# Great northern.... I’m sorry



## hooper80 (8/2/19)

Hey guys. Mates want me to brew it. Got any ideas? I read it has no hops in the boil whatsoever!!! Eww


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## Mat (8/2/19)

Haha love the thread title. 

Can't help out much on the recipe though unfortunately. 

I know CUB use pride of ringwood and danish/Copenhagen lager yeast in a lot of their beers. 

Hopefully someone can guide you in the right direction and not cop too much shit for making a mega swill. 

Cheers.


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## Reg Holt (8/2/19)

hooper80 said:


> Hey guys. Mates want me to brew it. Got any ideas? I read it has no hops in the boil whatsoever!!! Eww


I have brewed some great beers with no hops in the boil, the hops can go in at flame out. Put up the recipe and please explain why you would want to brew it.


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## wide eyed and legless (8/2/19)

Could have been a Furphys at least thats passable.


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## garage_life (8/2/19)

Adelaide tap water, sugar, yellow dye #5, shredded newspaper, Stevia, low carb enzyme and a dash of thrush. Should get you 90% there. -Sorry, couldn't help myself! 
Just make any megaswill recipe and adjust dextrose/malt to get the blandness right, all good!


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## garage_life (8/2/19)

Reg Holt said:


> I have brewed some great beers with no hops in the boil, the hops can go in at flame out. Put up the recipe and please explain why you would want to brew it.


I think the flame out hops will spoil the intended style [emoji23]


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## MHB (8/2/19)

Most of the beer in clear glass bottles is bittered with Tetra Hop (or similar), a light strike proof modified form of Iso Alpha Acids.
These products aren't allowed to come into contact with any other hop products or they loose their light proof character.
So they are usually added post fermentation, which saves the brewery about 30% that usually gets lost in fermentation.

If you want something close try
55% Pale/Pilsner malt
5% CarraHell or a little less of any other light crystal malt (just to avoid the piss yellow colour)
40% White Sugar
Generally brewed at 40% over gravity (yes that will affect the flavour) say around 1.070
Use a good Lager yeast brewed cold (max 10oC) at very much the high end of the recommended pitching rate for lager yeast, I would probably choose Saf 34/70 at or over 1.5M cells/ml/oP (comes to about 1.5EXP6*1000*17.5 = 26.25EXP9 cells / L or roughly 4.4g/L) (yes that over 100g in 23L)
A 2 week very cold (-1.0oC) lager
After fermentation add Iso Hop to get 16-18 IBU (you can get it in little bottles from some home brew shops)
Wash your mouth out with soap - ask your self why... find some better mates...
Mark


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## gaijin (9/2/19)

I had heard on here that many of the megaswill 'lagers' are brewed to higher gravity then 'watered down'. Sounds like this is the case for some. So is the sterilised water then added after primary to bring down to the desired gravity?

I remember doing some half-arsed research about why many of these beers will give you a shocking headache after drinking a moderate amount and staying fairly well hydrated whereas well made home brew generally won't. My guess is that this process might create additional fusel acohols that normal lager brewing wouldn't. Would love an opinion from others more knowledgeable than me. Sorry about this being a little OT.


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## MHB (9/2/19)

One of the big reasons home brew causes less harm is the yeast, its rich in Vitamin B needed and consumed to metabolise alcohol, so your putting in some of the antidote with the poison. Filtered commercial beer hasn't got any yeast and Vitamin B, so yep it hurts more.

High gravity brewing comes with a bunch of problems, basically the higher the gravity the more stress the yeast is under, the list of issues reads pretty much like those found for under pitching. That's why really big (huge) yeast pitches and cold fermentation are recommended. Worth noting that the higher the gravity, the less soluble O2 is so we wont get the same amount of yeast reproduction, again more at the start to counter.

Dilution is conducted on the way from lagering to packaging (typically so is the bittering addition) with sterile de-aired water.
Its all about maximising the litres of beer coming out of the brewery (certainly not the quality) so add dilution is done as late as possible.
Mark


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## gaijin (9/2/19)

I thought you'd know the answer. Thanks for getting on here and sharing. 

Guess that means that not wasting the dregs at the bottom of the bottle has been paying off the whole time.


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## koshari (9/2/19)

gaijin said:


> I had heard on here that many of the megaswill 'lagers' are brewed to higher gravity then 'watered down'. Sounds like this is the case for some. So is the sterilised water then added after primary to bring down to the desired gravity?


would have to be slightly carbonated water or it would flatten the crap out of it.


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## Redreuben (28/2/19)

Rumour has it the megaswill breweries don’t boil with hops at all, the necessary hop extracts are injected into the beer on the way to the bottling line. 
Disclaimer; there is a high chance this rumour is bullshit.


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## Schikitar (1/3/19)

Drink a real beer, piss in a bottle, carbonate, hand out to your best mates - they deserve it. 

Seriously though, wouldn't you just brew with mostly pilsner malt, a touch of light crystal and lightly hop with something ordinary like pride of ringwood? You could use a lager yeast but your mates don't deserve the time and energy, just go with something clean like S04 (but hey, I'm no expert like the other blokes here)!



gaijin said:


> I had heard on here that many of the megaswill 'lagers' are brewed to higher gravity then 'watered down'.


A mate of mine works at Boags and whilst they have very sophisticated systems this is essentially what they do.. and yes, carbonated water I believe (in my defence we had that conversation a year and a half ago and my memory is poor at the best of times).


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## Company of one (1/3/19)

Schikitar said:


> Drink a real beer, piss in a bottle, carbonate, hand out to your best mates - they deserve it.
> 
> Seriously though, wouldn't you just brew with mostly pilsner malt, a touch of light crystal and lightly hop with *something ordinary like pride of ringwood*? You could use a lager yeast but your mates don't deserve the time and energy, just go with something clean like S04 (but hey, I'm no expert like the other blokes here)!
> 
> ...



After that comment about one of my favorite hops you are now on three months good behavior for a first offense.
Fuggles on the other hand.


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## Schikitar (2/3/19)

Company of one said:


> After that comment about one of my favorite hops you are now on three months good behavior for a first offense.



The fact that you like it puts you on six months! Haha! ;P


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## JDW81 (3/3/19)

I'm a firm believer that there is no such thing as a bad hop, only inappropriate usage. 

POR works great as a single addition for simple, clean beers (i.e. lawn mower beers).


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## Kenf (4/3/19)

Great comments! I too used to detest PoR ( always blamed it for why commercial beers taste like shit, until I realised it was much more!) then one day I used it as described above and was pleasantly surprised!
National Home Brew do an all grain kit, I made a batch with it and it was very nice indeed! And didn’t taste watered down at all. My partner said “you nailed it! It tastes just like the megaswill from the pub” high praise indeed I thought!
Then I gave some to my boss and her partner (not craft brew people’ and the loved it!
I also did an extract kit clone as well, again not bad either!
Anyway good luck with it.
Cheers


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## Schikitar (4/3/19)

JDW81 said:


> POR works great as a single addition for simple, clean beers (i.e. lawn mower beers).



Yeah, that's why I recommended it, I never said it was a bad hop, just not to my personal liking but perfect for a commercial clone!


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## DrJez (19/3/19)

A simple way wpuld be to use pilsner malt, 15-25% sucrose, pow charge for ibu and possibly a little at flameout to try replicate the iso. 34/70, doesn't matter if it's warmer temp


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