2007 Australian Amateur Brewing Championships

The 2007 Australian Amateur Brewing Championship was judged over a couple of weekends in late November at the Woonona-Bulli Scout Hall in Wollongong.

Held since 1995, this year's competition was organised by the IBUs (Illawarra Brewers Union), the local homebrew club in Wollongong. The key organiser was Ray Mills.

Entry to AABC required a top three placing in a state qualifier. A total of 892 beers from 225 brewers were entered in the qualifiers with 162 entries from 82 brewers making it to the national final.

Proving that homebrewers are an independent bunch, about a quarter of the entries came from non-club members, but clubs will be encouraging them to join to share their experiences.

Champion Beer of the Show was won by Dan Rayner from the Canberra Brewers for the second year in a row. Champion Brewer with 3 firsts, 1 second, 2 thirds was Craig Webber also from the Canberra Brewers for the second year in a row. Victoria won the Best State award.

The 2008 Australian Amateur Brewing Championships will be in Melbourne in October in conjunction with the first Australian National Homebrewing Conference.

More information and results: www.aabc.org.au

2007 Australian National Amateur Wine and Beer Show

Stuart Campbell , Beer Convener

The Australian National Amateur Wine and Beer Show (ANAWBS) celebrated its 28th consecutive year with another successful competition. Total entries (including beer, grape wine, fruit wine, liqueurs and labels) approached 1000 this year, with beer accounting for 262 of the total entries, a 20% increase of entrants in the beer classes since 2006.

The beer competition is fully BJCP sanctioned and was judged over two days by a panel of 22 judges led by Tony Jones from Malt Shovel Brewery, and including professionals from 8 breweries (Lion Nathan, Coopers, Campus Brewery, Yorke Brewing, Barossa Valley Brewing, Steam Exchange, Gulf Brewery, and Grumpy's), BJCP recognised judges, and respected members of the home brewing community.

The competition is also the home of the prestigious Mash Paddle competition for all grain brewers. Twenty-three All Grain Kolsch entries were submitted for the mash paddle, with 12 attaining medal status (38.5 or more points out of 50). Victoria's Daniel Walker took out the 2007 award.

ANAWBS stands alone but complements the AABA sanctioned state competitions and the Australian Amateur Brewing Championship. ANAWBS is a nationally focused competition open to all home brewers in Australia, without pre qualification required.

Every mainland state in Australia was represented on the winning dais over the 20 style specific classes covered. Of the marquee awards, the most successful brewer came from Queensland, the best beer from South Australia, Best Kit Beer from New South Wales and the Mash Paddle winner from Victoria.

SOBA National Homebrew Championships

Stu McKinlay
Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA) Inc

If tasting 145 beers in 2 days sounds like a dream job, think again. This was the arduous task of the judging team at the inaugural SOBA National Homebrew Championships recently held in Wellington. New Zealand beer writer Geoff Griggs, who has been invited to judge at the World Beer Cup in 2008, led an expert panel of five judges through 16 hours of evaluating the 145-strong entry list.

In the final wash-up, 60 beers were evaluated to be of medal-winning standard with 6 gold, 15 silver and 39 bronze medals being awarded. Gold medals - an indication of an outstanding, world class example of a particular style - were awarded to a Traditional Bock, a Mild Ale, an Extra Strong Bitter, an English Barleywine, a Belgian Tripel and a NZ Lager.

The second day of judging culminated in a taste-off for ‘Best in Show', where a beautiful Traditional Bock from Dan Boyce (Gore) beat out two other outstanding beers: a Mild Ale from Barry Hannah (Whangaparaoa) and an English Barleywine from John Golics (Auckland). All three beers had been unanimously judged gold, in the initial round of judging. While the winning Bock now goes on to be commercially brewed at Hallertau Brewbar, Barry will take some consolation in winning the coveted ‘Brewer of the Year' award.

The homebrew fun didn't end at the judging however, with SOBA's Wellington home brewers throwing a HomeBrewFest Awards Party at The Boatshed. Close to 1,000 half pints of generously donated home and commercially craft brewed beers were served - ranging in style from Pilsners, APAs and Bitters, through to various Belgian-styles, to Smoked Porters and American Stout.

www.soba.org.nz

by Alex Troncaso
Chief Brewer, Little Creatures

Back in my early days of studying brewing I used to do a lot of home brewing, and just had a general curiosity for the process.

One day I found all of my fermenters full but, still wanting to do something brewing related, I decided to make some crystal malt at home - and it even actually worked! Below is the method I came up with, based on my reading about how crystal malt is produced. I'm not claiming that this will be better than what you can buy, but it's a bit of fun at the very least and will make your beer just a bit more ‘yours'.

The basic steps in the process are steeping, stewing and kilning.

Steeping is required to raise the moisture content of the dry malt to approximately 50%. Interestingly, re-hydrating finished pale malt is one method by which crystal malts can be made.

Stewing is the step where the contents of the now re-hydrated malt will be converted to sugars (yes, just like mashing!).

Kilning is the stage where the malt is dried, the kernel contents become caramelised and melanoidins are formed.

Method

1. Measure out 500g of Pale Malt. I'm sure any Pale Malt will suffice.
2. Measure 1.5l of water and add to a pot. Add the malt to the water.
3. Heat the mixture to approximately 45°C and let sit for two hours. Stir occasionally. The warm water temperature assists in water up-take.
4. After the two hours are up, the malt should be rehydrated. Strain the mixture through a normal kitchen strainer.
5. Preheat your oven to approx 70°C. Place the wet malt in a baking/casserole dish and level out the grain bed. Put the lid on (if no lid, cover with foil, a plate, or whatever) and put in the oven. Let stew for two hours, stirring every 30 minutes. Note: it might pay to verify the temperature of your oven with a thermometer - I know mine is slightly out.
6. Once step 5 is complete, remove the lid and for a sort of ‘medium' crystal - increase the oven temperature to 175°C and kiln (bake) for two hours, stirring every 15 minutes. Make sure the grain bed is levelled after stirring. After two hours, you can raise the oven temperature to 200°C and kiln for another 30 minutes for a darker colour. During this time, stir every five minutes. Don't kiln any higher than 200°C as it may burn the malt and might even catch fire!
   Those temperatures are just guidelines, you can play around with lower temps, longer times, whatever, to get different character and colour.
7. Once the kilning is complete, remove from the oven and cool uncovered. The grains will become crunchy after cooling (ie. when the caramelised insides are cold). Once cool, place in a sealed container and let sit for approximately one week before brewing.
8. Brew a good English Bitter and enjoy! Happy Brewing!

Brendan Varis

Brendan Varis' Feral Brewery is anything but undomesticated as Chris Canty recently found.

There was once a time when Western Australia's Swan Valley was known for being the State's oldest wine growing region. Yet when Brendan Varis opened Feral Brewery in 2002, the area began getting plaudits for other reasons.

"I was pretty well inspired by what the craft brewers in the US were doing after visiting there in 1996," Brendan says.

"The beer we had there was great and I knew that Aussies would take to fuller flavoured more interesting beer if it was available."

So with that in mind, Brendan began learning his craft working with DME Brewing Services before a short stint with St Arnou in 2001. He maintains that this experience continually helps him at Feral.

"Between 1998 and 2001 we completed 14 turnkey projects in Australia and the experience I gained from doing all those startups is still proving invaluable today."

Feral currently has 5 beers on offer, ranging from its Farmhouse Ale, a light beer (3.8%) with hints of ginger, cured orange peel, coriander and Thai palm sugar; to Rust (6%), a Belgian Abbey ale style with a distinct banana aroma.

He says that the name Feral means ‘undomesticated' which shows a bit of cheekiness in regards to the major ‘domestic' beer labels. While he makes an array of different styles, he maintains the main feature of all his beers is balance.

"You can be as big and bold and experimental as you like when it comes to flavour and aroma profiles but all components of the beer need to be in balance with each other in order to make a beer that is all round satisfying and with a high drinkability," he says.

"That's what we strive for when putting together a beer."

Ask anyone in the industry about Brendan and the first thing they'll say is his generous nature. He is well known for going out
of his way to share his knowledge with fellow brewers, though it's not only those in the industry he likes to educate.

"I really enjoy pouring our beer for people who either don't normally drink beer at all or who have been a one beer brand person their whole life," he says.

"Invariably they will be pleasantly surprised by some of the flavours they encounter in our beer and you know they will go away and try new beers on a regular basis. That's a job well done as far as I'm concerned."

But while the joy he has in giving customers the finished product is obvious, he is perhaps even more passionate about the brewing process itself, in particular developing new beers.

"With our beer lineup fairly settled for the minute we only get four or five opportunities to experiment each year," he says.

"The satisfaction of moving a beer from concept to finished product is awesome."

Despite Feral being categorised as a boutique brewery, growth has seen a restaurant and merchandise sales added to his business, which Brendan says can be a distraction.

"Juggling hats between Managing Director and brewer can suck a bit," he says.

"So far the balance has been pretty good, and I haven't had any cobwebs appearing on my gumboots yet."

And what's in store for the Feral future?

"I'm back in the US for the first time in 11 years this April to judge at the World Beer Cup and can't wait to see how the scene has progressed," he says.

"Short term, the brewery will introduce our White Beer to more of the country. We will also do a minor upgrade to the brewery which will let us do more specialty and seasonal beer."

While it is obvious that the Feral Brewery is part of Australia's relatively new wave of high quality producers, Brendan thinks that there is still a lot of work to do in educating people about what craft beer represents.

"I get a little nervous when I talk to people about their new startup brewery and I get the feeling they expect to be the next Crown Lager," he says.

"We need to stick to what we do best which is full-flavoured, interesting beer. If we do this and then put in the effort to explain to people what is so special about our beer then I am confident craft beer has a bright future."

Feral Brewing
152 Haddrill Road, Baskerville. Phone: (08) 9296 4657
www.feralbrewing.com.au

It's every homebrewer's dream to take their hobby from the laundry, garage or shed to the glistening stainless steel of their own commercial brewery. It's not an impossible dream either.

Over the last few years a number of successful home brewers have taken the plunge and prospered - or at least kept the doors open - in their own microbreweriesand brew pubs.

Is the dream all that it's cracked up to be? Is the old saying, "If you work doing what you love then you don't work a day in your life" a truism or false promise?

This edition of Beer & Brewer begins a series looking at starting your own brewery. Each edition we'll feature a different brewer's experiences, as well as advice from a professional in the field - be it in brewing equipment, marketing, labels, employment; everything an aspiring brewer needs to know, but that they don't teach you at school!

So, you want to start a brewery...

by Luke Scott
Head Brewer, Otway Estate Winery & Brewery
Beer & Brewer's Technical Editor

It is the dream of most beer drinkers to own and run their own brewery, and it's often thought that breweries are a licence to print money, but just ask anyone who runs a small brewery and they will tell you how difficult it is. Through this article I will endeavour to provide a general overview and highlight some important factors to consider when opening a small brewery.

Licensing

An excise licence is required to brew beer commercially. It is granted from the government and this tax forms your major ongoing cost after the initial cost of equipment and venue for the brewery. The Australia Tax Office, which approves and monitors the excise licence, is fairly helpful as the more breweries there are the more revenue they generate. There are two separate rates for excise, a bulk rate and a packaged rate. It's a little known fact that packaged beer is taxed at a higher rate than keg beer. The amount of excise also depends on the alcohol strength of the beer you are brewing. For example, for a 50 litre keg of full strength beer at 5% abv you are looking at paying an excise of $52 per keg while for a 330ml stubby you are looking at 50 cents per bottle, which adds up to $12 per carton in tax.

Every state and territory is different in terms of their liquor laws. Victoria and Western Australia are relatively easy and not very costly in comparison to NSW, which may go some way to explain the health of their respective microbrewing industries. Obtaining a retail liquor licence for a small brewery enables you to sell your beer onsite selling at retail prices rather than wholesale and is certainly a key to success.

Location and set up

Where you set up your brewery is a major factor. An early decision needs to be made about how you are going to trade, be it as a brew pub or as a wholesale factory that sends most of its beer out to bottleshops and pubs to be sold. If you are considering a brew pub-style brewery location is a major factor. Your success stems not only from the quality of the beer you brew but the whole package you offer the customer in the way of food, ambience, entertainment and how you attract the punters to your brewery.

Beer Styles

The choice of beer to brew is an important decision. Most breweries in Australia today have a similar range of tried and true winners including a Pilsner, American Pale Ale, Belgian Wheat Beer and some form of black beer be it a Stout or Porter. All are great styles, though there is breadth for experimentation in brewing with the range and variety of raw materials. There is certainly room for the game and adventurous to step out of the square in terms of beer styles and create their own unique beers.

Equipment

Whether to buy new or second hand equipment and how big it should be are vital questions to be answered when looking at setting up a brewery. There is currently a shortage of quality second hand equipment available compared to the US and Canada where brewers always seem to be upgrading their equipment to meet with demand. A good suggestion if looking at going second hand is to see what is available in the US or Canada, bearing in mind the cost of freight and potential lack of follow up support and maintenance.

There are a number of brewery supply companies out there in the market and most are agents for overseas suppliers. Like anything in life, when it comes to brewery equipment you get what you pay for.
When deciding on size, always bear in mind that your labour cost per litre of beer brewed will stay relatively constant, be it a 600 litre brew length or an 1,800 litre brew length.

If the capital cost of setting up a brewery is too much, another option is to consider contract brewing. Contract brewing enables you to get your beer out in the market testing the water without the capital costs. There are a number of specific contract breweries and also some craft breweries that have tank space free to brew beer under contract. Contract brewing enables you to focus your business towards the sales, marketing and logistics of your beer brand.

Staffing

Generally, once you've mastered the art and the science side of brewing (no easy feat in itself) you'll find the actual brewing process the easiest part of the job. It's the other aspects of being a small craft brewer that are the most challenging and time consuming, such as being Mr Fix It when things break down, the marketing guru, the sales guru, and the customer service agent. The roles of bartender, delivery driver, tour operator and public speaker are all part and parcel of the small brewer's job description too. The best part after fulfilling all of those roles during the day is attending the Quality Assurance meeting which involves the task of sampling and research.

Through all that, you're also the Human Resources Manager and finding the right mix of personnel is always a key to success. If you're not brewing it yourself, finding a quality brewer is certainly an asset to your operation.

Branding & Marketing

It seems easy but buyer behaviour, brand recognition and marketing in general are some of the most import factors to success in the brewing game. You can make the best beer in the world, but if you can't sell it the business will soon finish. Packaging, label design, logos, company and brand names are all major considerations when starting off. One suggestion is whilst waiting for your licence to be approved or while chasing additional capital, spend as much time considering these aspects of the business as you can.

Some other factors that need to be considered are the choice of ingredients used, be they imported or local malts and hops. The style of packaging and logistics and distribution methods are all key factors that, if done well, will improve the chances of success and the bottom line.

I hope I haven't discouraged anyone from opening a brewery. But it is important to recognise that loving brewing and being good at that one aspect are only the beginning. It is the goal of this series to provide an in-depth look at these and other issues. We hope the information will assist new entrants in the industry and make for  healthier, more vibrant Australian brewing scene and, ultimately, more successful craft breweries.

Just remember a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears goes into each glass of hand crafted beer, as do a few wads of cash - not always as a return to the brewer as everyone expects. Good luck!

A dream scenario

by Neal Cameron
Head Brewer, Be Bortoli Wines Pty Ltd

A ‘dream come true' is an overused phrase of late and I wonder how many people have really experienced such a phenomenon? You would think race car drivers, fighter pilots and beer journalists would be amongst those few persons lucky enough to really have had their long-held dreams come true. But how does the dream compare with the 5.30am alarm clock of reality?

A couple of years ago, I was in the process of leaving a Riverina city and a career in operations management that had long offered the stimulation of a warm Corona. Mr Darren De Bortoli (may he forever be blessed) and his clearly intelligent Operations Manager sat me down and wondered casually if I would be interested in starting a Brewery for them? Now, they were talking to a man who had self-funded a brewing qualification, wrote for local magazines on the subject of beer, ran beer appreciation courses and had twice attempted to generate enough funds to set up a micro brewery of his own. So, yes, I was interested. And there you have it, out of the blue, a dream scenario realised, in the De Bortoli Winery canteen, over a cup of poor espresso.

This then was the start of a 2-year project to visualise, justify and realise something that existed only in the mind of a few people with the wherewithal and capacity to make it real. There was nothing on paper, no rules, no guidelines, no omnipotent figure of fantasy tales guiding the erstwhile group on the path of righteousness; just a blank piece of paper for the newly created project team to fill in with colour as they saw fit. That and the enormous credibility of the De Bortoli family ­- generated over three generations - at stake, plus the necessary demand of a healthy return on hard-earned family money in an intensely competitive market.

Aye, and there's the first rub of those of us galloping into our dream scenarios. How many times does reality intrude upon these hop-scented dreams? In these visions of evening sunlight catching upon a glass of lazily climbing bubbles, while surrounded by the chatter of tired but wholesome and happy brewers, did the pressure of high expectation and financial reality creep in? And how many times did the smell of an infected ferment intrude over those jute bags of freshly malted grains. Not bloody often!
So lesson number one; unless your psyche is on the dark side of normal and your dream scenarios contain all that could go wrong, you will find that the journey from dream to reality carries many spiky bits to puncture the bubble.

However, the many such minor discords that were to follow pale[ale]d compared to the pure delight of being paid real money to lead a team of new colleagues in discussions on such mighty subjects as; What beers should we produce? Who is our target market? How big the mash-tun? What design of bottle should we trust to contain our perfect beer? How many bottles an hour must our shiny new bottling line gently feed into our shiny new labeller? Upon whom should we bestow the honour of being on the tasting panel? What level of automation should we build in? How should we propagate our yeast? What size of trial brewery to buy? How to source and trial the best materials out there? What colour carpet for the brewery office? My forearms soon grew pretty strong and my waist started to look pleasingly tucked-in from continually hugging myself with the pleasure of being paid to do something that I would exultantly do for free.

The overriding memory of the project is of the thousand questions to be answered, followed by a thousand more. All sculpting and tempering a vision for a beer that had previously not existed; one conceived to fulfil the expectations of those persons willing to shell-out a not insignificant $20 for six bottles of beer.

As time went on, the glory of such a project began to come clear. Contrary to what you think, it's not the hops and the boiling wort that gives the joy, nor the waking up every morning realising that you're in charge of a brewery (although I do rather like that bit). Nor even the task of tasting 20 ferments at 7.00a.m. No, the real pleasure in realising a dream such as this is the sheer creativity of the project. The enormous complexities of piecing together the offering and the infrastructure to allow the insanely tricky business of getting good beer into a bottle and out to the market in such a way that people will buy and continue to buy.

On a day-to-day basis, the many joys are often the joys of firsts. The first commercial brew, the first time someone comes back for a second beer. The first time you produce 5,000L of finished beer and realise that it is as good as you hoped. The first fully-liveried bottle coming off the bottling line and the first time you go into a restaurant and narcissistically order one of your own beers (and pay $10 for something you can get for free).

In the dream scenario, the response to your beer is of course divine, with queues at the bottle shops and journalists writing effusive missives quoting phrases such as the ‘new
beer messiah'.

Something unpredicted was that over the months of work, your beer becomes almost as a child. I wonder then how many parents could read objective reviews of their offspring on childadvocate.com without a tremor?

And whilst the hard and tiring reality of starting a brewery is nothing like the dream, the one thing that is not apparent in the dream is the profound feeling that for the time being, the world is as it should be.

And that's a pretty special feeling.

The aesthetic of drinking beer is to an extent subliminal. The presentation of beer in a glass with its foam head, clarity and colour conjure Pavlovian anticipation for the perceptive drinker. It is said that a beer drinker drinks as much with their eyes as with their mouth.

But that foamy head confers not just a visual benefit. It also acts as an efficient gas exchange surface pitching aromas towards the drinker's olfactory sensors and so provides a drinker's first tantalising glimpse as to the quality of the beer's flavour, freshness, refreshingness and wholesomeness. Foam is also tactile to the lips and affects mouthfeel through its stability and its structure (bubble size).

But what are the features of good foam quality?

Typically, this is defined by a combination of its stability, quantity, lacing (glass adhesion or cling), whiteness, ‘creaminess' and strength. Here beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder as consumers discriminate between beers based on their foam characteristics. These choices have been found to diverge between genders, race or even region.

There are those consumers who like to see stable (but not excessive) head but a clean glass at the end of drinking and those who prefer to be left with a lacing pattern on the glass. More recently, it was demonstrated that men generally rate foam lacing higher than women.

Foam stability is the result of the interaction between the proteins from the malt and hops. Australian varieties of malt such as Gairdner (most common malt) and the new variety, Flagship, have high levels of the protein Z4 compared to older varieties such as Schooner and Stirling. Isomerised hop-α-acids, which provide the bitter taste of beer, have also been demonstrated to be foam promoting, especially in their hydrogenated forms such as ‘Tetra' hop. The tetra hop was primarily developed to provide protection from light strike - or what the Americans call ‘skunking' - in beers sold in the less protective but visually attractive clear or green glass bottles.

While contributing to a crisp and dry final product popular with many drinkers, the practice of using cane sugar in brewing dilutes out the foam proteins that contribute to a highly stable head. To counter this, many brewers can add the chemical propylene glycol alginate (PGA). Adding PGA is reputed to increase foam stability by around 5-10 per cent and many brewers rely on it to provide satisfactory foam quality for some of their products.

Other strategies for promoting foam stability involve the use of devices added to the packaging or included in the glass. The most technically simple is the use of ‘nucleated' glassware such as the ‘headkeeper' style that can be found in many Australian pubs.

Through the use of microscopic abrasions on the bottom of the glass, this ‘energised' glassware produces new bubbles that replenish collapsed bubbles in the foam head. The process also results in ‘beading' which is the attractive spectacle of the bubbles rising from the beer up to the foam.

While most beers are naturally and conventionally carbonated, the use of nitrogen gas also improves foam stability. Nitrogen has a lower partial pressure compared to CO2 and results in the production of smaller, more stable bubbles. Nitrogen is also less soluble in beer than CO2 so it does not ‘leak' as quickly from foam bubbles, further maintaining foam stability.

The addition of nitrogen into the beer changes the foam's mouthfeel to a ‘creamy' texture, however the lower CO2 content leads to beer with less ‘prickle' (acidic feeling from bubble collapse) on the palate making the beer taste flat and watery. Still, tests have shown that the visual impact of the foam head on a glass of beer is more important than the tactile impact on perceptions of flavour and mouthfeel and the brewer's use of nitrogen depends on the beer style and consumer preferences.

The use of the widget is relatively widespread in some specific styles of beer. It is either attached to the base of the package or floats within it. These characteristics reduce the appeal of the widget in the more popular bottle, presumably because the sight of a widget floating or attached to the bottom of a bottle is somewhat disconcerting for the consumer. In cans, the widget can be commonly found in the less carbonated stout and bitter ale style beers of the United Kingdom, such at the cans of Guinness, Boddingtons ale and Newcastle Brown ale, but has not found acceptance in other regions or beer styles.

The nitrogen widget was designed to emulate the draught style of UK pub presentation. Widgets work as nitrogen foam nucleating devices and in some cases the widget can also form bubbles from its nucleated surfaces. The widget also provides a degree of theatre upon package opening with a characteristic rumble of the gas being released through the widget vent to produce a slight fob at the package opening and pour associated with the rise of a multitude of tiny bubbles to a creamy head. The main downside of widgets is that they are considered by the industry to be expensive both in terms of capital and consumable costs.

Foam quality, however, is not just about ‘quick' fixes such as the inclusion of widgets, ever greater levels of ‘tetra' hop or gas composition but attention to the beer making process from grass to glass (malting variety breeding to dispense).

Brewers do have solid options in manipulating the quality and quantity of malt foam-positive proteins and selection of hop acids, the interaction of which provides the basis for foam stability and quality. Brewers also have a range of palliative options such as additives, gas composition, widgets and methods for dispense that can be used if suitable to the style of beer being produced.

Dr Evans' brewing quality research is being applied in Australia's malting barley breeding programs (Adelaide and Perth) to provide maltsters and brewers with the best possible barley for brewing.

This is an edited extract of the chapter Beer foam: achieving a suitable head, contained in the forthcoming book Handbook of alcoholic beverages: Malting and Brewing, Bamforth, C.W., Russell, I., and Stewart, G.G., Editors. Evans, D.E., and Bamforth, C.W.,
Elsevier Burlington, MA. Due out mid, 2008. ISBN 978 0 12 669201 3. For further details visit: www.books.elsevier.com