# Melbourne bitter



## Swampy186 (18/7/16)

Does anyone have a extract recipe for a Melbourne bitter clone ? Cheers [emoji481]


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## Bribie G (18/7/16)

In my kits days I did probably as close as I could to MB and it turned out not too bad.

MB comes from the same wort as VB but is tweaked differently with different hop extracts and caramels on the way to the packing line and is adjusted to sale strength (i.e. watered down) a bit more to 4.6% as opposed to VB 4.9%. It has a bit more going for it with hops and doesn't have so much of the mouse piss twang you get in VB.

From memory, a very light kit such as Coopers Canadian Blonde is a good start, then add a pack of Coopers Brew Enhancer 1 (not Brew Enhancer 2). Mix into fermenter as you would normally do for a kit brew, then run off about half a litre into a pan.

Take about 15g of Pride of Ringwood hops and boil them for half an hour in the wort. Cover and cool, then tip that into the fermenter as well.

Throw away the kit yeast and use a lager yeast such as S-23. If you have temperature control then ferment at around 13 degrees for a few days, allow to rise to around 19 until done, then cold crash as cold as you can get it for 10 days and bottle or keg.

Using a kit it will always turn out a bit fruity and not so clean as the genuine article but will not be offensive to most MB drinkers.


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## Lethaldog (18/7/16)

Please don't, last thing we need to do is replicate that cats piss [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]


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## Bribie G (18/7/16)

I find that of the megaswills, MB is a pretty honest old-school Australian Standard Lager that hasn't been too fucked over by CUB compared to, say, Carlton Draught that was a flavourful beer in the 1970s and 80s and has, after several re-launches over the years, been reduce to said cats piss.

Pity it's not on tap, it would probably be my go to pub beer if it was available.


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## doon (18/7/16)

Its on tap in melbourne thanks to hipsters!


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## welly2 (18/7/16)

Bribie G said:


> I find that of the megaswills, MB is a pretty honest old-school Australian Standard Lager that hasn't been too fucked over by CUB compared to, say, Carlton Draught that was a flavourful beer in the 1970s and 80s and has, after several re-launches over the years, been reduce to said cats piss.
> 
> Pity it's not on tap, it would probably be my go to pub beer if it was available.


Agreed. Out of all those generic lagers, MB is pretty good. I wouldn't make a habit of drinking it but I have and do drink it from time to time and I enjoy it.


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## Swampy186 (18/7/16)

Thank for all your help cheers


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