# Vic X-mas In July 2009 Tasting Thread



## Wardhog (28/6/09)

Ok, I'll kick it off.

First up is mine - 27. Vienna Lager

Don't know if it's true to style, but it is an easy to drink beer. Low hop character in all aspects, but nice toasted malt - fairly happy with this beer.

I'll be interested to see if anyone else thinks there's a slight solventy edge to it as if I haven't pitched enough yeast.


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## hairofthedog (28/6/09)

Hutchy 14 Cal Com

really well balanced beer mate malty with a nice hop aftertaste lingering clear amber with good head easy to drink :icon_cheers:


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## Wardhog (28/6/09)

15. Fourstar - AIPA

A great beer. That's quite a mouthful of fruity hops, and good malt to contrast with. Well done.


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## chris.taylor.98 (28/6/09)

*15. Fourstar - AIPA*

Clear to bright, plenty of American hops in the aroma.

Very smooth on the palette, good balancing malt.

Bit of a kick of bitterness with a pleasant dry finish.

Certainly got the hop smrgsbord effect going on there, with the only one I can pick for certain being the cascade, may also be because I am not that familiar with some of those new fangled American hops 

Not sure why you where worried about this one 4-star, as I can't any evidence of any "nasties" lurking in the wings there.

My only suggestion (being more of a personal preference then a criticism) would be tone down the bitterness a tad as it distracts a little bit from the other qualities. The extra kick to the bitterness my also have been attributed to some of the water modifications.

Good way to start off the swap.


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## Fourstar (29/6/09)

Chris Taylor said:


> *15. Fourstar - AIPA*
> Clear to bright, plenty of American hops in the aroma.
> Very smooth on the palette, good balancing malt.
> Bit of a kick of bitterness with a pleasant dry finish.
> ...



I was a little worried the the voilent ferment i had. Ended up quite the pearler! Glad you liked it Chris. When i pick mine up tonight, mine and Mcooks are going into the fridge for a side by side, blind tasting. 

Im unsure how you drank this but the more it warmed up, the more the malt pushed forward. Especially the crystal which helped balance things up abit. Yep, i noticed the bitterness was a little sharp, could be a problem for the non-hop-heads. it didnt help the cascade in it was 7.8%AA too! Cheers!


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## Wonderwoman (29/6/09)

Wardhog said:


> Ok, I'll kick it off.
> 
> First up is mine - 27. Vienna Lager
> 
> ...



I'm drinking the Vienna lager now...

It's certainly easy drinking, low hops, nice and malty. I can't taste any "solventy" flavours. 

It's not entirely to my taste, but I've enjoyed this glass.


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## hairofthedog (29/6/09)

Chris 16 Red Weizen

absolute cracker mate perfect after dinner beer lots of toffee flavor with a hint of vanilla & good banana esters loved it :icon_cheers:


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## hairofthedog (30/6/09)

24. Don Mateo - "Way out Weizen" - Hefeweizen

sorry mate i couldnt drink it its the sweetest beer ive ever tasted


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## chris.taylor.98 (30/6/09)

*4. Hairofthedog - Dortmunder export*

Really great beer Hairofthedog.

A real showcase of malt, with pleasant fruit esters. Very clean.

Good bitterness and somewhat dry finish to keep you coming back for more.

Great way to start the evening.


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## hairofthedog (30/6/09)

was it carbed up chris ? 
it only been in the bottle for about a fortnight


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## Fourstar (30/6/09)

*17. Brewmeister70 - Kolsch*

Slightly winey/fruity DMS-esque apple aroma (probabaly from the yeast, not the malt.) Finishes with a breadynss on the nose. Appearance is slightly hazy @ around 7 deg (according to my spot thermo, i can only assume its yeast haze if its polyclared) Bright yellow/gold. perfect colour. Wish i could see it in the sunlight. Upfront Pilsner malt which finishes quite bitter and winey yeasty which may be due to the haze. Im not suprised, Kolsch yeast is a bastard to flocc out. Finishes rather dry on the palate (probably due to the bitterness).

Went well with my french sausage cassulet for dinner. if it wasnt for the yeasty bitterness, id say the balance would be spot on.

Fair interpretation of the style brewmeister70! The only other Kolsch ive had was at the wig and pen. Thats the most delicate beer ive ever drank. I'd say if you touched it with a feather it would be destroyed! A very hard beer to get right.

Ohh, as im typing this it leaves a nice nutty/breadyness on the palate mintues after consuming. Thumbs up mate! Decent beer 1st cab off the rank!

Cheers :icon_cheers:


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## hairofthedog (30/6/09)

Fents 2 - Bitsa Pale Ale 

mate i think calling it a bitsa pale ale may be a bit harsh i recon its a top flight APA every bit as good as a SNPA :super: 

it tastes better from the bottle than it did from the tap the other week maybe that little bit of age has just rounded it off


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## chris.taylor.98 (30/6/09)

hairofthedog said:


> was it carbed up chris ?
> it only been in the bottle for about a fortnight




yep, seemed fine to me. gave it the squeeze test before putting it in the fridge


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## hairofthedog (30/6/09)

5. Brendo - LCBA clone

another top notch APA i dont know if id call it an LCPA clone i think you really need a hopback or a s#itload more dryhop to achive there flav/aroma but it a beer i could drink plenty of real nice mate :chug:


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## hairofthedog (30/6/09)

Brendo now im confused mate i just looked @ your label which indicates your making a bright ale not a pale ale IMO it tastes more like LCPA than the LCBA & i cant taste any SAAZ :blink:


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## Hutch (30/6/09)

24. Don Mateo - "Way out Weizen" - Hefeweizen

Good carbonation, moderate head retention, reasonably clear for a Hefe.
Low hops, slightly tart, with some nice weizen flavours there, though somewhat subdued banana for 3068.
No obvious fermentation flaws - I'm guessing a large starter was pitched, leaving the phenolics on the low end.
Really enjoyable wheet beer!
Cheers Don.


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## brendo (1/7/09)

hairofthedog said:


> Brendo now im confused mate i just looked @ your label which indicates your making a bright ale not a pale ale IMO it tastes more like LCPA than the LCBA & i cant taste any SAAZ :blink:



Hey Hairofthedog... glad you liked it... as a beer I am pretty happy with it, but it has missed the mark as a LCBA. I used Tony's recipe (plenty of cascade and b-saaz), however it was NC'd and lost a lot of the aroma hopping.

With heavily hopped beers that are NC'd, I am going to start late hopping using the french press method after fermentation has finished.

You live, you learn... the keg of it I have at home is going down rather nicely tho :beerbang: 

Cheers,

Brendo


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## Wonderwoman (1/7/09)

20. Warmbeer's Mild

I really enjoyed drinking this beer. The carbonation was a bit low, but probably in keeping with the style. I couldn't detect much hops aroma or flavour, but there were some nice subtle chocolatey flavours. A real easy drinking beer. :icon_drool2:


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## brettprevans (1/7/09)

I made a double bvatch of my contribution so ive got a keg and have tasted mine. I'll wait until someone hsa reviewed it before i throw my critique of it up. Wouldnt want to bias anyone.

:icon_offtopic: 
Fents - i'll pick up my swap tonight if thats ok? Ive got some celebrating to do...missus and me bought a house.


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## Katherine (1/7/09)

> Fents - i'll pick up my swap tonight if thats ok? Ive got some celebrating to do...missus and me bought a house.


 Congratulations CM... were????


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## brettprevans (1/7/09)

i assume you mean w*h*ere . been drinking already?! kidding

ringwood. so about 10 minutes from where we are renting. lots of room for all my brewing gear!! and the ridiculous amount of grain i have atm.


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## Leigh (1/7/09)

Congrats Brett! Bet your stoked. Nice area Ringwood.


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## Katherine (1/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> i assume you mean w*h*ere . been drinking already?! kidding
> 
> ringwood. so about 10 minutes from where we are renting. lots of room for all my brewing gear!! and the ridiculous amount of grain i have atm.




oh come on leave my spelling alone. I will admit its terrible! But good on YA!


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## brendo (1/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> ringwood. so about 10 minutes from where we are renting. lots of room for all my brewing gear!! and the ridiculous amount of grain i have atm.



Nice one neighbour - well almost  

Brendo


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## Maple (1/7/09)

Great news on the house CM2. that calls for a beer. up for a lunch bevie?


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## Wardhog (1/7/09)

HOUSEWARMING/SWAP PARTY AT BRETT'S!


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## brettprevans (1/7/09)

Ill Pm you Maple

ok back on topic otherise the topic police will come get us.

edit: geez your a funny man Wardy! but yeah once we are in and set up. certainly up for a house/brew warming.


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## Neill (1/7/09)

*5. Fourstar - AIPA*

Mine wasn't amazingly clear, but then again i'm not fussed what it looks like.

Easy and smooth mouthfeel, moderate malt background.

I found the bitterness reasonably pronounced - it is bittered to 60 IBU i guess so that's to be expected. Great dry end to the mouthfull, made me keep wanting more 

As above, no evidence of any infection or phenolics in this one that i could taste, was pretty good overall.

Only slight criticism is the bitterness was a bit strong for my liking, but that's more a personal preference thing rather than a flaw in the beer.

Great work overall on this one!

Looking forward to trying someone else's beer tonight.


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## Fourstar (1/7/09)

Neill said:


> *5. Fourstar - AIPA*
> Only slight criticism is the bitterness was a bit strong for my liking, but that's more a personal preference thing rather than a flaw in the beer.
> Great work overall on this one!



Cheers mate! I see that being my main issue if you are not a hop head or into strong American C hops. You'd think it was overly bitter. Personally for an AIPA i think its slightly underhopped on the hop flavour side of things... needs more resin! :icon_drool2: 

As Chirs pointed out, on my next attempt i might drop around 5 IBU from the bittering additon and pop it in as a 20 minute one! It should hopefully bump up the 'fruit salad' flavour to 11 on the dial! 

Glad you liked it!


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## Brewmeister70 (1/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> Cheers mate! I see that being my main issue if you are not a hop head or into strong American C hops. You'd think it was overly bitter. Personally for an AIPA i think its slightly underhopped on the hop flavour side of things... needs more resin! :icon_drool2:
> 
> As Chirs pointed out, on my next attempt i might drop around 5 IBU from the bittering additon and pop it in as a 20 minute one! It should hopefully bump up the 'fruit salad' flavour to 11 on the dial!
> 
> Glad you liked it!



Speaking of fruit salad, I got watermelon as one of the fruit flavours going on, particularly as it warmed. What hop do you feel might be responsible for that one Fourstar?? I really liked it alot and now feel inspired to try some American hops I may not have considered using before trying this beer, so thanks and yes, the Kolsch only got put in the keg a couple of days before so was yeast as it could be. The other half of the brew wheich originally went in a keg and settled was "cleaner" as this yeast does leave a bitter flavour IMO.

Cheers :icon_cheers:


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## Quintrex (1/7/09)

Brewmeister70 said:


> Speaking of fruit salad, I got watermelon as one of the fruit flavours going on, particularly as it warmed. What hop do you feel might be responsible for that one Fourstar?? I really liked it alot and now feel inspired to try some American hops I may not have considered using before trying this beer, so thanks and yes, the Kolsch only got put in the keg a couple of days before so was yeast as it could be. The other half of the brew wheich originally went in a keg and settled was "cleaner" as this yeast does leave a bitter flavour IMO.
> 
> Cheers :icon_cheers:



You didn't use aussie cascade did you ? I just ask cos' i've tasted watermelon from that, plus you mentioned that it had an alpha of 7.8% which if I remember correctly is what the current batch of tas cascade was.


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## Fourstar (1/7/09)

Brewmeister70 said:


> Speaking of fruit salad, I got watermelon as one of the fruit flavours going on, particularly as it warmed. What hop do you feel might be responsible for that one Fourstar??



Cheers for the Kudos BM70! Umm the hops usused where Simcoe, Cascade, Amarillo and Chinook with lots of late simcoe in there too. heres the Hop profile:

20.00 gm Simcoe [13.00%] (60 min) (First Wort Hop) Hops 27.1 IBU 
20.00 gm Cascade [5.50%] (60 min) (First Wort Hop) Hops 11.5 IBU 
20.00 gm Chinook [13.00%] (15 min) Hops 12.2 IBU 
20.00 gm Amarillo [8.20%] (15 min) Hops 7.7 IBU 
10.00 gm Cascade [5.50%] (5 min) Hops 1.0 IBU 
10.00 gm Amarillo [8.20%] (0 min) Hops - 
10.00 gm Chinook [13.00%] (0 min) Hops - 
10.00 gm Simcoe [13.00%] (0 min) Hops - 
5.00 gm Amarillo [8.20%] (Dry Hop 5 days) Hops - 
5.00 gm Cascade [5.50%] (Dry Hop 5 days) Hops - 
20.00 gm Simcoe [13.00%] (Dry Hop 5 days) Hops - 

Unsure as to what was throwing the 'watermelon' Maybe the simcoe and Amarillo together? Slightly passiona?



Quintrex said:


> You didn't use aussie cascade did you ? I just ask cos' i've tasted watermelon from that, plus you mentioned that it had an alpha of 7.8% which if I remember correctly is what the current batch of tas cascade was.


It may have been, ive noted it as 5.5% here. i think i used an old batch of cascade looking at the above because i added some dregs in the dry hop (that loose 5g) and the new cascade @7.8%AA may have been used in my cream ale with EKG. 

If you or i can find that post of mine... prove me wrong!


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## hairofthedog (1/7/09)

Neil i think no5 is brendos not fourstars maybe thats the problem ??? :icon_cheers:


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## Fourstar (1/7/09)

hairofthedog said:


> Neil i think no5 is brendos not fourstars maybe thats the problem ???



Lets hope its a typo, I'd be suprised if Brendos has hopped his LCBA to 60 IBU! not to mention the amount of crystal i used was 8.5%, rather sweet for a bright ale clone. Who knows what Neils palate is like! App his taste in women is supurb though!


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## Quintrex (1/7/09)

Fourstars AIPA

Pours nicely, good level of carb.

Nice tropical fruit salad aroma, with further sniffing revealing some toffee.

Firm bitterness balanced with some x-tal, pretty nicely balanced. I'd love a touch more hop flavour, but i am a hop fiend.

enjoyable beer

Q


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## Quintrex (1/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> Unsure as to what was throwing the 'watermelon' Maybe the simcoe and Amarillo together? Slightly passiona?
> 
> 
> It may have been, ive noted it as 5.5% here. i think i used an old batch of cascade looking at the above because i added some dregs in the dry hop (that loose 5g) and the new cascade @7.8%AA may have been used in my cream ale with EKG.
> ...





Fourstar said:


> I was a little worried the the voilent ferment i had. Ended up quite the pearler! Glad you liked it Chris. When i pick mine up tonight, mine and Mcooks are going into the fridge for a side by side, blind tasting.
> 
> Im unsure how you drank this but the more it warmed up, the more the malt pushed forward. Especially the crystal which helped balance things up abit. Yep, i noticed the bitterness was a little sharp, could be a problem for the non-hop-heads. it didnt help the cascade in it was 7.8%AA too! Cheers!



whichever way doesn't really matter, I just mentioned it because the aussie cascade a friend had in his randall was throwing out some massive watermelon flavour.

Q


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## Fourstar (1/7/09)

Quintrex said:


> Fourstars AIPA
> Pours nicely, good level of carb.
> Nice tropical fruit salad aroma, with further sniffing revealing some toffee.
> Firm bitterness balanced with some x-tal, pretty nicely balanced. I'd love a touch more hop flavour, but i am a hop fiend.
> ...




Cheers mate, on the final tasting i had i wish i hand late bombed the thing.. saying that the batch as 150 grams of hops in it! maybe i should have trippled my 5min addition from 10 to 30g as this goes in at whirlpool for me (im a NC'er). always next time.... 15 bucks a batch for hops. Its 3/4 the cost of the grain bill!


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## Fourstar (1/7/09)

*12. mcook - American IPA*

Orange to amber in colour, holds a smooth blankety head. Got a little hop/yeast haze as expected in a highly hopped beer like this.

Aroma, slightly grainy, no hop presence whatsoever! Not much to it on the nose, slight alcohol warmth.

Onto the lips. A high carbonation with some solventy hot alc characteristics at the back of the throat. finishes very very malty. Lots of munich/melanoidens going on. hop to bitterness ratio is balanced more like an APA than an AIPA. very nutty in the finish. Its lacking American hop. Noteably C hop characteristics. Considering your recipe it should be all US hop flavour/aroma. I detect nothing, all im getting is bitterness, no hop flavour unfortunately. The flavour is all munich with some crystal sweetness.

What happened mcook? Did you have a high temp ferment going on? what ABV did this finish at? All hop aroma is lost and a noticable solvent character too. I was expecting a battle of the gladiators man! Maybe i got a ugly bottle..

Cheers for the beer either way mate!


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## Leigh (1/7/09)

22. Lucas - Smoked Porter 

This beer is very dark (indeed you can't see through the glass!), pours with a small head that dissipates quickly, typical sweet porter-esque sweet aroma.

On tasting, a mild burnt chocolate flavour at the front of the mouth that travels rearward, leaving a bitter aftertaste that remains at the back of the tongue. The bitterness is a bit stronger than the other porters I've tried.

Not a bad effort Lucas, my comments come from a non-porter drinker


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## hairofthedog (1/7/09)

15 fourstars AIPA

pure gold mate great malt character matched with a perfect amount of hops :icon_drool2:


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## chris.taylor.98 (1/7/09)

*23. Shortz - EoX Porter*

Nice coffee and chocolate ... and if I squeeze my imagination really hard a hint of raspberry as well.

Bit of crystal malt sweetness off the nose.

Small dark tan head that dissipates quickly.

Burnt smoked taste predominates right through to the finish. (really does have that smokey phenolic in addition to the more traditional black and or roast malt flavours)

The dark malts probably promote this phenolic somewhat.

Some hop bitterness to support malt.

Very dry finish which is accentuating the bitterness the more that I consume.

Could not see your recipe in the recipe thread Shortz so one of two things going on here:

You where aiming for a smoked porter and have added some smoked malt.

or

The smoke phenolic is unintentional. 

I have had similar phenolics in past with a brown ale, and in the end put it down to chlorine in the water screwing with the yeast during the fermentation stage. Since then I filter all my water through a carbon filter and have not had the problem.

Either way was still an enjoyable beer, and I do really enjoy my dark beers . 

Would love to see the recipe so I could better understand where some of the flavours are coming from.


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## Fourstar (1/7/09)

*4. Hairofthedog - Dortmunder export*

Perfect Colour, deep yellow to gold in appearance with some chill/yeast haze (a little bit of sediment in the bottle so some was expected so early into the swap). Beautiful creamy pils like head. Fluffy like a cloud!

Aroma is very clean with a deep sweet pils malt aroma, almost honey like. No detectable hops (may be too cold, serving at lager temps) some phenolics.

Very heavily pils malt forward on the palate with clean bittering and finishes off with residual pils malt sweetness. Carb is perfect with a dryness on the center my tongue... Im assuming some calcium additions?

Flavour is very malty pils sweet, interested to know the manufacturer of the pils? Ive never had a pils malt flavour so sweet like this. Very nice indeed. Are you happy to share the recipe?!

What can I say? Awesome beer mate. In a nutshell, a Bohemian pils on the malt and German pils on the water. Hops well Im unsure off, noble either way. Kickass beer mate!

Cheers! :icon_cheers:


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## [email protected] (1/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> *12. mcook - American IPA*
> 
> Orange to amber in colour, holds a smooth blankety head. Got a little hop/yeast haze as expected in a highly hopped beer like this.
> 
> ...



The ABV is around 7%, fermented at 19. Can't say that this matches what I tasted a couple of weeks ago, and I doubt it would go south that quickly--but we'll see what others think.


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## Fourstar (1/7/09)

mcook said:


> The ABV is around 7%, fermented at 19. Can't say that this matches what I tasted a couple of weeks ago, and I doubt it would go south that quickly--but we'll see what others think.



Yeah, i dont know man... maybe i got a bad bottle. I can vouch the ABV it was quite heavy on the alc... but everything else seemed lacking except the munich presence.


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## Leigh (1/7/09)

Leigh said:


> 22. Lucas - Smoked Porter
> 
> This beer is very dark (indeed you can't see through the glass!), pours with a small head that dissipates quickly, typical sweet porter-esque sweet aroma.
> 
> ...



Update: The bitterness is a lot less present with a good meal...very good as a "dessert beer"


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## Fourstar (1/7/09)

Quintrex said:


> whichever way doesn't really matter, I just mentioned it because the aussie cascade a friend had in his randall was throwing out some massive watermelon flavour.
> Q



Hmm... i do have a 7.8% Cascade in the fridge. maybe i have my batches mixed up when i posted that. Only a small amount is missing so i'd assume its for my latest batch. (I buy all my hops in 100g lots unless its from craftbrewer) i'd say ive only used it in my current american amber. Currently that is very deep bitter on the back of the tongue that my AAA. im hoping it fades over time. 

I'm a little upset with it actually, i was expecting a really sweet amber (11% crystal) except its quite dry and slightly astringent. i'm hoping its just a hop thing that will mellow over time due to this extra AA cascade. i'll have a chat with Dave from Greensy HB next time im in. I immediatly assumed it was US cascade, not AUS as thats what he usually stocks. it does taste different to our run of the mill cascade in this AAA. Saying that, i'd assume it was the 5.5% US cascade in the AIPA due to the hop differences.

Cheers!


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## Fourstar (1/7/09)

*2. Fents - Bitsa Pale Ale

*Colour of a decent US pale ale. Gold to orange when held to light, a slight hop/yeast haze constant carbonation.... nice.

Fruity/estery/yeasty on the nose, some malt presence. Relatively clean otherwise. Not detecting much hops on the nose.

Sharp bitterness on the palate with decent carbonation. Deep bitterness takes the stage on this one. There is resin coating my teeth (yep definitely the Chinook). It finishes quite dry with some cascade grapefruitiness in the finish. Rounds out with the typical JW ale malt flavour I get from being at the Portland hotel/js brewhouse in Russell st. I love that malty flavour you get from the Portland pale! I think I'm a JW lover!

Decent beer mate! If you can help me clone the Portland pale with that maltiness you manage to scrape out of JW ale I'll brew you a kegs worth! Top work!

Edit: forgot the picture


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## [email protected] (1/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> Yeah, i dont know man... maybe i got a bad bottle. I can vouch the ABV it was quite heavy on the alc... but everything else seemed lacking except the munich presence.



Okay as you got me interested so here's the side by side:

Fourstar AIPA : Low carbonation, strong in your face aroma, head recedes but doesn't disappear completely, nice (passion fruit / citrus / floral / etc?) aroma still present throughout. Nice up front hoppy flavor, though quite bitter, hangs around in the mouth for quite some time (almost cloying after getting towards the end of the first glass). Hop flavor and bitterness overpowers anything else that might have been present (i.e. maltiness, alcohol or yeast characters)--not nescessarily a bad thing. Still all in all it is a nice beer--this is the kind of beer that would finish of a session (beer, dnd, poker, etc) in style.

My AIPA (possibly served a bit warm ... doh!) : High carbonation, subtle american style aroma -- lower than my APA. Slight solventy overtones accentuates the 7% alcohol but over-powers other flavors. Quite bitter, but bitterness doesn't linger very long. I would serve this a few degrees colder next time (hopefully to mask the solventy characters). Hopefully still drinkable, but unfortunately nowhere near the masterpiece we all hope to produce. 

My tastebuds are shot to shreds after both of these beers, though I can't get enough of the smell of Fourstar's beer. I think you've comfortably won this battle Fourstar. :icon_cheers: 

Cheers
Mal


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## Hutch (1/7/09)

16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen

Very well crafted beer, if not exactly fitting the usual Weizen mould. Lots of sweet toffee/malt character going on, low bitterness, good carbonation, average head retention.
Some characteristic Weizen aroma's going on, clove/banana, but not dominant in any one.
Definitely sweeter than Don's Hefe IMHO, though not dissimilar in yeast character.

Cheers Chris.


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## hairofthedog (1/7/09)

Amount Item Type % or IBU 
8.00 kg Pilsner, Malt Craft Export (Joe White) (1.6 SRM) Grain 65.84 % 
4.00 kg Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 32.92 % 
0.15 kg Melanoiden Malt (20.0 SRM) Grain 1.23 % 
70.00 gm Hallertauer Aroma [7.00 %] (60 min) Hops 22.7 IBU 
70.00 gm Hallertauer Aroma [7.00 %] (5 min) Hops 4.5 IBU 
1 Pkgs Bohemian Lager (Wyeast Labs #2124) [Starter 125 ml] Yeast-Lager 



there you go 4* :icon_cheers:


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## Fourstar (1/7/09)

mcook said:


> My tastebuds are shot to shreds after both of these beers, though I can't get enough of the smell of Fourstar's beer. I think you've comfortably won this battle Fourstar.
> Cheers
> Mal



I'd say yours would have been closer to the post if the ABV was a little lower. i think the ABV overpowered the IBU count. the malt presence was there just the hops where lacking. Maybe more hops late in the boil rather than bittering may have pushed you forward too. I know the aroma was A+ in my beer and why i have told everyone to drink it asap while its there and fresh!
AIPA = hops hops hops and more hops which is what i tried to achieve, i think i only suceeded with hops hops and hops. :icon_drunk: which is still too bitter for some! :blink: 


Cheers! :icon_cheers:


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## Hutch (1/7/09)

1. Peels - Black Beer

It's black all right! 
Pours with medium to low carbonation, head dissipates quickly to a nice amber lace.
Seems quite low on bitterness, allowing the roasted malt character to come through. Some faint hop character there, well balanced.
I'm a complete noob when it comes to dark beers, so have no idea where this one fits in the spectrum (I presume it's a dry stout???)
Not exactly my cup-o-tea, but certainly a well made beer, with no obvious fermentation flaws to note.
Thanks Peels.


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## [email protected] (1/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> I'd say yours would have been closer to the post if the ABV was a little lower. i think the ABV overpowered the IBU count. the malt presence was there just the hops where lacking. Maybe more hops late in the boil rather than bittering may have pushed you forward too. I know the aroma was A+ in my beer and why i have told everyone to drink it asap while its there and fresh!
> AIPA = hops hops hops and more hops which is what i tried to achieve, i think i only suceeded with hops hops and hops. :icon_drunk: which is still too bitter for some! :blink:
> 
> 
> Cheers! :icon_cheers:



My beer finished alot lower in gravity than I expected, so I am not 100% sure what caused that, whether it was mash temp or some something to do with fermentation--but I am guessing that was probably the culprit.

Looking at the BJCP style guidelines I think your hop fetish might be more in line with an IIPA--borderline in IBU, but definitely in flavor and aroma--now that aroma you really need to extract and market as some kind of spray on fragrance...


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## chris.taylor.98 (1/7/09)

Hutch said:


> 16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen
> 
> Very well crafted beer, if not exactly fitting the usual Weizen mould. Lots of sweet toffee/malt character going on, low bitterness, good carbonation, average head retention.
> Some characteristic Weizen aroma's going on, clove/banana, but not dominant in any one.
> ...



Well curiously this was what I was actually aiming for the sweet caramel malts mixed in with the weizen character, but now that its "there" not sure that it actually works that well.

Guess you have to try these things to find out. 

Maybe a touch more bitterness required next time to balance it all out a bit, and possibly a drier finish. 

This one finished fairly high from memory. I even had to add more yeast which is pretty unlike normal 3068 behaviour.


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## Fents (2/7/09)

Chris your beer was sensational...a mate and i were very happy with it as we both dont like wheats but this was malty with a hint of wheat, nice one.

Fourstar - your AIPA was great. proper AIPA business.

Bennys Lemon Ale? this ones good as well, prob not as good as the above two but still a nice beer. can def get lemon from the taste. and i dont think it needed more time was perfectly carbed up etc.

CM2 might have to remind me what else i tasted last night, big night all a bit hazy now tho.


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## brendo (2/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> Lets hope its a typo, I'd be suprised if Brendos has hopped his LCBA to 60 IBU! not to mention the amount of crystal i used was 8.5%, rather sweet for a bright ale clone. Who knows what Neils palate is like! App his taste in women is supurb though!



Yeah Neil's description doesn't sound like mine - I'd say it was a typo and he left the 1 off the front of the 15.

With a careful pour, mine should appear very bright and clear, I used no crystal so there isn't much in the way of sweetness and it is bittered to around 36 IBUs - may seem a little higher due to NC'ing, but a long way short of Fourstar's 60 IBUs.

I have been slack and the beers that are ready only just hit the fridge last night, so I will crack one or two tonight and start posting opinions.

Cheers,

Brendo


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## brettprevans (2/7/09)

*16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen*
Interesting beer Chris. Bubblegum.. sweet bubblegum. only a touch drier finifsh needed. we (fents myself) were debating how you got the colour and I can see now from your recipe it wasnt carroma or carrared. Could have done with a little more carbonation. definitiely a differant wheat beer and a nice change.

*27. Wardhog. Vienna Lager*
Top stuff Wardy. This should be sold in pubs as a standard lager or at least as a house standard. Great flavours. smooth, balanced bitterness. You could hook into this all night long. nice carbonation and head. didnt detect any solvent flavours. yum. We all liked this one.

*25. Benny's Lemon Ale*
Im going to take a stab at the ingredients casuse you stumped us last night as to what we were tasting. It probably should have been colder when we drank it. so that may have also influenced what we tasted.
Cervesa kit with maltodex, some ultra light crystal and glacier or perle hops? not a lot of head and a bit more carbonation required but ok. slight thickness in body that was unexpected and only a hint of lemon at the end. Im guessing served at the right temp this could be a god summer beer as a thirst quencher, but I couldnt drink it as a sessional beer (again temp may have played an issue).
no technical faults that we could detect. be interested to see the recipe.

Fents I seriously doubt you remember what you tasted last night  I should have stayed for another one. I couldnt justify starting by the time I got home. I know you thought 4* was a cracker but I didnt taste that. so your on your own there.


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## Fents (2/7/09)

yea how good was that bubblegum is chris's! first proper beer i have ever got bubblegum off and i loved it.

thats right wardy's was in the mix too. top beer ward, sensational session beer, it got nailed.


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## Neill (2/7/09)

woops yeah i left off the 1 in front of the 5, it was definately fourstar's beer.

someone take one for the team and try my english ale, i don't have any left but it should be starting to get nice to drink now. i want to make another one and need some tips on improving it.


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## Fourstar (2/7/09)

Neill said:


> someone take one for the team and try my english ale, i don't have any left but it should be starting to get nice to drink now. i want to make another one and need some tips on improving it.



Tonight, the gloves are off. :icon_cheers:


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## Neill (2/7/09)

yeah don't hold back - i need to know what is crap about it and how to make it better


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## beerDingo (2/7/09)

15 - Fourstar AIPA:
I enjoyed this beer. It had a nice smell, and an the initial taste/flavour was great. However, the bitterness get's stuck at the back of the tongue, for a bit too long. Over all a good beer.

2 - Fents Bitsa Pale Ale:
I enjoyed this beer slightly more. It didn't have much in the way of aroma, or even hop flavour (especially compared to how it was out of the tap). But it was great in the mouth. It didn't have any lingering bitterness to it.


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## Wardhog (2/7/09)

5. Brendo - LCBA clone

I'm guessing you were aiming at an APA loaded with B Saaz and Cascade. There's plenty of hop flavour and a good bitterness/malt balance about it. The first taste is Cascade, then subsides and leaves the B Saaz winey taste to linger.

It needs more hops on the nose (try racking to secondary and dry hopping there - it'll give tons of aroma, and might also reduce the haze), and there's something that appears once the initial hop flavour dissipates. I don't know what it is, but I think it's for the best that it doesn't take long to give way to the B Saaz. 
Have another go at this beer dry hopped after primary fermentation, it'll be a cracker.


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## Brewmeister70 (2/7/09)

27. Wardhog's Vienna Lager

Great clarity and deep amber colour bordering on bronze. Small head, medium carbonation (maybe my glass?). Slight honeyed aroma with barely perceivable noble hop. 

The flavour is all about the malt- Munich being the dominant and the honeyish character is still there in the background. The Bitterness is ultra-smooth and just enough to offset the malt and keep it from being cloying. The complexity is added to by some barely-there flavour hops, Saaz-like in taste.

I could drink this all day long all year long and still not get bored! It has a nutty finish and a medium light, well-attenuated body. Just wonderful and so hard to get clean and properly balanced... Excellent beer Wardhog.

Cheers,

Brewmeister70 :beer:


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## Brewmeister70 (2/7/09)

Just sussed the recipe and have learned a thing or two: Vienna is the malt I confused as Munich and there are no noble hops in this but there is still a really clean and pleasant hop taste there - are Millennium hops German?


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## Fourstar (2/7/09)

*26. Neill - Malty English Ale*

Bright copper to amber in colour, stands with a light tan, creamy head which dissipates to light wispy 'pub foam'. Best looking beer so far in terms of clarity. Can read brewing classic styles through it 

Rather clean on the nose, very light yeast character, slightly sweet and the lightest solvency and slight fruitiness. No malt/bready aromas here. Onto the lips...

Medium carbonation, rather thin body. Light crystal sweetness is coming through with some pepperyness. Firm bitterness, balanced more towards hops than malt as the body is quite thin. Aftertaste has a lingering maltiness/nuttiness. Quite a session beer. The only negatives I can pick on are a slight 'kit twang' and probably the yeast profile is a bit lacking. Over all a decent kit and extract beer mate.

Looking at your recipe just now... Im surprised you havent started steeping grains etc. That will be the best thing you can do for your brewing right now... if you gave this say 200-400g of a light crystal steep (say 15-30Lovibond) and boiled your hops in that, it would have taken it to another level. The malt profile is a little one dimensional.

Saying that, this beer would fit into the category of a best bitter. If you up your late hopping a little and/or start using un hopped extracts with partial boils and steeping grain, Id say your beers would be fantastic! Next thing you know you will be buying a 3 tier system!

Cheers for the decent beer Neill! Thumbs up!


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## Quintrex (2/7/09)

Brewmeister70 said:


> Just sussed the recipe and have learned a thing or two: Vienna is the malt I confused as Munich and there are no noble hops in this but there is still a really clean and pleasant hop taste there - are Millennium hops German?



I think millenium are a new aussie variety, a really clean neutral bittering hop.
Used it a few times, i think it's a great all purpose bittering hop.
Q


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## Leigh (2/7/09)

13. CM2 - Kenzie Dunkle (munich Dunkle style). 

Nice dark brown colour (I wouldn't expect anything else from CM2), very little carbonation. Nice caramel flavours with a nice malt aftertaste. A very good drop Brett. I could get used to drinking this beer. I suspect the keg to bottle transfer has let you down on the carbonation front though.


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## Wardhog (2/7/09)

Quintrex said:


> I think millenium are a new aussie variety, a really clean neutral bittering hop.
> Used it a few times, i think it's a great all purpose bittering hop.
> Q



I agree. I've become quite a fan of that variety, and have done a number much larger than one of brews with only Millennium at 60 minutes.
Vienna malt is only a couple of SRM short of Munich, so it's pretty hard to pick the difference - but either has every right to be in every beer bar the palest of lagers in my opinion.

I must be getting quite jaded with hops, I find bitterness in the mid to low 20s not enough to keep my interest these days. But, I'm glad everyone's enjoyed it so far - no one agrees with me about the solvent?

14. Hutch - California Common

Sorry Hutch, I'm not going to be of much help here. I have no idea what one is supposed to taste like, I have no idea if yours is a good representation or not.

I'll just give my impression of it instead : 
Fizz fizz fizz gone - no wait

High hop bitterness with nice nice nice toasted malt presence. Leaves the palate feeling like it's just had something quite spicy. Can't pick out any fermentation issues, so I'll call this a good, well-made beer but I'll reserve judgement on if it's a good Californian Common because I don't know what one is.

Actually, was there wheat in this? The impressive head when poured + some flavours reminiscent of wheat had me wondering.


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## chris.taylor.98 (2/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> *16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen*
> Interesting beer Chris. Bubblegum.. sweet bubblegum. only a touch drier finifsh needed. we (fents myself) were debating how you got the colour and I can see now from your recipe it wasnt carroma or carrared. Could have done with a little more carbonation. definitiely a differant wheat beer and a nice change.





Fents said:


> yea how good was that bubblegum is chris's! first proper beer i have ever got bubblegum off and i loved it.
> 
> thats right wardy's was in the mix too. top beer ward, sensational session beer, it got nailed.



... well thats part of the fun and the frustration of brewing wheaties, you never know what you are going to get in your phenolic and ester profile from the yeast.

This time I had two fermenting side by side, the case swap one was reusing some of the yeast cake from a previous batch, and so was rather generous with its allocation.

The second one (which is going to sampled at the Melb Brewers annual dinner tomorrow night) was innoculated with a very old pack of 3068, and was seriously underpitched ... this one took off like a rocket, went screaming out the blow off tube and was done in 3 days.

Where as the case swap brew started of ok, kind of peaked a bit after 3 days then stalled after 5 days, first time I have ever had a 3068 beer do that.

Other things tried to try and get more esters etc was raising the temp for the first 18hrs (actually got a bit away from me with the rocket beer up to 25C) then cooling it back down to 19C or so for the rest of the ferment.


Anyway all this beer comparison has got me excited about a doing a wheat beer taste side by side, seeing how we have 3 in the case swap .. plus I have some of the slops left over from the Melb Brewers club beer ... better go find a few helpers.


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## Leigh (2/7/09)

16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen 

Nice reddish amber colour. Good yeast cloudiness. Small head that dissipated. Soapy mouthfeel and extremely sweet. Could taste the wheat, but was far too sweet for me.


14. Hutch - California Common 

Dark amber in colour. Poured with a good 10mm head (best head of the swap so far). Head lasted around 5 minutes before dropping to a 1mm head. Clean-fresh aroma, nice toasted maltiness, high hop bitterness. A very nice beer hutch.


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## Wardhog (2/7/09)

Leigh said:


> 16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen
> 
> Nice reddish amber colour. Good yeast cloudiness. Small head that dissipated. Soapy mouthfeel and extremely sweet. Could taste the wheat, but was far too sweet for me.



This, plus loved the banana notes in this beer.


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## chris.taylor.98 (2/7/09)

*17. Brewmeister70 - Kolsch*

Some sulfur, slight esters and malt on the nose ... very much wine like.

Poured clear to bright with small white head that dissipated relatively quickly. 

Great job getting it this clear with the Kolsch yeast ... did you end up filtering it?

Very dry finish which is accentuating the bitterness, possibly to its detriment

Very slight hint of possible phenolic forming that was detectable in both the aroma and flavour, which is probably also contributing to a harsher than expected finish. Note this could be confused with some sulfur.

Good malt sweetness, and pleasing grain character coming through.

I have to stay this one of the hardest styles to do right. 

There is absolutely nothing to hide behind.

I have brewed it 5 times, and only once done it the justice it deserves.


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## WarmBeer (2/7/09)

22. Lucas - Smoked Porter

Nice dark colour, with just a hint of dark-ruby red through it. Almost clear enough to see through the glass, with no visible sediment. Beautiful

Pours with a small head, about 1mm, which has stayed consistent for the whole glass. You're right about the low carbonation, but it suits the style.

Can just smell a hint of smokiness over the sharp smell of the grains (maybe from black malt?). Not as obviously smoky as I was expecting a smoked beer, but then again, this is my first. No hops discernible in the smell (at least not to this old nose)

Medium bodied mouthfeel, with a long lingering taste. Can still taste the dark grains a couple of minutes after my last mouthful.

Well balanced bitterness, not as sweet as some Porters I've had.

And yes, as the beer warms up, it just gets better. Yum, this is the sort of beer I love.


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## chris.taylor.98 (2/7/09)

Leigh said:


> 16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen
> 
> Nice reddish amber colour. Good yeast cloudiness. Small head that dissipated. Soapy mouthfeel and extremely sweet. Could taste the wheat, but was far too sweet for me.





Wardhog said:


> This, plus loved the banana notes in this beer.



So when you guys say it is too sweet, was it sugar sweetness, or crystal malt sweetness? Also did you think the bottle had carbed up yet? Just asking to see if you think it might need to condition a bit longer.

That being said has every reason to taste a bit on the sweet side. 

With all these malts in the grist ( weights in grams)

Crystal Malt Dark (Bairds) 400.00 4.96%
Crystal Malt Medium (Bairds) 300.00 3.72%
Munich II Malt (Weyermann) 1300.00 16.11%
Wheat Caramel Malt (Weyermann) 367.33 4.55%

Add finishing a tad on the high side: 1.016

I am not surprised that its not to everyones liking.

Looks like I am going to have to contain my xtal malt fetish for future case swaps  .. I have been know to put over 1.5kgs of the stuff in a 23ltr batch before.


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## Hutch (2/7/09)

Wardhog said:


> Actually, was there wheat in this? The impressive head when poured + some flavours reminiscent of wheat had me wondering.


Hey Wardy,

Recipe is in the recipe thread... Pilsner, Munich, Caramunich, Medium Crystal and Pale Choc.

Based loosely on Jamil's recipe out of Brewing Classic Styles.
The high hop bitterness perception is probably related to water modification (Gypsum).

Supposedly Anchor Steam Beer is the defining beer of this style, although this is not widely available here.
I have no idea what this style should be like either, but just had to give it a go with the recent availability of US Northern Brewer.
Minty and Woody hop character is meant to be there, but I don't get the mintyness - maybe this was lost by no-chilling.


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## Leigh (2/7/09)

Hutch, Just finishing yours off now. Definately strong woody hop bitterness. Very, very slight mint in there too (would have missed it if you didn't mention it)...I have noticed the wood getting more pronounced as it warms.

Chris, For me it was malty sweetness, like it hadn't attenuated fully. Don't feel bad, I go in these swaps to get feedback on my beers and to find what styles/beers I like and dislike. In the last swap, my beer was either loved or hated...pretty much the reaction that brew gets from everybody that I give it to! Now I ask people before giving it to them  The banana flavours probably turned me off too, can't stand the things LOL.


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## chris.taylor.98 (2/7/09)

Leigh said:


> Chris, For me it was malty sweetness, like it hadn't attenuated fully. Don't feel bad, I go in these swaps to get feedback on my beers and to find what styles/beers I like and dislike. In the last swap, my beer was either loved or hated...pretty much the reaction that brew gets from everybody that I give it to! Now I ask people before giving it to them  The banana flavours probably turned me off too, can't stand the things LOL.



Was really only asking to make sure I understood where you are coming from, and after getting that many low score beers in competitions I consider myself to be pretty resilient to criticism by now  

As Neil said, would rather people told me what they thought the issues where than try and pussy foot around offending me, so thanks for the feedback mate. :icon_cheers:


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## Wardhog (2/7/09)

Chris Taylor said:


> So when you guys say it is too sweet, was it sugar sweetness, or crystal malt sweetness? Also did you think the bottle had carbed up yet? Just asking to see if you think it might need to condition a bit longer.



Crystal for sure, Chris. You probably could get away with that crystal in a more highly-hopped beer, but with the banana, it just got a little bit much.

Actually, I might steal your malt bill and pair it with 35-40 IBU of Milennium. :icon_drool2:


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## [email protected] (2/7/09)

27. Wardhog - Vienna Lager - Nice beer, went down well with some fish'n'chips. Clean, bit of malt on the nose and taste. Very nice drop right to the end of the bottle.

17. Brewmeister - Kolsch - Probably should have drunk this first, but it was the next one in closest reach. Nice subtle (yeast driven?) aroma. Quite clear. Lager like taste and finish, well balanced. Easy drinking. Hope the kolsch I just brewed turns out as good as this.

:icon_cheers: 

Cheers
Mal


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## Hutch (2/7/09)

6. sappas - Better Red Than Dead Irish Ale

Scott, I overlooked your recommendation to wait a few weeks - and very glad I did. Bloody marvellous beer mate!
Unfortunately I drank it with dinner, which meant dealing with children took precedence over note-taking. Thankfully my wife agreed that it was a fantastic beer, so much so that I only got 1 glass of it!...

Anyway, enough jibba-jabba...here's what I remember...
"Nice balance" best sums it up - very sessionable beer. Lovely malt character, low bitterness, subtle earthy UK hops, low-medium carbonation, and reasonable head retention. Blood-red colour, and nice clean fermentation - slight toasty malt character lingering in the finish, nicely complementing the hops.
Would probably work really well on Nitro this one, though equally tasty under CO2.

My 2yo daughter said it was "Mmmmmm, a bit sour. Nice tasty good beer daddy". Take from that what you will.

Overall, great beer (Sorry for the vague feedback).
Hutch.


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## beerDingo (3/7/09)

5. Brendo - LCBA clone:

First impressions wern't great. Kinda got a passionfruity taste (which I'm not a big fan of). But is growing on me. LCBA clone eh. It looks like it is the right color, has kept it's head and carbonation well in a large glass. From memory, I thought that the Bright Ale was a bit sweeter than this and a bit more hoppy. I think your's has the right amount of bitterness, but a little sour(which is probably the passionfruit taste I get (maybe that's the b-saaz, I've never tried it in a brew)). Overall, I've enjoyed it, while trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about :icon_drunk:


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## beerDingo (3/7/09)

Hutch said:


> My 2yo daughter said it was "Mmmmmm, a bit sour. Nice tasty good beer daddy". Take from that what you will.



Probably better than me! LOL. 2 and already the beer connoisseur.


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## scott_penno (3/7/09)

Hutch said:


> Scott, I overlooked your recommendation to wait a few weeks - and very glad I did. Bloody marvellous beer mate!


Hutch, glad you liked it. Wiki updated to advise that it's drinkable now (after keeping at room temp for a week)...

5. Brendo - LCBA clone:



beerDingo said:


> First impressions wern't great. Kinda got a passionfruity taste (which I'm not a big fan of). But is growing on me.


I had a similar experience (with regard to growing on me - I thought the taste was pretty good). Admittedly it was the next beer after an SNPA so I have to apologise to Brendo in advance for my judgement. Poured well with a nice white head. Right color for an LCBA but was a little cloudy/hazy. Very little aroma present - may be the result of nc as Brendo mentioned earlier. Light to medium body. Great flavor and mild bitterness. For me, could have done with a little more carbonation. At the end of the glass I wish I had another bottle. Struck me as a great session beer for a summer afternoon.


24. Don Mateo - "Way out Weizen" - Hefeweizen :

I absolutely loved this. Pours well. Looks like a wheat beer. Smells like a wheat beer. Tastes like a wheat beer... and bananas....
Again, wish I had another bottle...

sap.


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## brettprevans (3/7/09)

Leigh said:


> 13. CM2 - Kenzie Dunkle (munich Dunkle style).
> 
> Nice dark brown colour (I wouldn't expect anything else from CM2), very little carbonation. Nice caramel flavours with a nice malt aftertaste. A very good drop Brett. I could get used to drinking this beer. I suspect the keg to bottle transfer has let you down on the carbonation front though.


glad you liked it leigh. I know I really got to brew some lighter coloured style beers dont I. I promise I will for the xmas swap.

Yup I was worried about CO2. combination of not enough time carbing up and then transfer from keg to bottle. Damn. 

My critique on the beer is that it doesnt have as much full on malt flavour or body as i was aiming for. but at just under 4% its a bit hard. I'll have to work on it. nice easy drinking style. i wouldnt put it up there amoungst one of my best beers that ive enjoyed the most, but there's nothing wrong with it (other than not enough carbonation).


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## brendo (3/7/09)

Wardhog said:


> 5. Brendo - LCBA clone
> 
> I'm guessing you were aiming at an APA loaded with B Saaz and Cascade. There's plenty of hop flavour and a good bitterness/malt balance about it. The first taste is Cascade, then subsides and leaves the B Saaz winey taste to linger.
> 
> ...



Hey Wardy,

Thanks for the feedback mate... glad you enjoyed it. I totally agree with the comments re aroma hopping and will be addressed in the next iteration.

Any ideas on the "something that appears" - I haven't noticed anything myself, but if you can point me in the right direction, of what to try and look for it would be helpful (totally understand that it is easier said than done).


Thanks to everyone else who has provided feedback to date... looks like it is generally well recieved, if sometimes a little slow to grab a hold of you.

Cheers,

Brendo


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## Hutch (3/7/09)

7. Rook - 3 Shades of Stout

Lovely winter warmer, even though I'm not a great critic of dark beers. Nice and clean, slightly sweet, with some roast barley character (though not over the top), and lingering bitterness. Subtle chocolate in the finish. Colour is very dark crimson instead of black. Lovely dark red hues shine through as you drink it. Good carbonation, and light tan head that laced the glass.

What yeast did you use?

Very well made beer.
Cheers,
Hutch.


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## brendo (3/7/09)

Well I only had time for one beer last night (out to dinner with the missus) so I made this one count and made sure I got my hop quota up. First cab off the rank...

*15. Fourstar's AIPA*

Cracked this bad boy open and poured a couple of glasses. Good head on the pour, but disapated pretty quickly down to a mil or so which pretty much hung around most of the glass. Good clarity with a bit of haze obvious due to the hop resins - to be completely expected. Nice colour too - golden/orange hue with good carbonation.

Put the nose over the glass and was instantly hit with classic american C hop type aromas whch completely dominated masking all traces of malt - again, what I would have expected.

Next up - the all important taste test. Yum!!! Mouth was assaulted by C hop flavour which parted way for cleansing bitterness. The flavour hops helped balance the bitterness quite nicely and I found the bitterness quite pleasing - I reckon you could go higher again if you wanted to push it, though I am pretty impressed that you already squeezed 150g into the recipe as it is. Little to no malt flavour - hops dominate. Nice and clean, no obvious fermentation issues. Mouthfeel was good and mouth was coated in hop resin goodness.

Overall, I was really happy with this - assertive but pleasing. My only criticism is that I have obviously turned my wife into a hop head as she gladly drank her glass, leaving me with only the one glass to enjoy myself :icon_drool2: 

She gave it a big thumbs up as well... nice one mate!!!

Brendo


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## Neill (3/7/09)

> *26. Neill - Malty English Ale*
> 
> Bright copper to amber in colour, stands with a light tan, creamy head which dissipates to light wispy 'pub foam'. Best looking beer so far in terms of clarity. Can read brewing classic styles through it
> 
> ...



glad you liked it fourstar - at least it turned out drinkable after my initial worries. i will definately do this one again with some crystal (just bought some yesterday actually) so hopefully i can improve on it again. would you recommend a change in hops to an english type (fuggles or something)???


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## brendo (3/7/09)

Neill said:


> glad you liked it fourstar - at least it turned out drinkable after my initial worries. i will definately do this one again with some crystal (just bought some yesterday actually) so hopefully i can improve on it again. would you recommend a change in hops to an english type (fuggles or something)???



I haven't tried yours yet mate... but if fuggles or east kent goldings are good ones for this sort of style.

Brendo


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## Hutch (3/7/09)

Neill said:


> i will definately do this one again with some crystal (just bought some yesterday actually) so hopefully i can improve on it again. would you recommend a change in hops to an english type (fuggles or something)???


Hey Neill,

Haven't tried yours yet, so can't comment on the kit quality, but I can srtongly recommend the latest Coopers kit - English Bitter. It's only a few months since manufacture, so pretty fresh by kit standards (read "minimal kit twang").

It is quite dark already, but could certainly benetit from a small steep of light crystal, or even a mini-mash of Marris Otter or Munich (if you're feeling game). I've made this a few times recently, from 1.032 OG up to 1.045, and all worked out well.

Also, you can do a lot worse than adding a UK hop variety like Goldings, Challenger or Northdown, which are three of the most commonly used varieties in English Bitters. A combination of a few different UK varieties always works well IMHO.

For yeast, Notto is OK, but doesn't really impart much character really. If you ever want to improve the fermentation character, and feel like jumping into liquids, some of the UK varieties are absolutely brilliant (for example WYeast 1469, 1187, 1318, 1968,...well, most of them in fact!). These will get you a lot closer to the stuff served on tap over in the UK.


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## therook (3/7/09)

Hutch said:


> 7. Rook - 3 Shades of Stout
> 
> Lovely winter warmer, even though I'm not a great critic of dark beers. Nice and clean, slightly sweet, with some roast barley character (though not over the top), and lingering bitterness. Subtle chocolate in the finish. Colour is very dark crimson instead of black. Lovely dark red hues shine through as you drink it. Good carbonation, and light tan head that laced the glass.
> 
> ...



Glad you liked it Hutchy, but i have to admit it's not my Recipe it's Warrens and it's the best stout i have ever drank.

Yeast was 1469

Rook


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## Fourstar (3/7/09)

Neill said:


> glad you liked it fourstar - at least it turned out drinkable after my initial worries. i will definately do this one again with some crystal (just bought some yesterday actually) so hopefully i can improve on it again. would you recommend a change in hops to an english type (fuggles or something)???



Like i said, only major pitfall was some noticable kit twang and the kit base being slightly 1 dimensional. I havn't used Nottingham before so i cant comment on the yeast profile it should give but even upgrading to wyeast 1968 ESB might be a smart option too. As soon as you start steeping grain your beer will improve 10 fold. Theres some noticable husk/grain character you just never get from extracts. extract to me = malt. Nothing more unfortunatly.

Personally i'd get a 100g bag of EKG and add 30-40g for a 10min boil and 30g for flameout addition... if you want to give it some cask ale qualities, dry hop it with the rest for the last 1/4 of fermentation and crash chill for a few days before bottling/kegging. That would give you a decent Hoppy/malty English style ale.


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## Brewmeister70 (3/7/09)

> Some sulfur, slight esters and malt on the nose ... very much wine like.



I actually tried to KEEP as much sulphur in this as possible by fermenting cold and only boiling it for 70 minutes, for one, to keep it as pale as possible and two, to increase the DMS character from the pils malt, so it's good that it seems to have paid off.



> 17. Brewmeister - Kolsch - Probably should have drunk this first, but it was the next one in closest reach. Nice subtle (yeast driven?) aroma. Quite clear. Lager like taste and finish, well balanced. Easy drinking. Hope the kolsch I just brewed turns out as good as this.



Cheers Mal! If yours goes well, maybe you'd consider doing one for a future swap? It's my first attempt at this style but I was fortunate enough to have tried Chris's one he got right and loved it. One thing about the developing phenolic is I would again suggest that you fellas drink this as soon as possible because it really doesn't have anything to keep it going: it isn't very bitter or high in alcohol, plus it was counter-pressure filled which means there is very little yeast to keep it stable. Also, I've read these beers don't last in general (Fents would probably back that statement).

Cheers,

Brewmeister70. :icon_cheers:


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## Wardhog (3/7/09)

13. CM2 - Kenzie Dunkel

This is a really good beer, Brett. I'm with Leigh on this that the carbonation level lets it down a little bit, otherwise a really good beer.

One other thing, but it's probably only me - it's got a really heavy mouthfeel, when a lager should be quite light. Maybe it's just the nature of a dunkel, but I can't help but compare to some Monteith's I had a while back that was supposedly a dunkel, too. The Monteith's had a light mouthfeel to it, while yours sits a bit heavier and isn't as easygoing. Not sure what you could do about this if you chose to, and it'd be perfectly reasonable to leave it as it is. Maybe wind back the IBUs 3 or 4 points.


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## Leigh (3/7/09)

21. Driveitlikeustoleit - Oatmeal Stout 

Pours very dark like a stout should, nicely carbonated with a head buff colour. Very faint hop aroma.

Nice malty flavour in the mouth, lovely deep roasty flavours don't appear until after swallowing. Not sure I can taste any of the oatmeal, would have liked the oatmeal to be a bit more pronounced.

Overall a very nice beer that is very drinkable. Well done DILUSI

Is it just me, or are their heaps of dark beers in this swap?


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## Kleiny (3/7/09)

1. Peels - Black beer

Man all this thing does is smack me around with roast barley and malty bitterness.

Yes its black and yes its roasty and yes its bitter, but by the end of the bottle i kinda liked it. I couldn't pick much else out in their and then i seen the recipe page 12% roast no wonder this things punching me.

I dont know that its to everybody's taste (my wife :blink: )

Thanks Peels for thr experience.


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## Wardhog (3/7/09)

22. Lucas - Smoked Porter

I'm not all that sure if I'm a fan of smoked malt, but the smokiness did balance quite well with the roast and the hop bitterness, so good job there. I'm thinking this beer was a little on the thin side, it needed a bit more body in my opinion.

A well-made beer, good job Lucas.


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## Wardhog (3/7/09)

10. Q - "Mildly Challenged" dark mild

Yum. 

Not really a dark mild, but a mild nonetheless, and I'm loving it. Love the colour, the clarity, the malt flavour. Not sure about that flavour that I think is the 1469, but it's not prominent, so no matter.
I could quite easily have this as a session beer and still be presentable afterwards. Great job.


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## Hutch (3/7/09)

2. Fents - Bitsa Pale Ale

Good carbonation level and head retention - lasted the whole pint.
I was expecting a fair whack of Chinook in this, and it didn't dissapoint.
Surprisingly different to LCPA (given the hop schedule), which I was expecting it to resemble - more pine resin, lingering bitterness, and lighter on the Malt sweetness.
Perhaps a little too light on melanoidins for such resiny bitterness, though I thoroughly enjoyed it with a couple of spicy pizzas.
Another fine beer Fents.


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## Hutch (3/7/09)

15. Fourstar - AIPA

Carbonation medium, and bitterness is spot-on for the style (though I can see why some find it a little much), and well backed up with Crystal sweetness - Very Sierra Nevada! Fermentation is very clean - so top marks there.

On to the hops - If I hadn't seen the recipe already, I'd be in no doubt about the Simcoe - they totally dominate this beer, and I think it's a little one-dimensional as a result. I can only pick up a touch of the Amarillo, while the Chinook and Cascade is completely lost.
Only suggestion I would make is avoid, or scale back the late Simcoe - I made a near identical tasting APA last year, and the Simcoe character is unmistakable, and completely dominant....on the other hand, maybe Simcoe is just not for me! Sub it for Columbus instead, and I think it'd be a cracker.

Cheers 4*.


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## AUHEAMIC (3/7/09)

Kleiny said:


> 1. Peels - Black beer
> 
> Man all this thing does is smack me around with roast barley and malty bitterness.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the comments Kliney. Not being a huge stout fan I wasnt really sure where to start. I, like you, got to the bottom of the bottle and thought it wasnt too bad. I am glad it finished at 1.020 to give a little sweetness. 

Must pick up my swap beers this weekend.


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## Quintrex (3/7/09)

Wardhog said:


> 10. Q - "Mildly Challenged" dark mild
> 
> Yum.
> 
> ...



Thanks Wardy
It's my first attempt at a mild, I'd never had a mild until last case swap and really enjoyed it. So is this a pale mild? a mild or ???
Cheers
Q


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## [email protected] (3/7/09)

5. Brendo - LCBA clone : Nice head and upfront aroma (presuming B Saaz or similar). Reminiscent of LCBA, if not completely. Had this with dinner, so the flavor got lost somewhat, but remember thinking it was quite nice. Though when it warmed up in the glass a bit you could taste the (fusel tasting?) alcohol coming through, so lost it's magic a bit. Overall a pretty good beer though (and I've got plently of B Saaz that I should be using sometime, so I might shake things up and do something similar come springtime).

:icon_cheers: 

Cheers
Mal


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## Fourstar (4/7/09)

Hutch said:


> 15. Fourstar - AIPA
> Carbonation medium, and bitterness is spot-on for the style (though I can see why some find it a little much), and well backed up with Crystal sweetness - Very Sierra Nevada! Fermentation is very clean - so top marks there.
> On to the hops - If I hadn't seen the recipe already, I'd be in no doubt about the Simcoe - they totally dominate this beer, and I think it's a little one-dimensional as a result. I can only pick up a touch of the Amarillo, while the Chinook and Cascade is completely lost.
> Only suggestion I would make is avoid, or scale back the late Simcoe - I made a near identical tasting APA last year, and the Simcoe character is unmistakable, and completely dominant....on the other hand, maybe Simcoe is just not for me! Sub it for Columbus instead, and I think it'd be a cracker.
> Cheers 4*.




Yeah funny you say that, I know the simcoe has fair dominance in this one but i didnt think everything else was completly lost. Simcoe being so high in AA it does push its flavour profile to the top and can muddle the softer ones like amarillo. One thing i have noticed from brewing alot of Simcoe based beers it does not have the resinous chinook character. This is something that i do pickup in the beer (coats the teeth) but dont get the heavy grapefruit flavour from the chinook unfortunatly. If anything i think the problem is related to the hop character being a little muddled from having 4 types of hops in there. To me it seems like the Amarillo and the Cascade are lost with the chinoook and the Simcoe dominating. Differences in palates i guess.

Either way, glad you liked it!

Cheers!


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## brettprevans (4/7/09)

26. Neill - Malty English Ale

crystal clear, nice brown/copper colour, good head and carbonation that lasted. No faults that i could pick. didnt pick up any solvent tastes. Clean english ale. I cant taste it as a kit but thats cause you havent added any steeped grains etc. this isnt a critisism just commentary. its a well made beer. i'd bet that you primed with coopers carb drops? I recon they impart a particular flavour onto beers. The good thing about your beer is because its a simple profile theres nothing to hide any brewing/technique flaws. so if you had of made any we would have picked them up. i dont think you have made any so its good for you. technique is very important.

good effort. I agree with 4* that you are ready for grain steeping etc. it wil add an extra dimention to your beers.


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## WarmBeer (4/7/09)

17. Brewmeister70 - Kolsch

My first ever Kolsch, so I have no preconceptions on what it will be like. Pours nice and clear, with a pale yellow colour, and plenty of bubbles surfacing through the beer. Only a small head, about 2 mm, but it stays through the whole glass. Most prominant taste is the yeast, what type did you use? Reminds me most closely of a Cooper's Sparkling Ale, but without the cloudiness, and less effervescent. Will be seeking out more Kolsch's in future.

2. Fents - Bitsa Pale Ale

Now this one is cloudy, but tastes nothing like a CSA. Lots of hops, as people have already mentioned, but not so much that its overwhelming. Full mouthfeel. Reminds me mostly of a Meantime IPA I drank a couple of months ago, and that is no small compliment. Yum!!!


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## Neill (4/7/09)

thanks CM2, glad you liked it. a really clean and simple brew for sure, that's what i was aiming for. picked up some crystal grains on thursday so my next IPA will have some on that in it so i can taste the difference.

actually i primed that one with white sugar - the carb drops are just pure sugar anyway aren't they?


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## manticle (4/7/09)

Mixture of sucrose and dextrose.


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## brettprevans (4/7/09)

Hutch Cal Common
Great beer hutch. bronzed amber colour, great head and carbonation. really interesting to drink. darker than i expected but ive never had a cal common so i dont know why i expected lighter. really got the ibu's at the end of the beer otherwise i thought it was kinda of subdued through the rest of the drink which was very pleasant. i really enjoyed drinking this and working my way through the flavours.

northern brewer was also really interesting in this.

Lucas' Smoked next in line.
edit

more on hutch's. read thru the hop descriptions. yeah woody taste. i thought i tasted some Chop so mnaybe that was the mintyness?


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## Leigh (4/7/09)

2. Fents - Bitsa Pale Ale

Bloody nice pale Fents. Very clear in the pour, 1/2 inch head that hung around for the whole glass. Subtle malt flavours followed by a big hop punch! Loved the resiney chinook taste...

Unfortunately your beer has taken out my tastebuds for the night, so aI'll review another tomorrow


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## Wardhog (4/7/09)

Dammit Leigh stop following me around

2. Fents - Bitsa Pale Ale

Cloudy with an excellent head that persists. This is a really good beer.

Chinook stands out in this like dogs' proverbials, I wouldn't know if there's any other hops in this brew. Maybe wind back the late Chinook a bit to let the Cascade be heard next time, Fents.


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## Wardhog (4/7/09)

4. Hairofthedog - Dortmunder Export

I hope you've posted the recipe. This beer has that lovely biscuity malt that I've been looking for for a long time.

This is a great beer, Troy. Loved it.


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## Wardhog (4/7/09)

1. Peels - Black beer

A really good stout. A little bit dry and too roasty for me initially, but grew on me and I was really appreciating it by the end of the bottle.


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## hairofthedog (5/7/09)

glad you enjoyed it wardy thanks for the review :icon_cheers:


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## hairofthedog (5/7/09)

27 wardy vienna lager 

lovely mate nicely balanced really nice malt flavor bitterness just right & lovely smooth lager finish :icon_drool2: 
this will be one of the next beers i make cheers :icon_cheers:


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## Wardhog (5/7/09)

17. Brewmeister70 - Kolsch

This beer is f&*ing great. It is so light and delicate, with low levels of everything (as I've read it should) except for clean, and large portions thereof. This style of beer would be exceedingly willing to show up any shortcomings in the brewer's process, but it would appear Brewmeister70 has some pretty good processes in place. Well done.


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## Leigh (5/7/09)

Sorry Wardie 

5. Brendo - LCBA clone 

Excellent beer Brendo. Pours a tad cloudy for a "bright" ale, but that aside, nice carbonation and very well balanced!


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## brendo (5/7/09)

Leigh said:


> Sorry Wardie
> 
> 5. Brendo - LCBA clone
> 
> Excellent beer Brendo. Pours a tad cloudy for a "bright" ale, but that aside, nice carbonation and very well balanced!



Thanks Leigh - glad you liked it. I have mostly drank this off of the keg - which is super bright, although I have found it can pour pretty bright off of the bottle as well with a careful decant. Such is the joys of bottle conditioning  can be hit and miss.

Brendo


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## Leigh (5/7/09)

12. mcook - American IPA 

Golden amber in colour, very weak malt taste, got a solventy taste on back of tongue. A little resiness, but not much hop bitterness. Could do with a bit more hops IMO.


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## WarmBeer (5/7/09)

13. CM2 - Kenzie Dunkle

Thought this was going to be under-carbed when I first poured it, but has managed to keep the same small head through the whole glass. I thought you must have sneaked in a real lager yeast before I re-read your recipe, as it comes across with a nice, clean aftertaste. A little on the sweet side, probably due to the low AA of the Tettnang not balancing out the extract. Damn tasty, and feels like a bigger beer than the 4% claimed.


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## brettprevans (6/7/09)

22. Lucas - Smoked Porter

just like a scottish heavy except dry, good btterness and not sweet. Great beer. love the smoked malt flavours. It does really have to be served around 10C doesnt it. I had to let mine warm up a bit. once it did I really enjoyed this. just sat back and sipped away. great beer Lucas. well made. couldnt spot a fault.


edit:
warmbeer. glad you liked it. Its meant to be along the lines of a Kozel Cerny. yeah it would have been better if i could have used a lager yeast and been true to style instead of an ale yeast. Another week cold conditioning might have helped.

I had another taste of the beer and was suprised to see that the body seems to have beefed up. I swear it was weaker than that just prior to bottling. so Im happy with it. could use some tweaks. Yeah Tettang needed to be upped. I stuffed up in making it. I didnt want a big in your face hop so tetteng was my choice. just need to add the correct amount next time,

on a sader note completely uncasse swap related. wentt to have a taste of my dark belgian saturday night.....nothing comes out of the tap. wtf...Look inside the chesty.. OMG 19L of beer sitting in the bottom. the JG fitting on the tap wasnt screwed in tight enough and its all leaked out. shattered! absolutely shattered. was planning on entering it into the Vicbrew comp. oh well.


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## Brewmeister70 (6/7/09)

> Most prominant taste is the yeast, what type did you use?



I used Wyeast 2565 in this and it was the most powdery yeast I've seen yet - Out of a seven-litre starter that I crash chilled, I wanted to pour off the wort on top but as soon as I tilted the fermenter, it was mostly back in solution! Learned the hard way that it would be agood idea to syphon off the spent wort next time.

It got to 17-degrees briefly but was pitched cold onto wort that was racked off the cold break the morning after brewing once chilled in the chest freezer.

Thanks for the kind reviews and I'm glad people are enjoying it


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## Fents (6/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> 22. Lucas - Smoked Porter
> 
> just like a scottish heavy except dry, good btterness and not sweet. Great beer. love the smoked malt flavours. It does really have to be served around 10C doesnt it. I had to let mine warm up a bit. once it did I really enjoyed this. just sat back and sipped away. great beer Lucas. well made. couldnt spot a fault.
> 
> ...



you can have that bottle back you gave me if you still feel like entering it mate.


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## brettprevans (6/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> Hutch Cal Common
> 
> northern brewer was also really interesting in this.
> read thru the hop descriptions. yeah woody taste. i thought i tasted some *Chop* so mnaybe that was the mintyness?



Re Chop. it was meant to be C hop. as in cascade. not meat chop.

edit:


Fents said:


> you can have that bottle back you gave me if you still feel like entering it mate.


nah its ok man you drink it. it mustnt have been meant to be. the brew gods might have been telling me something


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## brendo (6/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> Re Chop. it was meant to be C hop. as in cascade. not meat chop.



That is some funny sh1t there CM2... I just assumed you were associating mint flavours with lamb and mint... :icon_drool2: 

Brendo


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## Hutch (6/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> Re Chop. it was meant to be C hop. as in cascade. not meat chop.


Mmmmmmm - a meal in a glass!
Might have to up the late-hops next time for more minty-goodness.

BTW, if anyone knows of a local importer of Anchor Steam beer, let me know - I really want to know what this style should taste like.


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## Fourstar (6/7/09)

Hutch said:


> Mmmmmmm - a meal in a glass!
> Might have to up the late-hops next time for more minty-goodness.
> BTW, if anyone knows of a local importer of Anchor Steam beer, let me know - I really want to know what this style should taste like.



One and only time i had it was from Purvis Cellars. Tasty little bevvy it was too! I think they annually get in the Anchor range. Last year, (from memory) I think they had the Liberty Ale and the Porter, i didnt see the steam.. Either they didnt get it or it went in moments.

On a side note they currently have Sierra Nevada - Pale Ale and Rogue - St. Rogue Red stocked... *Drool*

Hey Hutch, ill give your Steam a crack tonight and see how it compares to memory.


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## seemax (6/7/09)

finally got a start on the beer...

5. LCPA clone

Poured well, slightly under carbonated I think, head dropped very quickly. Perhaps a little disappointed with the lack a big aroma hit, it was there, just very subtle. I also noticed a very very slight sourness, sort of cidery but not... hard to pick... however by half way through i didn't notice it any more and the hop flavours took over, which I found quite enjoyable. Not being an expert on styles... my senses tell me it's a PA of sorts somewhere around 35IBU. A nice beer...

15. fourstar AIPA

Yumm!!! Great colour, perfect carbonation... thick, smooth head. I began salivating as soon as my nose got whiff of the hops :icon_drool2: :icon_drool2: . This is right on the money, for me the perfect balance of hops and malt. With so much flavour I barely noticed the 60IBU... in fact I would even say it could go up to 70 or 80IBU for an extra little tingle on the tongue. Needless to say this only lasted a few minutes.... excellent work 4*

i have 3 or 4 in the fridge now ready for tonight !!


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## Fourstar (6/7/09)

seemax said:


> 15. fourstar AIPA
> Yumm!!! Great colour, perfect carbonation... thick, smooth head. I began salivating as soon as my nose got whiff of the hops . This is right on the money, for me the perfect balance of hops and malt.



Funny you say that, was at beer specTAPular at the taphouse for their US 4th of July beer festival on saturday. Out of all of the AIPAs the best ones where the ones close enough to a 1:1 ratio of ABV and IBU.. all the rest tasted completly out of balance, not to mention most of them where on the low-end of the IBU count for an AIPA... like 40IBU~ <_< As Q pointed out on the 'whats in the glass thread' Cranky Pants IPA was the best (IMO) of the AUS micro brewed 'American beers' from memory, it was really close to a 1:1 ratio. :icon_drool2:


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## Brewmeister70 (6/7/09)

10. Q's Mild

Low head, low carbonation, beautiful reddish-brown colour. Very clear. 

Very nice nose of roasty rich malt but perhaps too intense for a mild. Has a distinct wet tobacco element that I really like, but not sure where this comes from.

Nicely balanced with a roasty-mildly-bitter finish. Body is light (good) and beer seems to be fermented out appropriately. There is a prominent flavour of chocolate malt without the astringency it often is coupled with, which shows excellent wort handling skill. A low-intensity flavour hop addition adds to the complexity.

Reminds me of an excellent bitter as opposed to a mild. If this were mine --and I had a spare bottle-- I'd enter it into Vic Brew as a bitter. Nutty/taosty elemnts really come through well with your choice of yeast. This beer isn't too dry. I love this beer! Very well done, Q.

Cheers,

Brewmeister70 :icon_cheers: 

Jeeze I'm glad I went into this swap... You guys really have pulled out the stops this time.


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## Fourstar (6/7/09)

*14. Hutch - California Common

*Beautiful copper/amber in appearance, no haze whatsoever. perfect head retention all the way through the glass. Phenolic on the nose with mild woody/maple sweet characteristics. Some malty nuttiness also coming through. Phenols are numbing most in this. (currently drinknig at 8deg).

Full mouthfeel, perfect carbonation. Slight solvency with some full malty crystal bittertoffee characters and finishes well with a catty/dry bitterness and toasty melanoidens. 

Ok, 10 mins after writing the above..Just took a sip.. wow, its transformed! Really caramely/toasty, now with not much on the nose. Bitterness still lingers and the toasty/munich presence is taking center stage with some fruityness lingering on the palate.

Decent beer Hutch. Comparing to what i remember of Anchor steam. Anchor had allot more caramel qualities, aroma was very minty/catty like.. reminiscent of cluster hops with a NBer twist and the ferment was ale fruity liek. With yours im getting some solvency in this. (I seem to be quite sensitive to this aroma/flavour).

Over all a decent Amber Lager/Ale/Hybrid!

Cheers! :beer:


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## Fourstar (6/7/09)

*15. Fourstar - American IPA

*OK, time to toot my own horn.

Hazy in appearance with an orange/tangarine hue. Head holds well, creamy in appearance. Aroma is full of C hops. Getting lots of Simcoe citrus and some fruit salad aromas on the nose too. Ferment is clean. Got some crystal coming through on the nose also.

Onto the lips with mothful of hops. A firm bitterness (nope, not harsh on me) and a deep crystal sweetness, offsetting most of the hop bitterness. fiishes sweet and malty-toasty Munich in the throat with a lingering bitterness. All i can taste is Classic US 'C' hops.

Next time, up the dry hopping and adjust some of the bittering as a later hop addition for more hop flavour, moron.


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## seemax (6/7/09)

20. Warmbeer Franken
Poured well, low carbonaton resulted in a small but fluffy head which lasted the whole glass. Overall a fairly mild beer, quite different from my usual PA's and IPA's. Similar to some porters I've had yet more subtle.. nice choc malt/ dark crystal tones.. and it's certainly more sweet than bitter. The flavour developed as it warmed. I would say a good winter beer and one that would be good for introducing traditional beer drinkers (aka VB) into dark beers without forcing them into a stout.

2. Bitsa Pale Ale
Popping the top produced a huge gas release followed by foam that rose to the opening, but to my surprise it poured perfectly and didn't feel overly carbonated in the mouth. A very pleasant aroma, the initial bite was solid and flavoursome, with little malt character. The aftertaste felt quite bitter (in a good way)... I would guess somewhere around 50IBU but it felt more compared to 4*'s AIPA. I had this warmer than normal though (couldn't wait til cooled down!). Very nice indeed... satisfied my IPA desire for the night... good mouthful and a certain warmth about it. Once again I was wanting more 

Aren't these swaps just great? Well I'm off to sample some more


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## lucas (6/7/09)

i feel like a bit of a slacker as I havent been taking any notes. havent opened one yet that I didnt like though


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## Leigh (7/7/09)

9. seemax - Real Ale K&B

Had this one last night at shed temp (about 9 degrees) while lining a wall in the shed. Probably a little cold for this style, but good nonetheless.

Poured with a 10 mm head that dissipated over about 30 minutes to a 1 mm foam leaving nice lacing on the glass. On tasting, the mild malt flavour was very reminiscent of some CAMRA brews, followed by some nice english hop bitterness. Could taste a little bit of "kit twang" with this one (something that happens from time-to-time with kits). I think this beer could have been nicer had I been able to warm it a little, probably would be better around 12 degrees.

A very drinkable beer seemax.


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## brendo (7/7/09)

17. Brewmeister70 Kolsch

Alright mate, you already I know I like this beer of yours... so here goes...

Pours nice and clear, very light straw colour. Great clarity!! Nice tight white head, with moderate level of carbonation.

Quick sniff test - low noble hop aroma - VERY subtle and a hint of sulphur on the nose as well. Definitely pick up the Kolsch yeast profile.

Taste test - very clean and smooth, low hop with good bitterness balance. Flavour is very yeast driven (as you would expect) and the sulphur taste is rather pronounced. Little bit of diacetyl perhaps - which would be appropriate.

Sulphur taste was a bit much for SWMBO, so the upside of this was that I got to pretty much drink the lot - which is an absolute bonus as I really enjoyed it. That said, I don't think it was quite as good as the first keg - but maybe I was just in desperate need of a beer that day after shifting all those bags of grain.

All in all mate - damn fine beer and I am looking forward to tasting future incarnations. Top work!!

Brendo


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## Brewmeister70 (7/7/09)

> That said, I don't think it was quite as good as the first keg



I'm fully with you there, Brendo. Having a big brew in split fermenters has differences for sure but this one is sulphur-over-fruit esters for sure.

I think it will need to be boiled for 90 minutes next time I make it, despite wanting to keep it pale and delicate. 

*#16. Chris Taylor's Red Weizen*

Hazy red colour with medium carbonation and medium head retention.

Lovely nose of sweet crystal malt and restrained spiciness (cloves) with some banana and pear.

The flavour is really complex, with the malt at the fore-front. The finish is clean and malty with only low distracting fermentation by-products, mainly acetaldehyde but low. Low bitterness, which is to style, medium body and great toasty and crystal malt flavours dominating. 

Despite a small amount of acetaldehyde, the beer doesn't suffer form its presence and comes across as very well-judged in termes of balance and drinkability.

This will test the hop heads amongst us but this style isn't about hops or a "clean" ferment. The crystal malt is very prominant in taste, like a "red" ought to be but this is a hybrid brew if ever I tasted one.

A well-realised imaginative beer Chris.

Cheers,

Brewmiester70 :icon_chickcheers:


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## therook (7/7/09)

I am going to try my case swaps at work with one of my colleagues who also likes home brew but took home 3 of the swaps as i was really looking forward to them and didn't want to share them.

4. *Hairofthedog - Dortmunder Export*

This was the first beer i tried and boy has it set the bar high.....Fcuking sensational Troy
Excellent carbonation, great color but a tiny bit hazy ( another week in the fridge and i think it would have been clear )
A nice tight head which laced the glass all the way to the end, magnificent Hop flavour and Aroma
It is going to take something sensational to beat it
Thanks Troyo

*14. Hutch - California Common*
This was the beer i was wanting to taste the most in the swap.
A typical well brewed clean as a whistle beer, very typical of all Hutch's beers
Excellent carbonation. Excellent head and lacing all the way to the end. Loved the colour also 
The hops was something i was keen to experience and i could definitely taste the mint more so than the woody flavours others are experiencing
I will be ordering some of these US hops to use with the Wyeast 2112 i have in the fridge
Top drop Hutchy

After having 2 great beers i didn't think anything else would get near them so i tried my 3rd one

*17. Brewmeister - Kolsch*
How easy drinking is this beer, a typical session beer.
Great colour and clarity and a lovely yeast flavour.
A nice small head which also laced the glass nicely
The only problem i could fine was it was slightly under carbed which was no big deal
I couldn't detect any sulphur as others had but i'm an old fart and my senses are probably past there best :icon_cheers: 
Excellent beer Brewmeister

Having never tried a California Common and only ever having tried one Kolsch i don't know if these beers where to style or not but i do know they were bloody great beers.

Thanks chaps

Rook


----------



## hairofthedog (7/7/09)

21 Driveitlikeustoleit Oatmeal stout

mate that is the nicest stout ive had in a long while fantastic creamy head & some lovely roasted malt flavors :icon_cheers:


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## Fourstar (7/7/09)

5. Brendo - LCBA clone

Golden/honey coloured in appearance, some chill haze in the glass (doubt its yeast as clarity was supurb in the bottle before chilling.) Thick lacy head on pour which dissipated to a nice thin film. Fruity and toffee esters on the nose. acetaldehyde or DMS on the nose, getting some fruitcake/greenapple aroma.

perfect carbonation, medium to full on the palate. Fruity profile, finishes clean bitter with pils /sweet malt flavour dominating the palate. Writing this description i have demolished 3/4 of the pint! must be good!

Cheers Brendo! :icon_cheers: 

Next on the line-up... Chris' Red Weizen.


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## Fourstar (7/7/09)

*16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen

*Poured with a dismal head, not even pub foam. carbonation is lively, just no head (serving @ 7 deg). Colour is Dark orange to red/copper. It looks the goods! Forced some head with a pippet pocket sparkler, this dissipated within 15-20 seconds back to nothing 

Big Banana Esters in this, The fermentation character in this is perfect Chris! Top work! Im also getting some vanilla/sweet tea cakey aromas out of this... nice.

A big full mouthfeel with a high/bitey carbonation. Finishes distinctvly weizen like. Drying and wheaty with the crystal taking center stage with the beautiful 3068 yeast profile.... :icon_drool2: 

Onto the palate. Toffee, caramel, nutty, and uber sweet.. IMO, this would be a decent specialty grain grist for an American Amber and subbing the wheat grist for base malt. A very full on crystal character. A bit much for a Wiezen. IMO this is a Dunkelweizen come 'omg i accidently dumped my 3068 starter on my underhopped AAA!' 

What can i say Chris, you have made my day with a decent, one off beer! Not quite a dunkel, not quite a red, not quite a weizen.. a dunkelredaweizen!

Cheers!


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## driveitlikeustoleit (7/7/09)

Leigh said:


> 21. Driveitlikeustoleit - Oatmeal Stout
> 
> Pours very dark like a stout should, nicely carbonated with a head buff colour. Very faint hop aroma.
> 
> ...



Aah. Winter does get us dark beer enthusiasts excited.

Thanks for the comments Leigh. I roasted the oatmeal. So the slightly biscuity flavour is from that. The oatmeal is mainly for mouthfeel in my books though. Remeniscent of silk panties. h34r: 




hairofthedog said:


> 21 Driveitlikeustoleit Oatmeal stout
> 
> mate that is the nicest stout ive had in a long while fantastic creamy head & some lovely roasted malt flavors :icon_cheers:



Cheers hairofthedog. :icon_cheers:


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## Fourstar (7/7/09)

*9. seemax - Real Ale K&B*

Deep copper/amber in appearance, soft pub foam like head. Not much going on in the aroma department (served @ 12 deg). Maybe some fruitness, thats about it. Medium bitterness with medium to full mouthfeel. Some base malt character shines through with some roasty/nuttiness. Some crystal sweetness on the end of the finish. A decent 'real ale'. drop the carbonation and its there. There is some kit like twang going on... something about ISO hops sitting in a tin turns everything metallic. If its not kit twang, its something strange. ignoring that you have a decent beer there seemax.

Cheers!


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## WarmBeer (7/7/09)

*9. seemax - Real Ale K&B*

Sorry mate, don't know if it's my chronic fear of the Cooper's Real Ale, but I just couldn't get into this one.  

The flavours came through more as it warmed up, and the tart bitterness becomes good after I got used to it, but the mouthfeel is a little thin, and has kit twang. I couldn't taste the recultured Coopers PA yeast, but could smell it. 

We'll have to get together for a go at your AG English IPA instead, if you've still got any left.

Brett


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## donmateo (7/7/09)

*22. Lucas - Smoked Porter *
first off the ranks for me.
dark brown appearance, with low tan head. Significant roasty aroma, lightly burnt.
first sip is georgeous, full follow through on the aroma promise, big chocolate and roast, hint of coffee, lightly burnt but not overpowering or exagerated.
didn't pick up very much on the smoke character, but the chocolate comes through with great success.
perhaps could have slightly better head retention, but that could have been my glass.
Overall impression - a full and rich porter with bursting with roast and chocolate character. Liked this beer a lot.
This beer leaves me heading straight for the recipe thread. 
Thanks Lucas, that was a treat.

*23. Shortz - EoX Porter*
medium dark brown in appearance, low head quickly disapearing, although second pour produced creamy off white head.
perhaps the faintest hint of acetelaldehyde or diacetl, not sure which - but not objectionable.
soft relaxed malt flavour, mild chocolate and restrained roast characteristic, hint of coffee
Overall impression - relaxed and malty porter, chocolate, roast and coffee, and thoroughly enjoyable. I enjoyed this beer
more and more as I was drinking it. 
Thanks shortz, great beer.

really looking forward to the rest of them.


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## Fourstar (7/7/09)

WarmBeer said:


> We'll have to get together for a go at your AG English IPA instead, if you've still got any left.



Seemax you had an AG EIPA and you omitted it from the swap....shame on you!!! :angry: 


 !


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## chris.taylor.98 (7/7/09)

*7. Rook - Wazza's 3 shades of Stout*

Have to apologise Rook, as I am still getting over a cold so taste buds not quite on form tonight.

But what I can taste is bloody marvelous ... just what I need to help be get over a less than stella day.

Great roast character, plenty of bitterness, beautiful dark tan head.

Some slight esters.

All in all just what I was looking for.


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## brettprevans (8/7/09)

15. Fourstar - American IPA
clear with slight haze. could smell the hops as soon as you opened it. Lots of 'C' hop (no chops this time). struggled to get any sort of head but that could have been the glass (probably was). great level of carbonation. takes a few sips for the taste buds to adjust then its all good. great IPA. hop flavours round off the sides of the tongue ie aren't harsh. slight honey flavour I kept tasting after finishing each mouthful. no idea where that was coming from? maybe the crystal? its was a nice touch.

25 minutes after i finished the last of it I can still taste hops. great IPA. This was exactly the way I needed to start my night after a crap day.

edit: the cat seemed interested in having a good smell of your beer. it then went nuts licking my fingers which i had duncked in the beer. So the cat liked your beer also for what its worth!


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## Fourstar (8/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> slight honey flavour I kept tasting after finishing each mouthful. no idea where that was coming from? maybe the crystal? its was a nice touch.



Its one of these, IMO its most likly the caramalt. I always seem to find it adds a sugary sweetness to my beers where as the Crystal is more toffee like... it could be the blend of both + munich giving you a woody/honey taste.

0.45 kg Caramalt (Joe White) (17.3 SRM) Grain 6.4 % 
0.15 kg Crystal (Joe White) (34.2 SRM) Grain 2.1 % 

Glad you liked it! :icon_cheers:


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## brettprevans (8/7/09)

just finished a rather boring 1.5hr meeting. found my mind thinking about your AIPA 4* and my mouth watering. now I bloody well want another one. so obviously your beer had an impact on my brain.

I wonder if I can sneak out to Mrs Parmas for a quick pot.... no IPAs in stock atm though. might have to settle for a holgate anniversary nut brown ale instead.


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## Fourstar (8/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> just finished a rather boring 1.5hr meeting. found my mind thinking about your AIPA 4* and my mouth watering. now I bloody well want another one. so obviously your beer had an impact on my brain.
> I wonder if I can sneak out to Mrs Parmas for a quick pot.... no IPAs in stock atm though. might have to settle for a holgate anniversary nut brown ale instead.



If i wasnt up the other end of Lt Bourke ST, (next door to the Supreme Court) i'd join ya! i could murder a H/Hill ESB right about now! :icon_drool2:


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## Fents (8/7/09)

# 5 Bright Ale

pored clear but with some haze.

intial sniff reveals hops, saaz like but not checz.

first taste, tastes like beer, not very helpfull i know....can feel a slight alcohol warm sensation on the throat.

good beer, would drink again.


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## brendo (8/7/09)

Fents said:


> # 5 Bright Ale
> 
> pored clear but with some haze.
> 
> ...



Good pick up Fents... it is Saaz, but not as we know it... B Saaz (or Motueka as it is now dubbed)

Glad you enjoyed it.

Brendo


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## Leigh (8/7/09)

4. Hairofthedog - Dortmunder export 

Just grabbed this one out of the fridge and poured it not knowing what it was. The hops hit me straight away, but in a good way. A strong "solventy" taste but that is well balanced by the hops and works quite well in this beer.

Excellent beer Troy, gone down really quick!


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## Brewmeister70 (8/7/09)

Ok... Home from work and time to drink some beer.


*#23. Shortz Robust Porter

*Deep-brown colour, medium carbonation, low off-white head. Has a very clean and slight chocolate malt-like nose but only low intensity. Can't discern any hop aroma and perhaps a slight banana ester if I really snort hard...

Body is medium-light with no astringency whatsoever and an equal balance of malt to hop bitterness (low bitterness). The most obvious flavour is that of roast malt but not harsh or bitter - perhaps you used Carafa malt in here? Either way, Shortz has done a great job at keeping the beer as smooth as it is, including fermenting this so cleanly and thoroughly. 

The after-taste I get first is cinnamon followed by a pleasant roasted grain flavour that just dries the palate enough to beg another taste. There's some very subtle crystal malt sweetness to the finish but not so much that it leaves the beer full or cloying.

Great beer!!! I'd love to see the recipe Shortz.

Cheers,

Brewmeister70 :beer:


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## Fents (8/7/09)

# 1 Peely's black beer

poured well nice brown head.

black as all hell.

nice choc and roast coffee coming thru. you know i dont alot of stouts mate but this one is sliding back nicely. cheers mcik.


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## Fourstar (8/7/09)

*27. Wardhog - Vienna lager

*Deep gold to copper in appearance, thick head that dissipated down to a smooth few ml of foam. I get an aroma, slightly phenolic (im unsure if you picked this as 'solvent' wardy but i dont.) Some Acetaldehyde on the nose too.

Full mouthfeel with light carbonation (i think the carbonation being low gives the impression its full.) Sweet malt/honey like presnece throughout the palate, very clean beer. getting a smooth bitterness, well ofsett by sweet maltiness. For some reason im also getting some banana characteristics in there too... maybe its the melanoidens very subtle nonetheless.

great beer mate! top work! :icon_cheers:

Edit: as it warmed.. i got that solvent flavour you where taliking about... strange, its really subdued at lager temps, as it warms it comes out... i dont know what that is, but i doubt its solvent. Maybe some tannins? My current AAA has the same feeling on the back of my tongue and thats riddled with tannins. <_< I'm just hoping the polyphenols continue to drop as she ages, which it seems like your beer is doing as no one else has detected it yet.)


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## chris.taylor.98 (8/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> *16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen
> 
> *Poured with a dismal head, not even pub foam. carbonation is lively, just no head (serving @ 7 deg). Colour is Dark orange to red/copper. It looks the goods! Forced some head with a pippet pocket sparkler, this dissipated within 15-20 seconds back to nothing
> 
> ...




Thanks for the feedback all, and I do agree with most of the sentiments being expressed. Think if I where to do this again would tone down the specialty malts and add a bit more hops.

As for the lack of head, I get this a lot with my wheat beers, and all I can put it down to is maybe my mash regime is screwing with the head forming proteins, but would have thought with 50% wheat involved it was not going to be an issue.


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## Fourstar (8/7/09)

I think i might take your specialy malt bill, sub the wheat with maris otter or another base malt and make a kick ass American Amber soon... i'll let you know how it goes. I recon it would be tops!


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## donmateo (8/7/09)

*27. Wardhog - Vienna lager *
pours amber brown with low fast disappearing head
light, sweet malt aroma, some hop aroma too
medium malty, medium bitter, sweet at the start balanced by the hop bitterness
dryish, clean drinking, perhaps just at the end some possible fermentation issue suggested
overall impression - nice, quite sessionable.

*13. CM2 - Kenzie Dunkle (munich Dunkle style)*
pours a medium dark brown, dark red tints
some dark malt on the aroma, and something else, almost dark toffee
light at first on the palate, firms up quickly, malty with some pronounced earthy and smooth hop bitterness
sweetness towards the end, but finishes with an earthy hop
overall impression - although on the sweet side, smooth hop bitterness lingers. Nice desert beer for me.


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## Fourstar (8/7/09)

*6. sappas - Better Red Than Dead Irish Ale*

Deep cooper in appearance with a smooth filmy micro head. Aroma very clean, no diacetyl aromas, some sweetness, nutty MO type aromas coming through.. no fermentation faults. very clean.

Full mouthfeel with medium-low carbonation.. very clean on the palate, some butteryness/slickness. im assuming this is from the crystal malts. The sweet crystal is offset by nuttiness from MO or roast malts, some roasty characteristics in the aftertaste with smooth bitterness, i get hints of an Ashy tobacco flavour/aroma in the back of my throat... quite interesting. Sweet crystal maltiness lingers as does the nuttiness in the aftertaste.

Well made beer Sappas, fine example of the style. well done! not to mention its going down a treat!

Cheers! :icon_cheers:


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## Wardhog (8/7/09)

7. Rook - Wazza's 3 shades of stout

I'm really coming to appreciate stouts. Why wouldn't I when I've got a stout like this to drink?

Lots of lovely roast presenting in coffee-ish form, nice and full body against clean and balanced bitterness. Great job, Rooker.


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## Brewmeister70 (8/7/09)

*#7.Rook's Stout


*OMG... How much toffee and toast did you manage to squeeze into this?! Deep brown colour, low head (off white) and low carbonation.

Roast and toffee are there on the nose, almost like a caramel hard toffee in character. If there are any hops there late in the boil, their influence is swamped by the toffee thing going on. Medium intensity malt aromas - complex.

The beer has a solid bitterness that lingers but this seems balancing when the big caramel character close to dominating the flavour. There are loads of deep-toasty chocolatey-malt flavours happening in this.

I honestly can't tell if it is crystal malt that creates the toffee flavour or residual diacetyl but tend to favour a combination of diacetyl and crystal malt because the body is still quite light and it is reasonably dry. There is a fruitiness in taste as it warms - I'd guess you're using an English yeast with more character than the Irish strain.

My impression is that this beer would only improve with more time to come together after being bottled. When was it bottled and how was it primed, Rook? I've very much enjoyed your beer but would love to know what it would taste like if I had left it for another couple of weeks at least. Too bad for me! I hope you've got a personal stash waiting for the perfect time to crack...

You mentioned this is Warren's recipe. Where do we find it, Rook?

Cheers,

Brewmeister70 :beerbang:


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## Fourstar (8/7/09)

*8. wonderwoman - Goldilocks (mexican cerveza kit with golden syrup)*

Golden to orange, thin lacy head. Aroma, nothing but golden syrup/primary school fete toffee stall aroma... very clean fermentation profile, no faults.

very low carbonation, medium mouthfeel. Low bitterness with uber sweet 'fete toffee' flavour. i dont know if i love it or hate it. SWMBOd tried it, all she could say was 'apple juice, sparkling apple juice'. In a way, shes sort of right, but not. its got the flavour of apple juice, but its not like a poorly made beer/cider beer. I think the perception of the golden syrup makes it very cider/apple like with its sweetness.. faux cider if you will.

I guess that goes down well with you wonderwoman. Faux cider with your faux meat at the swap?!?!  (did you even bring any vege burgers?)

seriously, if this wasnt with golden syrup it would be a A+ ale/lager cerveza. The golden syrup detracts too much from being a bog standard lager/ale clone, or a beer for that matter. To being well, something different, strangly unbeer like.. but good... (im confused.)

If i think bulmers, i think thumbs up. if i think corona with golden syrup.. i think... strange. Confused much? :blink:


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## chris.taylor.98 (8/7/09)

*27. Wardhog - Vienna lager*

Nice clean amber to straw colour. White head.

Can smell some esters, lots of malt sweetness, little bit of grain character, no hops.

Flavour much the same, with a pleasing and noticable bitterness (although not so much to be out of character for the style) and dry finish. Pleasing grain character.

Wardy you have picked one of those really difficult style to perfect due to its delicate flavour profile. Can detect a slight issue with the flavour and suspect it is either very low level astringency or very very slight acetaldehyde. If its the latter then this beer is going to be even better in another 3-6mnths time.

Think this is being very picky though and is getting better with every mouthful.

As always another great beer Wardy. :icon_cheers:


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## [email protected] (8/7/09)

16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen : Really nice, banana aroma, with some cherry thrown in for good measure. Distinctive dunkel-weizen up front flavor without that overt weizen like wheat beer yeast and bready texture that can be often present (and IMO usually detracts from the other flavors). Not a hop-driven beer, nor should it be, I reckon there is more to be gained by playing around with the malt bill, as there is already that lovely yeast derived aroma and flavor which indicate a healthy fermentation. For my palate I think it is missing a hint chocolate in the malt flavor to round out the palate, but that's just a personal preference, and may not be the intent. Reasonably dry for style. A top beer to start watching the ashes with.

:icon_cheers: 
Cheers
Mal


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## Hutch (9/7/09)

:icon_offtopic: 
....Bastards! I'm fcuking stuck here in Korea reading all your reports, and all I can get my hands on is generic asian mega-lager, and shitty Starbucks frapamochachinos. Grrr!

...and no Ashes on TV. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Hopefully back amongst the swap-beers this weekend.
I'll keep checking this thread, if only to continue resenting you all  Happy times.


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## therook (9/7/09)

Brewmeister70 said:


> *#7.Rook's Stout
> 
> 
> *OMG... How much toffee and toast did you manage to squeeze into this?! Deep brown colour, low head (off white) and low carbonation.
> ...



Thanks Brewmeister and Wardy........Yep it's wazza's recipe and i do normally use US56 as the yeast but had a yeast cake of 1469 ready to use so i dumped it on that.

I don't have a stash but Wazza and i have a Stout brew off plan for the future so i might do a bigger version of it and put it aside.......I'll put your name on one Brewmeister

I'll put the Recipe in the recipe thread later on

Rook


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## seemax (9/7/09)

1. black beer

Used motor oil or beer, who could tell  Thick brown initial head which only lasted a few sips. Fairly low bitterness for my mouth, with nice blend of choc/roast and crystal. Tasted very dry like a lager. At first it was here nor there, but towards the end it really grabbed me, I suspect as it warmed. A little more IBU's would have really done it for me. Nice work.

17. Kolsch

My first ever kolsch... it poured bright and clear with bubbles ala-champagne! Reminded me of fizzy apple cider. I was expecting something along the lines of a german pils... but oh...what a surprise... my first thoughts were sweet and sour, obviously the profile is yeast driven and I can't say it was particularly pleasing. It's a similar reaction to the phelonics of wheat beers... i get a very brief refreshing hit, but then a long lasting after taste. 


Warmbeer,
As for my Real Ale, shame about the kit twang, damn hard to get rid it! I've got a few bottles left, suspect it will improve in a few months. It was a good opportunity to use up all the leftovers of my UK hops. No EIPA left but I'm about to bottle an AG amber ale which has been cold conditioning for 4 weeks... and tomorrow I'm brewing an American IPA based on Fourstar's grain bill with a mix of chinook, cascade and amarillo ... delicious!!


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## Fourstar (9/7/09)

seemax said:


> and tomorrow I'm brewing an American IPA based on Fourstar's grain bill with a mix of chinook, cascade and amarillo ... delicious!!



Sounds :icon_drool2: 

This is the hop profile i have planned for palealemania for my AIPA entry. 50.3IBU, LOTS of late/dry hopping with some sharp bitterness.... mmmmm! not showing the malt just yet, but it will be fuller and slightly sweeter than my case entry to balance that sharpness. (Hint: similar to Lagunitas IPA recipe done on can you brew it.)

25.00 gm Magnum [12.50%] (60 min) (First Wort Hop) Hops 33.7 IBU 
15.00 gm Centennial [9.70%] (20 min) Hops 9.2 IBU 
15.00 gm Cascade [7.80%] (20 min) Hops 7.4 IBU 
20.00 gm Cascade [7.80%] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops - 
20.00 gm Centennial [9.70%] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops - 
20.00 gm Cascade [7.80%] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops - 
20.00 gm Centennial [10.00%] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops -


----------



## seemax (9/7/09)

I think my recipe was a touch over 6% each of JW Cara/Munich ... and I have a small amount of Tomahawk to use up, so I'll probably aim for 70IBU, should balance well.

Have you ever tried a late hopping IPA? First addition at say 20mins? I tried it on Dr's Golden Ale at around 30IBU and found it develop small levels astringency/tannins. Given the high bitterness of IPA's perhaps it may work better, of course it will mean using large amounts of hops!!

Planting my first chinook rhizome this spring... would love to grow a full set of US hops!


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## WarmBeer (9/7/09)

seemax said:


> ... and tomorrow I'm brewing an American IPA based on Fourstar's grain bill with a mix of chinook, cascade and amarillo ... delicious!!



You chucking a "brewie" (just like a "sickie", only with a higher purpose) tomorrow? If so, nice one! 

Any time I get a week day off work, I get the not-so-subtle hint that I should be spending more "quality time" with the kids. Geez, the kids can look after themselves, I want to spend quality time with my fermenter!

Cheers,

Brett


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## Fourstar (9/7/09)

seemax said:


> I think my recipe was a touch over 6% each of JW Cara/Munich ... and I have a small amount of Tomahawk to use up, so I'll probably aim for 70IBU, should balance well.
> Have you ever tried a late hopping IPA? First addition at say 20mins? I tried it on Dr's Golden Ale at around 30IBU and found it develop small levels astringency/tannins. Given the high bitterness of IPA's perhaps it may work better, of course it will mean using large amounts of hops!!



I'd suggest doing a bittering additon of 1/2 your ibu's with a smooth hop, e.g. magnum, horizon etc and the rest 20mins and less if you want a big hop flavour. if you tried to completly hopburst an IPA @ 70IBU, you'd be asking for big $$ in hops as you would probably use around 250g in a standard batch.

with the 6% cara/munich you mean JW Caramalt and Weyermann Caramunich? if so, niice! you really need the sweetness in the AIPA to cut trhough the resionous hops/high AA hops. balances it out well.


----------



## Wonderwoman (9/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> *8. wonderwoman - Goldilocks (mexican cerveza kit with golden syrup)*
> 
> Golden to orange, thin lacy head. Aroma, nothing but golden syrup/primary school fete toffee stall aroma... very clean fermentation profile, no faults.
> 
> ...



thanks fourstar (I think :blink: ) 

I wasn't aiming for anything like corona - I don't like the stuff at all. I read in a thread somewhere that someone (might be crundle?) makes the cerveza kit with golden syrup, so I tried it thinking it could be something along the lines of a honey wheat beer (which I'm quite fond of). It turned out to be a very tasty (IMO) easy drinking beer that has recieved good feedback from friends who've tried it... hence doing it for the beer swap

but as to what style it is... I don't know...?

and I did have some soy suasages at the swap - they were wrapped in foil and chucked on the coals for a few minutes to cook


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## Fourstar (9/7/09)

wonderwoman said:


> It turned out to be a very tasty (IMO) easy drinking beer that has recieved good feedback from friends who've tried it... hence doing it for the beer swap
> but as to what style it is... I don't know...?



Yeah, it was nice, just abit sweet for me.. By the time i got 1/2 way through the glass i was done for on the sweet scale. As i said, it reminded me alot of 'primary school fete toffee cups' something i loved as a kid, now days, it would be one lick and im done. I think the uber sweet golden syrup turns it from being beer like, to sweet like a sweet cider/wine, but not a ciderish beer. (if that makes sense?)

BTW, how you managed to ferment that baby out with x amount of simple sugars is top work, really good ferment control and no detectable fermenation problems. From all the HB beers ive tasted, that seems to be the hardest thing (IMO) for anyone homebrewing to get right. Fusels in particular. Looks like you have nailed it on this one.. kept any fusels in check. thinking about it, golden syrup would be nice (in small amounts) in a belgian dubbel. Bump up the sweetness to offset the volatile alcohol aromas you usually get.


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## Wonderwoman (9/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> Yeah, it was nice, just abit sweet for me.. By the time i got 1/2 way through the glass i was done for on the sweet scale. As i said, it reminded me alot of 'primary school fete toffee cups' something i loved as a kid, now days, it would be one lick and im done. I think the uber sweet golden syrup turns it from being beer like, to sweet like a sweet cider/wine, but not a ciderish beer. (if that makes sense?)
> 
> BTW, how you managed to ferment that baby out with x amount of simple sugars is top work, really good ferment control and no detectable fermenation problems. From all the HB beers ive tasted, that seems to be the hardest thing (IMO) for anyone homebrewing to get right. Fusels in particular. Looks like you have nailed it on this one.. kept any fusels in check. thinking about it, golden syrup would be nice (in small amounts) in a belgian dubbel. Bump up the sweetness to offset the volatile alcohol aromas you usually get.



yeah the sweetness wont be to everyone's taste. 

from a taste I had last weekend, this version of the recipe (with BE2 so I could make a larger volume without turning it into a light beer) seemed sweeter than previous batches made with only the kit, golden syrup and hops... at the time I thought it was just that the bottle fermentation wasn't complete, but I wonder if it's possible that there's more residual golden syrup in this version? I'll have to have another taste this weekend.

as for the fermentation control - not sure if I just winged that?


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## Katherine (9/7/09)

You meant every bit of WW.... have you tried your first biab yet... surely that is ready?


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## Wonderwoman (9/7/09)

Katie said:


> You meant every bit of WW.... have you tried your first biab yet... surely that is ready?



um... sure I did... I'm just such a fastidious brewer... that's why it turned out well 

:icon_offtopic: as for the BIAB I broke out a few bottles at the swap and HWDMB is now getting stuck into them. I'm pretty proud of it, but sometimes I can taste a "cardboard" taste on the finish - no one else seems to notice it... I might be crazy... :blink: sometimes I can't taste it... so I drink them and try not to look for the wierd taste...

hoping to do my 2nd AG this weekend, but i'm waiting on the grains to be delivered


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## Katherine (9/7/09)

:icon_offtopic: SORRY GUYS

Hasnt cardboard flavour got some to oxidation ????


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## Wonderwoman (9/7/09)

Katie said:


> :icon_offtopic: SORRY GUYS
> 
> Hasnt cardboard flavour got some to oxidation ????



to keep this thread on topic, please see: http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...mp;#entry489184


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## brettprevans (9/7/09)

beerdingo dunkleweizen

cracked this open only knowing that its was yours dingo. didnt look at what type of beer it was. i'll admit that the dark wheat threw me. finally worked out that i was getting a bit of honeyed bubblegum and wheat (ie the weizen part). i think the dark grain overpowers the wheat for my palate. seemed to be a bit of something lacking in the middle of the tongue. lots of flavour on the sides. saaz cleans the beer up nicely. colour is consistent with the amount of cara in the recipe. maybe a bit of sweetness left in there. could be more carbed, but ok. very little head or retention.

well made beer. not sure id make it but am enjoying drinking it. so its a personal preference thing.


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## WarmBeer (9/7/09)

*1 - Peel's Sump Oil Black Beer*

Wow, a meal in a glass. Blacker 'n the ace of spades. Full on roasted malt aroma. Can only get a subtle hint of the yeast.

Nice medium mouth-feel, not too heavy or syrupy, with good combination of bitterness from the hops and black/roasted malt tannins. 

As others have said, a little "chewy" to start off with, but as the glass has warmed up, the sweetness is coming out, and it's getting very more-ish. Will be awesome with a couple of months ageing.

Only problem is, what beer is possibly going to have any taste at all after finishing this bad boy?


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## Brewmeister70 (9/7/09)

> My first ever kolsch... it poured bright and clear with bubbles ala-champagne! Reminded me of fizzy apple cider. I was expecting something along the lines of a german pils... but oh...what a surprise... my first thoughts were sweet and sour, obviously the profile is yeast driven and I can't say it was particularly pleasing. It's a similar reaction to the phelonics of wheat beers... i get a very brief refreshing hit, but then a long lasting after taste.



I think warmbeer captured it well when he said it reminded him of the yeast character found in Coopers - it doesn't appeal to everyone for sure but at least you've now had the opportunity to try something that you may not have forked over five-dollars or so for an import that is of questionable freshness. 

Whatever that yeasty character is, I've found it exists in all the handful of Kolschs I've been able to try though. You could always replace the authentic yeast with a lager yeast and come up with a refreshing Munich Helles? I might just give that a go to gauge the difference...

Cheers for your honesty Seemax. It's fun just to try so many different brews even if some don't appeal to your palate. 

Thanks again for your input,

Brewmeister70 :icon_cheers:


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## Leigh (9/7/09)

17. Brewmeister70 - Kolsch

With all the positive reviews, this beer had a lot to live up for, and I think it met everything that I expected!

Not going to critique this beer, only to say that IMO so far this is the best beer of swap! Such a clean, crisp taste that only gets better and richer as it warms (not that it warmed much, drank it far too quick)...



On another topic, the GB SMASH wort that I brought home from the swap has fermented out, will be kegging/bottling tomorrow for sampling on the weekend!


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## seemax (9/7/09)

Brewmeister70 said:


> Cheers for your honesty Seemax. It's fun just to try so many different brews even if some don't appeal to your palate.
> 
> Thanks again for your input,
> 
> Brewmeister70 :icon_cheers:


No problem. I like to tell it how it is and hope others do they same, all on friendly terms of course... I would hate for this to become personal!

Totally agree about the fun part, not only do you get to sample 25 odd different home brews, but you also get great feedback, plus the added bonus of endless banter on the forums


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## donmateo (9/7/09)

*5. Brendo - LCBA clone*
pours clear golden straw, dense off-white head
plenty of hop aroma, citrusy, fresh, and some malt sweetness
malt sweetness in the middle and overlying hops thoughout
fresh hops bitterness dominant but reserved
overall impression - clean, fresh, well balanced, delicious

*2. Fents - Bitsa Pale Ale*
pours a golden amber with large dense off-white staying head
some malt sweetness with moderate hop aroma
sweet at the start carried forward by a firm, assertive and lingering hop bitterness 
would love a couple for some roast beef, potatoes and gravy
overall impression - well made, assertive and satisfying

with the standard so far, i get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing i still have so many left


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## brettprevans (10/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> beerdingo dunkleweizen
> 
> ....honeyed bubblegum and wheat (ie the weizen part.....


nfi what drugs i was on last night. banana is what i was tasting not bubblegum. now that ive got my brain in gear it actually chnages the beer for me. it works. still not u0p their in my top styles of all times but that flavouring is now making sense to my somewhat sleep deprived brain.


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## Fents (10/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> nfi what drugs i was on last night.



i have a fair idea


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## Wonderwoman (10/7/09)

hi guys, 

I'm not going to post tasting notes on each of the beers as my tasting "skills" are clearly not as advanced as some others on here, ie I don't know all the wanky terms yet or how to look for them yet  

anyway, I thought I'd just tell you which ones I liked...

favourites so far: 
brendo's LCBA - this is my number one favorite (so far).... and I can't find the recipe?! am I blind? I looked through the recipes thread and couldn't see it

in no particular order
fourstars - AIPA - wow! amazing hop aroma
fents - Bitsa IPA - very tasty
peels - black beer - HWDMB said it's he's favourite so far. It took a while to grow on me, but I was loving it by the end, so much so, that I'm making a batch of black beer this weekend

most of the other's I've enjoyed, but I can't think of them now off the top of my head - will have to consult my notes at home.

I've only come across two that weren't to my taste so far:
Hutch - californian common - I'm not sure what this style should taste like, but I found it had a strong 'solventy' aroma and taste. 
Don Mateo - Hefeweizen - i'm not really a fan of this style to start with and the banana flavour was way too strong for me, but HWDMB said it was a good example of a hefeweizen


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## Leigh (10/7/09)

I found a good way to learn the lingo is to print out the notes of everybody here...that's what I did with my first couple of swaps. Even this swap I have read others reviews when I can't identify something.


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## brettprevans (10/7/09)

Leigh said:


> read others reviews when I can't identify something.


yup me too. and look at the recipes


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## Wonderwoman (10/7/09)

thanks for the tips CM2 and leigh

I've been trying to learn from others comments on this thread - it's interesting how different some peoples tastes are


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## Wardhog (10/7/09)

wonderwoman said:


> hi guys,
> 
> I'm not going to post tasting notes on each of the beers as my tasting "skills" are clearly not as advanced as some others on here, ie I don't know all the wanky terms yet or how to look for them yet
> 
> ...



Another tip - please don't think of it what others are writing as 'wanky', or that you are not up to their standard of assessing a beer. Just say what you think you can taste, that's what they're doing.
With time, the terms they use will make sense to you and you'll probably start using a lot of them yourself. No-one is born able to wax poetic for 300 words about the aroma of a beer.

There is no right and wrong, give it a go. Describe what you can taste or whether or not it works for you. Fourstar's comfortable writing about all the things he can taste, I'd rather write about the impression I get of the beer - everyone's different. Don't be worried that someone's gonna call bullshit on what you write, taste is subjective. If they do, well, it's they who are the wanker.

You're doing the brewers in this swap a disservice by not giving feedback. You don't have to know how to fix their problem, but they're waiting to be told what needs some work.

24. Don Mateo - Way out weizen
Has all of the good weizen stuff going on - good yeast character, great head retention, high carbonation - but finishes a bit too sweet.

9. Seemax - Real Ale K&B
The bitterness stands out a little too strong in this for me. Being a kit, you have no say in the bitterness - consider steeping some crystal malts, as the malt/bitterness is tipped a bit too far in favour of the hops.
Sort that out and it'll be a cracker of a beer.


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## Wardhog (10/7/09)

11. Leigh - "Plain Jane" lager

A very easygoing and quaffable beer, and very appealing visually. There's a small amount of green apple in there, but not too much. This'd go down well on a hot day.
Hand me a bottle of this over a CUB anything, any day.


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## Brewmeister70 (10/7/09)

> Hand me a bottle of this over a CUB anything, any day.



Funny you should say that, Worthog... This reminded me of VB more than anything else (which is quite a compliment to Leigh, I think).

Cheers,

Brewmeister70 :icon_cheers:


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## WarmBeer (10/7/09)

*16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen*

So smooth, so creamy. Perfect creamy head, and nothing but sweet yeasty smells.
Having never had this style before, I can't comment on the colour, but it's great to have a change from the usual dark-brown that the majority of this particular swap has brought. Bubbles are tiny, would love to know how you achieve this.
Now it's warmed up a little, it has lost the initial sweetness that lingered afterwards.
An eye-opener to a quite different style, thanks Chris.


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## Leigh (10/7/09)

Wardhog said:


> 11. Leigh - "Plain Jane" lager
> 
> A very easygoing and quaffable beer, and very appealing visually. There's a small amount of green apple in there, but not too much. This'd go down well on a hot day.
> Hand me a bottle of this over a CUB anything, any day.






Brewmeister70 said:


> Funny you should say that, Worthog... This reminded me of VB more than anything else (which is quite a compliment to Leigh, I think).
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Brewmeister70 :icon_cheers:



Thanks guys. I was aiming for a beer to target my non-homebrew friends. Good to hear it tastes VB-ish in your eyes...maybe the next batch will fool a few of them!


27. Wardhog - Vienna lager 

A very different beer. My bottle was a bit "soft" and poured with a wiff of a head. Golden amber in colour and very little aroma when first poured (at around 4-6 degrees). At this temperature there was a very mild maltiness at first, almost imperceivable. After taste was a little like "burnt porridge", but in a nice way (not sure how to describe that taste, burnt porridge is the closest I can think of) and quite strong.

After warming while I bottled and kegged the SMASH, the malt and hop flavours were more even between first entering the mouth and the after taste. I'd recommend drinking this one a little warmer (maybe 8-10 degrees?).

Overall another good beer Wardie.


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## Neill (10/7/09)

2 - Fents Bitsa Pale

Very good fentsy. Top drop. Great mouthfeel, very complex and brilliant finish. Perhaps a shade bitter for me but I really am soft when it comes to bitterness. Loved it, didn't last long!

5 - Brendo LCBA Clone

Not an exact clone but bloody tasty nonetheless. After drinking fentsies pale i was a little unprepared for how nice this would be. I think it had more body than LCBA and actually a better aroma too. Top notch Brendo, really top notch. I kept smelling this before every sip, didn't want it to end. I can't see the recipe in the other thread - would really like to know the hop bill on this one for replication in an extract brew. I'm assuming it's AG?


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## donmateo (11/7/09)

*20. WarmBeer - Franken-Mild *
pours a dark mahogany with a creamy light tan head
aroma - something fresh and sweet
first sip, definately some malt sweetness, difficult to put my finger on exactly what's there.
bit mingled without anything particular raising it's head. perhaps some more crystal ? or perhaps
the yeast didn't really bring a lot out.
having said that, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this beer and I could happily spend an afternoon
considering it one after the other.

*10. Q - "Mildly Challenged" dark mild *
pours a medium brown with low fast disapearing head
some sweet malt on the aroma, and another (molasses ?)
first sip, there's something, highly astringent, that really pounces on you here
not sure if it's the black malt, or the pacific gem, or there's a fermentation issue somewhere.
kind of a see saw going on, between sweet and astringent.
there's almost a smokey characteristic there somewhere
overall - a curious beer, not sure what I think, think i'm still on the see saw.


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## hairofthedog (11/7/09)

25 Bennys Lemon Ale

easy drinking mate a good footy beer i could drink 10 of these while watching the pies smash hapless opposition :super:


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## Quintrex (11/7/09)

Don Mateo said:


> *10. Q - "Mildly Challenged" dark mild *
> pours a medium brown with low fast disapearing head
> some sweet malt on the aroma, and another (molasses ?)
> first sip, there's something, highly astringent, that really pounces on you here
> ...



There definitely is a curious taste, I think it's overhopped and it's the challenger flavour that doesn't mix well with the malt character.
I've found it become more of a complete package drinking it at warmer temps, I probably won't hop further milds to this level.


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## Maple (11/7/09)

hairofthedog said:


> 25 Bennys Lemon Ale
> 
> easy drinking mate a good footy beer i could drink 10 of these while watching the pies smash hapless opposition :super:


Winning by a single point hardly constitutes a "smash" 

Not a bulldogs fan, just not a birdwatcher either.


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## Wardhog (11/7/09)

6. Sappas Better Red than Dead Irish Ale.

Possibly the beer of the swap for me so far. A bit cloudy, but I can easily overlook when I taste this. Big malt aroma promises big malt taste and it delivers, and is balanced nicely with smooth bitterness. I was thinking of making something like this originally, and I'm glad I didn't now.

Great work Sappas. I think I might just tuck the printout you included in my recipe book.


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## Wardhog (11/7/09)

Maple said:


> Winning by a single point hardly constitutes a "smash"



It does if you're a Collingwood supporter.


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## Maple (11/7/09)

Wardhog said:


> It does if you're a Collingwood supporter.


LoL, nice wardy. Hey this brings me more to the point, CM2 brought your beer around today (had a double batch, double brew day). Absolute ripper! So clean, nice malty back to it, carbonated to a good level, not sweet or bitter, just huge malt driven lager. Really top shelf work. loved it, thanks (and to CM2 for sharing the experience)

Chris Taylor - Big Red Banana - what more is there to say than that really. Huge banana, I really liked it, and that's exactly what I was aiming for in my last roggen attempt, but fell short of this... Interesting beer, malt wise, maybe a bit sweet, but not to the cloyingly side.

Rook - tribute to Wazza's 3 shades. First up I got roast, heaps...then biterness, did i just chew a dandelion? then came the roast again. it seemed pretty sharp, like the bite of soda water, but with a really rich tone. totally not what I was expecting. having said that, after a few more sips, it really began to grow on me. my opinion, and for my taste: maybe a touch bitter, but a really good beer, 

Sappas, well except for the floaties in the glass, a nice beer. poured with a huge head - talking icecream style, and retained all the way through. can't say I can pick the style, but if shooting for an irish red, not a bad go, maybe a touch more brown/black to redden it up.


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## hairofthedog (11/7/09)

point taken maple but i was refering to the last 7 games in general not any one game in particular :lol:


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## Wardhog (11/7/09)

12. mcook - American IPA

This is a bloody good beer, too. I'm a bit spoiled tonight.

Only thing I can say against it is style quibbling and nothing more. The hopping level seems to be more in APA territory than IPA. That's not to say it isn't a really good beer though.


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## Wardhog (11/7/09)

21. Driveitlikeyoustoleit - Oatmeal stout

This is a potentially great beer. It probably needs some more bitterness to offset the massive amounts of roast, there's too much favour towards the blackened malt. Sort that out, and you've got a really good stout on your hands.


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## scott_penno (12/7/09)

17. Brewmeister70 - Kolsch 
Pale straw color, quite clear. Small head (maybe 1cm) which grew smaller while drinking but never disappeared. Subtle malt aroma. Upon tasting, I wasn't sure what to think so I kept drinking. Subtle malt flavor, combined with subtle bitterness and finishes quite dry. Words like subtle and delicate keep appearing in my mind. Never had a Kolsch before so not really sure what to compare it with. Great beer that I could see being drunk in copious amounts on a warm summers day.

15. Fourstar - American IPA
Now, here's the beer at the other end of the spectrum. Open the bottle, hmmmm I suspect there might be some hops in there. Pours an almost deep golden color with a nice creamy head. The aroma of hops dominates. The first mouthful as someone has previously written is an assault on the taste buds - in a good way though. And I do mean mouthful. I expected that the hops flavor would have been one dimension but it's not - it is a true mouthfull of hops which I suspect comes from using multiple varieties - but there's a reasonable amount of malt flavor there to hold it up. Finished the bottle and there's the long-lingering bitterness - again a well rounded bitterness - rather than a one-dimensional bitterness. Wasn't convinced I would enjoy this but it definitely exceeded my expectations although I'm fairly sure a bottle (or two) is all I could drink in a session.


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## scott_penno (12/7/09)

Wardhog said:


> 6. Sappas Better Red than Dead Irish Ale.
> 
> Possibly the beer of the swap for me so far. A bit cloudy, but I can easily overlook when I taste this. Big malt aroma promises big malt taste and it delivers, and is balanced nicely with smooth bitterness. I was thinking of making something like this originally, and I'm glad I didn't now.
> 
> Great work Sappas. I think I might just tuck the printout you included in my recipe book.


Thanks for the positive feedback. As a relative novice brewer, I'm always looking to improve things. If anyone could help with where the cloudiness comes from and I what I can do to remove it, it would be appreciated.




Maple said:


> Sappas, well except for the floaties in the glass, a nice beer. poured with a huge head - talking icecream style, and retained all the way through. can't say I can pick the style, but if shooting for an irish red, not a bad go, maybe a touch more brown/black to redden it up.


Thanks Maple. Style is supposed to be an Irish Red Ale using the Better Red Than Dead recipe from the RecipeDB. The test drive I did left me thinking there was too much of a roast malt flavor and the color was more brown than red so for the case swap I halved the roast malt and doubled the CaraRed. I have yet to taste this after it's been carbonated so I might sit down and do this this afternoon. I still have a pint or two of the original Better Red Than Dead to do a side by side comparison with.

Re floaties, was it just yeast floating around or something else?


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## Neill (12/7/09)

*Don Mateo's Hefeweizen*

I haven't had one of this style before so was very interested to try this.

Fantastic aroma, bananas! love the smell. Poured a bit hazy with reasonable head, which settled quickly (i think my glass needs a good clean, nothing holds a head in this thing).

First impressions were sourness. Tasted nice on the tongue but after swallowing i got this unusual sour tang in the back of the palate. Mixed into it were strong banana flavours.

After having had 3/4 of the glass now the sour notes have receded leaving me with lots of banana flavours, the second half of the glass was much more enjoyable.

I have no idea if this is "to style" having never had a hefeweizen before but it's obviously not my type of beer. Is the sour note that i can taste a feature of this beer?


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## Fourstar (12/7/09)

sappas said:


> Thanks for the positive feedback. As a relative novice brewer, I'm always looking to improve things. If anyone could help with where the cloudiness comes from and I what I can do to remove it, it would be appreciated.
> 
> for the case swap I halved the roast malt and doubled the CaraRed.



Hey sappas, you made a decent beer mate, mine had marginal haze/cloudyness so id say it may have been yeast in suspension (i had yours in the fridge for 3 days). Time and chilling for extended peripods helps with this. if its bottle conditioned, not much you can do about having yeast in there unfortunatly unless you filter to a secondary fermenter.

As for the colour. Just a little tip/hint. the specturm of colour for crystals and roasts are different to 'the eye' per SRM. see below

<= 10 SRM 
Crystal - Light Orange/honey to Copper
Roast - Tan
<= 20SRM
Crystal - Deep Copper - Red
Roast - Red - Brown
<= 30SRM
Crystal - mahogany
Roast - Black

Basically you want to balance the crystals and the roasts to give you the correct colour and the correct palate profile. for irish reds its 9 - 18 SRM. I'd be shooting for around 16-17 SRM to get a middle of the roasd deep copper/red. if you use all crystals, the beer will be too sweet, too much roast and its too 'roasty' which will throw it out of balance. I'd go for around a 40-60SRM cyrstal, or a trade off b/w two crystals e.g. 1/2 each addition of 10-20SRM and a 80-120SRM crystal. balance this with 1 part roast barley to your 2 parts of crystal. Use these additons until you get the colour into that srm and you are probably on the money. if it was just crystals, it would probably still look orange-copper, if it was just roast it will look red to brown (but it would be more like a scottich than an irish if there was no crystal.) I'd say the colour for yours was close to being spot on.. a little too dark IMO. but the crystal was good! its obviously a tried and true recipe, theres no need to re-invent the wheel i suppose, just modify it to suit your needs.

here is an exmple of a recipe i just whipped up to explain the above (i hope i made sense).

cheers! :icon_cheers: 

Irish Red 
Irish Red Ale 

Type: All Grain
Date: 12/07/2009 
Batch Size: 23.00 L
Brewer: Braden 
Boil Size: 30.90 L Asst Brewer: 
Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: My Brew Pot (40L) and Frosty Cooler (38L) 
Brewhouse Efficiency: 68.0 

Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU 
5.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 91.7 % 
0.15 kg Carared (20.0 SRM) Grain 2.8 % 
0.15 kg Crystal, Dark (Joe White) (86.7 SRM) Grain 2.8 % 
0.15 kg Roasted Barley (Joe White) (412.9 SRM) Grain 2.8 % 
35.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00%] (60 min) (First Wort Hop) Hops 21.5 IBU 
1 Pkgs London ESB Ale (Wyeast Labs #1968) Yeast-Ale 

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.051 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG 
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 4.6 % 
Bitterness: 21.5 IBU
Est Color: 16.7 SRM 

Mash Profile
Name Description Step Temp Step Time 
Mash In Add 14.20 L of water at 72.4 C 66.0 C 60 min 
Mash Out Add 7.95 L of water at 95.1 C 75.6 C 10 min


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## Leigh (12/7/09)

1. Peels - black beer

Yep, definately BLACK. I think seemax had it right when he called it "used motor oil"! Thick brown head that reduced down, but kept a tan 1mm foam until the last sip. Fairly low bitterness, and nice choc/roast flavours. A little too much crystal (sweetness) for mine but still a good beer!

[edit] hmm, just read your recipe and there is no crystal? what is giving the big sweet flavour?


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## Hutch (12/7/09)

Wardhog said:


> 27. Vienna Lager
> 
> Don't know if it's true to style, but it is an easy to drink beer. Low hop character in all aspects, but nice toasted malt - fairly happy with this beer.
> I'll be interested to see if anyone else thinks there's a slight solventy edge to it as if I haven't pitched enough yeast.



Wardy, I found it pretty easy-drinking (as did my wife), very low hops, slightly sweet, probably underpinned by the low IBU's. No hop character to note - seems like Millennium is a good bittering variety.

I didn't find any solventy character - quite clean ferment in fact, thought there is some very slight Acetaldehyde (being ultra critical here). Carbonation good, but fairly large bubbles, and head didn't last very long.

I started drinking this one without checking the recipe thread, so didn't know what it was. First impression was a slight extract sweetness, leading me to beleive it was a very well made partial. Probably a character of the 50% Vienna in the recipe. 
I probably would up the IBUs if it were me (though it does fit in the lower end for a Vienna Lager). I'd also back off the Vienna slightly to reduce the residual sweetness for a drier finish.

Nice job. 
Thanks Wardy!


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## [email protected] (12/7/09)

Long weekend away at Phillip Island...

Session 1-

#2 Fents - Bitsa Pale Ale - Strong hoppy flavor matched by bitterness. Really nice beer, left me wanting more.

#7 Rook - Stout - Rich Roasty chocolate like aroma. Clean balanced malty flavor and bitterness. Guy on the label could be vampire, outta get that checked out. Quite dry on the palate, very approachable.

Session 2-

#24 Don Mateo - Weizen - Pleasent weizen-like aroma & flavour (clove/bubblegum). Not too harsh. High carbonation. didn't get much banana, not as creamy as some weizens can be. Easy drink, nice beer.

#9 seemax - Real Ale - Not much aroma, clean taste. Mild bitterness. Full bodied. Does the job, but maybe needs more hop character and/or maltiness.

#13 CM2 - Dunkle - Quite pleasent. Drinkable. Clean. Maybe lacks a bit a character, as not much malt flavor as expected seemed to be evident.

Session 3-

#4 Hairofthedog - Dortmunder export - Some faint hop aroma. A bit fruity on the palate, for style. Nice malt flavors in the background.

#14 Hutch - California Common - Pours nice, tastes nice, finishes clean. Lovely beer. Nice well balanced malt flavor. Could drink this any day of the week.

#22 Lucas - Smoked Porter - Perhaps the beer of the swap so far for me. Subtle smoked roasted malt aroma. The taste was a fantastic mouthful of roasted chocolate, yet clean finshing with a nice amount of underlying bitterness. Taste was not unlike a bottle of Youngs Double Chocolate Stout I had recently, though for mine your's was a bit better.

Unfortunately that's stumps for this weekend.

:icon_cheers: 
Cheers
Mal


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## donmateo (13/7/09)

Neill said:


> *Don Mateo's Hefeweizen*
> --cut--
> First impressions were sourness. Tasted nice on the tongue but after swallowing i got this unusual sour tang in the back of the palate. Mixed into it were strong banana flavours.
> 
> ...



Although I was happy that some bananas came out, there seemed to be a few other 'added extras' with this beer that 
I really found difficult to figure out what they were. Interesting that you got some sour tang, I suspect this may have been one of the added extras that weren't necessarily ment to be there, or is not there for all the right reasons, but if you want to try a Hef that does exhibit the light-sour tang that you might expect, I recommend the Schneider Weisse Hef, a little hard to get, but a fantastic example.


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## Neill (13/7/09)

You know i was thinking about this last night and i reckon my bottle may have been a bit skunked, maybe being left outside after the swap until the next morning turned it a bit "off". Aside from that i'm not really sure what could have caused this flavour, unless it was supposed to be there!


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## donmateo (13/7/09)

*9. seemax - Real Ale K&B*
pours a copper brown, reasonably dense head
some malt sweetness and something fresh on aroma
first sip, smooth malt flavours, though very quickly some earthy hop bitterness and flavor dominate
can strain to detect some of those malt driven flavours that one might expect from a real ale, but found it's
quite difficult through the domination of the hops.
overall - would have hoped for some more display of malt characters, there are some good malt flavors there
but hard to hold on to as hops quite dominant, providing an ale more reminiscent of something american style
(my assumption is that it's an english style real ale). From a glimpse at the recipe, interesting to note how
strongly the hops came though for the amount added.

*6. sappas - Better Red Than Dead Irish Ale*
pours a clear copper-red with a low staying light tan head
aroma - initially appear to be some fermentation esters there (however i think this is just because it's fresh more
than anything else, as they dont make there presence felt after). behind those there are some elements that provoke
interest, some nice malt, and some caramel sweetness.
first sip - oh joy, soft malty velvet, hint's of caramel, and toffee. smooth subdued backing hop bitterness
overall - clean and smooth, malt flavor highlights, light caramel and toffee, light carbonation, easy drinking
liked this beer a lot.


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## brendo (13/7/09)

For all those who have asked, I have finally put my recipe for my LCBA into the recipe thread. As stated with the recipe entry, NC'ing this batch lost a lot from the 20 and 0 min additions.

Glad people are enjoying it all the same though :icon_cheers: 

Brendo


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## therook (13/7/09)

Tried a few beers side by side so as to get a comparison.

*24 - Don Mateo - Weizen*

Nice mild clove and bubblegum, excellent carbonation with a smallish head which didn't last.
This was quite enjoyable and with a bit more banana aroma/flavour would have been more enjoyable.

*16 - Chris Taylor - Red Weizen*
Great beer Chris, one of the blokes at work said he would pay for this beer if he could buy it.
Lots of toffee and malt flavours which i think spoilt it a bit as it ended up being quite sweet,
Good carbonation . Nice mild banana and clove things happening.
A good beer Chris but you have done lot better 

Thanks for 2 good Wheat beers chaps

next 2 where

*12 - mcook - American IPA
15 - Fourstar - AIPA*

I'm not going to go into to much depth with these beers other than to say they are your typical APA's....and they have been elaborated on fairly well already
It's all about the hops which both these beers showed....
These did go down well Friday arvo after a good counter meal 

Thanks Cookie and Fourstar

Rook


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## brettprevans (13/7/09)

*brendo's LCBA *
WEll brendo what a waste of your beer. I accidently forgot I had it in the freeezer chillihng down and found it the next morning. The beer throffed like mad when I took it out of the freezer and I caught all the overflow. So the 50-100ml or so I got to drank was an eis-LCBA... concentrated alc and hops. and at 6:00am that was a bit full on. I drnak it though. couldnt waste it. Going on the little bit I had to drink I recon it would have been an excellent beer. 

*Rook - Wazza's 3 shades*
Rooky, I agreed with Maple. Not to my taste this one. nothing about the brewing process I dont think, more about the recipe. not sure. I think it was the CO2 type bite/bitterness.

edit: maybe the soda water bitterness was due to the mineral additions?

*8. wonderwoman - Goldilocks*
carbonation was fine almost no head. I struggled to define what style this was. it was a bit unbclear on taste. little smell of amrillo but all I could taste was sweet cervesa style beer. IMO not a great indication of what your capable of brewing. There was no obvious technical flaws. the beer was clear, good colour, clean. just sweeet. It tasted to me like a sweet cervesa kit. keep brewing. theres nothing wrong with your brewing techniques. maybe just the recipe. but hey if youy like it, then itrs fine. your brewing mainly for yourself so bugger everyone eleses tastes.


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## donmateo (13/7/09)

Neill said:


> You know i was thinking about this last night and i reckon my bottle may have been a bit skunked, maybe being left outside after the swap until the next morning turned it a bit "off". Aside from that i'm not really sure what could have caused this flavour, unless it was supposed to be there!



There was something I noticed in this beer at about 2 days through fermentation, I never really knew what it was, and it never really went away as I hoped it might have. Unfortunately, the best way I could try to describe it is probably 'old sponge'. At first I thought it was some 3068 characteristic which was going to develop somehow, but i'm not sure it did.
Although it finished very low - perhaps too low, about 1.008, it can give the impression of sweetness, and i've had comments this is diacetel - a buterscotchy kind of flavour.


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## brendo (13/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> *brendo's LCBA *
> WEll brendo what a waste of your beer. I accidently forgot I had it in the freeezer chillihng down and found it the next morning. The beer throffed like mad when I took it out of the freezer and I caught all the overflow. So the 50-100ml or so I got to drank was an eis-LCBA... concentrated alc and hops. and at 6:00am that was a bit full on. I drnak it though. couldnt waste it. Going on the little bit I had to drink I recon it would have been an excellent beer.



Top work CM2...  

I have a few in stock mate, so can sort you out with another one if you want... currently pouring off of a keg as well. Let me know...

Brendo


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## scott_penno (13/7/09)

8. wonderwoman - Goldilocks

Left the bottle out for a couple of weeks as it felt undercarbed but there was little change so in the fridge it went. Upon pouring there was a small but persistent head. Appears an amber almost golden color. Subtle aroma of amarillo (or at least that's what it smells like). First taste theres a hint or amarillo and a background sweetness although I can't actually taste the golden syrup. Definitely undercarbed though. Didn't really strike me as a Mexican Cerveza style beer but didn't really strike me as any other style in particular either. Quite drinkable but a little on the sweet side for my liking.


7. Rook - Wazza's 3 shades of Stout

Pours a deep dark almost black color with a nice creamy tan head. Roasty/malty aroma. Upon tasting there's a nice caramel/toffee/roasty kind of flavor that's well supported by the bitterness in the background. Next door neighbour (co-taster) commented that this was the best stout that he's ever had. Two thumbs up.


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## scott_penno (13/7/09)

6. sappas - Better Red Than Dead Irish Ale

OK. I'm going to leave it to others to critique this beer and instead will provide a side by comparison with the original recipe in the RecipeDB. This version has half the roast malt and double the Carared with the intention of cutting back on the roasty kind of flavor and getting the color to be more red than brown. I feel that the roasty flavor is now in check and well balanced with the other flavors but the color IMHO is still too far into the brown's. Not sure anything can be done about this without losing more of the roast/toffee kind of flavors. Pretty happy with how this beer turned out none-the-less....


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## Quintrex (13/7/09)

sappas said:


> 6. sappas - Better Red Than Dead Irish Ale
> 
> OK. I'm going to leave it to others to critique this beer and instead will provide a side by comparison with the original recipe in the RecipeDB. This version has half the roast malt and double the Carared with the intention of cutting back on the roasty kind of flavor and getting the color to be more red than brown. I feel that the roasty flavor is now in check and well balanced with the other flavors but the color IMHO is still too far into the brown's. Not sure anything can be done about this without losing more of the roast/toffee kind of flavors. Pretty happy with how this beer turned out none-the-less....



Cara-red isn't the best way to get the red colour, roast barley is really the best for providing that awesome red hue. If you do it again, maybe keep the roast barley separate from the mash and do a cold extraction overnight on just the roast barley, then add the water to the boil. This can help prevent some of the harsh roastiness, however you'll still get the colour. Some people just add the roast barley at the end of the mash too. I think the cold water method is cleaner.

Looking forward to trying yours though.

Cheers
Q


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## Fents (13/7/09)

Driveitlikeyoustole it stout - top beer, i dont even like stouts but this left me wanting more

kleinys bockstar - again nice beer mate never tried a bock before but its going down nicley...better than a dorito to the eye even 

i've missed reviewing a fair few due to being to smashed with mates and pulling out swaps after to many other beers. i must say tho this case swap has surpassed all others in terms of most beers, think theres only been a small percentage i have not liked.


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## Fourstar (13/7/09)

*13. CM2 - Kenzie Dunkel

*Dark brown with a ruby hue when held to light, smooth velvet tan like head(needed a pocket sparkler as i over chilled).

(left to warm to 7 deg) moderate malty aroma, slightly sweet with some esters present. Very malty/with some melanoidens with a crystal like sweetness coming through onto the finish. Not allot of hops going on, a smooth bitterness, reasonably well balanced. As a Dunkel, needs more melanoidens/breadcrust flavours/aromas but overall a tasty beer to suck down on a colder winter evening.

Top work there CM2!


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## seemax (13/7/09)

I only seem to have a handful of swap beers left... hmmm... all this hot weather is creating quite a thirst 

Highlights so far have been been the pale ales (4*, brendo, mcook et al) , Dortmunder Export, black beer and err... i even managed to finish all of the way out Hefe (wasting beer is not an option!), it tasted restrained in terms of phelonics than i recall my previous Hefe's. The mexicana golden syrup was interesting, probably the sweetest beer i've ever tried (not hard given my hop addiction). 

Currently polishing off the cal common.... plenty of head on pour but has dropped to nothing very quickly, not sure if this level of fizz is part of the style? Seems similar to an APA with the hops dominating the malt... perhaps even a little fruity? Nice.


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## Kleiny (13/7/09)

2. Fents - Bitsa Pale Ale
Nice beer fents i just found it a bit bitter, maybe throw some more of the early hops in later to balance it out. The way it is it could almost be heading towards IPA territory with a lot more hop flavour aroma

3. Beerdingo - Dunkelweizen
This beer was great ive had a dunkelweizen on the brew board for a while and this one doesn't put me off making it, i found it had a lot of fermentation flavour in it, which i think i will try and limit in my attempt. Great malt flavour with a nice low background hop bitterness.

4. Hairofthedog - Dortmunder export
There was something in this beer i think it was diacytel a covering of the mouth with a buttery like texture, nice malty tones with a sharpish bitterness. I really dont know what a dortmunder export is to taste like but i thought the flavour was there.

5. Brendo - LCBA clone 
Nice straight up beer with a nice hop balance, i kept getting a finishing flavour i didn't really like maybe it was just the hops used, I think it is a little way off the LCBA clone but keep making small changes to this recipe and it will be a cracker.

6. sappas - Better Red Than Dead Irish Ale 
Beer of the swap so far great malty balance with a nice roasty background and clear appearance. I sat back and let it warm for a while and it only got more malty with just enough bitterness to balance.

7. Rook - Wazza's 3shades stout
Drank this one with rook around for company on sat night, nice bitter stout black with a good amount of roast, This stout really fills the profile and against my oatmeal stout on tap was dryer with a good malty bitterness. I have seen this recipe before in the database and wanted to give it a go, I will be making this in the future after the taste test.


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## Fourstar (13/7/09)

*11. Leigh - Australian Plain Jane Lager*

Crap, I didnt copy+paste properly from when I accidently posted into the standard Xmas in July thread... idiot.

Anyway Ill try and replicate what I remember tasting and from what Ive written down + what I remember from my previous post.

Brilliant clarity, straw to gold in appearance, low pub foam. Some fruity esters on the node, no hop presence, quite clean overall. High carbonation with a tin mouth feel. Sweet malt on the palate with some nuttiness and malty digestive biscuit flavours in the finish. Sharp spicy bitterness. Im assuming POR being used Leigh?

Finishes rather malty/fruity with lingering hop bitterness. Slight kit like 'twang'/metallic like also noticeable in the finish. Very subtle but I can notice something there. Maybe its water additions doing this if its not a kit/LME based beer? Either way its a very good beer and very hard to hide faults in such a light SRM/clean beer. I think you have done exceptionally well Leigh.

Thumbs up for the decent beer mate!

Cheers! :icon_cheers:


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## Leigh (13/7/09)

11. Leigh - Australian Plain Jane Lager

Was aiming for something a slight bit more malty than a megabrew to start wooing my VB drinking mates, but still be quite quaffable. After drinking another tonight, I think it has come up quite well. Next batch has got an extra handful of DME to supplement the rest of the K&B's...not quite the maltiness that I was aiming for.

4* Nothing gets past you mate, POR is a must for an aussie lager...but you should have known that from the recipe thread!


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## Fourstar (13/7/09)

Leigh said:


> 4* Nothing gets past you mate, POR is a must for an aussie lager...but you should have known that from the recipe thread!



Just a calculated guess mate, aussie lager = POR just went with it... who knows couold have been galaxy (cept no citrus/passionfruit flavours there). A decent beer nonetheless! Is it in the recipe thread? i didnt see it. time for antoher scan... nope, still dont see it.

Is it posted somewhere else?

Great work Leigh!

cheers!


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## Hutch (13/7/09)

*10. Q - "Mildly Challenged" dark mild*

Loved this beer Q! 
Not exactly a typical pommie mild, but very interesting none-the-less.
Head retention is so impressive that I'm posting a photo of it - 40 minutes after pouring it!!! (letting it warm up a few degrees)...




The yeast character is unmistakable, and has me thinking "Saison". Is this the Rogue pacman? Certainly not what I'd expect from 1469.
Some nice roast malt there in the finish, and some lingering Pommie hops. I'm getting a slight lactic acidity now that's it's warmed - not dissimilar to the Guiness aftertaste, without the dry dark roast malt.

Would love to try this beer with a different yeast, something like 1318 London, or Ringwood.
Whatever you've done to get this head retention, keep doing it - I've never had such good head before :mellow: 
Cheers Q.
Hutch.


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## Leigh (13/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> Just a calculated guess mate, aussie lager = POR just went with it... who knows couold have been galaxy (cept no citrus/passionfruit flavours there). A decent beer nonetheless! Is it in the recipe thread? i didnt see it. time for antoher scan... nope, still dont see it.
> 
> Is it posted somewhere else?
> 
> ...



Hmm, thought I'd put it up! Will put it up shortly.

[edit] Recipe up now


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## driveitlikeustoleit (14/7/09)

Wardhog said:


> 21. Driveitlikeyoustoleit - Oatmeal stout
> 
> This is a potentially great beer. It probably needs some more bitterness to offset the massive amounts of roast, there's too much favour towards the blackened malt. Sort that out, and you've got a really good stout on your hands.



Cheers. prefer my stouts with some balls, Rook's 3 shades wasn't roasty enough for me, i found it too sweet.



Fents said:


> Driveitlikeyoustole it stout - top beer, i dont even like stouts but this left me wanting more
> 
> Thanks fents. Hey that fridge is still going too, thanks.


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## driveitlikeustoleit (14/7/09)

I better qualify that :unsure: 

*7.Rooks 3 shades o stout.*
A well made beer,good head nice roast and better a bit warmer. A little sweet for mine but could still drink it til i fell of my perch.
*
14.Cally Common.*
Can't remember who brewed it (yes I'm shit) but it was bloody good. Dunno much about steam beers other than what i've read, but nice work. Nice mouth feel, nice hop aroma/ flavour.
*
15.Fourstar. American IPA.*
Another hoppy wonder. A well made beer and a pleasure to drink.
*
10. Quintrex. Mildly Challenged*
More like mentally challenged. Who puts that much challenger in a mild? A well made beer though

*1.Superhero's. Milk Stout.*
A little bit of mouthfeel/ sweetness from milk (lactose) and another well made beer. Give me more stouty goodness.

So nice to get so many good beers in a swap (so far). Much more impressive than the last swap i was in.

A happy stamp to all the boys and girls involved for making this work and making bloody good beer.


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## Quintrex (14/7/09)

> *1.Superhero's. Milk Stout.*
> A little bit of mouthfeel/ sweetness from milk (lactose) and another well made beer. Give me more stouty goodness.



Superheroes milk stout was last swap wasn't it? Did you have a left over bottle?

Nr. 11 Leigh "plain jane" lager
Wow clearest beer for me so far? Very clean lager. no faults that I can tell, except there's too much hop flavour for an aussie lager .
Well made beer, Can't wait to see what you can do on your new AG rig.

Hutch Cal Common
Damn fine beer, don't know if it tastes like what a cal common is meant to taste like, but it's one tasty beverage nonetheless. 
Nice clean flavour, reasonably hoppy. did you use cal common yeast? Damn tasty beer hutch, it's got a real creamyness too it.

I enjoyed your oatmeal stout too DLYSI, as I mentioned to you though I'd love to try it with some cascade in it for that real american stout flava. 

Q


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## Leigh (14/7/09)

26. Neill - Malty English Ale

Poured with a 5mm thick head that lasted as a slight foam all the way to the bottom of the glass. Colour is on the darker side of amber and slight hop aroma.

On tasting, this beer was quite sour for the first mouthful, with the sourness subsiding as I drank through the first glass. By the second glass the sourness was still discernable from the maltiness and hop flavour, but not as prominant. IMO this sourness distracted from the beer as a whole.


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## hairofthedog (14/7/09)

Klieny i get that buttery taste your talking about but i think its a yeast characteristic rather than a fault not sure though as its the first time ive used wyeast 2124 but i do know thats the strain used in carlsberg & i definetly get that buttered flavor in there beer

& Q i think superheros milky is all the way back from 2 swaps ago :lol:


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## Hutch (14/7/09)

Quintrex said:


> Hutch Cal Common
> Nice clean flavour, reasonably hoppy. did you use cal common yeast?


Hey Q,
I used WY2112 California Lager. Pitched big, and fermented at the lower end (16-17 degrees). 
It took a bloody long time to ferment out, and I bottled with 2 carb drops per PET to try and give it a little more fizz ("steam").



hairofthedog said:


> ...& Q i think superheros milky is all the way back from 2 swaps ago :lol:


...and a damn fine beer it was for memory :icon_drool2:


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## Neill (14/7/09)

damn, sourness :-(

must have been an infected bottle leigh - sorry :-( maybe my cleaning skills weren't as good as i thought they were. No sourness in any of the other bottles i've had of it since the swap. my apologies.


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## Fourstar (14/7/09)

*7. Rook - Wazza's 3 shades of Stout*

Ace of spades black with light wispy foam, some ruby highlights across the top of the beer. Light roast on the nose, some nuttiness too with light breadyness/creaminess.

Full chewy palate with high carbonation. Lots of roast hits the palate, nice rounded chocolate notes, finishes rather nutty/chewy with a smooth bitterness. aftertaste is nothing but coffee overtones with a munich like breadyness. Very toasty. Top notch beer Rook, hats off to you and warren. Although i haven't tasted the original, im sure yours is better! :lol: 


Almost faultless to be honest. definitely no fermentation issues! The only thing its lacking (im being oerly pedantic) is some sweetness to balance off some of the roastiness, saying that if its a dry stout, its definitely on the money. A wisker from perfect balance. I can say for sure when tasting my dry stout with it (70% MO 20% flaked 10% Roast) it kills it for balance, mine is very roasty on the palate and nose and very dry.. leaves my tongue raspy not alot of complexity just roast and sweet maltiness, yours has all the above as mentioned, chocolate = winner.

great work... top 3 so far mate!

Cheers! :icon_cheers:


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## WarmBeer (15/7/09)

21. Driveitlikeustoleit - Oatmeal Stout

Smooth, smooth, smooth.

A beautiful looking stout, with a dark-cream head that stays put. Not a whole lot in the smell, a little roasty character, but pretty neutral. First sip, and I'm in love. Beautifully smooth (did I already say that?) with none of the bitterness you can get from commercial examples.

This smooth beer went down faster than any of the other case-swap beers, and I usually tend to sip dark beers, even when they're smooth, it's just that good. 

Top 3 in the case swap so far for me! Would give my left nut to be able to consistently brew beer this smooth.

Oh yeah, it was pretty smooth.


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## therook (15/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> *7. Rook - Wazza's 3 shades of Stout*
> 
> Ace of spades black with light wispy foam, some ruby highlights across the top of the beer. Light roast on the nose, some nuttiness too with light breadyness/creaminess.
> 
> ...




Thanks 4star, I'm glad you enjoyed it

Rook


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## warrenlw63 (15/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> great work... top 3 so far mate!



C'mon Shane McGowan on the label was the clincher.  

Warren -


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## Fourstar (15/7/09)

warrenlw63 said:


> C'mon Shane McGowan on the label was the clincher.
> Warren -



It actually cost him 1st place!


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## therook (15/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> It actually cost him 1st place!




I liked the Cats scarf in the background 4star, that has earned you 20 brownie points.

Rook


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## warrenlw63 (15/7/09)

therook said:


> I liked the Cats scarf in the background 4star, that has earned you 20 brownie points.
> 
> Rook



That was to wipe up the excitement of yer stout. :lol: 

Warren -


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## Fourstar (15/7/09)

therook said:


> I liked the Cats scarf in the background 4star, that has earned you 20 brownie points.
> Rook



Its been sitting there since the night of losing to st.kilda 

Last week was terrible! Did you hear that our list last week was so poorly populated our VFL side had to call up some U-19 kid from the Murray division or something! Crazy!


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## seemax (15/7/09)

WarmBeer said:


> 21. Driveitlikeustoleit - Oatmeal Stout
> 
> Smooth, smooth, smooth.
> A beautiful looking stout, with a dark-cream head that stays put. Not a whole lot in the smell, a little roasty character, but pretty neutral. First sip, and I'm in love. Beautifully smooth (did I already say that?) with none of the bitterness you can get from commercial examples.
> ...



Hey Brett..
Just polished off this little number and I too am suitably impressed. It's dark, smooth and roasty, but not in your face. I enjoy stouts and more recently porters but rarely brew them, however it might be time for a change. If you're interested, I might brew something along these lines next weekend (night time post kids bed time!)... you're most welcome to come over. The amber ale will be ready to go, and I have a cupboard full of misc. brews to polish off... there might even be a bottle or two of my Aldi WeetBix Wit left! I'll keep you posted.

Driveitlikeustoleit - any chance you could post your recipe? Didn't see it on the recipe thread.


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## Leigh (15/7/09)

15. Fourstar - American IPA 

Nicely carbonated on pouring. Reasonable head of around 7mm that quickly dissipated to a ring of foam around the edge. A little darker than I'd expect for a pale. Arome is all hops!

Tasted beautiful at 4 degrees. Very well balanced with extremely subtle maltiness and good hop bitterness. But boy does it pack a punch upon warming! All hops at 6-8 degrees! Much prefer it at 4 degrees.

Not a bad beer 4*


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## Leigh (15/7/09)

Neill said:


> damn, sourness :-(
> 
> must have been an infected bottle leigh - sorry :-( maybe my cleaning skills weren't as good as i thought they were. No sourness in any of the other bottles i've had of it since the swap. my apologies.



Don't stress Neill, mght just be my dodgy tastebuds


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## Fourstar (15/7/09)

Leigh said:


> 15. Fourstar - American IPA
> A little darker than I'd expect for a pale. Arome is all hops!



IPA mate, IPA..
APA = SRM: 5 14
IPA = SRM: 6 15

Mine rang in @ 6.6SRM. Quite light in the grand sceme of things, but nothing near 3 SRM~ like your Aussie lager! Thanks for the kudos mate!

Cheers! :icon_cheers:


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## brendo (16/7/09)

*Hutch - Cal Common*

This is the first time I have tried this style - so like a lot of others, I don't really have a good yardstick to measure it by.

That said, I really really enjoyed it. Great colour and really interesting hop profile with the US NB in there... woody and a hint of mint.

Nice clarity and very clean profile on the palete - no faults that I can pick. 

I have to say mate - I was very impressed and enjoyed every mouthful. Unfortunately SWMBO also enjoyed this one, so there were fewer mouthfuls for me than I might have liked <_< 

All in all... top work Hutch. I have some 2112 coming my way in the very near future, so it is highly likely I will give something similar a crack not too far down the track.

Cheers,

Brendo


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## hairyson (16/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> *25. Benny's Lemon Ale*
> Im going to take a stab at the ingredients casuse you stumped us last night as to what we were tasting. It probably should have been colder when we drank it. so that may have also influenced what we tasted.
> Cervesa kit with maltodex, some ultra light crystal and glacier or perle hops? not a lot of head and a bit more carbonation required but ok. slight thickness in body that was unexpected and only a hint of lemon at the end. Im guessing served at the right temp this could be a god summer beer as a thirst quencher, but I couldnt drink it as a sessional beer (again temp may have played an issue).
> no technical faults that we could detect. be interested to see the recipe.



CM2, Fents -- one of the other Bitches (Breezy too) has posted a recipe here: Lemon Ale. Basically it's some sort of pale-bodied syrup, no maltodex but LDME (dried light malt extract), some Cascade/Amarillo for dry hopping, and whatever harvested yeast from whatever brew you're just racking/bottling. Too easy, and so quick. 

We recently made another, but this time with one of those shitty limes instead from the 7-Eleven around the corner. I thought that it would make more of a difference than it did, but I don't think it matters too much what you use. Breezy has tasted more of them so might disagree.

Did you drink this one after other stronger-flavoured beers? It can get swamped pretty easily if it's not the first beer you taste. 

Cheers,
Ben.


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## Kleiny (16/7/09)

Im assured by rook that my No18 bock is right for tasting.

I will try and change the wiki too

Kleiny


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## Fents (16/7/09)

mate i had it the other night and it was the goods.


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## lucas (16/7/09)

mcook said:


> #22 Lucas - Smoked Porter - Perhaps the beer of the swap so far for me. Subtle smoked roasted malt aroma. The taste was a fantastic mouthful of roasted chocolate, yet clean finshing with a nice amount of underlying bitterness. Taste was not unlike a bottle of Youngs Double Chocolate Stout I had recently, though for mine your's was a bit better.



cheers Mal! that's quite the complement  I'm a huge fan of youngs DCS


16. chris' red weizen - I love it. such a beautiful banana flavour with a little extra malt flavour than your average weizen. it's been quite a while since I did a wheat beer and I've never been about to get much banana in mine, but this beer really makes me want to look up your recipe and follow it precisely. must remember to get some rice hulls though, last wheat beer I did I managed to snap my wooden mash paddle trying to stir it


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## scott_penno (16/7/09)

1. Peels - Black Beer

Flicked through comments made by others about this and I almost feel it must be a different beer. Either that or the couple of extra weeks conditioning has made a massive difference. Opened the bottle and poured. Black beer is an understatement. Black. Pitch black. Pours with a generous coffee colored head. Roast malt type aromas. Maybe even a hint of coffee. Upon tasting it's all chocolate. Smooth, almost velvety. Nice body and well balanced with bitterness - never would have guessed there was 45IBU's in there. I'm not a a big fan of stouts but I thought rooks was the best stout I'd ever had until I tried this (sorry rook). This will be one of the next two beers I brew. Two thumbs up.

3. Beerdingo - Dunkelweizen

Never had a Dunkelweizen before and wasn't sure what to expect. Smells like malt and tasted like malt but there was something in it - either the yeast or the hops - that left a taste that wasn't to my liking. Anyway, left it to warm up for a while and it definitely agreed with me more the more it warmed up. Well made beer, just not to my liking. No offence Beerdingo.


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## hairofthedog (16/7/09)

Leigh said:


> 15. Fourstar - American IPA
> 
> Nicely carbonated on pouring. Reasonable head of around 7mm that quickly dissipated to a ring of foam around the edge. A little darker than I'd expect for a pale. Arome is all hops!
> 
> ...



did you actually measure the head leigh or is that a guesstimate :lol:


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## Fourstar (17/7/09)

hairofthedog said:


> did you actually measure the head leigh or is that a guesstimate :lol:



Accurate nonetheless!


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## Leigh (17/7/09)

hairofthedog said:


> did you actually measure the head leigh or is that a guesstimate :lol:



My guesstimate...but my precision is spot on


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## Leigh (17/7/09)

10. Q - "Mildly Challenged" dark mild 

I really enjoyed this beer Q, very interesting colour! Appears very dark on pouring, but is a dark bronze when held up to the light!

Around a 12.54 mm head  Lovely sweet aroma. Tatsing has a very balanced mix of maltiness, chocolate and roastiness that I thought was just right!

Cheers Q


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## beerDingo (17/7/09)

I've been real slack with my reviews. New building at work, and everyone can see my monitor.

Can't remember them all, as I don't take notes. But from memory the standouts for me have been (in numerical order):
Hairofthedog - Dortmunder export 
sappas - Better Red Than Dead Irish Ale 
Rook - Wazza's 3 shades of Stout
mcook - American IPA
Hutch - California Common
Kleiny - Traditional Bock

The partials/kits I've tried have been pretty good (for kits n bits).

CM2, your beer wasn't carbonated up at all really, but was OK otherwise. Chris Taylor, i drank yours too warm to give it a proper tasting, I was really thirsty, but again enjoyed what I could taste. Wardy, I tried yours last night. When I opened the bottle, I didn't like the aroma, but once i poured it and started drinking, i liked it. Would have preferred the IPA you gave out at the swap, but still an enjoyable beer.

Sorry to all others that are not mentioned. But been drinking them randomly, and also when drunk, so unable to give proper reviews, as taste buds were shot, or couldn't remember.

Woohoo, Friday 5:15. Time to go and finish the rest of the swaps!


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## Wardhog (17/7/09)

26. Neill's Malty English Ale

This is a cracker of a beer. I could tell I was going to enjoy it the second I opened and got a whiff of it. Clear as a bell, lovely malty smell, lovely balanced malt and bitterness. Not a flaw to be found.
Excellent work, Neill. Did you post the recipe?


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## Leigh (17/7/09)

24. Don Mateo - "Way out Weizen" - Hefeweizen 

This one was nicely carbonated with a decent head that dissipated to foam quickly. Quite cloudy (yeast?), and big strong sweet banana flavours. Unfortunately I can't stand bananas so this beer did not appeal to me. Apart from the banana flavour, it was a fine beer.

7. Rook - Wazza's 3 shades of Stout 

Poured well with a thick head that dissipated to just a ring of bubbles around the edge of the glass. Lovely roasty aroma. Quite dark, but not as black as peels beer.

On tasting, oh my god, what a beautiful beer! Lovely perfectly balanced roast, slight chocolate and a hint of coffee! While some of the other porters and stouts had me close, I think this beer has converted me to the dark side of beers! This could be a beer I have on tap over winter at my place! Top 3 of the swap for me!


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## Neill (17/7/09)

glad you liked it wardy, i think it will mature well, seems to be improving now. Recipe is in the thread, just a kits and extract thing with some light hopping and good fermentation control. Going to do it again soon with some spec grains i think!


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## Hutch (17/7/09)

*8. wonderwoman - Goldilocks*

The Golden Syrup had me slightly apprehensive, but I was quite surprised with this beer. Good flavour and aroma from what seems like Cascade and Chinook (very "C" hop), though I reckon it could certainly benefit from a little more malt character to back it up. The golden syrup also lends a sort of acrid/tart aftertaste in the back of the mouth that detracts from an otherwise very well made beer. Fermentation is clean, clarity/carbonation/head retention all good. You've done a great job turning this kit into a very well made beer. I reckon if you subbed the Golden syrup for a mini-mash with pale + Munich you'd have a top beer.

Thanks WW.
Hutch.


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## Fourstar (17/7/09)

*18. Kleiny - Traditional Bock *

Clean, malty sweet, toasty/nutty malt aroma with a deep brown appearance and a smooth pillowy head.

Med Carbonation with a full mouthfeel. Rich Deep Maltiness, strong melanoidens, digestive biscuit, nutty with a slight chocolate flavour going on. Slightly sweet in the finish. Very low lingering bitterness, masked mainly by the malty sweetness... Im drooling melanoidens. I notice a small amount of alc warmth too. Considering I usually pick up solvents very easily, Im impressed! At 7% this would usually be crawling with solvents but to me but its very clean.

Seems like you had a very clean ferment Kleiny! Very impressed. if I could get my lagers this clean Id be a very happy man!

As this warmed it turned from being the above to more of a raisin and freshly baked cake aroma/flavour profile. It became very chocolaty to me with the malt getting stronger and stronger. Awesome beer Kleiny, you are now in my top 3! Yep, someone has been bumped! I think I might do my 1st Bock for the Xmas swap! (Probably not the best beer to-do for the heart of summer hey!) maybe Ill sleep on it!

Cheers mate for the AWESOME BEER!


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## Kleiny (18/7/09)

happy you rated it 4stars, now just to brew the munich helles for the xmas swap and see how it stacks up.

Kleiny


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## [email protected] (18/7/09)

#6 sappas - Irish Ale - Approachable aroma, well formed head. Brown, more dark than light, in color. Nice hearty flavor, alot of malt, a bit a fruit, just enough bitterness. Reasonably clean finish, but enough lingering flavor to last until the next chug. Nice quaffer, well suited to the colder months.

:icon_cheers: 
Cheers
Mal


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## Wardhog (18/7/09)

18. Kleiny - Bock

This thing is all about the malt, and it's really well done. It's got that uber-toasted-malt kinda taste to it, with suggestions of raisin. Chuck a gentle warming alcohol into the mix, and it's a good beer for a cold day. Well done, Kleiny.


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## Wardhog (18/7/09)

3. Beerdingo - Dunkelweizen

I think there might be a bit of DMS in this one. Promising beer otherwise, Dom.


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## Wardhog (18/7/09)

? - Wonderwoman - Goldilocks

I will admit to being hesitant about this beer when hearing it had golden syrup in it. But, it works. This is a good beer.
Nice, clean ferment with no obvious issues. I'd probably wind back the flavour hop a bit. It comes across a little bit too strong, it lends a really winey character to the beer that is a little bit out of place.

This would be a great summer beer if you wind back the flavour hops a bit. Keep the golden syrup, it works. Good job on thinking outside the square and making it work.


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## Wardhog (18/7/09)

One more, why the hell not. I'm on babysitting duties for the next 3 weeks, so I won't get to do much sampling...

20. WarmBeer - Franken-Mild

There's a slight astringency in the finish to this beer. Everything is spot on for a really good mild until after you've swallowed the mouthful, then there's an aftertaste that lets it down. Keep everything else and sort out the astringency and it'll be a cracker.


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## brettprevans (18/7/09)

20. WarmBeer - Franken-Mild
didnt get much off this one. no particular flavours. but in saying that, i could have drunk this all night. its was so easy drinking. it was a bit odd there was flavour up front but after a few seconds the flavour seems to dissapear.

10. Q - "Mildly Challenged" dark mild 
loved this. loved it. no idea why but i loved it. strange almost misty smoke flavou from the choc, and then a welk balanced malt and bitterness. top beer.


4. Hairofthedog - Dortmunder export
no idea what it should it taste like. big bitterness and made me think english bitter, but slight butteryness. thick bodied lagerness. not sure.


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## chris.taylor.98 (18/7/09)

WarmBeer said:


> *16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen*
> 
> So smooth, so creamy. Perfect creamy head, and nothing but sweet yeasty smells.
> Having never had this style before, I can't comment on the colour, but it's great to have a change from the usual dark-brown that the majority of this particular swap has brought. Bubbles are tiny, would love to know how you achieve this.
> ...



A bit slow at monitoring this thread.

Not sure about the small bubbles. I carbonated the whole batch at 22C for a week in a temp controlled environment, so that might have had something to do with it.

Glad you liked it.


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## [email protected] (18/7/09)

#10 Q - Mild - Pretty good. I haven't tried this style much before, but this one seemed a bit fuller bodied, nice and malty, a bit of coffee, chocolate, roasty stuff going on, quite tasty. Maybe a bit like an extra special mild (or is that just a dark bitter?). Anway, nice beer.

:icon_cheers: 
Cheers
Mal


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## Hutch (18/7/09)

*4. Hairofthedog - Dortmunder export*
Nice wiff of German hops (Tettnang?), and fantastic dry Malt aroma - really nice malt/hop balance you've got going there (almost tastes like theres a bit of First-wort hopping going on??). For a Dortmunder the bitterness is a little high, on the high end for a German Pilsner in fact (though perhaps there's some water chemistry increasing the perception of bitterness). Couldn't find the recipe for this Troy - would love to learn your secrets! 
Being really critical, the only thing I would do to improve this is scale back the bittering a fraction - otherwise this is a superb Euro lager.

*17. Brewmeister70 - Kolsch*
Not too familiar with Kolsch style, so flying blind here. There is a distinct character that comes through in the aftertaste that is hard to describe - a bit like blue cheese and peanuts (strange mix, I know!). Otherwise, there is not much to note in this beer - very neutral and clean. Crystal clear with good carbonation and head. Low IBUs and minimal hop aroma. No obvious fermentation flaws, other than the peculiar yeast character.

Maybe I should try a few more commercial Kolsch's before I lend you my uneducated ramblings on your beer, Brewmeister!

2 very well made beers. Cheers!
Hutch.


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## chris.taylor.98 (18/7/09)

*3. Beerdingo - Dunkelweizen*

*16. Chris Taylor - Red Weizen*

*24. Don Mateo - "Way out Weizen" - Hefeweizen*

Ok so it had to be done ... 3 wheat beers in the swap.

Had a bunch of people around, including Brendo and Mortz to help with this exercise. And a guy who was lived in Germany for a long time and was continually correcting our pronunciation of all the German words ... who know that Weizen is supposed to be pronounced as Vitzen

Now we made the mistake of warming up with a few American Browns, Scotish Ales then moved on to the Schoefferhofer Hefeweizen then the Weihenstephan Hefeweizen.

While the Schoefferhofer was good the Weihenstephan was absolutely fantastic. Not a great lead in for comparison of home brew variety, the bar was set very high indeed. Both of the commercial varieties had great head, very pronounced but not overly assertive ester and phenolic profiles, and in the case of the weihenstephan just a wonderful soft muted finish with perfect balance between the malt yeast and hops.

.. so where was I ..

Now surprisingly all the homebrew examples came out with remarkably similar flavour profiles.

Don Mateo - "Way out Weizen" had a load of banana, but no real clove to speak of, good supporting malt and absolutely truck loads of diacetyl. Now I really like diacetyl so for me this was not a problem, but if you where judging to style this would get seriously marked down due to this perceived fault. Curiously I see there are some comments about this beer being sweet, but I think that is mainly due to the perception the diacetyl is adding. For me I thought it has actually over attenuated and would have been better with a little more residual sugars left behind to soften it out a bit.

Beerdingo - Dunkelweizen .. by this time my powers of perception where somewhat dimished, thanks to Brendo and Mortz tanking me up on some samples of their latest efforts. I can't rightly remember it being that dark, prehaps a bit on the amber side. There was some distinct clove in there with the bananas, and again a whole heap of diacetyl. BTW went down exceptionally well with some Mexicana pizza.

Chris Taylor - Red Weizen - again loads of banana. Interestingly the clove/bubblegum etc seems to have faded a lot from when I first tried it a week or two back. No agian lots of sweetness but this time from the crystal malts rather than diacetyl. Main difference being you dont get any butterscotch and a lot more body, probably a bit too much for this type of beer. 

Three very similar beers flavour-wise that followed fairly different routes to get there.

The night was finished off by getting into some RIS and other dark beers and watch the TDF till about 2am ... next day was not so pretty.

Thanks Beerdingo and Don Mateo


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## donmateo (19/7/09)

*Hairofthedog - Dortmunder export*
fresh and hops on aroma
clean, well attenuated and quite malty, with pleasant refreshing hop bitterness
haven't tried many examples of this style, but the only thing i
meybe would say is that i thought it could have been a little over
bodied/thick, i enjoyed it a lot.

*Kleiny - Traditional Bock*
don't have too many words for this beer, other than in my opinion
it's at least as good as the finest example of a bock that i've tasted
personally i was absolutely floored by this beer, and was thoroughly
depressed when it was finished. what an experience.
thanks Kleiny - inspirational and spectacular


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## Neill (19/7/09)

17 - Brewmeister70 - Kolsch

Gorgeous. Pale, light and reasonably clear. Background banana flavours which are unobtrusive. Smells divine. Big and clean on the palate, the low IBU's make it an easy drinker.

Having never had a Kolsch before i was in unfamiliar territory with this one, but i did enjoy it immensely!


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## Brewmeister70 (20/7/09)

> *17. Brewmeister70 - Kolsch*
> Not too familiar with Kolsch style, so flying blind here. There is a distinct character that comes through in the aftertaste that is hard to describe - a bit like blue cheese and peanuts (strange mix, I know!). Otherwise, there is not much to note in this beer - very neutral and clean. Crystal clear with good carbonation and head. Low IBUs and minimal hop aroma. No obvious fermentation flaws, other than the peculiar yeast character.
> 
> Maybe I should try a few more commercial Kolsch's before I lend you my uneducated ramblings on your beer, Brewmeister!




I know what you mean about the nutty finish and hard to describe yeast character Hutch. Purvis sell a kolsch that tastes quite good and I got one a long time ago at the Blue Cow Deli in Deer Park but no commercial joy apart from those two. The Purvis beer is here and they also have a Sunner Kolsch which isn't listed on the website.

When I make this again, I think a 90 minute boil will be in order to reduce the sulphur and it would be less "weird" with most of the yeast filtered out, as they do in Cologne. A bit of flavour hop won't be out of place either. To really know the style better, it would be great to try more than the hand full I've managed to taste so far.

Cheers for the review Hutch and the great thing about these swaps is now you know a little more than you did before the swap about how a Kolsch tastes! :icon_cheers:


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## Brewmeister70 (20/7/09)

> 17 - Brewmeister70 - Kolsch
> 
> Gorgeous. Pale, light and reasonably clear. Background banana flavours which are unobtrusive. Smells divine. Big and clean on the palate, the low IBU's make it an easy drinker.
> 
> Having never had a Kolsch before i was in unfamiliar territory with this one, but i did enjoy it immensely!



Cheers for the review Neill! Really happy that you enjoyed it.


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## Wonderwoman (20/7/09)

Hutch said:


> *8. wonderwoman - Goldilocks*
> 
> The Golden Syrup had me slightly apprehensive, but I was quite surprised with this beer. Good flavour and aroma from what seems like Cascade and Chinook (very "C" hop), though I reckon it could certainly benefit from a little more malt character to back it up. The golden syrup also lends a sort of acrid/tart aftertaste in the back of the mouth that detracts from an otherwise very well made beer. Fermentation is clean, clarity/carbonation/head retention all good. You've done a great job turning this kit into a very well made beer. I reckon if you subbed the Golden syrup for a mini-mash with pale + Munich you'd have a top beer.
> 
> ...






Wardhog said:


> ? - Wonderwoman - Goldilocks
> 
> I will admit to being hesitant about this beer when hearing it had golden syrup in it. But, it works. This is a good beer.
> Nice, clean ferment with no obvious issues. I'd probably wind back the flavour hop a bit. It comes across a little bit too strong, it lends a really winey character to the beer that is a little bit out of place.
> ...



Thanks guys. 

I used amarillo for this batch, but I have made other batches with chinook which was also nice (IMO). 

It's interesting that that wardhog thinks I should wind back the hops, cos I was thinking of doubling the hops and substituing some of the golden syrup for DME after trying the bottle from the swap... but as you pointed out it's a nice summer (easy drinking) beer in it's current form

if anyone feels inclined to rate it (good or bad), it's in the recipeDB (http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...&recipe=783). 

sorry about all the beers I haven't reviewed yet - I'm mostly on the forum at work, but my tasting notes are all at home. I only have 2 beers left to try, so I'll get I'll get the reviews on here once I've finished them.


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## scott_penno (20/7/09)

9. seemax - Real Ale K&B
Pours a dark amber/light brown color. Nice head and aroma. Good body that's balanced with bitterness. Nice beer all round.

22. Lucas - Smoked Porter
Poured a dark, almost black color. Nice chocolatey aroma with a subtle hint of smoke. Again that subtle hint of smoke as you drink it but it's not dominant or in your face. 

21. Driveitlikeustoleit - Oatmeal Stout
Slightly darker than the smoked porter in color. Nice chocolate and coffee aromas. Very smooth upon drinking.

Sorry, drank these a few days ago and that's really all I can remember...

sap.


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## Wardhog (20/7/09)

wonderwoman said:


> It's interesting that that wardhog thinks I should wind back the hops, cos I was thinking of doubling the hops and substituing some of the golden syrup for DME after trying the bottle from the swap... but as you pointed out it's a nice summer (easy drinking) beer in it's current form




It all depends on what you want it to be. If you want a certain characteristic to it, make it like that. 

My impression of your beer was that it was a lager, and I evaluated it as such. If it wasn't meant to be a lager, my comments aren't relevant.
Don't let me tell you WHAT to brew, I (and everyone else) want to help with HOW to brew what you want better.


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## Wonderwoman (20/7/09)

Wardhog said:


> It all depends on what you want it to be. If you want a certain characteristic to it, make it like that.
> 
> My impression of your beer was that it was a lager, and I evaluated it as such. If it wasn't meant to be a lager, my comments aren't relevant.
> Don't let me tell you WHAT to brew, I (and everyone else) want to help with HOW to brew what you want better.




I have no intention of letting you tell me WHAT to brew, I was merely commenting that it's interesting how different each person's perception can be of the same beer.


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## Fourstar (20/7/09)

wonderwoman said:


> I have no intention of letting you tell me WHAT to brew, I was merely commenting that it's interesting how different each person's perception can be of the same beer.



To throw antoher spanner into the works, my personal opinion would be to wind back the golden syrup.  Either way, its my perception on taste, that in itself is quite a subjective matter. Decent beer either way, all things noted, they are calls for adjustment to their palate, not yours unfortunatly.

Cheers!


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## Wardhog (20/7/09)

25. Benny - Lemon Ale

This is different. I've never had a beer like this.

It keeps a good head and is visually appealing and I can't find any fermentation faults, but I'm at a loss about the flavour. Maybe lemon in a beer works, but not that much lemon. If you kept the lemon flavour to a much lower level, this would be a fantastic summer beer.


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## Fourstar (20/7/09)

*24. Don Mateo - "Way out Weizen" - Hefeweizen*

Dark gold to orange in appearance, served mine 'mit hefe'. deep haze from some of the trub/bottle yeast. Big head which dissipated to a thin lacy creaminess. Heaps of Clove phenols with some slight fruity banana esters coming through. Slightly doughy presence as well. Low carbonation and a full mouth feel, quite thick/heavy (probably due to the low carbonation.) Mines almost flat. It poured great! 

Sweet sweet pilsner malt presence with a lingering doughiness on the palate, rather bready. Backed up with full on clove flavours. Im getting some diacetyl on the palate but there was none on the nose. (Maybe its a bad day for me) it could be vanilla characteristics if Im mistaken. Hop bitterness is light. Finishes quite smooth with some lingering wheat characteristics and fruitiness.

Quite quaffable. Only downside was the low carbonation. Biggest improvement Id go for is a lower mash temp and higher carbonation as this was quite full on the palate. Other than that, a decent beer Don! very phenolic!

Cheers!


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## Fourstar (20/7/09)

*22. Lucas - Smoked Porter*
*
*Deep black with ruby highlights. Roasty, acrid aroma with some light toffee, sweetness coming through. Rather clean ferment profile... uber mild smokiness on the aroma.. Smells more roast like than Smokey to me. Rather clean fermentation profile... quite neutral.

Carbonation mild with medium to full palate.

Truckloads of roast, chocolate, toffee on the palate. Quite clean with some slight roasty acrid flavours in the aftertaste. Im sure its the smoked malt doing all of this as Im tasting BBQ's. Overall it finishes quite sweet with a lingering bitterness and toasty smoky flavour. I could so go some pulled pork right about now. A perfectly balanced beer.

I was expecting the smoke malt to jump out and slap me in the face so Im unsure if its best to be subdued in this beer or as flamboyant as a kings-cross gay couple. Either way, regardless if its a smoked porter or a robust porter its got one thing going for it... BALANCE!

If it was in a comp, it would probably mark low as its got a low smoke character. Entered as a robust however, it would probably mark in the top 40's for sure. Lucas, you have crafted an awesome beer here mate. Definitely need to take a gander at that recipe of yours as its a winner.

I'll say it, I dont know if its the pints talking but....

Best beer for the whole swap! (And Im not one to usually rate dark beers so highly).

Cheers mate, AWESOME!


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## Leigh (21/7/09)

6. sappas - Better Red Than Dead Irish Ale

Drank this last night, so apologies for the brief notes.

Awesome beer sappas, well balanced, good carbonation, easy drinking. However I did note slight diacetyl as it warmed.


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## Hutch (21/7/09)

*22. Lucas - Smoked Porter*

Lucus, I had this one as well last night, and can concur with 4Star's comments almost entirely. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's the best of the swap, as I'm just not a big fan of porter's, however it was clearly a VERY well made beer none the less, so cudos for having your brewing process well under control.
Unfortunately, due to many toddler-induced sleepless nights, I fell asleep after half a pint(!), so please forgive me for wasting the fruits of your labour!  

Cheers, Hutch.


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## beerDingo (21/7/09)

25. Benny - Lemon Ale
I agree with Wardy, ie.,this is different. Can you post the recipe? The girls that were over thought it was great. I enjoyed it, but not too sure if I could go a whole session on them.

Also had a Porter (think it was 22 - Lucas - Smoked Porter) - I really enjoyed this beer. It was my last swap beer, so had to savour it!

Thanks to all for the great beers! Just gotta pick up my game for the next swap.


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## hairyson (21/7/09)

Wardhog said:


> 25. Benny - Lemon Ale
> 
> This is different. I've never had a beer like this.
> 
> It keeps a good head and is visually appealing and I can't find any fermentation faults, but I'm at a loss about the flavour. Maybe lemon in a beer works, but not that much lemon. If you kept the lemon flavour to a much lower level, this would be a fantastic summer beer.


We've had some better success balancing the lemon against some wheat malt recently, and it seems to be a much better result (sorry case swappers!). I have to agree that the lemon is a bit strong. Hoping that the lime we used in the last batch will be a better taste, and milder.
ben.


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## Leigh (21/7/09)

25. Benny - lemon ale 

Carbonation levels were good, colour is a light orange-yellow, a distinctive citiric acid smell overpowers the malts and hops. On tasting, the malt profile is somewhat affected by the acid, after taste is like drinking some freshly squeezed lemon juice that has been diluted. Possibly a bit strong on the lemon juice IMO.


23. Shortz - EoX Porter 

Dark red in colour, nice carbonation levels. Slight chocolate on the nose. Taste has mild roast with subtle chocolate undertones. A really nice porter shortz. This beer is in the top 3-4 beers IMO. Rooks 3-shades turned me to the dark side, this one has cemented that position. It will be hard to decide whether I have this one or Rooks on tap next winter!


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## Wardhog (21/7/09)

Dammit Leigh, I told you to stop doing that

23. Shortz - EoX Porter 

A very visually appealing ruby beer that pours with a nice fluffy head. High levels of roast with balanced bitterness at first goes really well, but there's a lingering finish that seems a little bit astringent to me. Everything else is really really good, only that astringency is letting it down.


And that's the end of my case. Quality in this case has been up on average over the last 3 cases, well done everyone. There was a lot of really good beers, but extra tips of the hat to sappas and Neill, theirs stood out for me.


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## Hutch (21/7/09)

*12. mcook - American IPA*

Bloody nice beer this one. Certainly bigger abv of the 2 AIPA's in the swap - there's some real alcohol warmth there (I'm guessing at least 7+%abv), hopping is quite subdued for the style (probably more towards APA territory). I'm a self confessed hop-head, though this is still immensely enjoyable, with a nice mix of hops that work well together. Could easily cope with a bigger hop profile, even a little dry-hopping to suit the style.

Very clean fermentation (nice job there), good clarity and carb, and lovely golden amber colour. I let this one warm up over a few hours, and it is still drinking well. Great malt/hop balance. Bitterness is there but not excessive, and there's a lovely smooth caramel/Munich malt sweetness that goes down too easily. 

Stylistically, I guess this would be at the low end in the hops department (IBU's and late additions). Would be a superb APA if you dropped the alcohol a few percent.

Cheers for a top beer mcook.
Hutch.


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## donmateo (21/7/09)

*1. Peels - Black Beer*
pours black black, with an impressive long lasting dark tan head
aroma of roast and coffee
thought this was nicely balanced, and highly drinkable
love the way it just mellows out so quickly, and leaves lingering
some roast and coffee on the tongue
enjoyed this beer

*15. Fourstar - American IPA*
pours a nice bright copper with a creamy head
deep hop aroma
have to say, not really being a hop head, i normally don't appreciate a lot
the higher hopped beers, esp american style, but for me there was something
curiously moreish, and delicious about this beer
found the hop profile and lingering aftertaste extremely pleasant and satisfying
thanks Fourstar - this may be a turning point for me for this style of beer


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## Fourstar (22/7/09)

Don Mateo said:


> *15. Fourstar - American IPA*
> This may be a turning point for me for this style of beer



Sounds like you are having a Lupulin Threshold Shift..... nice! :icon_drool2: 

Ive been reading Zymurgys latest edition focused on IPA... Vinnie C from russian river isnt interested in sweeter balanced IPAs for some reason. Finds them more like a barley wine. T on the other hand love em. im thinking of doing a Blind Pig AIPA clone soon. see how Vinnies recipes hold up!


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## Neill (22/7/09)

25 - Benny's Lemon Ale

I'm drinking this right now and it's quite pleasant. Perfect carbonation, tiny bubble size that tickles the palate. small head that dissapated to light foam quickly. Perhaps because i'm drinking it 'late' i can't taste a massive whack of lemon, maybe just a tiny bit in the background but it's not pronounced and i was expecting a lot more actually. Great bitterness balance and an easy drinker. Will let it warm up a bit as i finish the longneck and see if it changes at all.

Good beer benny!


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## Neill (22/7/09)

yep, as i thought - it's warming up a bit and i can taste a hint of the lemon in the background. not real strong though, must have mellowed a bit over the weeks since the swap.

jesus, what ABV is this? i'm 3/4 through the longneck and i'm feeling it!


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## Fourstar (22/7/09)

*25. Benny - lemon ale*

Bright gold in appearance, holds a thick lacy head. Sweet toffee, golden syrup like.. reminds me of goldilocks! no hop aroma, rather sweet on the very low fermentation profile. Its very clean. i am getting some yesty breadyness, it may be some munich malt maybe? A slight doughiness.

Full palate with moderate bitterness. very doughy on the palate, sweet and finishes with a sugary, slightly lomony profile, tastes more like the smell of lemons more so than the sourness of lemons. finishes quite dry, slightly bitter with the continuing theme of doughyness.

Was this made AG? im unsure why im getting this 'dough' flavour... reminds me of the smell/taste of yeasty bread dough. Maybe its the lemon throwing me off. the more i think amout it the more i think of traditional lemonade mixed into beer... a pre-mix 'shandy' if you will.

Nice beer for the ladies or a hot summers day. Interesting work Benny, im sure its a decent lawnmower beer.

Cheers! :icon_cheers:


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## Leigh (22/7/09)

20. WarmBeer - Franken-Mild 

Bottle was a little spongy, but not overly so, Not overly fizzy on pouring, but still retained a pub foam to the bottom of the glass creating some nice lacing. Colour is consistent with a mild. 

On tasting, this is a very well balanced beer with hints of malt and choc with a mild roast. Just a touch of sweetness on the back of the pallette.

Another great brew!


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## Hutch (22/7/09)

*3. Beerdingo - Dunkelweizen*

Top weizen Dingo. Carbonation good, and exceptional creamy head retention - lasted the length of the glass. Rich cara notes, some banana, clove-dominated phenolics. Quite dry in the finish - interesting contrast to Chris Taylor's SWEEEEET beer!

Not much more to add. Top three for me.

Thanks Beerdino.
HUtch.


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## seemax (22/7/09)

Down to my last few now...

benny's lemon
Not quite a shandy, much better than Bitburgers lemon infused beer offering. I quite liked it, but I do love tart citrus flavours. Nice clean ferment, low bitterness and good overall lemon background flavours. Nice one.

Just polished off the smoked choc porter, quite good, a little subtle for me, but nice dose of choc malt.

Almost done on warhogs vienna lager , which I'm enjoying... but i'm too far gone to provide any further details...


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## Neill (23/7/09)

*12. mcook - American IPA*

Nice one mate! best head retention of any of the beers yet, perfect carbonation too. holding a 1cm head all the way down, looks great and nice and clear too. The flavour is well balanced, i was expecting more heavy hopping but it's a bit more malty if anything. the bitterness is spot on, it's big and full on the palate with almost a caramel type flavour in there. I can't describe beer well but this is very enjoyable. Top work!


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## Fourstar (23/7/09)

*20. WarmBeer - Franken-Mild *

Deep brown in appearance, poureed with a dense head which dissipated to thin tan coloured foam. slightly estery with some roast shining through. No hop profile on the nose, relativly clean.

Low carbonation with a thin mouthfeel. Quite minerally. (any water additions?) Slight crystal sweetness pushed out by some chocolate notes and rugged roastiness. Impression is more like a low IBU stout if anything. slighlty lacking in body and seems to have a little too much roast. needs a little more complexity with the malt flavours. The finish is really roasty/minerally with a smight hoppy bitterness... very mild. 

Tastes quite good WarmBeer, ive just had a hunt and found your recipe. i'd say if this was all grain or had something to give it abit of a back-bone it would be a top end mild, quite quaffable nonetheless. With the high ABV and thinning the body, it may be detracting somewhat from being a malty, sweet, roasty mild to more of a brown porter/ dry stout territory. Either way it tastes great.

Hats off to another decent beer! :icon_cheers:


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## Leigh (24/7/09)

8. wonderwoman - Goldilocks 

Unfortunately mine was flat as a tack, but nonetheless, I still drank a glass full it was so good. A little on the sweet side, but I think the carbonation acidity might balance it just enough to make it a top notch beer. I've chucked some sugar into what was left in the bottle and put back in my fermentation cupboard to give it another go next week.

3. Beerdingo - Dunkelweizen

Another great beer. A little syrupy and sweet to start with, but once the palatte adjusted this beer went down a treat!


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## WarmBeer (24/7/09)

Leigh said:


> 8. wonderwoman - Goldilocks
> 
> Unfortunately mine was flat as a tack, but nonetheless, I still drank a glass full it was so good. A little on the sweet side, but I think the carbonation acidity might balance it just enough to make it a top notch beer. I've chucked some sugar into what was left in the bottle and put back in my fermentation cupboard to give it another go next week.
> 
> ...



Dude, 2:45 in the arvo, and you're two longnecks down!

I am soooooo jealous right now


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## Wonderwoman (24/7/09)

Leigh said:


> 8. wonderwoman - Goldilocks
> 
> Unfortunately mine was flat as a tack, but nonetheless, I still drank a glass full it was so good. A little on the sweet side, but I think the carbonation acidity might balance it just enough to make it a top notch beer. I've chucked some sugar into what was left in the bottle and put back in my fermentation cupboard to give it another go next week.



thanks leigh - if you want to try one that's properly carbonated I'm in murrumbeena and happy to give you another bottle.


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## seemax (24/7/09)

wonderwoman said:


> thanks leigh - if you want to try one that's properly carbonated I'm in murrumbeena and happy to give you another bottle.



We almost have enough people to form a south-eastern suburbs brew club with me in east bentleigh and warmbeer in mckinnon !!

Warmbeer, I'm postponing the brew tonight due to lack of sleep, maybe next week. Perhaps Wonderwoman would like to join us also ?


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## Wonderwoman (24/7/09)

seemax said:


> We almost have enough people to form a south-eastern suburbs brew club with me in east bentleigh and warmbeer in mckinnon !!
> 
> Warmbeer, I'm postponing the brew tonight due to lack of sleep, maybe next week. Perhaps Wonderwoman would like to join us also ?



sounds good! I've done one BIAB and plan to do a second this weekend, but I'd like to see how other people do it, cos writen instructions never convey as much as watching someone else in action. I'll PM you my details. warmbeer should already have me number from the beer swap.


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## scott_penno (24/7/09)

OK. So I'm a little confused here. I have a beer that has some red tape on it with the number 27 written on it but it's not a Vienna Lager. And it has mark_m written on a label on the side which indicates that it's an APA with a list of ingredients. So I'm not really sure which of the 26 beers this is.

Anyway. It is definitely an APA which pours a nice golden color with a moderate white head which dissipated but didn't vanish completely. Subtle hop aroma - a hint of amarillo there. Good body. Quite gentle in terms of bitterness too. Hope flavor is also subtle. Think I should have drunk this a few weeks ago...


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## Fourstar (24/7/09)

sappas said:


> OK. So I'm a little confused here. I have a beer that has some red tape on it with the number 27 written on it but it's not a Vienna Lager. And it has mark_m written on a label on the side which indicates that it's an APA with a list of ingredients. So I'm not really sure which of the 26 beers this is.



Nope its wardhogs vienna lager.. see pic below for comparison.. he reused bottles from the last swap


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## Leigh (24/7/09)

wonderwoman said:


> thanks leigh - if you want to try one that's properly carbonated I'm in murrumbeena and happy to give you another bottle.



Sort of in the middle of nowhere out near Beaconsfield...still south east, just a little further out. The bottle seems to be firming up now with the 2/3 I didn't drink, so I'll give it another taste test in a few days.

Cheers for the offer :beer: 



WarmBeer said:


> Dude, 2:45 in the arvo, and you're two longnecks down!
> 
> I am soooooo jealous right now



Nah, late thoughts on last nights brews LOL...but I like your thinking!


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## scott_penno (25/7/09)

Fourstar said:


> Nope its wardhogs vienna lager.. see pic below for comparison.. he reused bottles from the last swap



Thanks Fourstar - that's the beer. OK. Well I got more hops than malt out of it. Maybe it's the cold season that's affecting smell and taste. No solvent-type aromas or flavors either though. An easy-drinking beer.


10. Q - "Mildly Challenged" dark mild

Toasty, malty. I found quite a few similarities with the Irish Red Ale I brewed but also plenty of difference. Nice drop.

sap.


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## [email protected] (25/7/09)

#11 Leigh - Australian Lager: Very well presented beer, nicely carbonated, pours light and clear, with a nicely formed head. Only a hint of POR hops in aroma and taste, quite dry with balanced bitterness. Probably would have been better on a hot summers day, didn't really go with the food I was having (calamari with a splash of lemon juice) -- as the food flavors seemed to mangle the taste of the beer (and the lemon juice aftertaste from the food seemed to make the beer taste even drier). On the whole, well made, for mine it could have done with a bit more sweetness (only a fraction).

:icon_cheers: 

Cheers
Mal


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## WarmBeer (26/7/09)

*8. wonderwoman - Goldilocks*

Pours nice and clear, with a beautiful white head. Great looking beer. Nicely carbonated, even though it has been out in the cold, cold garage, and the yeast flocc'ed pretty solidly to the bottom of the bottle even on the second pour. Good, not too subtle, not too full-on hop aroma.

Had read some other comments about it being too sweet, and from the smell of it I am expecting exactly the same. But, on tasting, there's a crispness that balances out the sweetness, making this a really easy drinking beer. 

Good one, Pauline, looking forward to your next swap beer, especially now I find out you're BIAB'ing.


*8. Kleiny - Traditional Bock*

Pours dark, with a minimal head that doesn't hang around long. Mmmmmmm, smells...malty.

Boom!, first taste is full on malt, malt and more malt. Only afterwards do I start to discern the yeast in the background. Love your ability to balance all that maltiness with a good amount of bitterness, without getting a cloying mouthfeel.

Yum, I want another, but failing that, I'll settle for the recipe.


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## Neill (26/7/09)

*8 - Wonderwoman - Mexican Cerveza with golden syrup*

as above. was concerned about the sweetness of this one so deliberately let it mellow for a good 6 weeks before cracking it. this beer has certainly changed a lot since the initial tastings because mine wasn't overly sweet at all, in fact i can barely discern the golden syrup in the background and it is well balanced. if anything mine is lacking flavour somewhat, there's not a lot of hop or malt going on, but it's super clean and very easy to drink. going down very well after coming in from a round of golf.

Good stuff!


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## Wonderwoman (27/7/09)

thanks Neill and warmbeer

the longer you leave the goldilocks the less sweetness you get as the golden syprup ferments out. I thought that 4 weeks would be enough time to get a good balance, hence the recommendation to drink after the 11/7, but maybe it needed 6 weeks... but then again, it all comes down to personal taste... anyway, glad you liked it!


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## therook (27/7/09)

*27. Wardhog - Vienna lager *

Was really looking forward to this beer but when i opened it , it was as flat as a shit carters hat. I gave it the old syringe trick and this help with the head.

Nice clear beer with a nice malt flavour, i could detect some sort of spicy taste which i'm pretty sure isn't to style...

What yeast did you use Wardy?

Apart from the carbonation problem not a bad beer.

*3. Beerdingo - Dunkelweizen*

As per Hutch's comment, a really enjoyable beer. I drank this after sitting down to a big feed of lamb Shanks.

Thanks Wardy and Dingo.

Rook


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## Leigh (27/7/09)

WarmBeer said:


> *8. Kleiny - Traditional Bock*
> 
> Pours dark, with a minimal head that doesn't hang around long. Mmmmmmm, smells...malty.
> 
> ...



What more can I add to that? Bloody nice beer Kleiny!

Just got the Goldilocks re-taste to go.


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## brettprevans (30/7/09)

well ive drank a few more but cant find my notes. I liked all of them. even if one or 2 werent a personal favourite style they were a great quality of beers which is what you want.

I also think that if anyone's got their recipe on the AHB database that other should rank the recipe if it was a good beer. I suppose we could edit the wiki so people can indicate where there recipe is on the db?


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## Fourstar (30/7/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> I also think that if anyone's got their recipe on the AHB database that other should rank the recipe if it was a good beer. I suppose we could edit the wiki so people can indicate where there recipe is on the db?



Thats not a bad idea CM2. The whole idea of joining the swap for me was to try the beers out in the community and get some decent recipes out of it too. Might not hurt if we all add our recipes up (if you are willing to divulge) and mark them for rating as you noted.

Cheers! :icon_cheers:


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## WarmBeer (30/7/09)

WarmBeer's Franken-Mild recipe

So called because it was initially so bland it was going to get tipped. 

A little rescue effort with some additional choc + black malt steeped and then boiled for 10 mins with an additional 15g of Goldings, all after primary fermentation had finished, and I managed to get some taste back into it. 

My victory cry upon tasting the new, improved beer was "It is ALIVE!!!"


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## brettprevans (30/7/09)

CM2 - Kenzie Dunkle
this certainly got better with age. glad i did a double batch.


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## Fourstar (30/7/09)

This is the discussion topic for the recipe: AIPA - Xmas in July '09


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## Quintrex (30/7/09)

Ok a few taste notes, well from memory anyway

Peels Black beer

Nice beer, however I felt like it needed just a pinch of something and it would've been a great beer. Not sure if it needed more roastiness/more bitterness/ or more acidity however by the end of the glass found it needed some balance.

Don't get me wrong though I thought it was very easy drinking, just felt like it needed a pinch of something else to balance it.


Rook - 3 Shades Stout

Rook ya bastard this was probably the cloudiest beer i've had all swap  trust you to give me the last bottle outta the fermenter .
That being said was a lovely drop, not overly roasty and it has a really broad flavour that was nicely balanced.
Lovely beer

Cheers for some great beers guys


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## Fourstar (30/7/09)

*10. Q - "Mildly Challenged" dark mild*

Mahogany to dark brown with wispy foam. Aroma of light malty nuttiness with some sweetness in the background. Slightly phenolic on the nose with a lingering munich/kilned malt toasty/breadyness.

High carbonation with a moderate body. Falvour seems to be somewhat high in mineral content (carbonates/ Mg maybe?) unsure if this is water modification or yeast derived. I get some mild roasty flavours up front with some sweet maltiness in the finish. the finish is dry and lingering with some ashy and toasty malt flavours. no real hop flavour noticable and bitterness (which is negligible in this style anyway) is masked by the astringency of the malts.

Quite a decent beer Q! 

Cheers! :icon_cheers:


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## Fourstar (30/7/09)

*23. Shortz - EoX Porter *

Deep brown with a light tan head. Nutty with a sweet chocolate aroma, im getting some light solvent/acetaldehyde notes. Hot upfront alc warmth on the palate with a thin mouthfeel and high carbonation. Some malty nuttiness comes through on the palate with sweet crystal and a chocolaty roastyness. The bitterness is quite firm and the finish is rather acrid like in the roast flavour, slightly ashy. Solvency lingers also in the finish with some bready malty doughyness (may be slightly yeasty). Overall an everyday presentation of the style, not knowing your recipe im taking a guess. It might need less of the black malts (if any used) or some adjustments in the recipe to knock back the roasts. Dont forget fermentation control to clean up the solvents. 

Decent work either way shortz!


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## WarmBeer (30/7/09)

12. mcook - American IPA

Pours nicely, forming a tightly packed, half cm, almost pure white head. Totally clear, very appealing golden amber colour. Nice light hop aroma, that just gets better the deeper you breath it in.

Taste is clean, good strong hops, which lingers, but without the resiny after-taste you sometimes get with an AIPA. Slightly sweet, but it is well balanced by the bitterness. This is a really well made beer, thanks mcook.


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## therook (31/7/09)

*10. Q - "Mildly Challenged" dark mild *

Nice colour and clarity Q.

I get a ashy flavour with a hint of chocolate in the background which finishes off with the hop bitterness

Nice easy drinking Mild to have on a cold winters night, pitty its Friday lunch time :icon_cheers: 

Well balanced beer Q but this is expected of your beers......

Rook :icon_chickcheers:


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## Fourstar (31/7/09)

therook said:


> I get a ashy flavour with a hint of chocolate in the background which finishes off with the hop bitterness



I'd say its probabaly from the black malt, i get this note every time i use it.

So, wehn are we doing our beerswap rooky? Ive bottled you up a bottle of the 3rd Place Sweet Stout for ya ready to go!


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## therook (31/7/09)

*20. WarmBeer - Franken-Mild *

Trying this straight after Q's.....2 different types of Milds. This is a lot thinner and not as strong in flavours as Q's but nether less a very easy drinking beer.

Nice mild maltiness with a sweet aroma.

Good beer Warmbeer.

Rook


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## Brewmeister70 (1/8/09)

17. Brewmeister70's Kolsch 

Also glad this was a double batch. It really did taste boring out of the kettle but that Wyeast 2565 is like no other I've tried and really does make distinctly flavoured beer. Thanks for the feedback guys.

Cheers,

Brewmeister70 :icon_cheers:


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## [email protected] (1/8/09)

#18 Kleiny - Bock : Crisp malt-driven flavor. Quite a clean crisp taste, bit of roast, hides the alcohol remarkably well. Nice finish on the palate. A really excellent example of the style, if I could brew this style as good as this I would be really pleased. Maybe a tie for first place in my book.

:icon_cheers: 
Cheers
Mal


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## brettprevans (3/8/09)

*Fents 2 - Bitsa Pale Ale *
Fents has this last night. but i then had quite a few more so i dont remember anything else other than it being a great beer. great carbonation. great flavour. would loved to have had another couple. 
Ive got about 400kg of grain atm and woudltn you know it, no carafoam or carared. otherwise ive got everything else for this recipe.


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## WarmBeer (3/8/09)

citymorgue2 said:


> [
> Ive got about 400kg of grain atm and woudltn you know it, no carafoam or carared. otherwise ive got everything else for this recipe.


Watcha doing with that much grain? Stocking up for the impending apocalypse?


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## brettprevans (3/8/09)

its from the recent bulk buy. and what am i going to do with it....make beer of course! im planning on some hard core brewing soon. besides it sets me up for a while. ive got a heap of base and specialty grains now.


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## Supra-Jim (3/8/09)

WarmBeer said:


> Watcha doing with that much grain?



He heard the voices "If you brew it, they will come...." now where did that tin foil hat go?  

Cheers SJ


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## WarmBeer (3/8/09)

Supra-Jim said:


> He heard the voices "If you brew it, they will come...." now where did that tin foil hat go?
> 
> Cheers SJ


Please no, no more references to bad 80's movies starring Kevin Costner. 

I still haven't forgiven myself for wasting 3 hours of my life watching The Postman.


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## chris.taylor.98 (11/8/09)

ok still working my through the swap .. been a bit slack and not taking notes ... here is what a remember over the last month or so:

*14. Hutch - California Common*

Really nice beer, reminded me a lot of Hairofthedog's Dortmunder export, for this style was lacking that woody minty flavour that I have tried in other California Common Ales, but still very tasty drop


*11. Leigh - Australian "Plain Jane" Lager *
Sorry Leigh, this one was a bit acetic by the time I got around to it. Pity cause it looked fantastic in the glass.

Last night had a bottle with what looked like an "N" or "Z" on the lid
Not sure who's it was but went down a treat.


*1. Peels - Black Beer*

Oh how I love those black beers. Lots of roast and some astringency off the malt ( presumably some black or brown malt in there as well ). Great combo of dark malts, flaked barely really seems to fill it out a bit too.


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## Fourstar (11/8/09)

Yeah, i have like 3left.. one well be stuck in the fridge for a chill down. Peels, Dingo or Drive it.... only time will tell


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## Fourstar (11/8/09)

*3. Beerdingo's - Dunkelweizen*

Orange to copper in appearance, with a fluffy head, some decent phenolics, deep clove with a lingering banana ester. almost like i detect a hint of diacetyl/toffee note... might be crystal malt. Wheaty/bready and sweet malt also on the nose.

Moderate carbonation with a meduim-full mouthfeel which has a creaminss to it. A chewy malt falvour backed up by decent phenolic/estery profile on the palate, very clovey! The yest profile is very upfront, some maltiness/breadcrust in the finish, quite rich but finishes sweet malt and screams drink me now!

Kickass Dingo! Just what the doctor ordered! Ive so got todo myself a Dunkelweizen, maybe that will be the followup to me hefe when i get around to whipping one out.

Cheers! :chug:


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## chris.taylor.98 (17/8/09)

*6. sappas - Better Red Than Dead Irish Ale*


Mmmmm ... malty goodness.

Drinking it "warm" (well 10C warm) just like the brewer ordered.

Really like the effect that little bit of roast malt imparts, and this beer just reaffirms why I need to use that Irish Ale yeast more often.

Despite the high OG seems to finish reasonably dry.

Top drop Sappas.


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## Kleiny (20/8/09)

Anybody had a taste of the Green Bullet SMASH or DrS that was brewed on the day yet.


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## Leigh (20/8/09)

Yes, but keep forgetting to post notes when I have some (trying to get my pale ale keg to blow so I can get my first AG Alt in there  )

Anyways, here tis:

xx. Melbourne Case Swap - SMASH 

Pours with a fluffy full head, bordering on golden in colour. Smell is very fresh, slight malt and a bit "grassy". Taste, very mild maltiness. Very resiny on the pallate with a grassy bitterness over the back of the tongue.

I think the resiness and grassyness is due to the amount of hops used. Buggered if I can think of how to explain it any other way.

Overall though, a damn fine beer. Everybody I have given a taste has come back for more.


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## Kleiny (20/8/09)

Awesome leigh, im just about to crack the keg on this one and now im actually looking forward to it.

With amount brewed on the day i thought somebody would have posted about it by now.

Kleiny


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## Kleiny (21/8/09)

Green Bullet SMASH

As expected pours with a golden hue and clear 

Smell is grassy with very low maltyness, mostly hops showing through

Taste is low and clean malt flavour slightly toffee, Green bullet shines through with a good bitterness, raisiny / piny and grassy finish, long lasting bitterness.

This beer is doing exactly what i wanted it too, show what Green Bullet hops are about. I wouldn't say they where the greatest hop around but give a nice bitterness and aroma. This beer is drinkable and coming into spring i think it will be a favorite for those warmer days, with its low maltyness and nice bitter kick.

Kleiny


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## WarmBeer (22/8/09)

*Vic Xmas in July - Dr Smurto's Golden Ale*

This is the other batch we brewed on the day, I took home a 17lt cube, and topped it up with about 4 litres of water. Fermented with US-05 at 19deg and dry hopped with 10g of Amarillo on day 5. Gelatined at day 14, bottled on 16.

The beer has turned out beautifully clear, a pale yellow, with a hint of golden. Pure white head, good aroma, not too strong, as it was only a small-ish dose of dry hops.

Mouth-feel is medium to light, I probably diluted it a little too much, should have added less water. It tastes just like JS Golden Ale used to taste 3 odd years ago, only better.

I could go on and on about diacetyls, esthers, etc, etc, but the best summary of this beer is: This is the beer that has tipped me over the point to wanting to move to All Grain.


Big thanks to Kleiny and Hutch for their exceptional efforts on the day, can't wait for a good catch up at Chez Klein in November.


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## Wardhog (22/8/09)

Kleiny said:


> Anybody had a taste of the Green Bullet SMASH or DrS that was brewed on the day yet.




Mine got infected and had to be tipped, so unfortunately no trip report here. 

I'm interested though, which other hop would you compare Green Bullet to?


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## therook (28/8/09)

*2. Fents - Bitsa Pale Ale*

Just washing down my Ham and Pickle sandwich with this beer.
There is no hope of tasting anything else for the rest of the day, bitter +++++
Lovely colour, nice maltiness and nice hop flavour with a great big head on it
Over carbed but that is easily overcome by letting it sit there for a couple of minutes before drinking
Probably the best beer of yours i have tasted in all the case swaps

Bloody top drop Fentos

Rook


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## Fents (28/8/09)

i should of called it bitter and twisted.

glad you enjoyed champ.


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## therook (31/8/09)

*6. sappas - Better Red Than Dead Irish Ale*

2nd best beer of the swap for me so far

Enjoyed this beer while watching the Doggies giving it to the soft in big pressure game Pies.......Suck it in Troy........nearly as good as watching Campbell Brown walking of the ground crying after loosing the fights and the game

Geez this was a nice beer, lots of maltiness, great thick creamy head that lasted to the end, carbonation maybe a tad high but once again i let it sit for a bit.
Great colour. Hop bitterness was just about spot on with the balance of malt in this beer....
I'm just not sure if a true irish ale would have Munich in it....

Thanks for a great beer Sappas

Rook


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## Fourstar (30/9/09)

Reviving this old goat of a thread... 2 final beers to knock off tonight. Saved the darkest for last (peels)!

21. Driveitlikeustoleit - Oatmeal Stout

Light roasty aroma, some chocolate, coffee and light toffee notes. slight fruit aromas, otherwise quite clean. Almost black opaque, a thick dense brown head which dissipates to a light foam. 

Moderate mouthfeel with some smooth buttery chewyness on the teeth (assuming the oats?) Malty characteristics upfront but finishes dry and acrid. Slightly smokey on the palate with some burnt huskiness. Roast lingers in the finish. Malt roastyness takes center stage with no apparent hop bitterness/flavour detectable/masked by the roastyness. Its as expected in the style.

Very good beer mate. It fits really well as an oatmeal stout, leaning more towards a dry stout over a sweet. Nonetheless it quenches the thirst and is a well crafted beer. Kudos!

Cheers!


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## Fourstar (30/9/09)

1. Peels - Black Beer

Nutty coffee, cocoa and some toffee on the nose too. Ace of spades black, opaque, not a sight of yeast (id expect so considering the conditioning time). Tan fluffy head which dropped abck quite quickly. Very mild carbonation. Moderate-full mouthfeel with a velvet feel. Flavour resonates the aroma, coffee/roasty/ mild acrid notes. Bitterness is clean, with some husky malty overtones in the finish. Over all a cleansing Black beer.

I was expecting something to slap me in the face. Wery unoffending. I'd almost consider this to be a gateway stout. Either that or driveits stout killed my palate! Thanks for the awesome beer.

Well thats everything, can't wait for the xmas swap beers!

Cheers!


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## chris.taylor.98 (7/10/09)

Call me slow, but I am still yet to kill off this case.

*mcooks - APA*

Really enjoying this one ... plenty of hops with enough malt to carry it through.

Now all I need is a bit of warm spring weather to go with.


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## Kleiny (7/10/09)

Gives you a few more beers to fill out BJCP sheets on for experience points.


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## brettprevans (1/5/10)

Thread ressurection!

Just opened Troy (drivelukeustoleit) oatmeal stout. Only a year late. Aside from foaming like a devil possefed I recon I could caulk the bathroom with that head! Stiff as, tight white and tasty. Lovtly roasty stout but with less slickness than I expected. A suburb smooth stout with great roasty grain aroma. Great body and flavours. Well balanced. Top beer troy top beer. Glad I saved it to savour on a good occation (like my bday eve).


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## WarmBeer (1/5/10)

citymorgue2 said:


> Thread ressurection!
> 
> Just opened Troy (drivelukeustoleit) oatmeal stout. Only a year late. Aside from foaming like a devil possefed I recon I could caulk the bathroom with that head! Stiff as, tight white and tasty. Lovtly roasty stout but with less slickness than I expected. A suburb smooth stout with great roasty grain aroma. Great body and flavours. Well balanced. Top beer troy top beer. Glad I saved it to savour on a good occation (like my bday eve).


Wow, your patience is astonishing.

Happy Birthday for tomorrow, Bretto!


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