Little Creatures Next Single Batch

[Snowdog]

I had one at the Archive Sunday. It was good. I then had an LCPA from the tap, & I thought that was better.
My wife liked the EKG though, and she don't care for the usual Little Creatures.

 

[Bribie G]

Had 4 pints of the EKG release last night - Bloody beautiful, hit all the right buttons with me. Wasn't another beer on tap at Archive that could tempt me away from it.
Cheers Ross

hophead

 

[Snowdog]

Had 4 pints of the EKG release last night - Bloody beautiful, hit all the right buttons with me. Wasn't another beer on tap at Archive that could tempt me away from it.

The Sunshine Coast Best Bitter is always a good one to get. Seriously, I guess I didn't "get" the attraction of the LCEKG.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

The Sunshine Coast Best Bitter is always a good one to get. Seriously, I guess I didn't "get" the attraction of the LCEKG.

+1

Grabbed a couple of bottles, and tried it. Poured it into a glass (mandatory for me, when trying a new beer - one cannot possibly assess a beer drinking straight from the stubbie).

Underwhelmed. It's not a bad beer - in fact it's quite alright. The bitterness and malt is well balanced and the bitterness is not at all harsh. It's showed me that EKG is a great bittering hop.

But no aroma to speak of. I was hoping that if they had bittered it up, thrown a truckload of hops at it, etc, that there would be a corresponding aroma increase. There isn't.

I much preferred the previous two small batches.

Don't get me wrong - I like it, but don't love it. Great session beer - you could drink a few and they'd go down easy. But it's not worth $6 a 500ml bottle. Not when I'd place that as a "middle of the road" homebrew of mine. I made a similar style beer last winter, and I'd rate that far better. And I never rate my beer against good commercial or craft beer (but better than awful commercial beer).

It's given me a good idea of how to organise the malt profile of a beer, but I'd really adjust the hopping schedule from what I assume they use, in order to produce a kentish ale of my liking. Or just replicate last winter's red brown ale. Either way, cheaper and at least of similar quality.

My ESB is almost at 2wks in the bottle carbonating. It will be interesting to do a real comparison.

Goomba

 

[Pennywise]

Grabbed 3 bottles at lunch time today to try tonight with/after dinner, ahh who am I kidding I'll open one as soon as I get in the door :lol: Really looking forward to it, I was kinda spewin' to miss the Stout, but my guy didn't get any

 

[DUANNE]

i dunno were youre located pennywise, but the dan murphys in hoppers crossing still had half a dozen or more bottles of the stout on the shelf still on the weekend.

 

[Shed101]

Meh... I bought a couple of bottles.

Had the first one. Meh.

Fizzy light brown stuff, with a 60-minute addition of marketing hype and dry (not ferment) hopped with forum comments (like this one).

I'm sure it didn't taste as bad as the Pig & Whistle's abismal Spitfire (nothing like the original), but there's something similar in my head.

Will reserve final judgement for the next bottle on Friday, as truth be told i'd had a few different beers already.

 

[BitterBulldog]

grabbed 3 bottles. enjoying them but can't stop thinking how much better they'd be in an amber?
Do they use EKG in their Rogers?

 

[BrenosBrews]

Certainly not the best English Pale Ale I've had but still a decent crack at the style. I was quite suprised to find out that they do NO trial batch of these single batch releases.

 

[keifer33]

I believe it's EKG and cascade

 

[Shed101]

Meh... I bought a couple of bottles.

Had the first one. Meh.

Fizzy light brown stuff, with a 60-minute addition of marketing hype and dry (not ferment) hopped with forum comments (like this one).

I'm sure it didn't taste as bad as the Pig & Whistle's abismal Spitfire (nothing like the original), but there's something similar in my head.

Will reserve final judgement for the next bottle on Friday, as truth be told i'd had a few different beers already.

OK, just had the second one. Chill hazed.

But, once it had warmed up a bit it was actually really quite nice. Nothing to write home about though it would be worth having on a regular basis. A damn sight better than the new unimproved Fat Yak recipe.

 

[jpr]

Have had a few pint bottles of this, I think it is definitely a good beer at a good price $11 for 2 pints thats about $19 a six pack @ 330ml bottles. You definitely cannot beat the freshness and the balance for that price. If it was always available in cartons/six pack it would definitely get my vote over most of the stuff (within same style) at Dans and first choice. Out of all the single batches I have enjoyed this the most so far.

 

[Alex T]

Hi Guys,

Always good to read the comments. And indeed we don't actually do any test batches for these. I guess technically speaking when we have the employee competitions (Oatmeal Stout, Special Bitter from a while back) that is sort of a test batch, but really we are looking for a concept there. More or less we just do some calcuations, do some guessing and jump in there and do 20,000L. Can't say it ain't a wee bit stressful......!

I like this one on the warmer side and then everything comes out - bit of malt, bit of fruit, nice hops. I think its a good redention of an EPA.

The next cab off the rank is already in tank - a nice Marzen - 50% Pils, a heap of Vienna, heap of Munich II and a touch of carahell..... but hopped up a bit with Saaz and some Willamette hop cones - yeah, yeah, I know it isn't traditional, but I think it's gonna be good. 5.7% and 30IBU is our best guess at this stage, but won't know for sure for another week or so.

And the one after is already in the pipeline as well, and will be an all-employees competition that we have just called "dark and strong", leaving the rest up to the (home)brewer - man, that is going to be a challenge scaling up, that's for sure; I'm looking forward to judging the entries.

Cheers,

Alex

 

[beerbrewer76543]

Hey Alex, care to comment on the hop schedule for the ESB? :icon_cheers:

 

[Bribie G]

Old Speckled Hen on at the Elephant & Wheelbarrow Fortitude Valley. However it's the keg version but gives a good idea of the style. :icon_cheers: also it's the 5.2% ABV one.

 

[benny_bjc]

And the one after is already in the pipeline as well, and will be an all-employees competition that we have just called "dark and strong",

I would love to see something like a Dark IPA, or a strong dark malty Stout with some complex but subtle hoppy berry flavours.

 

[beerbrewer76543]

Black IPA for the win!

 

[sinkas]

little Janets Brown

 

[argon]

Have had a few pint bottles of this, I think it is definitely a good beer at a good price $11 for 2 pints thats about $19 a six pack @ 330ml bottles. You definitely cannot beat the freshness and the balance for that price. If it was always available in cartons/six pack it would definitely get my vote over most of the stuff (within same style) at Dans and first choice. Out of all the single batches I have enjoyed this the most so far.

This pretty much captures exactly how I feel about this single batch. A good quality quaffed that's better than most selections at the big bottlos at a decent value too. But I prefered the brown ale as my choice for the best of the single batches. I reckon this would be a regular if available all year round... And would probably improve with a a bit of tweaking but the brewery.

@AlexT... I too enjoyed it a bit warmer. Second bottle I just let it sit in the pint glass for half hour to let some carb out and come up in temp. Much more enjoyable than straight out of the fridge. Much better balanced, with a bit more malt coming through.

Looking forward to that marzen, hope it's on tap at the brewery first weekend in march when I'm there? But doubt it.

 

[eamonnfoley]

grabbed 3 bottles. enjoying them but can't stop thinking how much better they'd be in an amber?
Do they use EKG in their Rogers?

Im pretty sure Rogers has Kiwi hops in it for flavour and aroma. Kiwi hops with a light hand can come out wonderfully.