Pride of Ringwood

[Bribie G]

As mentioned on another thread I've come across 10 bottles of a Sparkling Ale 6% in a spare room cupboard, been there since July - It's my comp conditioning cupboard as it's very even temp and I assumed it was empty
I just crashed one to drinkable temperature and it's bloody divine:

5500 BB Ale
300 Semolina (coarse wheat flour) as adjunct
300 sugaz
70 Med. Crystal

30g POR flowers 60 mins


It's got me thinking to do another brew, bottle it and just leave it for the comps this year - I always assumed this was a style to be drunk young, but it has developed lovely biscuity caramelly overtones and the POR has mellowed out to almost something you would expect in one of those exotic beers like a Czech dark lager. Yum.
Nowt wrong with POR :beerbang:

 

[mattdean4130]

I just started using POR in my pursuit of an everyday cupboard stock CPA clone beer...
Following recipe's i found on here, i boiled 20g POR for 60 minutes with 100g Dex. Then a Coopers Lager, a further 100g dex and 1kg LDM....

Both are only just getting bottled, but my initial observation is that at FG it still tastes VERY bitter, leaves quite a strong bitter aftertaste. Is this normal? Does it mellow out in the bottle?

So far they both look, smell and feel right in the mouth - just quite a bit stronger on the bitter side than a CPA.

Cheers!

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I'd like to see how this all goes. Once I've built up stocks with my normal drinking beers, the experiments/winter beers, I'd like to be brewing a couple of lawnmower beers for summer and the recent VB thread, etc has got me thinking I'd like the challenge of making a good lager and an aussie quaffer (hey, I tolerate Boag's Draught).

Not sure where I can get POR flowers, though.

 

[GalBrew]

I'd like to see how this all goes. Once I've built up stocks with my normal drinking beers, the experiments/winter beers, I'd like to be brewing a couple of lawnmower beers for summer and the recent VB thread, etc has got me thinking I'd like the challenge of making a good lager and an aussie quaffer (hey, I tolerate Boag's Draught).

Not sure where I can get POR flowers, though.

Doesn't Ross sell POR flowers?

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Doesn't Ross sell POR flowers?

It's not worth the cost of postage and I don't need anything else with which to share the amortised cost of postage. I'll probably grow some when spring rolls around, but hopefully by the end of winter, I'll be stocked up and wanting to brew my lagers before it warms up. So in a pickle a little.

I'll ask some of the locals when i can.

 

[Yob]

Did Hopco get back to you about the rhizomes?

 

[Nick JD]

It's a great hop. Although I've found there is significan't variation between crops. The PoR I have now is supurb and not at all "rustic", but nice and floraly (very high AA% too). I've got a SMASH APA fermenting at the moment and you wouldn't know it's PoR from the aroma.

Could be that because it's so extensively grown there's room for much flavour variation?

Mate, you're a dickhead. PoR is the worst hop ever.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Did Hopco get back to you about the rhizomes?

Just said that he'd let us know when they're ready.

I'll get into growing them this season. I have a tressle covered in grass that needs to be cleared before I do, but it'll save a few bob, and given I'm a bit heavy handed on aroma and flavour additions, it'll be a decent saving.

 

[Byran]

It's not worth the cost of postage and I don't need anything else with which to share the amortised cost of postage. I'll probably grow some when spring rolls around, but hopefully by the end of winter, I'll be stocked up and wanting to brew my lagers before it warms up. So in a pickle a little.

I'll ask some of the locals when i can.

I'd like to see how this all goes. Once I've built up stocks with my normal drinking beers, the experiments/winter beers, I'd like to be brewing a couple of lawnmower beers for summer and the recent VB thread, etc has got me thinking I'd like the challenge of making a good lager and an aussie quaffer (hey, I tolerate Boag's Draught).

Not sure where I can get POR flowers, though.

Goomba I remember talking to a few lads when I was at the Tassie beer festival a couple of years back that were avid growers in the north of TAS.
And they did say that they sold to the public but mostly just used their own hops for microbreweries in the area. Hopefully there would be a way to get flowers easily down there.
I had a card from one bloke but i seem to have misplaced it.....I did drink quite a few samples that day.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Goomba I remember talking to a few lads when I was at the Tassie beer festival a couple of years back that were avid growers in the north of TAS.
And they did say that they sold to the public but mostly just used their own hops for microbreweries in the area. Hopefully there would be a way to get flowers easily down there.
I had a card from one bloke but i seem to have misplaced it.....I did drink quite a few samples that day.

That'd be good if I could find that out. Tassie tends to be a "it's not what you know, it's who you know" and finding stuff out is impossible unless you happen to ask the right person at the right time and then suddenly the floodgates open - I mean this in a commercial sense. The homebrewers here are extremely generous.

 

[mattdean4130]

I just started using POR in my pursuit of an everyday cupboard stock CPA clone beer...
Following recipe's i found on here, i boiled 20g POR for 60 minutes with 100g Dex. Then a Coopers Lager, a further 100g dex and 1kg LDM....

Both are only just getting bottled, but my initial observation is that at FG it still tastes VERY bitter, leaves quite a strong bitter aftertaste. Is this normal? Does it mellow out in the bottle?

So far they both look, smell and feel right in the mouth - just quite a bit stronger on the bitter side than a CPA.

Cheers!

Anyone?

 

[mwd]

Don't use POR but most hop bitterness mellows out with bottle aging. Try one after a few weeks to see how it is going. I am impatient and always do a taster as soon as the bottles are carbed up.

 

[mattdean4130]

Don't use POR but most hop bitterness mellows out with bottle aging. Try one after a few weeks to see how it is going. I am impatient and always do a taster as soon as the bottles are carbed up.

Cheers! Yeah waiting for beer to age is a drag! Especially that new recipe you're dying to see how it came out!

 

[Wisey]

powdery mildew killed my cucumbers!

 

[Bribie G]

Anyone?

Matt, as I pointed out early in the thread, POR (originally 8% or so) seems to have snuck up and snuck up in Alpha Acid percentage over the decades and I've found that using the old 30g = one ounce quantity in an AG brew it is becoming noticeably more bitter than Coopers Sparkling. Pellets are now over 10% but I note that the CB flowers are still around the old value so I've gone back to using them.

I expect the pressure is on the growers by the Megaswilleries to give them more bitterness for the money.

In your case I would even have cut back to around 12g for your addition. I know that sounds pathetic but I've done similar additions for Corona lookalikes etc using Galena and got surprising amount of hop even at those levels.
Your batch may mellow out a little.

 

[hoppy2B]

powdery mildew killed my cucumbers!

That powdery mildew is a bitch man, it wiped out my wine grape crop in 2011.

 

[Bribie G]

Matt - guess what, I've just kegged and bottled latest Aus PA. I've brewed two similar 25L batches for a forthcoming comp using POR and Coopers recultured yeast. I normally brew to 23L but as I was going to keg the bulk but bottle off four for comp and testing purposes I went 25

#1 was 30g of POR flowers, came out not unlike a Coopers Sparkling - it was all the flowers I had left in that pack. So I went to brew #2 and discovered that my foil of POR flowers was actually a NZ Cascade flowers. So I hastily put in an order to CraftBrewer who do a range of flowers. I got flowers and POR pellets as well.

#2 was brewed with just a touch of Magnum in the boil to encourage floccing - only 10g . Then I kept the brew cubed until the POR arrived, plus about 2L I had left over in Schott Bottles. I realised that the Magnum would give a slight background bitterness so I decided to just use the POR for a flavour and aroma hit, as you get with Coopers. To make it simple I put the 2L of wort in a pan and used the pellets this time, not the flowers. I used 25g for 20 minutes then just chucked the whole lot (when cool) into the fermenter with the lightly hopped wort.

Man, it has turned out with an almost astringent bitterness compared to the flowers brew - coats the tongue - now I see what you mean.

From now on I'll stick to the flowers, seem to come out textbook Coopers Sparkling. I reckon the 2012 pellets are a bit feral compared to the POR I know and love. :unsure:

Tell you one thing though, I had a longneck of VB when I was over at the daughters' this afternoon and I also get almost the same style of bitterness. Maybe confirms my half baked theory that the megas are always pressing for higher AA POR.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

a touch of Magnum in the boil to encourage floccing - only 10g .

I know it's OT, but please explain (insert Pauline Hanson voice, if you'd like). Magnum = better floccing?

I have some Magnum and if it's true, this would make my US05-day.

 

[Bribie G]

haha. Well there is a certain member who doesn't seem to post much nowadays who works for a certain beer production facility and a few years ago he did intimate that although that facility basically does an "unhopped" wort that only gets hopped with extract on its way to the packing line, they do put a token amount of pellets in the brew so that the finely granular material forms nucleation points for a good floc.

Anyway that's how I read it so I thought I'd do that rather than the somewhat gay idea of doing an unhopped boil, oh the humanity :unsure:

edit: Magnum = as neutral as possible seeing as I was adding POR later, I also have Galena. "Arriba, Arriba, andere, andere, hey cobber" B)

 

[mattdean4130]

Matt - guess what, I've just kegged and bottled latest Aus PA. I've brewed two similar 25L batches for a forthcoming comp using POR and Coopers recultured yeast. I normally brew to 23L but as I was going to keg the bulk but bottle off four for comp and testing purposes I went 25

#1 was 30g of POR flowers, came out not unlike a Coopers Sparkling - it was all the flowers I had left in that pack. So I went to brew #2 and discovered that my foil of POR flowers was actually a NZ Cascade flowers. So I hastily put in an order to CraftBrewer who do a range of flowers. I got flowers and POR pellets as well.

#2 was brewed with just a touch of Magnum in the boil to encourage floccing - only 10g . Then I kept the brew cubed until the POR arrived, plus about 2L I had left over in Schott Bottles. I realised that the Magnum would give a slight background bitterness so I decided to just use the POR for a flavour and aroma hit, as you get with Coopers. To make it simple I put the 2L of wort in a pan and used the pellets this time, not the flowers. I used 25g for 20 minutes then just chucked the whole lot (when cool) into the fermenter with the lightly hopped wort.

Man, it has turned out with an almost astringent bitterness compared to the flowers brew - coats the tongue - now I see what you mean.

From now on I'll stick to the flowers, seem to come out textbook Coopers Sparkling. I reckon the 2012 pellets are a bit feral compared to the POR I know and love. :unsure:

Tell you one thing though, I had a longneck of VB when I was over at the daughters' this afternoon and I also get almost the same style of bitterness. Maybe confirms my half baked theory that the megas are always pressing for higher AA POR.

Thanks very much for this ! I might have to look into using some flowers instead of pellets.

I have two batches of my attempt at a CPA clone done at the moment, one is as above a coopers lager kit with CPA cultured yeast, the other is the exact same recipe but using the Aus Pale Ale kit.
The Aus kit is nearly at 2 weeks bottled, and the lager kit is nearly 1 week.

I'll be periodically tasting them after about two weeks and go from there. I think if after some ageing the bitterness hasn't subsided i might try the same weight of pellets but perhaps at a 30min boil first, then maybe the same recipe at 15min, and the same recipe at 0min to compare the results...

I will absolutely check back with the results