Blogs - RealBeer.co.nz

Frisky Frogs & Men in Kilts

The day/night of 3 October was spent at a miniature Munich Oktoberfest at White Cliffs Organic Brewery in Urenui, Taranaki – all of the fun with a fraction of the people (about 450). With a free stein on entry, songbook for the Oompah Band (New Plymouth Brass Band) and a full Bavarian meal, these country folk sure do know how to throw a decent festival. I guess the one benefit of drinking from a stein (not The Lady Glass’ usual choice of vessel) is the ability to slam your glass into someone els… Continue

Added by The Lady Glass on October 12, 2009 at 4:33pm — No Comments

Rough Wise Guy Ale

Most of my inspiration comes from sitting on the crapper, reading through a stash of BYO magazines. The latest issue has an article about Cloning beers, giving an example of Rogue Dead Guy Ale. This is nothing like it. The original called for 4kg Pale, 1.8kg Munich and 500g Carastan malt. Decided to break down the Munich and Carastan into Munich II, Vienna, Crystal and Melanoidin and a bit of Roast. 20 mins into the mash and god knows how it will turn out. Rough Wise Guy Ale #11 1… Continue

Added by Glynn Foster on September 26, 2009 at 3:40pm — 6 Comments

Up the Ginga Irish Red Ale

Already thinking about how I'm going to re-use my 1084 yeast cake from the stout I brewed last, after a little washing. The fermentation did in the end take off, slow and steady all the way. A little worried by floaties on the surface, but seems like the yeast hasn't yet dropped and a taste out of the carboy yields a pretty terrific brew- a couple of days in the fridge will cure that. I'm a relatively large… Continue

Added by Glynn Foster on September 16, 2009 at 9:23pm — 1 Comment

First Post - Not so Ordinary Bitter, Searching for Stout

Finally decided to start up a brewing blog. I have a work blog which gets a lot of geeky stuff, and given it's syndicated on a bunch of technical planets, figured realbeernz was the place to host it. I'll mostly talk about the brewing gear that I buy, magazine articles I'm reading, and the beer that I'm brewing (and will likely learn from the comments or pass on the knowledge that I've been privileged to learn).… Continue

Added by Glynn Foster on September 10, 2009 at 9:57pm — 2 Comments

Home roasted barley

Hi Can I please receive feedback from the home brew community about the following idea. Are any of you interested in home roasted barley? I roast my own coffee beans. When I started home brew a few months ago with a friend I realized brewing also uses roasting techniques with the different malts. Comments and advice welcome Thanks Ed Main Continue

Added by Ed Main on September 10, 2009 at 9:33pm — 7 Comments

Czech’ing it out

Back in July I spent 5 days touring around the sound and west of Czech Republic (in the midst of a month away), tasting a few (or more) of their fine Pilsners. Here is the post from my blog, thought some might find my ramblings interesting... Though we flew into Prague Airport, that was as close as we got, as we had already been to Prague many years ago. This trip was about touring a bit of the Czech countryside and, surprise surprise, visit some fine Czech Breweries with the Good Beer G… Continue

Added by Sam Possenniskie (TGM) on September 9, 2009 at 8:00pm — 3 Comments

The Pasta Maker Grain Mill

After reading a post by Joking about the possibility of creating a grain mill from a pasta maker I gave it a go with much success! Following is a quick guide on how it was done..... Step One: Find a cheap pasta maker (I got mine second hand for $22 on trademe)

This one has 6 different settings to set ho… Continue

Added by Toot on August 31, 2009 at 6:00pm — 2 Comments

Milk Beer - Dr Moo, Lactiwel, Chinese Awes and Bilk

Homer: Got any of that beer that has candy floating in it? You know, Skittlebrau? Apu: Such a beer does not exist, sir. I think you must have dreamed it. Homer: Oh. Well, then just give me a six-pack and a couple of bags of Skittles. The ‘Art of Skittlebrau’, beer judged not only on taste, but also on appearance post-skittle induction. Able to be produced in a wide variety of flavours and colours, Skittlebrau is confectionary brewing at it’s finest(?) indeed, the drinker can “taste the rainbow”… Continue

Added by Curd Nerd on August 26, 2009 at 12:00am — No Comments

Where have the hops gone?

I'm sitting here tonight after having had probably one more than I should have, not unusual for us ale named, lager brewed swilling Kiwis. It's Saturday night we are all drinking like the 6 o'clock swill is still here, but the difference is that tonight I have consumed beers from the home brewing and craft brewing brethren. I think we are similar to the Camp David religious nuts of the 80's except that some of us are not trying to have sex with multiple partners (okay not all of us), and… Continue

Added by James P on August 15, 2009 at 9:59pm — 8 Comments

Confessions of a Brewer

I'm addicted to brewing. There, I said it. Born out of a desperate need to find a tasty drinkable beer I went in search of the whole homebrew thing. I pretty much decided that if I could brew anything half as decent as DB or Lion then I'm well on the way to improving my life. The dilemma I now have is that in my search of homebrewing I found this fantastic array of NZ craft beer I had no idea existed. If I'm honest I thought that Macs and Monteiths were as good as it got in NZ and I found it ra… Continue

Added by Matthew on August 9, 2009 at 8:56pm — 6 Comments

BIAB Reviled style

Well figured it was about time I put up a pictorial of my brew day, this is how I do BIAB at the moment, ive made many tweaks to the process over time and I can get higher efficiencys doing it another way, however I find this is the best way to get consistent results across varied grain bill sizes, meaning I only lose about 3-5% if im doing a big 7kg batch! So to start out - I weigh out the grain, which is normally done with the hops a couple of days before i brew in anticipation :o)… Continue

Added by Reviled on July 23, 2009 at 10:01am — 13 Comments

Rye..

Has anyone here brewed a beer using Rye? I just bought a 1kg bag of the stuff the other day. I guessing it might be good for a Saison? I'm told it gives a dry, spicy finish. Is this true? Continue

Added by cerevisia on July 19, 2009 at 9:28pm — 2 Comments

The Weary Pilgrim Brewery's Inaugural BIAB Brew Day

After several month's planning and research brewday finally arrived on Saturday 18th July. The Grain Mill is finished (well usable, so it's finished), the Grain Bag sewn up and all of the ingredients gathered so I couldn't put it off any longer.

The 56 litre mash… Continue

Added by Pilgrim on July 19, 2009 at 7:07pm — 16 Comments

Commissioning the New Brewery 2

In the space of a week I have gone from Bag and Pot (BIAB) to a conventional set up. I've added a new Mashtun made from a 38L plastic fermenter covered with expanding foam ala Joking. Also fitted all the various valves and fittings, purchased a pump, a mill and a 40L 3kw electric Urn for HLT, and converted my copper chiller into a whirlpool chiller. Phew! Anyways, I waited patiently until everything was in place before attempting a brew. I decided to use up a load of crushed grain and came up w… Continue

Added by studio1 on July 15, 2009 at 9:44am — 11 Comments

So Tell Me More About Epic Armageddon IPA

This series of videos explains the story behind the origins of Epic Armageddon I.P.A., The West Coast IPA Challenge, the reasons for putting Epic Armageddon I.P.A. into oak barrels, naming them Pete & Melissa before putting them o… Continue

Added by nzbrewer on July 14, 2009 at 9:43pm — 6 Comments

Craft Beer Surge - Letters To The Business Editor - Sunday Star Times - 12 July 2009

Craft Beer Surge - Sunday Star Times - 12 July 2009

Dear Tim Re: Recession Bites Grog Sales – Sunday Star Times 28th June, 2009 I was surprised to read this article which does give the point of view of the large brewers in this country and t… Continue

Added by nzbrewer on July 12, 2009 at 9:43am — 1 Comment

24 Craft Beers + 1 Afternoon sampling

The following was Twittered live yesterday afternoon via http://twitter.com/epicbeer Doing a brewers pre-judging for beer awards via BeerNZ, out of thes beers, medal winners would be Tuatara Helles and Invercargill Biman

Out of this round I would medal the Twisted Hop Sauvin Pilsner and In… Continue

Added by nzbrewer on July 9, 2009 at 8:30am — 9 Comments

Yeast Banking

Over the weekend I added 4 new strains to my yeast library. First of all, a big thanks to Reviled for donating the strains, I'll drop your frozen vials off tomorrow :) Strains were wyeast 1026, 1084, 1469 and 1728. I have the good fortune to have access to a lab at work so all the gear I need is at my fingertips. I am also pretty familiar with sterile techniques and have experience playing around with yeast in a laboratory setting. Messy lab bench, but its sterile...… Continue

Added by haish on July 6, 2009 at 10:30pm — 21 Comments

Commissioning the new brewery

I thought I’d drop a blog on here outlining our first brew in the new brewery – thanks to Barry for advice on the use of hot water cylinders – we’re stoked with the results! The brew went really well on Sunday, considering that the brewery has been completely reworked so we were starting with a brand new (to us) setup that hadn’t yet been calibrated! I’ll be adding sight-glasses to the vessels before the next brew, so hopefully that will make things a bit easier. For the sake of explanation, w… Continue

Added by vdog on July 6, 2009 at 11:00am — 20 Comments

Flander's Red - The Brewday

Thought I'd add a blog. You've probably seen this all before but thought I'd throw up some photos of how my brewday goes.

Recipe for anyone that's interested.

… Continue

Added by denimglen on July 3, 2009 at 4:30pm — 18 Comments

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