip: (Laughs) Yes, somehow with Kombucha, now it's doing your good too. Therefore, you enjoy it through gritted teeth then to your worst. With you know, it's not necessarily doing good. But boy, oh boy. “He's old school” says Chrissy, boy. Does it feel good? It's exactly. What about you Hamish, how did you start?
Hamish: Look. I started as a young boy in my teenage years, because the business of home brewing was actually originally my father's business. I used to come in and pack Molt's and Hobbes and then going into my university days, I was like, well, I'm going to be pretty popular because I feel I can make beer and I can make really good beer. So I really started as but I was at when I was about 18 or maybe even a little bit earlier, but I was exposed to it very early.
Philip: Was the first batch any good? Be honest.
Hamish: Look as an aid as an 18 years old, it was free, so it was great. See now. We're getting to it. (laughs)
Philip: Hey okay. You're not going to be feeding it, with me how much I’ll be with you. I was about the same age, I think and I boiled up the grains, the malted barley at water, but I think it was in a big pot on the stove snug the house out the course of a share house, I stunt at that out of stunt that out, put it all into bottles in the garage. Half of which blew up and the and the others, look to be honest, it was okay. (laughs)
Hamish: It was a great experience. (with a laugh)
Philip: It wasn't that great. I mean to be quite crude about the whole thing, Craig and nearby has just texted me saying “Homebrew is like a fart only the person who made it enjoys it”, which might contain a truth, doesn't it, Hamish?
Hamish: It might contain a truth but opposite to what Chrissy said, which is you get a lot more friends with beer. So, the true, where is the truth? There is that old story about Grandpa making beer and he shared out of a rubbish bin and it tasted terrible, but he was so proud of it. Well, it's just so easy not to do that these days. The access I guess, It's the craft brewing industry has risen up in the last 10 or 15 years. It's really sparked the interest of beer drinkers. People that love beer go “I love that, that stone and wood Pacific island. How do I make that? Is it possible to make that?” and of course all of the ingredients that are used to make these boutique commercial beers are available to anyone. It's the Hops. It's only four ingredients yeast, hops, malt and water.
Philip: That's the only thing goes in to be right there, it's quite a simple. I mean some might say putting aside the water. It's their only three ingredients. You say the yeast the hops and the malted grain with barley or something else. Yeah. I mean, it's an extraordinarily simple and magical process, when you think of what you end up with, isn't it?
Hamish: It’s incredible when you think we've all the varieties that you can end up with. I mean you can you can start at a Stout and you can end it a Pilsner, Amber, Alzershales, Brown has all sorts of stuff, but it's all out of those same basic ingredients.
Philip: Let's start with the basics. Chrissy, take us through one of your.. you brew twice a week once every fortnight. Take us through your basic Brew.
Chrissy: Well, so I'm doing a brew in a bag at the moment, which is well, so it means and I brew from kits that I get from my local home brew shop and which is extremely supportive, which is helpful for all your weekend problems. So, it comes with the grains and the hops and the yeast so and then the recipe, the order in which you do everything.
Philip: So basically, it is like baking a simple cake. Is it just mix the ingredients together?
Chrissy: Sort of, a bit little bit better. Well, there's a process. So it's not rocket science, but I think it can be made out to be more intimidating but it really sorts of is. So it's just a matter of going through, steeping the grain. So basically boiling up a huge pot of water you put the Grain in a bag in there for a set period of time so that the water gets the flavor of the grain squeeze out the water from grain, and then bring it to a boil you put your hops in and there's a particular sequence in the recipe which you put your hops in and then you cool it down and then you put it in a big fermenter and it stays in there with the yeast for a couple of weeks and after that you bottle it with a bit of sugar. So it goes through its second fermentation and then you have beer and friends.
Philip: Hmm. So you put it in bottles put what put the crown seal caps on top of the bottle. Yeah, tell me, maybe you can enlighten us here too Hamish, I was told you should drink beer fresh, like fresh beer is the thing to drink. I mean you bottom for a week or so until it carbonates, maybe a couple of weeks, but then beer is not like wine, beer doesn't get better with age. Is that right?
Hamish: No, Beer has got a best after date not a best before date. Yeah, and also just to add to what Chrissy was saying, So Chrissy is talking about all grain brewing where you create a mesh and out of the grains. the majority of Brewers would do what we call malt extract brewing. So they don't do the mash part of the process, but they would buy a kit that or the mold has already been extracted, so they can skip that part of the process and it makes it a very simple and even more simple process.
Philip: Describe that for us
Hamish: So as it we spoke before about the four ingredients. The first being malt, malt is a sugar that's derived from the malted barley and to extract that Sugar you have to go through a mashing process. But what's happened is that the brewery is like Lion Nathan, for example, one of the great makers of malts in New Zealand. They already make the Malt extract which comes out like a honey type of syrup if you like. It looks like honey, and then that goes into your fermenter, you add your hops, you had your water and you add your yeast and mix it up. So it's a much more simple process.
Philip: So we are not boiling anything up?
Hamish: You may, if you can put hops in dry, you may have a little bit of boil time on the Hops just to get some bitterness and different flavors out of it. But essentially no. You don't need a big pot on a stove to cook it. You can do it in your shed. It’s a very very simple process.
Philip: oh! so we are not actually heating the big pan of and stinking the place out anymore.
Hamish: No, not at all. Not at all. So and the majority I'd say in Australia probably 90% of Brewers would use malt extract and grain is growing. But it's definitely in the minority. So Chrissy is really she's going for it.
Philip: She is hardcore. She's hardcore.
Hamish: She's hardcore. In the US. Everyone's pretty much hardcore. Malt extracts is not really heard of over there.
Philip: But whatever regard it's a bit of a I mean well to use a phrase. I mean, it's a bit of a… I don't know, it's an unacceptable shortcut to brew, isn't it?
Hamish: Well it may be but the problem the thing is, these days the quality of the ingredients is so high that it's very difficult, it can be very difficult to tell the difference between all grain beer at a malt extract one. So it really comes down to the quality of the ingredients and following the instruction, but also brewing at the right temperature range because the yeast likes to be brewed at a certain temperature, Lagers at very low temperature, Ales at a sort of 18 to 22 degrees and if you get that temperature right and you look after your beer, it'll be a great.
Philip: But hey on this is the problem Hamish. It’s nuts. Chrissy you may gives us some light here too because someone gave me some Homebrewing stuff for Christmas. I haven't got around to doing it yet. I do intend to, people don't worry. I'll report if I'm not reporting for work, you will know what's happened. But on the back of the packet says that, Hamish it says that you have to this beer is best brewed in a quite a narrow temperature range. How is that going to happen? Because the daily temperature fluctuates a lot. Well, I mean, I don't have I don't have a fridge doesn't have a giant fridge that I can put it in. So how does that work?
Hamish: Well, you remember you're not brewing air, you brewing liquid. So the liquid is, its temperature fluctuations are much less than the air low fluctuations. So if it gets to 26 during the day and 16 at night, your beer will probably hold 20, 22 degrees easily the so it's actually not that difficult to hold a decent temperature and really too cold is not a problem. But getting it warm is a problem. So yeah, it's easy to cool things down with ice packs or things like that in extreme.
Philip: So right now, the wintertime is probably a good time to brew, is it?
Hamish: It's a great time to brew and it's also the ideal time to brew Lager and some of your listeners who speak German might know that the Lager is a German word which basically means still cold and Lager is all about brewing and cold temperatures and you get a very clean and crisp profile. So Lager and Pale Ale can be brewed right now ideally. I just wanted to touch on one other thing. I love what you said earlier that beers got to be drunk fresh and maybe when we think about drinking Kalsen draft Yeah, drink a fresh batch with at pub with a tap, but with home brewing as the process that Chrissy described which is the secondary fermentation where you bottle your beer and you put in the sugar and you put your cap on, what is happening then is the beer carbonates and it goes through an aging process just like your wine would go through an aging process. So we say that it's your beer there is ready to drink within three weeks of bottling, but the longer you leave it the better the beer gets. To improve, yes.
Philip: Yes, that's interesting because that's not true of commercial beer. I mean, I'm crazy don't you agree with me here? I mean I went to went to visit a friend in Brazil at his Beach Shack. He's holiday house and he had some beer in the fridge that was nearly a year old and quite frankly, It had passed its best. It wasn't that good.
Chrissy: Hmm the beers, the craft beers without the preservatives that I find all the gospel I have received is that yes, you definitely want it to be fully fermented. But after that you want it kind of towards this the sooner and the fresher end. So I also make a small-scale commercial beer and we made a batch in February just before the pandemic which was put in kegs and then because the bar was closed we put in Cannes and so when we got that fresh in cans it was already two months old and delicious taste, the way it was supposed to. There’s a farmhouse across, where we just recently did another batch and put it straight into Cannes fresh and you can taste so much more going on and it's a far more dynamic (for want of a better word) beer. So yeah, I've always been told that fresh is definitely desirable and a lot of the local craft brewery (certainly in Sydney) really promote that idea of saying get it fresh from the brewery, check your use by dates.
Philip: But that doesn't apply to home beer. So you're saying that home brewed beer is different?
Hamish: Philip, could I ask Chrissy a quick question?
Philip: Yeah.
Hamish: You do you force carbonate that beer or is it naturally brewed by secondary fermentation?
Chrissy: Naturally brewed.
Hamish: Yeah. So if you look at it, probably Cooper's is the most famous bottled carbonated beer and if you pick up a Cooper's pale ale I think you'll find the use by date. It'll say best after and that's because that's bottle carbonated, so most commercial beers are forced carbonated. So that, in my understanding, gives it a shorter day.
Philip: How long does it take, Chrissy, from batch to, flipping the crown seal off one?
Chrissy: from the first brew, it’s generally about four weeks. So two weeks in the big fermenter; your five or twenty liter glass fermenter, and then another two weeks in the bottle generally, but then some other beers take a little bit longer. So some of them need to be lager which means that they some of that kind of development phase is actually spent in the call room. So it can be up to sort of six weeks and some of them go longer as well. But yeah, we make an Amber Beer that needs six weeks and, so it's an anxious wait just watching it become beautiful.
Philip: Yeah, let's take a call to Jerry today. Hi Jerry.
Jerry: hi, yeah Philip. How are you?
Philip: Yeah, not bad, man.
Jerry: Yeah I got a couple of tips. one of them is never ever use white sugar from the supermarket
Philip: why
Jerry: that gives you a very cidery taste.
Philip: Okay. What should we use instead? This is the carbon you mean ,you're talking about naturally carbonating the bottle?
Jerry: No, just in your brew. in the bed when your add lets say 2 kilos of sugar, use two kilos of dextrose, right?
Philip: Right, dextrose is a sugar.
Jerry: Yes a type of sugar, commonly available from home brew shop, but usually available from the supermarket.
Philip: Okay
Jerry: Temperature is important.
Philip: Right. How do you control the temperature of a 20 liter container Jerry?
Jerry: I use a fridge.
Philip: Okay
Jerry: Temperature control fridge. It depends on the yeast, if it’s a larger yeast or an ale yeast.
So what, hang on. A fridge is going to take the temperature right down to what? you know either 10 degrees is that, is that too cold or what?
Jerry: We have different thermostat in the fridge. Okay and ale yeast you want to be using 22, 23 degrees, a lager yeast 14 degrees. So somehow you really need to keep the temperature down. In winter It's not so important.
Philip: Okay. All right good tips. Thank you Jerry. Jeff. Hello. Good day Jeff. Hello
Jeff: Hi, Is Hamish the same Hamish who owns the Oakley Brew Shop.
Philip: I don't know. Hamish. Are you the same Hamish?
Hamish: Yes, is this
Philip: or do you want your money back, do you Jeff? (laughs)
Jeff: Oh no. I know the place pretty well, I've been going there since about 1990.
Philip: Hamish met Jeff, Jeff met Hamish.
Jeff: I was just going to make a comment about the difference between home-brewed beer and commercial beer. home-brewed beer has yeast in the bottle which actually absorbs oxygen and that prevents the beer going stale. So that's why home-brewed beer actually lasts a lot longer in the bottle than it would for a commercial beer, which has no yeast in the bottle.
Philip: How often do you brew Jeff?
Jeff: I probably do maybe every month, I brew every month.
Philip: Okay. Okay. And how old is your oldest bottle?
Jeff: I try to drink in probably six months after a boulder. I’d not have a failed but a better fresher. So and you probably want to drink within six weeks to three months.
Okay. What's the easiest? Thank you. Thanks Jeff. What's the easiest Hamish? What's or Chrissy? What's the easiest thing to make when you’re starting out, a lager and Ale? What's the bulletproof way?
Hamish: I would say Phillip, the Ale is probably the easiest it's got the.. it's really more about the temperature. So the temperature to brew an Ale is much more forgiving than a larger. For a larger, If you can't keep that cold temperature you'll end up with cidery fruity unclean flavors than what you're after. With the lager it is very clean and crisp flavors whereas an Ale can have spicy earthy aromatic. And so therefore the temperature fluctuations don't destroy the flavor necessarily. Yeah, so I'd say definitely an ale, a pale ale is probably the go to as it is the easiest type of beer to brew.
Philip: All right, Daniel. Hello.
Hello. Hello. Yes. Can I do yeah. Hi.
Daniel: Hello, yes, Hi chirsty, hi Hamich, hi Jeff. You guys were talking about the Cooper's pale and you're talking about easy beers to brew. I think the pale ale with the Cooper's brand is the biggest seller in the world of home brew kits from at one stage especially around in Europe, in England. Now in the kit they give you yeast, the yeast that they use in the kit is different to the commercial yeast and I think that's for a reason because the finished product isn't as good as what you'll get from the commercial product. But the yeast in the bottle is alive still, so there is a way to actually to grow that yeast again. And what I've found is that if you use it, the easiest way to start off I think is, to use the pale ale one and to throw away that yeast and you get a couple of bottles of Cooper's, pour out the leave it standing for about 24 hours for a six pack or three longnecks. Pour out the beer, and pitch that yeast into it about six hundred milli liters of water. I use a really fresh bottle of you know, soda water you pour that out just to keep it sanitized and you put six hundred mils of water in with about a hundred grams of sugar and you regrow the yeast and you leave that for about five days at about 21 degrees Celsius. Regrow that yeast, and then pitch it out into the bottle with about 20 liters of water and use the commercial yeast because it’s different to the yeast that they sell in the pack today and that's a really good starting point. And I found that the taste of the Cooper’s, so you need to leave it once you bottle it. You pulled 2 teaspoon of sugar, for a bottle. you need to leave it for around three months because there is a desktop, the date is how you said. With cooper’s with pale ales and it gives it a much more authentic commercial taste, if you use the yeast from the packet.
Philip: Thanks Daniel. Interesting. Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah Chrissy and Hamish Chrissy maybe to you the… I'm told that it's really really really important to sterilize everything before you start that one of the common mistakes you can make is not to have everything completely sterile. And that sounds like a lot of chemicals. So how do you sterilize things?
Chrissy: They're not I mean anything that needs to be safe needs to be sterilized. So if you're not sterilizing your equipment you are basically introducing flavors that can turn out a little nasty, but can also just turn out a little funky that you're not controlling. So sterilizing just means that you want everything that's going on, to be intentional. So I did a small batch of Brew at a brewery that I found out later is notorious in the Gypsy Brewing Community for having some not amazing sterilization processes and people actually intentionally Brew their for hours because you get sort of crazy yeast conditions that give you a sour taste, but if you are trying to brew a nice clean crispy, that's not what you're after. So the way that works in a Home-brew context is yeah, there's a little liquid sanitizer that new diluted into water and you just rinse it through your equipment and your fermenter and all the tubes and spoons you're going to be using and it just means that you're not going to have any nasty surprises.
Philip: Okay, so you could Spray everything with that and just rinse it off and then everything is sterilized.
Chrissy: Yeah. You just do like a normal kitchen sink wash and then a sterilizing wash and leave everything to dry. And then it's just ready to go. So when you get a kit, they tell you that sort of thing. So you're not left to kind of figure this stuff out for yourself. It's part of this process. And that's the important thing about home brewing is just a start because it's it is very intimidating before you begin. So Philip, I'd encourage you to just crack it out and then they really just step through it.
Philip: Okay. Where do you get the bottles? (Laughs)I was going to ask where do you get the bottles but that sounds like a stupid question. I suppose you can drink you drink the beer first, I'm sure or do you need particular bottles that that are stronger to make Home brewing better?
Hamish: you definitely need stronger bottles. So back in the old days. you know, just drinking a few slabs and then using those. it depends on the beer. There's no point drinking a few slabs of beer because the bottles are really lightweight and not designed for reuse, but there are plenty. I mean if you order Cooper's bottle or some of the imported beers or the craft beers are generally in heavier bottles. What you're looking for is the pry off top not a screw top. You don't want to have cap screw top bottles because they're just too hard to get a really good seal. Of course, you can always buy new bottles, but a lot of people collect their bottles and just back to the what Chrissy was saying about sterilizing, if you're getting bottles, you just need to rinse them. If they're clean just get them light sterilized. It's very important. And actually since I'm talking about it, using flavors what Danial was talking about with Cooper’s and with yeast and so on, the yeast is so important to the final outcome of the beer and you can get very very high quality yet some different flavors, but if you were to put that into an unsanitized condition, what we'll find is I think which is what Chrissy was talking about was that bugs can get in they can fight with the yeast and come out with all sorts of funky different flavors which may not be desirable. So yes, it is important to sterilize but people, you know, there are all sorts of personality types some times they are very very anal about getting everything absolutely correct and others have bit more less a fair. I'm probably more on the less a fair side, which is if it's become such or it's probably not going to be that much fun. So just be sensible, but you don't have to go too crazy on the sterilizing the bottle.
Philip: All right more calls. Daniel hello. Hello?
Daniel: Hello. Hey. How are you?
Philip: Yeah, well.
Daniel: My question was more about the hot to cold to hot ,which is always always always the core killer beer and we see it. Where I used to work, we should have the growlers.
Philip: What’s a growler? That's like a big jug with a handle on it, isn't it?
Daniel: Yeah, and they fill them up and mainly we would get them out of a barrier Gold Coast or Brisbane and they meant to be kept cold. Like if we got a cold refrigerator that meant to come up cold Refrigeration, but half the time they went hot, and then we took them down again and some more my question to you experts was the fluctuation from cold to hot to cold. Yeah. Is that a killer beer or what do you say?
Philip: Hamish, what do you reckon here?
Hamish: Let's see it through my holidays in Bali drinking bintang which you see stored out in the sun and it is reason why it tastes terrible. So but you keep drinking it because you're in Bali but yes, I think beer does..it is a little bit of a sensitive creature and
Daniel: it works closely on the Brewing process, quite because by eating a hot to cold draft and run it through your system and it's going to be great, you know, like, you know, it can be sitting there. Some are hard to kick a cold draft, but they do take ones that don't have as much preservatives and they recommend that when they brought them in the kegs they’re cold and they got to be refrigerated cold the whole night long. A good night king of cold.. grappled baby that comes from Brisbane or no keg of. (minute 35) (incomprehensible)
Philip: It's refrigerator or weidler.
Yay is high but they take one. They recommend when you come out of Play Seven breweries are mentioned by PSI. Yeah, they like to have him cold the whole way.
OK. Hamish, what's your answer that?
Hamish: my feeling on that is it's always better to have it at a more stable temperature. But when we're talking about hot, I don't think there's like they're boiling them or anything like that. I also find I've been to see if any of listeners find the same thing that beer in a can, can often tastes better fresher than beer in a bottle and I don't know if that's a truth or a myth or maybe it's because they can't stay cold in your hand.
Philip: Yeah, is that right? I've always.. I don't know why, I've always had a thought that beer in bottles is better than beer in cans but then maybe..
Chrissy: I have been told for that canning technology has improved in recent years and that's why breweries have gone back to cans because they were terribly gosh you know but they are absolutely over all the rage now.
Philip: Okay. I didn't know. I thought there was something kind of purity of glass that I thought would you know make for a better brew beer, you think Chrissy, you're saying not necessarily anymore.
Chrissy: Well, it's certainly not the current thinking in the craft breweries in Sydney and the cans are actually much more sustainable than glass bottles as well. So that's another reason but they're also cheaper to ship, you know, easier to store so, you know, there are a number of there are a number of pros but they're the current thinking is that the taste is superior.
Philip: Not quite so good to drink out of can, but still (laughs)
Chrissy: You should be drinking out of a glass as well. So you take your gorgeous beer and you pour it into a beautiful glass and then, you know, it's Paradise.
Philip: Oh, yeah. I know I'm with you there. I hope although I like many people, am also quite partial to drinking straight from the bottle.Good day Jim. Hi, Jim.
Jim: I just like to reiterate on a last listeners question about the craft beer going warm and I’m here to just throw my two cents in. I think it has to do with the those craft beers that are fruity as we have a lot more hops that are prominent and very high in Alpha acids, which give those beautiful fruity aromas. And so when those bottles heat up or go warm, you actually lose a lot of those fruity aromas. So then when a lot of these people that are trying their first craft beer has been warm they have. They take a sip and they just get all the bitterness which has comes from the high alpha acids in the hops that are used rather than all the beautiful fruity aromas, because of the beer being left warm and stuff like that. So that's another thing to the people getting into the craft beer scene, that they have to watch out to make sure they keep the beer cold. So it is fresh and they get in all the aromas that actually are intended to be experienced when you're drinking the beer.
Philip: Okay. All right. Thank you. Chrissy, we've had blokes ringing up to member and plenty of other great queue of people too, you know, talk to you, we have blokes ringing up on your enthusiastic female brewing. Is being a.. drinking and beer making pretty much a bloke's domain still? What do you think?
Chrissy: I think you could very safely say it remains male-dominated but there are a lot of enthusiastic female drinkers and I look forward to seeing more of us go over to the side of producing but there are some sensational female brewers, making spectacular beers in Australia as well. And I think it is important that we have those role models, but I think also there's a lot of hype about how hard and how technical it is to start making beer. And honestly, I've like, I've tried my hand at every food crafts there is in town and to make a good delicious beer is a lot easier than making a good delicious cheese, so you know, and probably easier than salad or anything like that.
Philip: I think that's what we have. The more we talk about salad, I think that's probably right. Yeah.
Chrissy: Yeah. It's very tricky to come up with your own original recipes to do something incredibly incredibly sophisticated and nuanced definitely hard. But to do something that is that is delicious and certainly using a kit. I didn't found it pretty hard to go wrong so long as you just follow the instructions and you are patient. So I would encourage anyone to start but definitely when I go to a lot of breweries and we have a home group competition and I think so much so far. We've only had one female interim to out of about 40 people who've come in. So there is there is room for growth.
Philip: Yes in the fair enough to so but what you're saying Hamish is that it's really as simple as that. This you get a plastic fermenter with an airlock on top then basically, you just mix the the package malt extract into water with the hops. You don't have to boil anything up. You just mix it up. Yeah put after you've sterilized everything first use a mix that that malt extract into the water with the hops seal the top with the airlock on top and that's it.
Hamish: Yeah, that is. easy, that's the basic way of brewing.
Philip: and you get a good result yourself out of that.
Hamish: Well, you get a good result. Yeah. It depends on everyone's got different flavors. So if you're after a phony pile out, you've got to use the right kind of hops, but the other thing that can happen in this type of Brewing is you can take different steps. So you can also add gray and see for example say you wanted to make like a nice Irish Red Ale like a Kilkenny Style Beer you might start with The Malt extract and then you get yourself half a kilo of crushed crystal grain and you just have to stick that grain in a pot on the stove and then you can rinse that into your brew and then that'll add a lovely complexity to your beer plus a beautiful red color to the beer and you can add different layers of hops and you can you can be as experimental as you like, but it's all really easy. You don't need any particular specialized equipment at all. And yeah so you can start at the base level or you can make a much more complex beer with complex flavors, but all of them are available in kits and if your local homebrew store is into their craft brewing you'll find that they have a whole library of recipes. You say ‘Look I really want to brew the Feral Hophog beer. How do I climb that beer?’ And I think that's what happens is people come in and say ‘I love Sierra, Nevada Pale Ale. Do you have a recipe to make that?’ okay, absolutely. And in fact this one we think is actually better than the original or you know, but if you liked it if you liked the original you're guaranteed to like our recipe.
Philip: Okay, Owen says, ‘what do you think's best for a stout, fuggles or hallertau hops?’ out of the what I was talking about. Yeah. Do you hear me?
Hamish: Yes, I do. So fuggles is a British grown hop, and it would be a much more traditional hop to use in Irish style stout, but if you were to make maybe a sort of a new world stout where you would put in some noble hops, the hallertau are German grown hop and it has a different flavor profile. So fuggles might be more spicy and Herby whereas with Hallertau you'll get some spiciness, but you might get some floral notes and other types of flavors. So it's just a different style of stout. So it depends what you would like to make But if you want to make a traditional Irish, then definitely fuggle's.
Philip: There you go. All right. okay, good evening John.
John: Hi. Good evening. Yeah, look, I'm just calling up in regards to when you actually go to the supermarket or whatever and buy the pre-made kit for brewing. It's it's a very easy process for any sort of beginner wanting to get into it as opposed to sort of making it all yourself. So basically all you've got to do is find it. and honestly I started this to save money I think yeah.
Philip: Well actually, Hamish, how much is it on average? How much does it cost for a bottle of beer say a 750ml bottle of beer?
Hamish: Well, it will all depend on the ingredient to use but what I would say is in cost about a third as much as the equipment commercial equivalent, so if you're trying to make like a basic draft beer like a Carlton style drafts, which doesn't have as much hops doesn't have as much malt, that would cost. If you made a really good recipe using the proper use the proper hops, you're looking about say 35 to 40 dollars and that's going to make about a hundred and twenty to a hundred and thirty dollars worth of commercial beer.
Philip: Okay, so you can save money John.
John: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean for me personally, I'm spending around $30 to buy the ingredients and making pots and then a beer out of that basically, okay, and it's a very easy way to do things and you basically just got a fermented from that point on you. You have two stages of fermentation and you know, wait, wait a few weeks and drinking really good be okay.
Philip: All right, just back to my question earlier Chrissy. What's your thought about this that people have said to me look at you know, you can make okay beer but making really a good one is quite difficult. I mean back to cheese making it’s the same, you know, you can making some cheese's at home, you can do it but making a really good one is actually extremely difficult. Do you think that's the same as beer?
Chrissy: I mean, I am very early in my home brewing journey, and I'm like I've turned out some beers that I've given to friends and customers who, they wanted to buy because they said ‘oh, do you have any more of that smoked Porter?’ Well ‘no, but that's just my home brewed’, but they enjoyed it as much as they've had. Okay? No. No other very accomplished beers that we stopped in the bar. So and I'm actually yeah, I'm on my Ale beers. So I'd say it's pretty easy. Yeah, and I failed a lot of cheese. I had a lot of whiffy cheese so beer is much lower entry point. Yeah, I think the real technical staff is where you start going off road and putting your own recipes together. I think you want to have a really solid grounding in using a lot of kits and how different Hops and Grains work together before you get into that. But yeah, you can sneak some really great beers through under your own Banner, If you're using a kit.
Philip: Hamish, I'm told that one of the things, one of the pieces of kit that probably wasn't so common years ago is a hydrometer which measures when the fermentation rotation is complete because that may prevent exploding bottle syndrome.
Hamish: It does I think you feel about that's possibly where you went wrong with your very first Brew.
Philip: Yeah. I didn't have one of those on having stunk out the cash the house I was consigned out to the shed. So I basically as I bottled out in the shed, but I just certainly didn't have a hydrometer. I don't even sure I knew what it was.
Hamish: So hydrometer is possibly the most crucial piece of equipment that have Brewer could have and essentially what a hydrometer is. It's a It's a glass vessel that you float in a sample of beer. And it measures what we call the specific gravity. So it's effectively a measures the density of the liquid. So a beer when you put when you first make your wart is very dense, because it's full of sugars. And so if the hydrometer floats very high and as the fermentation continues what happens is that the liquid becomes less dense so closer to water because the sugars are being fermented off and once you get it a stable reading on that hydrometer once it's it basically move anymore over at say a 24 to 48 hour period, then your beer is safe to bottle. You will not get the exploding bottles. The exploding of bottle is because you bottle your beer and it continues to ferment in the bottle and the CO2 has got nowhere to go other than to explode the bottle. So it is very important as possibly the most common question we get asked. ‘Well my bubbling stopped. My beer must be finished.’ Well have you tested with a hydrometer? ‘No. No, right you please go and test with your hydrometer.’
Philip: Alright, well, look, I hope we have given you something to think about everyone. It's simpler than it sounds, and Chrissy Flanagan knows what she's talking about in terms of stuff that tastes good. So if Chris he's confident we can do it. I'm sure we can Hamish knows you can do it because he's been in the business for years and so was his old man. So he must be doing something right. All right, Hamish, start simply and work up from there and you will get a good product. Thanks very much for your time.
Hamish: Thank you Phillip. I really appreciate. It was fun to hear Chrissy too. I'd love to try a smoky Porter. (laughs)
Philip: Hamish Rogers Wilson from the Australian home brewing shop in Victoria, Chrissy Flanagan food experimenter and marker of all the good things including beer. Chrissy, terrific to have your time.
Chrissy: Thanks Phil.
Philip: and good luck. I'm going to go home and get started, I’ll make it and I’ll report back.
You've been listening to a NightLife Podcast. For more great conversations about the issues that impact you, as well as features on travel and food, hit to The Nightlife web page. You'll find it at ABC dot net dot AU slash nightlife. You don't need to be a night owl to enjoy the nightlife.
Welcome to night life, the first hour.
Philip: Well, forget as face some of our toughest time as a nation. Many of you decided to get into bread baking and that's fine, too, but plenty more of decided to get out of their home brewing kit. As pubs have to limit their numbers and some of you are locked down at home. What a better time to take up a hobby, such as home brewing. Home Brewing shops right now, are making or doing a roaring trade, but how easy is it to make a home brew? Tonight, We're going to talk beer and cider but we're not talking about say how to start this. Look, there's an art and a science to brew your own beer. If you're a man Home brow give us a call. Tell us your secret to Brewing the perfect batch or if you have a question, give us a call, chance to have your questions answered. 1300800222 is the number. We're talking home brewing in this first hour, joining us tonight Australian Craft Brewer and owner of the Australian home brewing shop in Victoria, Hamish Rogers Wilson.
Hamish. Good evening. Welcome to nightlife.
Hamish: Good evening, Philip. It's so good to be here. We'll talk about something fun.
Philip: Great, exactly Bottoms Up. If you've got a coldy beside you?
Hamish: No, (Laughs) It's probably past my beer o'clock.
PHILIP: That's fair enough. He may be lying to us everyone but we won't care also joining us tonight Crista Flanagan this he likes all things. that our homemade in food and drink. She's an enthusiastic home brewer. She makes snags as well. Although we're not going to talk about that and it is also co-owner of a restaurant called The Sausage Factory in Sydney. Chrissy, good evening to you and bottoms up.
Chrissy: Good evening Philip. Keeping it sober.
(a joint laugh)
Philip: So I think Both of you are lying quite fickle. Home brewing, it's often said, I mean, Hamish that it's easy, it's easy to make beer. It's Very very difficult to make a good beer. Do you think that's true?
Hamish: No, it's certainly not true. But it's true that it's often said, yes.
Philip: Yes, like well, that's one that's one of the things that I want to unpack alright. Let's go back to the beginning when we think of Gough Whitlam. We might think free education, the dismissal and no one will forget the governor-general. But we should also think of home brewing, why? Gough wasn't known as much of a tippler. was he?
Hamish: I'm not sure about Gough in terms of yourself drinking prowess, but he certainly was on the job very early just not long after they finished singing, it’s time. He went straight to Parliament, changed the legislation to allow Brewers, Australians, anywhere to make small batches at home, legally.
Philip: Because prior to that it was illegal. Wasn't it?
Hamish: It wasn’t illegal. When it was a giant cartel between the brewery. So as you many of your listeners would remember and I certainly growing up as a teenager in Victoria. You are either drank red cans or green cans. That's it and in New South Wales, you had your to ease and and in Queensland you had your Forex and they owned every tap and every Pub and it was just a giant conspiracy with the with the government which Gough broke, which is one of his great achievements.
Philip: Yes. That's right. Of course, it was all, it was all the new thinking wasn't with the Trade Practices Act and the abolition of retail price maintenance and the smashing of cartels everywhere. The beer the beer cartel also that he was right for smashing as well. So basically from then on, it's been legal to make your own beer. hasn't it? But not you can't make as much as you like. What are the legalities anyway?
Hamish: Well, the legality is that you could make beer for home consumption or share with your friends, but if you were to make it to sell the product then that would be commercial brewing and you would have to pay excise tax on the alcohol and you need to have a license to do that. I'm sure Christie could tell us a little bit more about that. But for home consumption and really home brewing really is all about sharing with your mates. That's how I see it and that's how many of our brewers see it.
Philip: Right, so how much is too much? I mean, is there a limit on how much you can make?
Hamish: No, not that I'm aware of that but it's always you know, as long as you don't sell it.
Philip: Okay, alright. who brews anyways, men, women, older, younger?
Hamish: That's a really good question. We're seeing all sorts of people brewing and particularly now during this COVID period, when a lot of the transactions, a lot of people are buying online. We're seeing a huge spread right across the age group, but I'd say that the biggest age group would be, the sort of, the 30s to 45s, but it goes all the way up to the 70s and the 80s. We've got brewing friends that have been with us for over 50 years and they are still coming back and they would like the original pioneers.
Philip: Well okay. Chrissy, how did you get into it?
Chrissy: Well, I'm actually semi recent to be a drinking having only taking it up some five or six years ago. When I was particularly in the first year at the soccer’s match, you know that the Sun hits you in the right way and it's finally beer time. So, I started home brewing some three Christmases ago, like a summer project, I like to be oversubscribed. So I did a pile of kits over one Christmas and really enjoyed that. And I've had my bar for just over three years. So I've been buying a lot of beer so that got me more interested in, how it all comes to be made.
Philip: So do you brew regularly?
Chrissy: Yes, I brew about every fortnight. So at the moment, I believe I have a New Zealand cream ale that's ripening and I also have a question when we get to the question part because, I have a sour that is in the process in the process of failing so it is it is a little trickier than it says on the packet.
Philip: I'm sure it is. What do you love about it Chrissy what’s there, because beer is not a hugely expensive product and it's readily available. Why do you make your own?
Chrissy: Well, I thinking it's up for what, well, it depends what kind of beer buying of course and I do like very glamorous and expensive beers. But um, I think it's the pleasure of making anything and I mean that's been sort of my origin of story with the sausages. Well as you mentioned, it's wonderful to make something from scratch when your day-to-day life particularly is often in an office (although not recently), and with a computer and it can all feel very very abstract. The sort of grace of taking a bunch of materials and turning out something that is pleasurable and that your friends enjoy. There isn't really anything that compares with that. Yeah, but I mean you get a lot more friends with beer, then you do with Kieffer and Kombucha, in my experience.
Philip: (Laughs) Yes, somehow with Kombucha, now it's doing your good too. Therefore, you enjoy it through gritted teeth then to your worst. With you know, it's not necessarily doing good. But boy, oh boy. “He's old school” says Chrissy, boy. Does it feel good? It's exactly. What about you Hamish, how did you start?
Hamish: Look. I started as a young boy in my teenage years, because the business of home brewing was actually originally my father's business. I used to come in and pack Molt's and Hobbes and then going into my university days, I was like, well, I'm going to be pretty popular because I feel I can make beer and I can make really good beer. So I really started as but I was at when I was about 18 or maybe even a little bit earlier, but I was exposed to it very early.
Philip: Was the first batch any good? Be honest.
Hamish: Look as an aid as an 18 years old, it was free, so it was great. See now. We're getting to it. (laughs)
Philip: Hey okay. You're not going to be feeding it, with me how much I’ll be with you. I was about the same age, I think and I boiled up the grains, the malted barley at water, but I think it was in a big pot on the stove snug the house out the course of a share house, I stunt at that out of stunt that out, put it all into bottles in the garage. Half of which blew up and the and the others, look to be honest, it was okay. (laughs)
Hamish: It was a great experience. (with a laugh)
Philip: It wasn't that great. I mean to be quite crude about the whole thing, Craig and nearby has just texted me saying “Homebrew is like a fart only the person who made it enjoys it”, which might contain a truth, doesn't it, Hamish?
Hamish: It might contain a truth but opposite to what Chrissy said, which is you get a lot more friends with beer. So, the true, where is the truth? There is that old story about Grandpa making beer and he shared out of a rubbish bin and it tasted terrible, but he was so proud of it. Well, it's just so easy not to do that these days. The access I guess, It's the craft brewing industry has risen up in the last 10 or 15 years. It's really sparked the interest of beer drinkers. People that love beer go “I love that, that stone and wood Pacific island. How do I make that? Is it possible to make that?” and of course all of the ingredients that are used to make these boutique commercial beers are available to anyone. It's the Hops. It's only four ingredients yeast, hops, malt and water.
Philip: That's the only thing goes in to be right there, it's quite a simple. I mean some might say putting aside the water. It's their only three ingredients. You say the yeast the hops and the malted grain with barley or something else. Yeah. I mean, it's an extraordinarily simple and magical process, when you think of what you end up with, isn't it?
Hamish: It’s incredible when you think we've all the varieties that you can end up with. I mean you can you can start at a Stout and you can end it a Pilsner, Amber, Alzershales, Brown has all sorts of stuff, but it's all out of those same basic ingredients.
Philip: Let's start with the basics. Chrissy, take us through one of your.. you brew twice a week once every fortnight. Take us through your basic Brew.
Chrissy: Well, so I'm doing a brew in a bag at the moment, which is well, so it means and I brew from kits that I get from my local home brew shop and which is extremely supportive, which is helpful for all your weekend problems. So, it comes with the grains and the hops and the yeast so and then the recipe, the order in which you do everything.
Philip: So basically, it is like baking a simple cake. Is it just mix the ingredients together?
Chrissy: Sort of, a bit little bit better. Well, there's a process. So it's not rocket science, but I think it can be made out to be more intimidating but it really sorts of is. So it's just a matter of going through, steeping the grain. So basically boiling up a huge pot of water you put the Grain in a bag in there for a set period of time so that the water gets the flavor of the grain squeeze out the water from grain, and then bring it to a boil you put your hops in and there's a particular sequence in the recipe which you put your hops in and then you cool it down and then you put it in a big fermenter and it stays in there with the yeast for a couple of weeks and after that you bottle it with a bit of sugar. So it goes through its second fermentation and then you have beer and friends.
Philip: Hmm. So you put it in bottles put what put the crown seal caps on top of the bottle. Yeah, tell me, maybe you can enlighten us here too Hamish, I was told you should drink beer fresh, like fresh beer is the thing to drink. I mean you bottom for a week or so until it carbonates, maybe a couple of weeks, but then beer is not like wine, beer doesn't get better with age. Is that right?
Hamish: No, Beer has got a best after date not a best before date. Yeah, and also just to add to what Chrissy was saying, So Chrissy is talking about all grain brewing where you create a mesh and out of the grains. the majority of Brewers would do what we call malt extract brewing. So they don't do the mash part of the process, but they would buy a kit that or the mold has already been extracted, so they can skip that part of the process and it makes it a very simple and even more simple process.
Philip: Describe that for us
Hamish: So as it we spoke before about the four ingredients. The first being malt, malt is a sugar that's derived from the malted barley and to extract that Sugar you have to go through a mashing process. But what's happened is that the brewery is like Lion Nathan, for example, one of the great makers of malts in New Zealand. They already make the Malt extract which comes out like a honey type of syrup if you like. It looks like honey, and then that goes into your fermenter, you add your hops, you had your water and you add your yeast and mix it up. So it's a much more simple process.
Philip: So we are not boiling anything up?
Hamish: You may, if you can put hops in dry, you may have a little bit of boil time on the Hops just to get some bitterness and different flavors out of it. But essentially no. You don't need a big pot on a stove to cook it. You can do it in your shed. It’s a very very simple process.
Philip: oh! so we are not actually heating the big pan of and stinking the place out anymore.
Hamish: No, not at all. Not at all. So and the majority I'd say in Australia probably 90% of Brewers would use malt extract and grain is growing. But it's definitely in the minority. So Chrissy is really she's going for it.
Philip: She is hardcore. She's hardcore.
Hamish: She's hardcore. In the US. Everyone's pretty much hardcore. Malt extracts is not really heard of over there.
Philip: But whatever regard it's a bit of a I mean well to use a phrase. I mean, it's a bit of a… I don't know, it's an unacceptable shortcut to brew, isn't it?
Hamish: Well it may be but the problem the thing is, these days the quality of the ingredients is so high that it's very difficult, it can be very difficult to tell the difference between all grain beer at a malt extract one. So it really comes down to the quality of the ingredients and following the instruction, but also brewing at the right temperature range because the yeast likes to be brewed at a certain temperature, Lagers at very low temperature, Ales at a sort of 18 to 22 degrees and if you get that temperature right and you look after your beer, it'll be a great.
Philip: But hey on this is the problem Hamish. It’s nuts. Chrissy you may gives us some light here too because someone gave me some Homebrewing stuff for Christmas. I haven't got around to doing it yet. I do intend to, people don't worry. I'll report if I'm not reporting for work, you will know what's happened. But on the back of the packet says that, Hamish it says that you have to this beer is best brewed in a quite a narrow temperature range. How is that going to happen? Because the daily temperature fluctuates a lot. Well, I mean, I don't have I don't have a fridge doesn't have a giant fridge that I can put it in. So how does that work?
Hamish: Well, you remember you're not brewing air, you brewing liquid. So the liquid is, its temperature fluctuations are much less than the air low fluctuations. So if it gets to 26 during the day and 16 at night, your beer will probably hold 20, 22 degrees easily the so it's actually not that difficult to hold a decent temperature and really too cold is not a problem. But getting it warm is a problem. So yeah, it's easy to cool things down with ice packs or things like that in extreme.
Philip: So right now, the wintertime is probably a good time to brew, is it?
Hamish: It's a great time to brew and it's also the ideal time to brew Lager and some of your listeners who speak German might know that the Lager is a German word which basically means still cold and Lager is all about brewing and cold temperatures and you get a very clean and crisp profile. So Lager and Pale Ale can be brewed right now ideally. I just wanted to touch on one other thing. I love what you said earlier that beers got to be drunk fresh and maybe when we think about drinking Kalsen draft Yeah, drink a fresh batch with at pub with a tap, but with home brewing as the process that Chrissy described which is the secondary fermentation where you bottle your beer and you put in the sugar and you put your cap on, what is happening then is the beer carbonates and it goes through an aging process just like your wine would go through an aging process. So we say that it's your beer there is ready to drink within three weeks of bottling, but the longer you leave it the better the beer gets. To improve, yes.
Philip: Yes, that's interesting because that's not true of commercial beer. I mean, I'm crazy don't you agree with me here? I mean I went to went to visit a friend in Brazil at his Beach Shack. He's holiday house and he had some beer in the fridge that was nearly a year old and quite frankly, It had passed its best. It wasn't that good.
Chrissy: Hmm the beers, the craft beers without the preservatives that I find all the gospel I have received is that yes, you definitely want it to be fully fermented. But after that you want it kind of towards this the sooner and the fresher end. So I also make a small-scale commercial beer and we made a batch in February just before the pandemic which was put in kegs and then because the bar was closed we put in Cannes and so when we got that fresh in cans it was already two months old and delicious taste, the way it was supposed to. There’s a farmhouse across, where we just recently did another batch and put it straight into Cannes fresh and you can taste so much more going on and it's a far more dynamic (for want of a better word) beer. So yeah, I've always been told that fresh is definitely desirable and a lot of the local craft brewery (certainly in Sydney) really promote that idea of saying get it fresh from the brewery, check your use by dates.
Philip: But that doesn't apply to home beer. So you're saying that home brewed beer is different?
Hamish: Philip, could I ask Chrissy a quick question?
Philip: Yeah.
Hamish: You do you force carbonate that beer or is it naturally brewed by secondary fermentation?
Chrissy: Naturally brewed.
Hamish: Yeah. So if you look at it, probably Cooper's is the most famous bottled carbonated beer and if you pick up a Cooper's pale ale I think you'll find the use by date. It'll say best after and that's because that's bottle carbonated, so most commercial beers are forced carbonated. So that, in my understanding, gives it a shorter day.
Philip: How long does it take, Chrissy, from batch to, flipping the crown seal off one?
Chrissy: from the first brew, it’s generally about four weeks. So two weeks in the big fermenter; your five or twenty liter glass fermenter, and then another two weeks in the bottle generally, but then some other beers take a little bit longer. So some of them need to be lager which means that they some of that kind of development phase is actually spent in the call room. So it can be up to sort of six weeks and some of them go longer as well. But yeah, we make an Amber Beer that needs six weeks and, so it's an anxious wait just watching it become beautiful.
Philip: Yeah, let's take a call to Jerry today. Hi Jerry.
Jerry: hi, yeah Philip. How are you?
Philip: Yeah, not bad, man.
Jerry: Yeah I got a couple of tips. one of them is never ever use white sugar from the supermarket
Philip: why
Jerry: that gives you a very cidery taste.
Philip: Okay. What should we use instead? This is the carbon you mean ,you're talking about naturally carbonating the bottle?
Jerry: No, just in your brew. in the bed when your add lets say 2 kilos of sugar, use two kilos of dextrose, right?
Philip: Right, dextrose is a sugar.
Jerry: Yes a type of sugar, commonly available from home brew shop, but usually available from the supermarket.
Philip: Okay
Jerry: Temperature is important.
Philip: Right. How do you control the temperature of a 20 liter container Jerry?
Jerry: I use a fridge.
Philip: Okay
Jerry: Temperature control fridge. It depends on the yeast, if it’s a larger yeast or an ale yeast.
So what, hang on. A fridge is going to take the temperature right down to what? you know either 10 degrees is that, is that too cold or what?
Jerry: We have different thermostat in the fridge. Okay and ale yeast you want to be using 22, 23 degrees, a lager yeast 14 degrees. So somehow you really need to keep the temperature down. In winter It's not so important.
Philip: Okay. All right good tips. Thank you Jerry. Jeff. Hello. Good day Jeff. Hello
Jeff: Hi, Is Hamish the same Hamish who owns the Oakley Brew Shop.
Philip: I don't know. Hamish. Are you the same Hamish?
Hamish: Yes, is this
Philip: or do you want your money back, do you Jeff? (laughs)
Jeff: Oh no. I know the place pretty well, I've been going there since about 1990.
Philip: Hamish met Jeff, Jeff met Hamish.
Jeff: I was just going to make a comment about the difference between home-brewed beer and commercial beer. home-brewed beer has yeast in the bottle which actually absorbs oxygen and that prevents the beer going stale. So that's why home-brewed beer actually lasts a lot longer in the bottle than it would for a commercial beer, which has no yeast in the bottle.
Philip: How often do you brew Jeff?
Jeff: I probably do maybe every month, I brew every month.
Philip: Okay. Okay. And how old is your oldest bottle?
Jeff: I try to drink in probably six months after a boulder. I’d not have a failed but a better fresher. So and you probably want to drink within six weeks to three months.
Okay. What's the easiest? Thank you. Thanks Jeff. What's the easiest Hamish? What's or Chrissy? What's the easiest thing to make when you’re starting out, a lager and Ale? What's the bulletproof way?
Hamish: I would say Phillip, the Ale is probably the easiest it's got the.. it's really more about the temperature. So the temperature to brew an Ale is much more forgiving than a larger. For a larger, If you can't keep that cold temperature you'll end up with cidery fruity unclean flavors than what you're after. With the lager it is very clean and crisp flavors whereas an Ale can have spicy earthy aromatic. And so therefore the temperature fluctuations don't destroy the flavor necessarily. Yeah, so I'd say definitely an ale, a pale ale is probably the go to as it is the easiest type of beer to brew.
Philip: All right, Daniel. Hello.
Hello. Hello. Yes. Can I do yeah. Hi.
Daniel: Hello, yes, Hi chirsty, hi Hamich, hi Jeff. You guys were talking about the Cooper's pale and you're talking about easy beers to brew. I think the pale ale with the Cooper's brand is the biggest seller in the world of home brew kits from at one stage especially around in Europe, in England. Now in the kit they give you yeast, the yeast that they use in the kit is different to the commercial yeast and I think that's for a reason because the finished product isn't as good as what you'll get from the commercial product. But the yeast in the bottle is alive still, so there is a way to actually to grow that yeast again. And what I've found is that if you use it, the easiest way to start off I think is, to use the pale ale one and to throw away that yeast and you get a couple of bottles of Cooper's, pour out the leave it standing for about 24 hours for a six pack or three longnecks. Pour out the beer, and pitch that yeast into it about six hundred milli liters of water. I use a really fresh bottle of you know, soda water you pour that out just to keep it sanitized and you put six hundred mils of water in with about a hundred grams of sugar and you regrow the yeast and you leave that for about five days at about 21 degrees Celsius. Regrow that yeast, and then pitch it out into the bottle with about 20 liters of water and use the commercial yeast because it’s different to the yeast that they sell in the pack today and that's a really good starting point. And I found that the taste of the Cooper’s, so you need to leave it once you bottle it. You pulled 2 teaspoon of sugar, for a bottle. you need to leave it for around three months because there is a desktop, the date is how you said. With cooper’s with pale ales and it gives it a much more authentic commercial taste, if you use the yeast from the packet.
Philip: Thanks Daniel. Interesting. Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah Chrissy and Hamish Chrissy maybe to you the… I'm told that it's really really really important to sterilize everything before you start that one of the common mistakes you can make is not to have everything completely sterile. And that sounds like a lot of chemicals. So how do you sterilize things?
Chrissy: They're not I mean anything that needs to be safe needs to be sterilized. So if you're not sterilizing your equipment you are basically introducing flavors that can turn out a little nasty, but can also just turn out a little funky that you're not controlling. So sterilizing just means that you want everything that's going on, to be intentional. So I did a small batch of Brew at a brewery that I found out later is notorious in the Gypsy Brewing Community for having some not amazing sterilization processes and people actually intentionally Brew their for hours because you get sort of crazy yeast conditions that give you a sour taste, but if you are trying to brew a nice clean crispy, that's not what you're after. So the way that works in a Home-brew context is yeah, there's a little liquid sanitizer that new diluted into water and you just rinse it through your equipment and your fermenter and all the tubes and spoons you're going to be using and it just means that you're not going to have any nasty surprises.
Philip: Okay, so you could Spray everything with that and just rinse it off and then everything is sterilized.
Chrissy: Yeah. You just do like a normal kitchen sink wash and then a sterilizing wash and leave everything to dry. And then it's just ready to go. So when you get a kit, they tell you that sort of thing. So you're not left to kind of figure this stuff out for yourself. It's part of this process. And that's the important thing about home brewing is just a start because it's it is very intimidating before you begin. So Philip, I'd encourage you to just crack it out and then they really just step through it.
Philip: Okay. Where do you get the bottles? (Laughs)I was going to ask where do you get the bottles but that sounds like a stupid question. I suppose you can drink you drink the beer first, I'm sure or do you need particular bottles that that are stronger to make Home brewing better?
Hamish: you definitely need stronger bottles. So back in the old days. you know, just drinking a few slabs and then using those. it depends on the beer. There's no point drinking a few slabs of beer because the bottles are really lightweight and not designed for reuse, but there are plenty. I mean if you order Cooper's bottle or some of the imported beers or the craft beers are generally in heavier bottles. What you're looking for is the pry off top not a screw top. You don't want to have cap screw top bottles because they're just too hard to get a really good seal. Of course, you can always buy new bottles, but a lot of people collect their bottles and just back to the what Chrissy was saying about sterilizing, if you're getting bottles, you just need to rinse them. If they're clean just get them light sterilized. It's very important. And actually since I'm talking about it, using flavors what Danial was talking about with Cooper’s and with yeast and so on, the yeast is so important to the final outcome of the beer and you can get very very high quality yet some different flavors, but if you were to put that into an unsanitized condition, what we'll find is I think which is what Chrissy was talking about was that bugs can get in they can fight with the yeast and come out with all sorts of funky different flavors which may not be desirable. So yes, it is important to sterilize but people, you know, there are all sorts of personality types some times they are very very anal about getting everything absolutely correct and others have bit more less a fair. I'm probably more on the less a fair side, which is if it's become such or it's probably not going to be that much fun. So just be sensible, but you don't have to go too crazy on the sterilizing the bottle.
Philip: All right more calls. Daniel hello. Hello?
Daniel: Hello. Hey. How are you?
Philip: Yeah, well.
Daniel: My question was more about the hot to cold to hot ,which is always always always the core killer beer and we see it. Where I used to work, we should have the growlers.
Philip: What’s a growler? That's like a big jug with a handle on it, isn't it?
Daniel: Yeah, and they fill them up and mainly we would get them out of a barrier Gold Coast or Brisbane and they meant to be kept cold. Like if we got a cold refrigerator that meant to come up cold Refrigeration, but half the time they went hot, and then we took them down again and some more my question to you experts was the fluctuation from cold to hot to cold. Yeah. Is that a killer beer or what do you say?
Philip: Hamish, what do you reckon here?
Hamish: Let's see it through my holidays in Bali drinking bintang which you see stored out in the sun and it is reason why it tastes terrible. So but you keep drinking it because you're in Bali but yes, I think beer does..it is a little bit of a sensitive creature and
Daniel: it works closely on the Brewing process, quite because by eating a hot to cold draft and run it through your system and it's going to be great, you know, like, you know, it can be sitting there. Some are hard to kick a cold draft, but they do take ones that don't have as much preservatives and they recommend that when they brought them in the kegs they’re cold and they got to be refrigerated cold the whole night long. A good night king of cold.. grappled baby that comes from Brisbane or no keg of. (minute 35) (incomprehensible)
Philip: It's refrigerator or weidler.
Yay is high but they take one. They recommend when you come out of Play Seven breweries are mentioned by PSI. Yeah, they like to have him cold the whole way.
OK. Hamish, what's your answer that?
Hamish: my feeling on that is it's always better to have it at a more stable temperature. But when we're talking about hot, I don't think there's like they're boiling them or anything like that. I also find I've been to see if any of listeners find the same thing that beer in a can, can often tastes better fresher than beer in a bottle and I don't know if that's a truth or a myth or maybe it's because they can't stay cold in your hand.
Philip: Yeah, is that right? I've always.. I don't know why, I've always had a thought that beer in bottles is better than beer in cans but then maybe..
Chrissy: I have been told for that canning technology has improved in recent years and that's why breweries have gone back to cans because they were terribly gosh you know but they are absolutely over all the rage now.
Philip: Okay. I didn't know. I thought there was something kind of purity of glass that I thought would you know make for a better brew beer, you think Chrissy, you're saying not necessarily anymore.
Chrissy: Well, it's certainly not the current thinking in the craft breweries in Sydney and the cans are actually much more sustainable than glass bottles as well. So that's another reason but they're also cheaper to ship, you know, easier to store so, you know, there are a number of there are a number of pros but they're the current thinking is that the taste is superior.
Philip: Not quite so good to drink out of can, but still (laughs)
Chrissy: You should be drinking out of a glass as well. So you take your gorgeous beer and you pour it into a beautiful glass and then, you know, it's Paradise.
Philip: Oh, yeah. I know I'm with you there. I hope although I like many people, am also quite partial to drinking straight from the bottle.Good day Jim. Hi, Jim.
Jim: I just like to reiterate on a last listeners question about the craft beer going warm and I’m here to just throw my two cents in. I think it has to do with the those craft beers that are fruity as we have a lot more hops that are prominent and very high in Alpha acids, which give those beautiful fruity aromas. And so when those bottles heat up or go warm, you actually lose a lot of those fruity aromas. So then when a lot of these people that are trying their first craft beer has been warm they have. They take a sip and they just get all the bitterness which has comes from the high alpha acids in the hops that are used rather than all the beautiful fruity aromas, because of the beer being left warm and stuff like that. So that's another thing to the people getting into the craft beer scene, that they have to watch out to make sure they keep the beer cold. So it is fresh and they get in all the aromas that actually are intended to be experienced when you're drinking the beer.
Philip: Okay. All right. Thank you. Chrissy, we've had blokes ringing up to member and plenty of other great queue of people too, you know, talk to you, we have blokes ringing up on your enthusiastic female brewing. Is being a.. drinking and beer making pretty much a bloke's domain still? What do you think?
Chrissy: I think you could very safely say it remains male-dominated but there are a lot of enthusiastic female drinkers and I look forward to seeing more of us go over to the side of producing but there are some sensational female brewers, making spectacular beers in Australia as well. And I think it is important that we have those role models, but I think also there's a lot of hype about how hard and how technical it is to start making beer. And honestly, I've like, I've tried my hand at every food crafts there is in town and to make a good delicious beer is a lot easier than making a good delicious cheese, so you know, and probably easier than salad or anything like that.
Philip: I think that's what we have. The more we talk about salad, I think that's probably right. Yeah.
Chrissy: Yeah. It's very tricky to come up with your own original recipes to do something incredibly incredibly sophisticated and nuanced definitely hard. But to do something that is that is delicious and certainly using a kit. I didn't found it pretty hard to go wrong so long as you just follow the instructions and you are patient. So I would encourage anyone to start but definitely when I go to a lot of breweries and we have a home group competition and I think so much so far. We've only had one female interim to out of about 40 people who've come in. So there is there is room for growth.
Philip: Yes in the fair enough to so but what you're saying Hamish is that it's really as simple as that. This you get a plastic fermenter with an airlock on top then basically, you just mix the the package malt extract into water with the hops. You don't have to boil anything up. You just mix it up. Yeah put after you've sterilized everything first use a mix that that malt extract into the water with the hops seal the top with the airlock on top and that's it.
Hamish: Yeah, that is. easy, that's the basic way of brewing.
Philip: and you get a good result yourself out of that.
Hamish: Well, you get a good result. Yeah. It depends on everyone's got different flavors. So if you're after a phony pile out, you've got to use the right kind of hops, but the other thing that can happen in this type of Brewing is you can take different steps. So you can also add gray and see for example say you wanted to make like a nice Irish Red Ale like a Kilkenny Style Beer you might start with The Malt extract and then you get yourself half a kilo of crushed crystal grain and you just have to stick that grain in a pot on the stove and then you can rinse that into your brew and then that'll add a lovely complexity to your beer plus a beautiful red color to the beer and you can add different layers of hops and you can you can be as experimental as you like, but it's all really easy. You don't need any particular specialized equipment at all. And yeah so you can start at the base level or you can make a much more complex beer with complex flavors, but all of them are available in kits and if your local homebrew store is into their craft brewing you'll find that they have a whole library of recipes. You say ‘Look I really want to brew the Feral Hophog beer. How do I climb that beer?’ And I think that's what happens is people come in and say ‘I love Sierra, Nevada Pale Ale. Do you have a recipe to make that?’ okay, absolutely. And in fact this one we think is actually better than the original or you know, but if you liked it if you liked the original you're guaranteed to like our recipe.
Philip: Okay, Owen says, ‘what do you think's best for a stout, fuggles or hallertau hops?’ out of the what I was talking about. Yeah. Do you hear me?
Hamish: Yes, I do. So fuggles is a British grown hop, and it would be a much more traditional hop to use in Irish style stout, but if you were to make maybe a sort of a new world stout where you would put in some noble hops, the hallertau are German grown hop and it has a different flavor profile. So fuggles might be more spicy and Herby whereas with Hallertau you'll get some spiciness, but you might get some floral notes and other types of flavors. So it's just a different style of stout. So it depends what you would like to make But if you want to make a traditional Irish, then definitely fuggle's.
Philip: There you go. All right. okay, good evening John.
John: Hi. Good evening. Yeah, look, I'm just calling up in regards to when you actually go to the supermarket or whatever and buy the pre-made kit for brewing. It's it's a very easy process for any sort of beginner wanting to get into it as opposed to sort of making it all yourself. So basically all you've got to do is find it. and honestly I started this to save money I think yeah.
Philip: Well actually, Hamish, how much is it on average? How much does it cost for a bottle of beer say a 750ml bottle of beer?
Hamish: Well, it will all depend on the ingredient to use but what I would say is in cost about a third as much as the equipment commercial equivalent, so if you're trying to make like a basic draft beer like a Carlton style drafts, which doesn't have as much hops doesn't have as much malt, that would cost. If you made a really good recipe using the proper use the proper hops, you're looking about say 35 to 40 dollars and that's going to make about a hundred and twenty to a hundred and thirty dollars worth of commercial beer.
Philip: Okay, so you can save money John.
John: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean for me personally, I'm spending around $30 to buy the ingredients and making pots and then a beer out of that basically, okay, and it's a very easy way to do things and you basically just got a fermented from that point on you. You have two stages of fermentation and you know, wait, wait a few weeks and drinking really good be okay.
Philip: All right, just back to my question earlier Chrissy. What's your thought about this that people have said to me look at you know, you can make okay beer but making really a good one is quite difficult. I mean back to cheese making it’s the same, you know, you can making some cheese's at home, you can do it but making a really good one is actually extremely difficult. Do you think that's the same as beer?
Chrissy: I mean, I am very early in my home brewing journey, and I'm like I've turned out some beers that I've given to friends and customers who, they wanted to buy because they said ‘oh, do you have any more of that smoked Porter?’ Well ‘no, but that's just my home brewed’, but they enjoyed it as much as they've had. Okay? No. No other very accomplished beers that we stopped in the bar. So and I'm actually yeah, I'm on my Ale beers. So I'd say it's pretty easy. Yeah, and I failed a lot of cheese. I had a lot of whiffy cheese so beer is much lower entry point. Yeah, I think the real technical staff is where you start going off road and putting your own recipes together. I think you want to have a really solid grounding in using a lot of kits and how different Hops and Grains work together before you get into that. But yeah, you can sneak some really great beers through under your own Banner, If you're using a kit.
Philip: Hamish, I'm told that one of the things, one of the pieces of kit that probably wasn't so common years ago is a hydrometer which measures when the fermentation rotation is complete because that may prevent exploding bottle syndrome.
Hamish: It does I think you feel about that's possibly where you went wrong with your very first Brew.
Philip: Yeah. I didn't have one of those on having stunk out the cash the house I was consigned out to the shed. So I basically as I bottled out in the shed, but I just certainly didn't have a hydrometer. I don't even sure I knew what it was.
Hamish: So hydrometer is possibly the most crucial piece of equipment that have Brewer could have and essentially what a hydrometer is. It's a It's a glass vessel that you float in a sample of beer. And it measures what we call the specific gravity. So it's effectively a measures the density of the liquid. So a beer when you put when you first make your wart is very dense, because it's full of sugars. And so if the hydrometer floats very high and as the fermentation continues what happens is that the liquid becomes less dense so closer to water because the sugars are being fermented off and once you get it a stable reading on that hydrometer once it's it basically move anymore over at say a 24 to 48 hour period, then your beer is safe to bottle. You will not get the exploding bottles. The exploding of bottle is because you bottle your beer and it continues to ferment in the bottle and the CO2 has got nowhere to go other than to explode the bottle. So it is very important as possibly the most common question we get asked. ‘Well my bubbling stopped. My beer must be finished.’ Well have you tested with a hydrometer? ‘No. No, right you please go and test with your hydrometer.’
Philip: Alright, well, look, I hope we have given you something to think about everyone. It's simpler than it sounds, and Chrissy Flanagan knows what she's talking about in terms of stuff that tastes good. So if Chris he's confident we can do it. I'm sure we can Hamish knows you can do it because he's been in the business for years and so was his old man. So he must be doing something right. All right, Hamish, start simply and work up from there and you will get a good product. Thanks very much for your time.
Hamish: Thank you Phillip. I really appreciate. It was fun to hear Chrissy too. I'd love to try a smoky Porter. (laughs)
Philip: Hamish Rogers Wilson from the Australian home brewing shop in Victoria, Chrissy Flanagan food experimenter and marker of all the good things including beer. Chrissy, terrific to have your time.
Chrissy: Thanks Phil.
Philip: and good luck. I'm going to go home and get started, I’ll make it and I’ll report back.
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