Brewhouse Blog
Chocolate in Beer!
April 18, 2012
Original heirloom "criollo amazonico" from the Peruvian Amazon
Beer has been produced over the years in almost every conceivable flavour and texture, popular or not, there is always someone who will try anything and that is how we learn what flavours work. One flavour that crops up often and fits in seamlessly with all manner of dark beer is that ever popular little goodie – chocolate! Dark beers often already display many of the characteristics of chocolate having used no additives – however many a brewer has taken that extra step and, as with so many other popular flavours, added cacao to the list of ingredients. A popular choice for brewers who tackle the chocolate beer is a stout – a big, hearty black beer with a great capacity for flavour, giving plenty of room for the rich, bittersweet character of a good, organic cacao.
Adding an extra ingredient adds a new dimension to a beer, making an already subtle art all the more challenging, trying to achieve the right balance of bitterness, sweetness, flavour, body and texture. As you know all too well, it is easy to go a bit overboard with chocolate, but when you find that perfect balance, nothing is better! And not that we need any more of an excuse, but cacao is packed with antioxidants, magnesium and other nutrients that boast a claim to many well published and researched health benefits!
As the cooler weather creeps in it is time to make our first Porter of the year. After the success of our award winning Coffee Porter, “Shot in the Dark”, we have decided to brew a chocolate Porter. What we have laid our hot little hands on is a stock of “original heirloom criollo amazonico” cacao nibs from Satipo in Peru. This heirloom variety of cacao has been grown in the Peruvian Amazon for thousands of years by the Ashaninka and Chene people and is completely organic.
Make sure you keep your ears to the ground and wait to see what we do with this superb product!
Golden Ale
March 5, 2012Introducing our Light Golden Ale 3% ABV
Golden Ale is a relatively new style, emerging at the beginning of the ’90s in the form of the English “Summer Ale”. This was devised as a competitor for the “Pale Lager” market and has become, not surprisingly, a style well adapted inAustralia. There have been many and varied “Summer -” and “Golden Ales” in our local market over the last decade and many to great success – some would even call it perfect for our climate! As it is a young style, it is still in stages of evolving. Some brewers have gone for the very light, easy drinking ale (which leaves them ill-defined from many of the generic pale lagers present in our market and around the world), while others have gone for the sweeter, maltier aproach, leaving the line between Pale, Golden and Amber quite blurred – we like to define our golden ale as it should be; unassuming yet interesting, sessionable yet not without body.
The result is the newest beer to our line-up - a Golden Ale with character and purpose, clearly defined between the many and varied Pale Ales out there, and the stronger, heavier, full flavoured Amber and Red Ales that are so common these days.
Our light golden ale uses five malts to create a delicate, yet full and pleasant flavour. Pilsner malt is used along with a variety of lightly roasted malts including a medium Crystal, Carapils & Caramalt giving you hints of biscuit and subtle toffee while avoiding the overly sweet caramel that can so easily lead astray the sessionable nature of a Golden Ale. The present yet unassuming and subtle hop character is thanks toAmarillo,New Zealand Matueka and Australian Cascade, giving you a dry finish complimented by pleasant citrus notes and very subtle lingering bitterness.
-Good as Gold? Better!
Brewer’s Special – IBA
December 22, 2011India Black Ale – 5.7% abv
This hybrid beer marries together two outstanding styles and breeds something entirely new! Malts used include Australian pale and wheat malt, English crystal, German black and a special toasted malt. Hops include American Tomahawk, Simcoe, Cascade, Willamette, New Zealand Motueka and Australian Galaxy.
IBA as a style emerged in America as a bridge between the sweeter, darker styles such as the American Brown Ale and the hop driven India Pale Ale (IPA). A firm malt backbone and a restrained roasted character with hints of chocolate & coffee from the black malt is complemented by the tropical fruit aroma & flavour of the hops.
The complexity of this IBA is deceptive – as you begin you are presented with a complexity of flavours and a full body, yet it finishes quite dry with a pleasant, lingering bitterness making this the perfect summer black! Match it up with our amazing BBQ Pork Ribs!
Witty Wit
October 25, 2011
As a brewer, it can be quite daunting to step up and tackle some of the more challenging styles of beer – one of the scariest is the Belgian Wit! In any brew, there is a delicate balance of flavours that can be upset by the slightest change of recipe or by simply not taking the greatest of care, so when it came time to tackle “The Great White” for the first time, it had to be with the closest attention to detail, and luckily, that is something that our brewer Johann prides himself upon, but to be certain of doing it justice, he enlisted the help of Sims from Brewer’s Choice – a man with a wealth of experience and a great knowledge of this particular style.
The Belgian Wit is an unfiltered wheat beer that utilises unmalted wheat and oats to give it the silky mouthfeel and body that we so easily associate with the style. The spicy aroma is attained by using a type of special yeast for fermentation as well as both orange peel and coriander late in the kettle boil. These “out of the ordinary” ingredients would commonly be called “Gruit” in the original style and were traditionally used without hops. This creates a refreshing flavour that is just right for our hot summer days!
Make sure you get a taste of this spectacular beer before it is all gone!
Waking up to a New Brew
October 18, 2011
"Wake Up and Smell the Coffee"
Shot in the Dark
The “Shot in the Dark – Coffee Porter” is BrisbaneBrewing Co.’s first ever joint venture. We’ve teamed up with Merlo Coffee to produce an infused beer! Unlike our honey wheat beer, where the honey is part of the “wort” (that’s what it’s called once you have all the ingredients mixed, but before the beer begins brewing), the Shot in the Dark is first brewed as an English Brown Porter, and is then infused with Merlo’s incredible coffee extraction.
The combination of the already sweet maltiness and robust character of the Porter and the rich flavour and aroma of coffee, we’re sure you’ll agree that we’ve created the perfect partnership and a truly fabulous product. “Wake up and smell the coffee!”
Porter: a style of dark ale made popular in 18th centuryLondon that is typically brewed in the present day using a blend of pale, crystal and roasted malts. Specifically, our Porter uses a blend of English crystal malt and two types of roasted malt. Not as strong as Stout (Stout Porter as it was known in the olden days), a Porter is packed with the flavours that a Stout is known for, but with a more sessionable alcohol content of 4.9% ABV.
This is what we started with, and then we brought it out of the dark ages, waking it up so to speak with a shot of caffeine! Using the finest extraction of coffee – supplied to us by our friends at Merlo Coffee in Albion – we have created a brew that delivers (obviously) a robust coffee flavour and aroma supported by a subtle blend of vanilla, chocolate and almonds.
