By Kevin Hingston, Social Secretary

The Canberra Brewers Club came together on May 4 to celebrate International Homebrew Day where eight brewers brewed 11 batches of the ‘More Fun’ Belgian Ale.

The brewers were interviewed on the day to find out more about their recipe, their system and their love of homebrewing…

The recipe from the AHA web site
(Copied straight from - http://wiki.americanhomebrewers.org/MoreFunBlonde-AllGrain)

More Fun Blonde - Belgian Pale Ale
Recipe for 5 gallons (18.9 L)

Fermentables
8.5 lb (3.86 kg) German Pils malt
2.0 lb (0.9 kg) American pale malt
13.0 oz (369 g) dextrose (corn sugar)

Hops
0.5 oz (14 g) Northern Brewer hops, 9% a.a. (60 min)
0.6 oz (17 g) Northern Brewer hops, 9% a.a. (20 min)
0.7 oz (20 g) Willamette hops, 5% a.a. (20 min)
0.5 oz (14 g) Willamette hops, 5% a.a. (0 min)

Yeast
White Labs WLP530 Abbey Ale yeast, Wyeast No. 3787 Trappist High Gravity yeast

Brewers Specifics
Mash grains at 152° F (67°C) for 60 minutes
Batch sparge at 168° F (76° C)
Bring to a rolling boil and add 13.0 oz (369 g) dextrose
Boil 90 minutes and add hops at specified intervals from end of boil
Chill wort to 65° F (18° C) and pitch yeast
Ramp temperature to 75° F (24° C) over 36 hours
Finish fermentation at 75° F (24° C)
Keg at 2.5 volumes of CO₂ or bottle condition with 4 oz (113 g) corn sugar

Boil Time: 90 minutes
Original Gravity: 1.065 (15.9° P)
Final Gravity: 1.015 (3.8° P)
SRM: 4°
IBU: 42
ABV: 6.7%
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75%

Tweaks
Each brewer had a tweak to their recipe to make it a little different, these tweaks ranged from lighter to heavier alcohol levels, oak chips, hop and fruit extracts, late hopping and more.

By Nick Wiseman, Editor

A massive amount of brewers came together this month to share their beers and to also listen in to this month’s guest speaker – David Cryer.

Presenting a fantastic talk to the Club, David talked in length about all things malt including differences between common base malts as well as getting into the specialties.

He came armed with plenty of handouts and was keen to talk with brewers after his talk to pass his knowledge on.

The talk was well received with plenty of members throwing questions at him.

Brewers for the International Homebrew Day pulled their ‘tweaks’ out of a hat to see what they would be doing on the day – more details in an upcoming story shortly.

Results and awards were handed out for the first competition of the year – congratulations to all who were a part of it.

Club members listening in to the education talk

By Nick Wiseman, Editor

May is set to be another huge meeting with the guest speaker segment continuing with David Cryer from Cryer Malts talking everything about malts and the malting process.

Further details for the upcoming International Homebrew Day will be discussed with brewers involved discovering their individual tweaks on the night.

The results and stories from the recent competition will be given out by the competition secretary and four beers will be up for tasting on the night as part of the malt challenge with best beer to be voted by the tasters.

The raffles this month include some great gear for the brewery including a stir-plate and flask, grain scales, infrared thermometer and some wood chips for a wood aged beer.

By Nick Wiseman, Editor

Education took on a new spin this month with Phil and
Dale Meddings from Bintani Australia giving a comprehensive talk on yeast.

In front of a quiet audience, beaten only by last year’s talk by Canberra Brewer turned professional brewer Scott ‘Cougar’ Hargrave, Dale spoke in length about today’s dry yeast strains.

Many myths and common misconceptions were thrown aside with the talk and most certainly turned many brewers back to trying dried yeast who may have gone wholly to liquid strains.

Dale went into great detail about the range of Fermentis yeasts currently available on the market as well as some other strains not yet available in smaller homebrewer-friendly packs.

Also visiting on the night was Feral Brewing owner/brewer Brendan Varis who gave the club insights into how he brews adding to Dale’s talk about yeast.

Between the two of them and Richard Watkins, members of the club left that night knowing a lot more about yeast – and in particular, the dried yeast variety.

The North vs South challenge was on with south side taking it out and Joel ‘Bainesy’ Baines having the favourite brew on the night – which was not bad at all considering it was brewed and supplied in seven days!