Brewmaker Victorian bitter

10 months ago | gareth brew 69 (Member)

hi all,

have been drinking the "Brewmaker Victorian Bitter" over the last few weeks its now 9 weeks old in conditioning so thats 10 weeks since starting the fermintation.
reviewing the bitter its not too bitter , as with any 1.8kg kit there's not aroma to speak of, but it's dont smell off either. good head retension and taste rather good, its seems these kits need long conditioning to be drinkable. when making beer last time before the internet was put off by the homebrew tang , well its was never conditioned this long , thank goodness for the net and forums where would we be otherwise.
a little bit of knowledge goes a long way.

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Responses

Greg:

Posted 10 months ago by Admin

Nice one Gareth. Patience usually pays dividends when home brewing.

Monk:

Posted 10 months ago by Member

The Home brew industry shot itself in the foot in the 80's, by trying to promote 'beer in 7 days'. Technically it's beer. But it's not going to taste very pleasant, hence the bad reputation.
They focused too heavily on cutting corners and so pushed an unnecessarily sub-standard product that nobody wanted.
Thank Heaven for the Internet.

saracen:

Posted 10 months ago by Moderator

Hi Gareth. You can give your beer plenty of aroma by either adding a "Hop Tea" to the fermenter, or adding a handful of hops to the fermenter (Dry Hopping). Goldings works well for a Bitter, but any aroma hop can be used. If you use Goldings, steep 20 gms for half an hour in a couple of litres of water that has been boiled and the heat switched off. The liquid is your "Hop Tea". Follow the instructions for the kit and add the Hop Tea to the fermenter when the rest of the wort goes in. If you prefer dry hopping, get it all into the fermenter, wait 3 days for the initial ferment to slow down, then add 20 gms and leave them there for 7 days.

Another easy way to improve a single can kit beer is to replace the sugar specified in the instructions with Light Dried Malt Extract, gram for gram. More body, more malt taste and a better result.

If you're not living on the edge..... you're taking up too much space!!

Planning: - To get some more brews on now the weather's a bit cooler
Fermenting: - Ginger Beer experiment
Conditioning: - A normal bitter with Styrians
Drinking: - All of it!!

E-mail: arnyfris@gmail.com

saracen:

Posted 10 months ago by Moderator

The Home brew industry shot itself in the foot in the 80's, by trying to promote 'beer in 7 days'

I remember it well. There were all sorts of ways. One was a bag you added water to and hung up. Trouble was, there was little to compare it to, other than the manky stuff brewed in the 70's. The already bad reputation just got worse. On the other hand, a guy I lived near in the early 70's had been brewing his own beer from the grain for years, and it was far better than the stuff in the pub.

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