Swedish Home brewer

[Conny Junholt]

Hello everyone.

Swedish Home brewer here with a few years of brewing behind me.

I Backpacked in Australia way back and fell in love with the country and the people right away.
When I was introduced to the Lager Victoria Bitter I melted.

I would love to reproduce that one but I haven't found any recipe for it.
Do anyone have that and is willing to share it with me?

Have a good one mates,
Conny

 

[Mardoo]

Welcome to the forum! Y'all brew some fantastic beers up your way

Regarding VB, There's this thread and this thread on this forum. A lot of people on here crap on these beers, but they are a solid technical challenge to get down and replicate, a challenge I have not yet taken on, myself.

I've read a lot of the VB and Carlton Draft clone threads, and on the whole they seem to swear by the Wyeast Danish yeast. IIRC, that one is being discontinued. I'm sure there are others to use though. However, as you'll see there are references to a version done with S-23 by Ross, an enormously talented brewer.

 

[Brewnicorn]

Hey Conny. Glad you liked the VB. As far as I'm concerned you can have it all, ;-) but all the same I'm sure someone here has a recipe.
All the best.

 

[Conny Junholt]

Thanks for your input.

I've looked around the forums and with the help of that and tweaking it with replacement ingredients according
to what I can get my hands on right now, I came up with this:

Mash 90min (65°C).
Pale Ale (Briess) 4.6kg (Updated from Maris Otter)
Roasted Barley (Crisp) 30g

Boil 75min.
Pride of Ringwood 30g (10.1%) 75min
Pride of Ringwood 20g (10.1%) 15min
Protofloc 1g 15min
Candy Sugar 300g 10min

Yeast.
Wyeast 2042 Danish Lager

This will probably not be a good VB clone, but at least it's a start! ;-) Hopefully it will be a good beer anyway.

I understand that a lot of people doesn't fancy the VB as much LOL, so me loving it might be the result
of drinking it in my youth, far away from home in a great country having the time of my life.
Hopefully my attempt will bring back some good ol memories! ;-)

Thanks again. Much appreciated.

Before you tare my recipe apart, taring me a "new one" ;-), keep in mind that I'm still relatively new at this and
still learning by creating my own recipes.
Will probably name this one "VB - The Swede Way" ;-)

Cheers!

 

[bevan]

Will probably name this one "VB - The Swede Way"

Love it Conny! I'm sure it taste just like you remember it!

 

[BrockHops]

G'day Conny,
Welcome, and I can say that I have many fond memories of my youth which included VB! (Also a few not so memorable moments...)
Ill let someone else critique your recipe as I'm new to AG brewing myself.
Happy brewing mate!

 

[Dan Pratt]

https://www.victoriabitter.com.au/the-brew

The base malt wont be Maris Otter, likely to be simply pilsner or ale malt. The hops are definitely Pride of Ringwood as importing centennials from the US would be un australian.

 

[Conny Junholt]

https://www.victoriabitter.com.au/the-brew

The base malt wont be Maris Otter, likely to be simply pilsner or ale malt. The hops are definitely Pride of Ringwood as importing centennials from the US would be un australian.

Thanks for the input.

I will change MAris to Pale Ale (Briess).

I'll look harder to see if I can find the Pride of Ringwood.
I searched for a replacement and found the following:
Cluster, Galena, Centennial and East Kent Golding.

Nothing beats the real deal tho.

Thanks mate.

 

[Conny Junholt]

Yeahh! I found a swedish supplier that can send me Pride of Ringwood! ;-)

 

[Dan Pratt]

Do yourself a favor and use fresh rain water for the beer.

It will have <5ppm for all minerals if any at all and that will make for a cleaner final beer.

 

[Bribie G]

Hi Conny

Malt: a good Euro light pilsener malt with not too much flavour (Maybe Weyermann Premium).
30% by gravity of just plain old white table sugar.

That's pretty well in range for the roast barley - you want it to be a bit more golden than straw coloured so I'd actually suggest something like 25g.
That's right, it seems stupidly small but some of VB's stablemates such as Reschs Draught made at the same brewery use a tiny amount of roast barley, that goes a hell of a long way.
The roast barley that they use is quite light in colour and made by Joe White here. I bought a kilo once to make stout and it turned out more like a brown ale, so using non Australian RB I'd cut it back.

If it turns out that you can't get Pride of Ringwood, then PM me and in the interests of International harmony I can send some as I have about half a kilo in the freezer

Your yeast is spot on, apparently when the brewery here hits a yeast problem they are right on the phone to Copenhagen.

Fermentation: pitch at 13 degrees. Allow to rise for ten days to 19 degrees. Lager for 10 days.

Happy brewing

 

[Conny Junholt]

Hi Bribie.

Thanks for the feedback AND the offer regarding the Hop. Much appreciated! ;-)

 

[captain crumpet]

I think super pride would be the better hop. And only a 60min addition, definetly no 10 minute hops.

Mash @68-70c
80% pilsner malt
20% sucrose
Superpride to 18-20IBU
W34/70 @18-20c

I chuck in a handful of roasted barley for colour.

Ive tried same recipe with ale malts and they are always too malty.

 

[Conny Junholt]

Thanks for the feedback captain.

Appreciate it.