Little Creatures Pale Ale

[Coodgee]

Last thread I could find on this was 8 years ago so deserves a new one...

Was just up at Hervey Bay for the weekend and the pub near the hotel was a bit light on crafty options. They did have LCPA on tap though and I found myself really enjoying it. Still a really nice beer.

There is a lot more information on the web these days so thought it was worth revisiting this beer to brew.

Firstly concentrating on the malt bill:

On the LC website it says:

ABV 5.2%, EBC 20.

Malt: Pale malt, Munich, Caramalt, & Wheat malt

To get an EBC of 20 with that combination, assuming all BB malts requires a shit load of Munich and or caramalt.

Amt Name Type # %/IBU
2.10 kg Pale Malt (Barrett Burston) (3.9 EBC) Grain 1 40.4 %
2.00 kg Munich Malt (17.7 EBC) Grain 2 38.5 %
1.00 kg Caramalt (Barrett Burston) (49.3 EBC) Grain 3 19.2 %
0.10 kg Wheat Malt (Barrett Burston) (3.0 EBC) Grain 4 1.9 %

I Rogers is impossible to get the stated EBC with the stated malts, do you think that is going on here as well?


or could we assume by caramalt they are just using a generic term for crystal malts?

If that was the case then you could hit 20 EBC with 20% Munich and 9% medium crystal.


edit: It seems that the equation used by beersmith and other software under-calculates the actual colour of the beer...

 

[Matplat]

Coincidental that you raise this beer, as I too had a glass at a pub the other week and was pleasantly surprised. Hoppy and balanced was the description on the tap handle, and I couldn't agree more!

I reckon some detail is definitely left out of the malts that they specify. 20% Munich and 9-10% medium crystal is much more likely than 40% Munich and 20% Caramalt.

I would bump the wheat to at least 5% if not 10, with pale malt picking up the balance.

 

[Coodgee]

check this shit out, what a crap response. Isn't Hannah just a wonderful ******* font of wisdom...

Good afternoon Paul,


Thank you for your email.



The only ingredients we use in all of our beers are:

" Water (potable water)

" Hops (bittering agent, can be in the form of pellets or liquid CO2 extract)

" Malted Barley (Types used: pale malt, roasted malt, crystal malt)

" Sugar (liquid in some brews)

" Yeast (the fermenting agent) - not strictly a raw material-but we refer to it as the fermenting agent.


Please be advised we do not give out our recipe


Kind regards,

Hannah

Consumer Enquiries





-----Original Message-----
From: WordPress [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, 26 February 2018 4:11 PM
To: DL-LCB-BrewersBench <[email protected]>
Subject: [LCAU ENQUIRY] Paul Goodhew


enquiry_type_id: Beer

message: Hi I am an avid home brewer and a big fan of your pale ale. I have been trying to construct a clone recipe from the information on your website. Can you tell me if 10% Munich malt @ about 18 EBC, 5% caramalt @ about 50 EBC, 5% wheat and the rest pale malt at about 4 EBC would be a good approximation of the malt bill? My software (beersmith) calculates this to about 10 EBC for the finished beer using the Morey\'s formula which is way off the 20EBC listed on your website. But to get 20 EBC requires almost 50% of the malt from caramalt and munich? It\'s a bit confusing... any help you could give would be great appreciated. Thanks heaps and love all your beer!

first_name: Paul

 

[goatchop41]

Please be advised we do not give out our recipe

End of story there mate.
Don't have a crack at the customer relations person who replied to you. I highly doubt that she makes the rules.
1) It's unlikely that she has intimate knowledge of beer brewing; 2) She's merely responding to your answer with both the company policy, and what she has probably been instruced to send out when receiving such a request

 

[Coodgee]

End of story there mate.
Don't have a crack at the customer relations person who replied to you. I highly doubt that she makes the rules.
1) It's unlikely that she has intimate knowledge of beer brewing; 2) She's merely responding to your answer with both the company policy, and what she has probably been instruced to send out when receiving such a request

Thankyou kindly for pointing out the error of my ways. Much appreciated. I will try harder next time. I have sent a dozen roses and a box of chocolates to Hannah and her immediate family.

 

[goatchop41]

Thankyou kindly for pointing out the error of my ways. Much appreciated. I will try harder next time. I have sent a dozen roses and a box of chocolates to Hannah and her immediate family.

You're welcome mate.
I seriously don't see why you're whinging about your reply from them, when they clearly state within it that they don't give out their recipe. You can bitch and whine all that you want, but even a more knowledgable staffer will tell you the same thing in the end, and would hopefully also tell you where to go and jam your attitude, if it's the same as it is in this thread.

 

[Brewman_]

I have a pretty close one. I'll post it

 

[Brewman_]

 

[Coodgee]

View attachment 111794

Thanks! Looks like there is more than one way to arrive at the same end product. Bit of a return to the early 2000's talking about cloning this beer. It was the first extract with steeping recipe i ever tried.

 

[philrob]

We're diving down well into the archives here, but there was a fabulous thread on LCPA on the old Grumpy's forum.

Have a read through this fascinating piece of history. It's a lot more forthcoming than the latest info you didn't get in response to your email, including detailed comments from within the brewery!

http://web.archive.org/web/20041220064644/http://www.grumpys.com.au/read.php3?id=18600

 

[Coodgee]

We're diving down well into the archives here, but there was a fabulous thread on LCPA on the old Grumpy's forum.

Have a read through this fascinating piece of history. It's a lot more forthcoming than the latest info you didn't get in response to your email, including detailed comments from within the brewery!

http://web.archive.org/web/20041220064644/http://www.grumpys.com.au/read.php3?id=18600

very interesting thread! well done on finding that!

 

[themonkeysback]

View attachment 111794

We're diving down well into the archives here, but there was a fabulous thread on LCPA on the old Grumpy's forum.

Have a read through this fascinating piece of history. It's a lot more forthcoming than the latest info you didn't get in response to your email, including detailed comments from within the brewery!

http://web.archive.org/web/20041220064644/http://www.grumpys.com.au/read.php3?id=18600

I think some of the difficult of 'cloning' LCPA is the change in hops over the years. Like the grumpys stuff suggests initially was a combo of cascade and (EK?)goldings. Then I think it shifted to being along the lines of what Steve (brewman) posted. I think they have used galaxy over the past couple of years (possibly a straight sub for the chinook in steve's recipe).

Adam.

 

[MHB]

When it was first released it was a spectacular beer!
The brewers had a special permission to import Cascade and Chinook flowers, they had to install an incinerator on site and burn all the expended hops - yer, I know but that is what it took to satisfy customs (or bio-security Australia)
Australian grown Golding was I believe used as a bittering hop, not a hop that has ever been widely available to small brewers or home brewers, Magnum is a good value choice for bittering that fits into the flavour profile pretty well. The Cascade Chinook balance is very close.

These days it belongs to one of the megs brewers and it isn't the beer it was. The recipe above is I believe pretty close to the original, maybe not exact but pretty dam close.
Mark

 

[Coodgee]

When it was first released it was a spectacular beer!
The brewers had a special permission to import Cascade and Chinook flowers, they had to install an incinerator on site and burn all the expended hops - yer, I know but that is what it took to satisfy customs (or bio-security Australia)
Australian grown Golding was I believe used as a bittering hop, not a hop that has ever been widely available to small brewers or home brewers, Magnum is a good value choice for bittering that fits into the flavour profile pretty well. The Cascade Chinook balance is very close.

These days it belongs to one of the megs brewers and it isn't the beer it was. The recipe above is I believe pretty close to the original, maybe not exact but pretty dam close.
Mark

It was my first introduction to an American pale ale. I wanted to be "cool" by drinking it but I used to remember thinking "this is so *#@( bitter!" Now it's pretty easy drinking

I feel like with the recent brand update on the taps and bottles they may have tweaked the recipe again too. I really enjoyed it on tap in Hervey Bay as I said above. I had a couple of bottles of it last night and it wasn't as good to my taste at the time.

I am just totally guessing here but it almost tastes like the bottled beer is brewed with a standardised fermentation process to fit in with the mega brewery schedule - like maybe a lager yeast or something just to keep on schedule with whatever else they brew in Geelong. Maybe the tap version is mainly brewed in WA with mainly traditional methods?

edit: both Rogers and the pale both have a background note of "megaswill" in the bottle which I can only guess is from some sort of 16 degree lager yeast fermentation.

 

[Gloveski]

Yeah its a great drop my first crack at Little Creatures was in a bottle about 18 months ago and I thought it was bitter as ****.
But I tried it on tap at my local and its a beutifully balanced beer , not sure why there was a massive difference or I just got a dodgy brewed six pack.
My lesson learnt was to never give up on a beer until I have had it on tap .
@Coodgee you may be right that it may be done with a lager yeast now

 

[JDW81]

I’ve got an exact clone of the original recipe. This was given out by the brewery at the time (when it was still indepent and based in Fremantle).

I did a side by side with the original and it’s almost indistinguishable.

I’m at work tonight, but I’ll put it up in a PDF tomorrow some time.

It’s the goldings/cascade/chinook version. Can’t remember the grain I’ll off the top of my head.

Still one of the best beers I’ve made.

JD.

 

[Coodgee]

^that would be awesome mate, thanks!!

 

[JDW81]

Here's a PDF of my LCPA clone from the original recipe (before they reduced the hops and malt backbone to save $$).

I did a blind side-by-side with a few people when I first made it (about 8 years ago or so) and they were both pretty much the same.

The malt profile and body were practically identical. The only real difference was the home brew version had a slightly higher hop presence as it was fresh off the production line.

The mash and sparge regimen on the recipe is probably slightly different to what I used (the one that is there is probably the bog standard beersmith settings that I never changed).

Mash at about 64-65 degrees, sparge however you want and use a good healthy pitch of wyeast american ale II (or something equivalent).

For the no chill guys, put the 20 minute addition in the cube and do a mini boil with the 10 and 5 minute additions in ~5L of work from the cube. Chill the mini boil in a sink of ice water and chuck it all into the fermenter. If you can, give it a good oxygenate with O2, if not just aerate in your usual manner.

The LCPA that is available now is a far cry from what it once was unfortunately, so this is a hark back to the good old days, when LC was still an independent brewery making great American style pale ales.

Might brew this on my day off next week

Enjoy.

JD

 

[Droopy Brew]

Thanks for sharing mate. I dont usually attempt clones or someone elses recipes but this one interests me.
Just interested in a couple of things- the IBUs at 50+ is that correct? Seems a lot higher than I would have suspected for this beer.
Also the difference in calculated vs actual OG is significant. I assume the actual is correct and we should be aiming at 1.046 for this recipe?

 

[JDW81]

Ignore most of the numbers, I haven't corrected them from beersmith's calculations (Predicted OG probs a bit high - aiming for about 1054, but the measured OG isn't accurate - again, probably a beersmith number). The ingredients and percentages of each are the only accurate bits in there.

The original recipe I based mine off was a chalk-board recipe in the LC brewery in Freemantle, which was all in percentages, not weights/volumes.

I don't pay much attention to the IBUs calculated in Beersmith either. The original was probably around 40IBUs from memory, and this version (on my gear) gives great malt and hops balance. I think IBU calculations and what people say their IBUs are can be a bit misleading anyway, as there are a lot of things that contribute to bitterness in beer as well.

JD