Tooheys Old Dark Ale

[Blind Dog]

Although the 'its cheaper' argument is perhaps more likely to be the reason, particularly as I've read that it was common place to use large proportions of sugar from the very start of brewing in Australia.

 

[Dave70]

Belgian ales pile the sugaz in big time. Nobodys calling them megaswill.
Imaging rolling with 8% + ales in the six o' clock swill. We could have had our very own 'Gin craze'.

 

[TimT]

There's a lot of old recipes that include some sugar, or are all sugar. I presume it was considered the cheap, easy alternative to doing a mash at home.

American beers (like everything else in their country) often are thinned with the use of sugars or corn syrup. UK beer recipes from the 19th century also seem to have sugar added fairly frequently - I presume it's from the UK tradition that we inherited our own sugar-adding ways.

 

[boingk]

Count me among the Old-drinking masses, too.

Even the Tooheys Dark Ale 1.7kg kits do a reasonable job at replicating it. Not 100% but pretty darn good considering you can throw it into the fermenter with a pack of Coopers BE2 and have something approaching an Old. The included yeast (Maui 514?) even gives a comparable nose to it.

- boingk

 

[pist]

Yep old goes alright, my fall back when there's no decent beer, not even coopers green on tap

 

[huez]

In Northern NSW a lot of older guys at the pub or club drink a "Murray Grey" which is a half and half light beer (Hahn or Cascade) topped up with T.O. from the tap. Couple of guys in Kyogle were drinking them this afternoon.

worked in pubs for 10years, never heard it called a murray grey. i love it though!

 

[stm]

charlie ( mostly Hahn Light with a good dash of TO and I'll leave you to figure why it was named in honour of Charlie Perkins).

Always wondered why it was called a charlie. Not that any current bar staff know what this is until I explain it.

 

[Lincoln2]

Bloody tourists come to Kyogle and steal our beer names.

Bribie, we'll have to organise afew schooners of Old at the golf club. Great venue for a few schooners of old.

Another one here is the Bruiser, named because it's black and blue. Half old and half new.

 

[Bribie G]

Haven't been to the Golf Club yet, the bowlo is pretty spartan...
I'm just about unpacked and set up and meeting neighbours, all of whom have retro names like Doug, Fred, Nev etc. We will definitely quaff of the Old fairly soon.

 

[kalbarluke]

In Northern NSW a lot of older guys at the pub or club drink a "Murray Grey" which is a half and half light beer (Hahn or Cascade) topped up with T.O. from the tap. Couple of guys in Kyogle were drinking them this afternoon.

I've heard of Tooheys Now - half Old and half New. Tried it once. Not awful.

 

[Mikedub]

agree with the love being thrown at this beer, its as complete a beer as it need to be.

 

[leigh712]

Count me among the Old-drinking masses, too.

Even the Tooheys Dark Ale 1.7kg kits do a reasonable job at replicating it. Not 100% but pretty darn good considering you can throw it into the fermenter with a pack of Coopers BE2 and have something approaching an Old. The included yeast (Maui 514?) even gives a comparable nose to it.

- boingk

 

[leigh712]

This is my first thread ;I recently bought 2 cans of tooheys dark ale , was gonna do a toucan with em but reading this thread might do one with a BE 2 . Has anyone else noticed the kit yeast smells like stale peanuts? should I use it or can anyone recommend which coopers yeast to use I have a few on hand , the standard , ipa select & an international ? Also what final volume would get to me about 5.5% . Any advise would be appreciated . Cheers

 

[TheWiggman]

To back up the clone recipes above here are the ingredients courtesy of 'the beautiful truth' -



Ale yeast, super pride and surprisingly some hop extract from USA and/or UK. And of course cane sugar. Next cab off the home brew ranks will be Brewman's recipe I think, still tossing up the yeast.

 

[Bribie G]

A good yeast to use would be Nottingham. If you use the can, a pack of BE2 and half a kilo of raw sugar it should get you pretty close.

WRT Brewman's AG recipe, it turned out really good.

 

[Funk then Funk1]

To back up the clone recipes above here are the ingredients courtesy of 'the beautiful truth' -

Tooheys Old.jpg

Ale yeast, super pride and surprisingly some hop extract from USA and/or UK. And of course cane sugar. Next cab off the home brew ranks will be Brewman's recipe I think, still tossing up the yeast.

"Unique Australian ale yeast"...is this linking back to the "White labs yeast vault" and the "Bronzed brews" Melbourne yeast?

 

[TheWiggman]

Going to brew this Brewman's recipe on page 2 tomorrow. Holy smokes though, >800g of sugaz in a 23l recipe? Hard to believe. In any case, diving ahead. I picked up 1469 West Yorkshire Ale yeast for this one, hopefully will be on-point.

 

[kunfaced]

could re cultured coopers yeast be a good choice?

 

[Bribie G]

I always go Nottingham for Tooheys Old attempts.
1469 will give a very nice ale, but a couple of points:

It does best with Yorkshire "style" water reasonably hard off limestone - I usually chuck in a bit of Calcium Chloride.
Aussie ales tend to be made on softer water with some sulphates.

 

[TheWiggman]

I'm using RO water and went for the 'balanced dark' profile on Bru'n water. 3.5g of Epsom and Gypsum, 1.8g calcium chloride. So sulphate around 90ppm and chloride low at 30ppm.