NOB Beer is the name given to ‘Nick and Rob’ Brewery about here in Brisbane Australia. We have created a few brews so far, so as it is the birth of BeerBlog I thought I would get everyone up to speed on whats in the fermenter and the garage!

Winter Ale

Ingredients:
1 can of nut brown ale
1kg morgans caramalt
15g fuggles hops pellets
1 packet of goldings hops
1 packet safle yeast (ended up using kit ale yeast)

Bottled: 25th July
Notes: When we kicked this off the yeast died due to being in contact with hot water, so we repitched some fresh a couple of days later. We have called this one a ‘Darger’ as it is not overly full bodied and a tad over carbonated so it is more of a dark lager! Personally I blame the yeast! It has a nice nutty / caramel taste to it but we intend on leaving it a couple of months at least before trying another.

Cerveza

Ingredients:
1 can black rock mexican cerveza
500g light dried malt
500g dextrose
12g saaz hops
250g carapils grain
1pack of finings
1 packet saflager yeast (ended up using kit yeast)

Bottled: Sat 28th , ended up FG 1.012
Notes: On bottling we thought this was quite cloudy and had an odd taste. We have since started racking from this brew onwards, likewise this was filled with water from a shower head (!) so I am not entirely convinced this will be drinkable when we crack it open.

First Pilsner

Ingredients:
1.7kg Black Rock Pilsner Export
1.5k Morgans unhopped pale malt extract (liquid)
50g saaz hops pellets.
saflager w34/70 yeast

Bottled: kicked off 28th July… OG 1.034ish FG: 1.10ish ended up bottling after a few days of racking on the 12th August.
Notes: This has promise as it is the first one we racked and tasted great even before bottling. We have lightly carbonated it and are tempted to enter into a show

Munich Lager
Ingredients:
Brewcraft Premier Imperial Munich Lager 1.5kg
Brewcraft Brewblend No.15
Hops (need to check notes)

Bottled: June 24th was the momentous day we started brewing. Bottled on the 30th June.
Notes: This was our first beer brewed, and now one and a half months later it has matured into something quite tasty.

The aim with NOB beer was to kick off a batch every few weeks to ensure we have a constant supply of tasty beer, while learning the skills needed to become uber brewers. Currently we are still using kits and even then making the odd mistake, but over time we hope to conquer the dark arts of ale.

I have one of these Sony Vaio TX1HP laptops, it is a dinky little thing with 11.1″ screen however over the last few months the battery has been dying and the power cable needs a wiggle before it works. Finally I have decided to take it to a service center and have it fixed up so it will be usable back on my 5 week trip to Europe so currently it is sitting here on my desk copying about 40gig of data across to this PC.
In more interesting news if you drive about thirty minutes out of Brisbane you end up on a road that resembles a rainforest track from a video game! At the end of the delightful drive was views across the Wivenhoe Dam from Mount Glorious which is aptly named!

Samford Valley View.

Wivenhoe Dam in the distance , taken from rainforest .

All in all a nice trip, and crazy to think of the differing climate and lifestyles around this area!

Evening All!

So this is BeerBlog , all shiny contentless and probably with the odd bug. I have set this up as my personal blog started becoming very beer oriantated due to various homebrews and beer tastings being documented.

I am not a ‘ticker’ as such, but if there is an interesting beer on tap I will try it. A ticker without a list if you will

Hopefully this blog will be interesting to read as I dive into a beer related adventure around the world and blogasphere. There are a few posts I will be making this evening which were ready for my personal site, and over time I will move over some reviews to BeerBlog.co.uk so a complete archive of tastings can be found in one place.

Cheers!

Rob.

EDIT 9th June 2010 – moved all BeerBlog.co.uk posts to Rob.co.uk

Going along with my recent Stonch inspired splurge I recently paid £14.38 (inc P&P) for this:

It is a 1972 unopened bottle of Courage Imperial Russian Stout,  which I bought to try a taste test. It does worry me that it is 35 years old and by breaking the seal the stout will be finishing its journey through time – assuming it has not turned to kitchen cleaner!

The idea behind such stouts was that they were high in alcohol and loaded with hops to ensure they kept well for the long baltic journey during the 18th century. In theory this beer ought to age for around 15-20 years, so it will be interesting to see if it has coped and what the taste is like.

Over here on Allaboutbeer.com there is an interesting article about russian / baltic stouts, well worth a read!