Australian Bitter Ale: BJCP 6.1 [AABC]

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Bribie G

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I'm just rebooting this topic as the old thread had got a bit cluttered, and in any case was started before the release of Bronzed Brews by Peter Symons and of course the current availability of Whitelabs WLP059 Melbourne Ale.

So this year, 2017, is the first year that a genuine attempt at an Australian Bitter Ale can be entered into the comps this season. And here's the problem:

Australian Bitter Ale was included in the BJCP guide a few years ago and was greeted (including by myself) with a certain degree of derision. I don't know if Korev had any input in those days, however in light of his research and book, a lot of the history and style characteristics set out in the BJCP guide are pretty accurate, but some of them are now looking a bit dodgy. So there is a bit of a conflict in some areas and I'd guess that a fair few of the "Bronzed Brew" beers entered as an Australian Bitter Ale could well be marked as "not to style".

For example:
Definitive Australian style, evolved
directly from colonial era Pale Ale/Sparkling Ale as
crystal malt was introduced during early 20th
century. [Symons has found that not much crystal was used] Originated independently of English Bitter,


and remained a bottled style exclusively. [dead wrong, much of the beer over the bar especially NSW was draught, and it was lagers that tended to be bottled as a lot of the ales didn't do too well bottled]
Developed as a narrow style, typified by a handful of State-
based brands, using a high proportion of cane
sugar, high-alpha domestic hops, and standard
Australian ale yeast (originally isolated 1888 at
Victoria Brewery in Melbourne) .
Dominant bottled style by mid-century, with major brands exported.
Converted to lager yeast during late 20th century,
as megabrewers standardized production with draught
lagers. Modern Bitter remains by far Australia’s
biggest selling packaged beer style, and following
draught release in 1992, market leader Victoria
Bitter now accounts for one quarter of total
Australian beer sales.

The BJCP guide also basically mandates the use of Pride of Ringwood, whereas I believe that most Lion brews (and their predecessors, and even some CUB predecessors such as Reschs and Tooths) wouldn't have had access to this hop that was bred by CUB. For example XXXX still uses Cluster and in Beer the Beautiful truth site, most Lion brands seem to use Superpride developed by HPA.

Varieties of Tasmanian golden cluster and EKG style hops seemed to be fairly common pre-Prides.

A bit late this year, but how exactly does one provide input to the BJCP to update a style description and does anyone know whether Australian Bitter Ale is up for a revamp?
 
OT, but... ^^ tried it recently, coodgee? I'd suspect it might only have EKG in it now. The last clone I did is mainly EKG and it's still too fruity compared to the real one. I think it *used* to have cascade & galaxy in it.

Back on topic, sorry Bribie but I have very little to add to this - I know nothing about BJCP or Aussie Bitter. However, I'm extremely interested in learning more about Aussie Bitter, both as a (newly) defined style and the history of it. So I'm definitely following this one eagerly!
 
OT, but... ^^ tried it recently, coodgee? I'd suspect it might only have EKG in it now. The last clone I did is mainly EKG and it's still too fruity compared to the real one. I think it *used* to have cascade & galaxy in it.

really? I have Rogers at my local bowls club every wednesday/thursday night at quiz night. For mine it has a classic citrus american hop aroma and especially taste to it. I'm going to have to seriously reassess my understanding of East Kent Goldings if that's all that's in it.

(apologies for the thread hijack)
 
Hey Bribie. What would you suggest for an Aussie Bitter?
Both in terms of a specific recipe (I'm keen to see what others are doing with their 059 [emoji6]), and as general ingredient guidelines?

I'm really not sure what concept to have as a guide for this one. I've seen the old Tooth's Ale recipe, so I think I was loosely basing my concept/recipe on that.
I currently thinking to go roughly 50% ale, 33% Pils, 2.5% med xtal, 10% White sugar, bit of acidulated. Hops were going to be PoR & Crystal(for spiciness).
Any other recipes out there?

I think until some of us have brewed a few beers with 059, it might be a little hard to understand (for me, anyway) a style heavily based around it.
 
I brewed an ABA years back that was pretty much inspired by the new AABC guideline - got 2nd place state wise. I really enjoyed the style as a showcase for subtle Australian hops and a super clean malt profile.
 
Hey Bribie. What would you suggest for an Aussie Bitter?
Both in terms of a specific recipe (I'm keen to see what others are doing with their 059 [emoji6]), and as general ingredient guidelines?

I'm really not sure what concept to have as a guide for this one. I've seen the old Tooth's Ale recipe, so I think I was loosely basing my concept/recipe on that.
I currently thinking to go roughly 50% ale, 33% Pils, 2.5% med xtal, 10% White sugar, bit of acidulated. Hops were going to be PoR & Crystal(for spiciness).
Any other recipes out there?

I think until some of us have brewed a few beers with 059, it might be a little hard to understand (for me, anyway) a style heavily based around it.

Seems unlikely they would mix pils and ale malt back in the day. You'd think it would be 100% cheap and plentiful malt of the era
 
I would go for a base malt such as BB pale, about 20% Vienna, 20% raw sugar and if adjusting the colour use either a slight touch of Joe White roasted barley (which is not really like UK or Gladfield) or even use some caramel - Parisian Essence as suggested in some Bronzed Brews recipes.

There was a reason that Aussie beer used to be called "The Amber Nectar" and not "The blonde dry super crisp pale nectar".
Bitter to around 30 IBU with a mix of EKG and Cluster and use the WLP 059.

Coodgee, do yourself a favour and buy the book.. the history of malt in Australia is very interesting, for example large amounts of a malt from six row barley called "Cape" were used in the earlier part of the 20th Century.
 
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I think EKG goes well in most beers. So yes it would go well in an Aussie bitter... :D
 
Seems unlikely they would mix pils and ale malt back in the day. You'd think it would be 100% cheap and plentiful malt of the era
True. However, I assumed the clone recipe Peter Symons estimated (more like 33:33:20 of Ale:pils:sugar) might've used that ratio of Ale:pils as a mimic of whatever malt he thought was the malt of the day back in 1916.

That combo looks good, Bribie. I'm afraid i'm still a little hesitant to go straight for the 20% sugar.
I obviously need to do a LOT more reading to cover some flavour & aroma descriptors as to what i should be targeting.

Hey, what about replacing the maize in the Tooths Ale clone with oats? Sneak in a little 8% oats, maybe?
 
I bought 2 kilos of raw sugaz from Aldi yesterday.
The use of sugar was only partly to do with saving money on ingredients, it was more about getting bigger brew lengths from scarce and expensive equipment that was mostly imported
 
Nup. All one malt for me. Local stuff. Cant get any more Aussie than fresh malted grain. yummy
 
As for any thoughts on the Style Guidelines. Maybe it needs rethinking a little. The history is what they could get to brew with at the time.
Maybe a more modernized version considering now to then etc.
$0.02
 
Gonna do this as a first WLP059 batch "starter" for a Reschs XXX or Tooths XXX

upload_2017-8-5_0-10-3.png
 
I brewed an ABA years back that was pretty much inspired by the new AABC guideline - got 2nd place state wise. I really enjoyed the style as a showcase for subtle Australian hops and a super clean malt profile.

Sounds good Dent
Did you go with POR ?
Did you go with an Aussie maltster ?
I must look up the AABC guideline
If you dont mind I would love to see ya recipe
I have only done the British Bitters but dont mind a hit of the POR now & again
Cheers Rude
 
I was under the impression that you can't get PoR or Cluster anymore? It's going to make brewing those Bronzed Brews a bit hard.
 
Most of the recipes in bronzed brews quote EKG and Cluster, not much mention of PoR when I skimmed the recipes.
There would be suitable substitutes anyway I sure and it's not like any of us tasted the real deal to know [emoji23]
 
Most of the recipes in bronzed brews quote EKG and Cluster, not much mention of PoR when I skimmed the recipes.
There would be suitable substitutes anyway I sure and it's not like any of us tasted the real deal to know [emoji23]

Quite right. PoR is not mentioned once in the book (they are all NSW beers and mostly pre PoR anyhow). It's all cluster and EKG.
 

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