Friends, I like beer.
I realise this may come as a shock to you, so I'll slow it down and go through my position carefully on this. I like all beer, with the possible exception of Hoegaarden, which is named for the Flemish Dutch for 'compost heap of the prostitute' and tastes like Sunlight washing up liquid blended with the stuff they culture lab strains of MRSA in, after the fact. Aside from the Garden of the Ho, I like all beer. I have as much time for heavy, pungent, expressive Belgian trappist ales like Duval or Chimay as I have for the cheapest, nastiest student swill imaginable. In fact, get me in the discount aisle of Dan's and you have yourself a very happy camper. I humbly consider myself the nation's, if not Australasia's foremost expert on the topic of cheap-arse beer. From bargain basement Dutch lagers and Czech pilsners parallel-imported by the pallet, to supermarket home-brand brews which turn out to be actually Tasphobian goodness by stealth - you name it, I've bought it, drank it, eaten pizza on it, gone out on it, failed to pick up on it, gone back home on it and had a massive fuck-off hangover on it. Case in point the beer to my immediate left, in the festy old Brooms Head stubbie cooler (reportage AS IT HAPPENS!!!) - Lion Red, brewed by Lion Nathan in Auckland; not a good beer, but a cheap one ($12.99 a dozen at Henry's).
I blame genetics. I don't think the old man has ever willingly spent more than thirty bucks on a carton of piss. Maybe at Christmas. I have a suspicion it was his dastardly plan to outwit any teenage drinking plans I might have had: stocking the fridge with Reschs Real, or if things looked particularly grim on the budgetary front, Tooheys Red, which I believe has been withdrawn from the market in most Australian states on the basis of severe neurotoxic side effects. Even Vioxx killed fewer punters in clinical trials. So, it would appear, I inherited the cheap-arse pisshead gene from my father, along with a broad sense of humour, slightly dodgy eyesight and a 1997 Mitsubishi Magna (the successor to the Brown Hornet), nicknamed Elvis. Lived in 'Vegas, big arse, had a lot of hits. Turning circle on that thing was a bit of a bastard. Or at least that was my excuse for smearing the corners of it against a range of inanimate objects.
So what have I learned from my experiences with cheap-arse beer that I can pass on to you, the humble (most of you very bloody humble) reader of the World of Bollocks?
The following.
1. Never trust a beer with 'Red' in the name. It is a cast-iron, Teflon-coated, Kevlar-reinforced guarantee of absolute fucking awfulness. Same with 'Blue'. Or 'Gold'. Any colour at all, really, Including 'Blonde'. Especially 'Blonde'.
2. Tasman Bitter is not the same between Australia and NZ. In NZ it is Lion Red in a home-brand box and sold in supermarkets, meaning it is the epitome of both cheap and nasty, and as such will soon feature on the cover of NW mag along side Tittney Beers and Amy Methhouse. Even Lion Nathan themselves only recommend its use in combating very hot curries. In Australia however it is Boag's Original in a home-brand box and sold in Liquorland, meaning it is a pretty handy beverage in a brown paper bag for $30 a carton.
3. Throwdowns (200mL stubbies) are a false economy. They're no cheaper per unit volume, they make you look like a miserable unshagworthy tightwad at parties, and you know that inverse relationship many reckon exists between car size and knob size? Ain't inverse for beer. Sorry.
4. If all else fails, cans. Put 'em in a stubbie holder and pretend you're at Indy or the BDO.
5. Like all truly cheap drunks, I have of course dabbled in the black arts of home brew, although given this was in collaboration with the great Dr Craigos, another Man of Science (the Men of League weren't recruiting that year, just as well as we would have stunk up their calendar like, well, pasty drunks in a nude calendar), it soon developed from 'How cheap can we make this' to 'What the fuck can we put in this to make it drinkable' to 'How fucking complicated and arcane can we make this and still have chicks talk to us at parties'. Via home brew, you can either make very cheap beer very badly, or very good beer for about as much as you would have paid to get Jameses Boag or Squire or some other gentleman of that ilk to make it for you, once your labour costs are factored in. It's fun, it's educational, but it is not, repeat NOT, a game for fewer than two players. Bottling solo is a fucking bastard of a job. And don't cheat by using old Coke bottles like our mate Chrisso. They leak more gas than Lucky Grills and give less satisfying head than [name deleted on legal advice].
Which brings us to possibly the greatest invention in the history of beer, the 5L party keg. More portable and easier to sort than a real keg, but delivering more of that foamy draught beer lovin' than carbonated pasteurised bottles can dream of providing. Five litres ain't just the ideal displacement for V8 Supercars, as was proven across several summers earlier in the decade when 5L kegs were more commonplace in south-east Qld than jacaranda trees and bent coppers. Being scientists, we obviously sought to collect and categorise as many diverse species of 5L beer kegs as we could, with the result that on top of Dr Craigos' gargantuan beer fridge were stored characteristic specimens of Grolsch, Bitburger, the cheap 'n' cheerful Tooheys Newbies that did for me on Straya Day, Carlsberg, Heineken, Becks, and far less successfully, XXXX Gold. As you might expect the Euros were the ones which gained the most for being poured off tap (or down thin plastic straw at least) - though if you broke the spindly bit of plastic which underpinned the entire hydraulic integrity of the Heineken keg, you were more utterly and irrevocably fucked than a fucked thing on a fucked day, as my boss would put it. Drs Craigos and Yobbo also found that the international lager skank of some of the Euros, particularly Grolsch, was a bit too much for the home-brand palates of the cadre of engineering, IT and science students which rolled with our crew at Chateau Dodgy. And we had to teach one or two peeps how to pour a beer, which was an education in misspent youth, and how some people could have used one.
I married my wife because of a five litre keg. Fact. Well, actually it was two five litre kegs ($42 worth from the bottle-o across the street). It was the evening of the UQ Big Gig 2002 - Eskimo Joe and You Am I, since you asked, supported by George (was there ever a UQ Big Gig that wasn't supported by George? Or Butterfingers?) Anyway, we were tuning up for the show with a couple of quiets (followed by a long series of louds) on the balcony at Chateau Dodgy v2.0 when it suddenly dawned on me that I was supposed to be going out on a date, a first date, in about forty minutes, with the superhot 27 year old blonde chick from my lab. Sorry, the superhot 27 year old blonde postdoc from my lab. And I was quite a reasonable way along the pathway to being quite fucking slashed thanks v. much. This precipitated, I am told by people with smug grins and clearer recollections than I, much blind panic, brewing of coffee and generalised running-about-like-chook-with-head-cut-off.
"You gonna be alright, you fucken yobbo?" said one of our number, probably Moff.
I paused, reflecting on my prospects for the eve.
"Yeah, I'll be all right," I said. "I'm fuckin' suave, ay."
And went on to point out that it was 'Doctor' Yobbo to him. Hence creating two immortal items of folklore with one drunken pronouncement, and giving groomsman Moff some material to suggest for my brother's best man speech at the wedding.
Of course, as you'll probably have guessed, I was fucking suave. Ay. Though I'd be prepared to credit the great Timmy Rogers with an assist for providing the soundtrack.
Quite what has happened to the 5L keg in the interim eludes me. From their near ubiquitousness over the summers of 2001 and '02, sightings of these brightly-plumaged creations of wonder have fallen to record low levels, and new species have yet to emerge to replace those which have disappeared from their natural ecological niche, the Grape. (Fucking BWS. Stack 'em deep, sell 'em cheap, and fuck anyone who might want something a bit different in their beer fridge.) Perhaps we should just be thankful to have been fortunate enough to live through the Golden Age of Five Litre Keggage and to bask in the glory, wonderment and joy that was this glorious, all-too-brief moment in our history.
Goodbye, five litre keg. You were too beautiful for this world.
The Doctor is OUT to see if there's anything other than Lion Red in the fridge.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Turning up to work on Straya day: un-Austrayan
Well the Aussie cricketers mightn't have but I did, although I knocked off at four in order to observe the religious holiday. What Straya Day means to people depends who those people are - Big Day Out Day, Invasion Day, White Supremacist Day, or for NZ's Sky Sport, Drag Out Old Highlights Of Australia Losing At Sport 'Cos NZers Are Bitter And Pathetic Day. My relationship with my own patriotism has ebbed and flowed - probably at its lowest ebb during the ethnic beach-brawling, flag-bedecked bogans punching people at the BDO for not kissing the flag, Johnny Howard in power and never likely to leave period of Straya's recent past. In fact he didn't look like leaving, so I did. Now I miss the place like an absent organ. And while what Straya herself means to me has changed with time, distance and perception, what Straya Day means to me now is what it has done for most of the last ten to twelve years. For me, Straya Day is Getting Slashed Watching Cricket And Listening To The Triple J Hottest 100 Day.
The role of the Hottest 100 can't be underestimated here. It's been the soundtrack to many memorable Straya Day celebrations. And by many I mean not very many at all, because I've been doing some mental archive plundering over the past hour or so and I can't actually remember what the fuck I was up to for Straya Day for much of the last ten years. But I know I was somewhere, and I know I was listening to the Hottest 100 - ever since 1995, the first year we had the 'J's in our little rural bolthole - they wired up the big coathanger about the time they set up the first ever round of the Unearthed comp, won by Lismore's own Grinspoon. (Well, OK, half of them are from Port Macquarie and the drummer's originally from Blacktown, but they went to SCU at least.) This tends to suggest the 'Getting Slashed' part of the equation was pursued very effectively.
So by default, the best ever Straya Day celebration was the only one I can actually remember...
Straya Day 2002: Live from Chateau Dodgy v2.0
Chateau Dodgy 2.0 wasn't hard to find. It still isn't. Tens of thousands of irritated, gridlock-sensing UQites trolled past it daily in buses and cars, swearing at the muppets merging in front of them as two lanes converge to one like glaciers in a turf war on the entry to the roundabout on Sir Fred Schonell Drive. On the walk from CD2 to campus, you'd usually level-peg if not beat any car you started alongside. CD2 was in the fairly ostentacious Santa Lucia complex near the corner of Uncle Fred Road and Laurence St - pebblecreted carpark, grandiose automatic gate, leafy palms, white stucco'd walls and terracotta tiles, superhot ballerina chick in flat 8 who wasn't having any of us.
It was OK though - we knew our role. We were there to bring down the tone of the place. 'We' were Dr Craigos, Your Correspondent, Craigos' fucking enormous beer fridge, our dilapidated brown couch whose floorpan was held together by a bus stop sign nicked from out the front of my old flat in Randwick, and the mighty Brown Hornet (here seen with Craigos and our good friend the King of Seed, gone rural somewhere out the back of the Glasshouse Mountains.) We'd reluctantly had to abandon Chateau Dodgy I after Doug Dickhead Real Estate had sold the place out from under us (as detailed in previous media commitments.) CD2 had proximity, it had space, it had a balcony perfect for kicking back, drinking beers and ogling the American exchange students over the way who liked to get semi-nekkid and flounce about the place (a throwback to our blonde exhibitionist neighbour from CD1), and most importantly, it was a strategic fifty metres crawl from a couple of takeaway joints and a well-stocked bottle shop.
We'd been at CD2 a year by the time Straya Day '02 rolled around. We'd been casing likely locations for the Big Straya Day Pissup and had been eyeing off Guyatt Park for a while. It had BBQs, plenty of seating, plenty of shade, was within staggering distance of both CD2 and the bottle-o, and most importantly, had a good deck with consistent pace and bounce. We'd tested the wicket already several times over the past year, particularly after the owners of the apartment block asked us to stop belting the ball around in their undercover carpark. Tony Greig wasn't likely to get his keys into the concrete but the wheelie bin at one end made for a decent set of wickets - particularly bowling to Craigos, who was and is a bit good at the leather and willow arts. The best method to combat his superior technique and greater experience, I found, was with a lot of sledging and the occasional bit of cheating. And an agricultural cow-corner swipe across the line that would have made your average number eleven throw up a little in his mouth.
Anyhoo, it wasn't going to be the usual mano e mano duel. We had company. Did we ever have company. And, let me tell you, the people who were there! Completely escape me. I blame the tyranny of time, the passing of the seasons, and the bottle-o over the road for having a special on 5L party kegs of Tooheys New ($21 cold - cheaper than the carton price for stubbies!) of which many - MANY - were put to rest over the course of that summer. But you lot know who you are and you know if you were there. And if you can't actually remember, we'll pencil you in for a Probable Attendee.
Let's see what we do remember. I know the countdown started at ten, and the cricket - the actual cricket, the Australia-NZ ODI from Adelaide - at one. We sank beers until two or three and wandered down to the park to wreak havoc; in our absence, the Baggy Greens began a tradition which continues to this day, of losing fucking horrendously on Australia Day (all out for 165 chasing 240-odd, says Cricinfo) but we weren't arsed with that. We had beers to drink, meat to burn, Australian music to crank and chin music to serve up.
This, my friends, is Australia. Or, indeed, Straya.
And things might have got a bit out of hand late on, and I may or may not have responded to Adam and Wil's 'hilarious' playing of Outkast's 'Ms Jackson' as a 'joke' number one song with a terrible amount of restraint - kicking seven shades of shit out of my cheap-arse portable stereo to the amusement of all concerned (not laughing so much two years later when the same bunch of jokers turned up at the pointy end of the countdown for real with the teeth-gnashingly tedious 'Hey Ya') - but we managed to find the batteries in the esky where they'd ended up and get the thing operating again to hear the real number one of the Hottest 100 for 2001, Alex Lloyd's 'Amazing'. (No, apparently he is. And you just thought he was fat, overrated and minging.) How about that. An Australian Hottest 100 number one on Australia Day, and fuck me, it wasn't fucking Powderfinger. And we sat back, drunk on joy and patriotism (and $21 party kegs of New) and thought, man, is this a fucken awesome fucken country or what. And you know, one day, that song of Lloydie's, I reckon that'd work really well in a Ford Territory commercial.
I have no idea how the night ended. Scratch that. I know how the night ended but I have no idea how it ended that way. The night ended on the brown couch with myself and a bunch of equally wasted randoms watching a German schlock-horror movie on SBS called Killer Condom, about a condom with sharp pointy teeth and a carnivorous attitude:
The most worrying thing was it made perfect sense at the time.
Happy retrospective Straya Day everyone.
The Doctor is OUT to put yesterday's Coopers bottles in the recycling bin.
The role of the Hottest 100 can't be underestimated here. It's been the soundtrack to many memorable Straya Day celebrations. And by many I mean not very many at all, because I've been doing some mental archive plundering over the past hour or so and I can't actually remember what the fuck I was up to for Straya Day for much of the last ten years. But I know I was somewhere, and I know I was listening to the Hottest 100 - ever since 1995, the first year we had the 'J's in our little rural bolthole - they wired up the big coathanger about the time they set up the first ever round of the Unearthed comp, won by Lismore's own Grinspoon. (Well, OK, half of them are from Port Macquarie and the drummer's originally from Blacktown, but they went to SCU at least.) This tends to suggest the 'Getting Slashed' part of the equation was pursued very effectively.
So by default, the best ever Straya Day celebration was the only one I can actually remember...
Straya Day 2002: Live from Chateau Dodgy v2.0
Chateau Dodgy 2.0 wasn't hard to find. It still isn't. Tens of thousands of irritated, gridlock-sensing UQites trolled past it daily in buses and cars, swearing at the muppets merging in front of them as two lanes converge to one like glaciers in a turf war on the entry to the roundabout on Sir Fred Schonell Drive. On the walk from CD2 to campus, you'd usually level-peg if not beat any car you started alongside. CD2 was in the fairly ostentacious Santa Lucia complex near the corner of Uncle Fred Road and Laurence St - pebblecreted carpark, grandiose automatic gate, leafy palms, white stucco'd walls and terracotta tiles, superhot ballerina chick in flat 8 who wasn't having any of us.
It was OK though - we knew our role. We were there to bring down the tone of the place. 'We' were Dr Craigos, Your Correspondent, Craigos' fucking enormous beer fridge, our dilapidated brown couch whose floorpan was held together by a bus stop sign nicked from out the front of my old flat in Randwick, and the mighty Brown Hornet (here seen with Craigos and our good friend the King of Seed, gone rural somewhere out the back of the Glasshouse Mountains.) We'd reluctantly had to abandon Chateau Dodgy I after Doug Dickhead Real Estate had sold the place out from under us (as detailed in previous media commitments.) CD2 had proximity, it had space, it had a balcony perfect for kicking back, drinking beers and ogling the American exchange students over the way who liked to get semi-nekkid and flounce about the place (a throwback to our blonde exhibitionist neighbour from CD1), and most importantly, it was a strategic fifty metres crawl from a couple of takeaway joints and a well-stocked bottle shop.
We'd been at CD2 a year by the time Straya Day '02 rolled around. We'd been casing likely locations for the Big Straya Day Pissup and had been eyeing off Guyatt Park for a while. It had BBQs, plenty of seating, plenty of shade, was within staggering distance of both CD2 and the bottle-o, and most importantly, had a good deck with consistent pace and bounce. We'd tested the wicket already several times over the past year, particularly after the owners of the apartment block asked us to stop belting the ball around in their undercover carpark. Tony Greig wasn't likely to get his keys into the concrete but the wheelie bin at one end made for a decent set of wickets - particularly bowling to Craigos, who was and is a bit good at the leather and willow arts. The best method to combat his superior technique and greater experience, I found, was with a lot of sledging and the occasional bit of cheating. And an agricultural cow-corner swipe across the line that would have made your average number eleven throw up a little in his mouth.
Anyhoo, it wasn't going to be the usual mano e mano duel. We had company. Did we ever have company. And, let me tell you, the people who were there! Completely escape me. I blame the tyranny of time, the passing of the seasons, and the bottle-o over the road for having a special on 5L party kegs of Tooheys New ($21 cold - cheaper than the carton price for stubbies!) of which many - MANY - were put to rest over the course of that summer. But you lot know who you are and you know if you were there. And if you can't actually remember, we'll pencil you in for a Probable Attendee.
Let's see what we do remember. I know the countdown started at ten, and the cricket - the actual cricket, the Australia-NZ ODI from Adelaide - at one. We sank beers until two or three and wandered down to the park to wreak havoc; in our absence, the Baggy Greens began a tradition which continues to this day, of losing fucking horrendously on Australia Day (all out for 165 chasing 240-odd, says Cricinfo) but we weren't arsed with that. We had beers to drink, meat to burn, Australian music to crank and chin music to serve up.
This, my friends, is Australia. Or, indeed, Straya.
And things might have got a bit out of hand late on, and I may or may not have responded to Adam and Wil's 'hilarious' playing of Outkast's 'Ms Jackson' as a 'joke' number one song with a terrible amount of restraint - kicking seven shades of shit out of my cheap-arse portable stereo to the amusement of all concerned (not laughing so much two years later when the same bunch of jokers turned up at the pointy end of the countdown for real with the teeth-gnashingly tedious 'Hey Ya') - but we managed to find the batteries in the esky where they'd ended up and get the thing operating again to hear the real number one of the Hottest 100 for 2001, Alex Lloyd's 'Amazing'. (No, apparently he is. And you just thought he was fat, overrated and minging.) How about that. An Australian Hottest 100 number one on Australia Day, and fuck me, it wasn't fucking Powderfinger. And we sat back, drunk on joy and patriotism (and $21 party kegs of New) and thought, man, is this a fucken awesome fucken country or what. And you know, one day, that song of Lloydie's, I reckon that'd work really well in a Ford Territory commercial.
I have no idea how the night ended. Scratch that. I know how the night ended but I have no idea how it ended that way. The night ended on the brown couch with myself and a bunch of equally wasted randoms watching a German schlock-horror movie on SBS called Killer Condom, about a condom with sharp pointy teeth and a carnivorous attitude:
Set in the seedy parts of New York City, Killer Condom follows gay detective Luigi Mackeroni, who has been hired to investigate a series of bizarre attacks at the Hotel Quickie in which their male guests have all had their penises mysteriously bitten off. While at the crime scene, he enlists the services of a beautiful young gigolo named Bill and invites him up to the crime room. Before the two men engage in sex, a carnivorous, living condom interrupts them and bites Mackeroni's testicle off. Now on a personal vendetta, Mackeroni begins his lone quests to not only bring a stop to the rash of condom attacks, but also face his true feelings towards Bill the gigolo. Soon, the detective learns that the pernicious prophylactics are actually genetically-engineered creatures, part of a vast conspiracy of a religious cult bent on ridding the world of sexual deviants...
The most worrying thing was it made perfect sense at the time.
Happy retrospective Straya Day everyone.
The Doctor is OUT to put yesterday's Coopers bottles in the recycling bin.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Roy, shut up.
The Vics have won the toss and batted in the domestic T20 final, aka the Kan't Fucking Cook Big Bash, but that's not really the issue. Not since Birmingham-born occasional Australian international cricketer Andrew 'Roy' Symonds decided to make the issue about whether it was morally or ethically legitimate for NSW to sign Otago and NZ wickie-batsthug Brendon 'Baz' McCullum for the purpose of winning the game. His argument, initially, was that this could disadvantage the selection prospects of emergent NSW prospects in the positions of opening bat and keeping wicket. He developed this argument further in recent media commitments on national radio where he chose to compare McCullum with used food, loudly and unfavourably. Admittedly aforesaid media commitments were on Roy and HG's new Triple M show, and Roy (as in Symonds) did appear to be somewhat confused over what his actual point was:
Incoherent, incomprehensible and almost definitely inebriated though Roy's outburst was, he still gets a great big fuck-off soapbox to express it, so he doesn't get off as lightly as... well, as he always seems to when he busts shit like this out. Fellow bogan Quoinslandaaaa and sea kitten murdering enthusiast Matthew Hayden also threw his ten cents' worth in, but the gist of his spray was that if the ICC were up to much more than rolling around in piles of cash at their Dubai digs while dusky Arabian handmaidens fanned them with feathers and fed them peeled grapes, NZ might actually have an international schedule and Baz wouldn't need to go on work experience, which was disturbingly close to reasonable sense from the celebrity chef and serial God-botherer. No such risk from Symmo, however. Which brings us to our Weak In Sport Special Feature:
O How Roy Can Just Shut The Fuck Up, Let Me Count The Ways.
1. Roy is a Queenslander. As such, has no business making any comment on things that important thinky states like NSW do, because he clearly has trouble understanding the big words in the press release.
2. Roy isn't playing. For Queensland, Australia, the Delhi Dirt Trackers, the Super Kingly Royal Super Daredevil Kings of Leon or even the Sunnybank-Logan RSL team. If he had, Qld might not have capitulated in the semi like an ordered stoichiometric array of busted arses to a Victorian side with less creative talent than the Ting Tings and less attacking threat than a dugong armed with a wet sock. If you're not playing in the final, your opinion as regards who should be playing in the final is less relevant than the Reverand Fred Nile.
3. Roy is the highest paid motherfucker in the IPL. He gets paid a very large amount of money by whichever of the eight identi-fucking-kit IPL franchises he occasionally can be arsed turning out for, quite a lot more than he should be being paid, and needless to say, quite a lot more than Baz McCullum - despite Baz's 158 off 73 in the first game of the IPL last year. To paraphrase Spaceballs, Baz isn't playing for NSW for money. He's playing for NSW for a shitload of money. Not from the T20 final - his NSW match fee of a couple of gorillas is being donated to Otago Cricket to buy bats and pads for kiddies - but from the ICC Champions Trophy, given his IPL lot went to shit when he buggered off to join the BLACKCAPSLOCK's tour of England after the first few games last year, and could very well perform with similar distinction this term, meaning he'd be out of the Champions tournament, and unable to perform/get paid on the big stage. He wants cash, NSW want a big-shot international star - where's the issue? Sure it's mercenary as fuck, but who the hell is Roy Symonds and his $1.4 million dollar salary to say it?
4. Roy could probably do with keeping his head down at the moment. What with getting booted from the team for going fishing instead of turning up to team meetings (which I suppose is an advance from getting booted from the team for turning up absolutely shitfaced), starting a war with the entire country of India last summer, only playing a handful of games this summer, and playing some pretty ordinary cricket in the games he did turn up for, the last thing we need to hear from Roy is how his heart bleeds for whichever up-and-coming NSW opening bat or keeper misses out because of howwibwle mercenwy Bwendon McCuwwum from the evil land of the sheep-shaggers. Last I checked, NSW's regular T20 opener and keeper were in the Australian ODI side, and fitting in very well thanks very much, largely by playing fucking ordinary cricket (Warner's sixty-odd last night was a minor exemption, but Haddin's persistent case of dropsy needs some form of medical intervention.) Roy needs to concentrate on turning up for the games he's picked in. Baz McCullum even turns up for games he isn't - he flew out of NZ camp the morning of a domestic one-dayer a couple of days ago and got a cab to the ground just in time to pad up and open for Otago against the hated Cantabs. Got a third-ball duck, but that wasn't really the point. And getting out for 10 off 11 in the T20 final (reportage AS IT HAPPENS!) wasn't really the point, nor that he was being comfortably outshone at the time by Test opening prospect Phil Hughes. The point is, if NSW need him in the Champions Trophy, he'll be there. And it cost them next to nothing to do that. What Roy's latest dump-in-public will cost him is yet to be determined.
Nah, you're right, probably fuck all like usual. Who else is going to turn up in homoerotic Solo ads getting into a bit of rough with an amateur nudist if Roy isn't around the place?
The Doctor is OUT, as are the Vics if they don't get Hughes very sharply.
“They're trying to use him [McCullum] as the out because he's a Kiwi. Yep, we love to hate them, but he's the lump of shit, sorry, lump of cow dirt, that people are thinking of. Now to get away from that, the actual topic is about playing cricket and getting into a final. To get yourself to that position and if you haven't brought anybody in, personally I wouldn't be changing a winning team. It doesn't matter about McCullum, mate, he could have been Irish, he still would have got it.”Erm, what the fuck?
Incoherent, incomprehensible and almost definitely inebriated though Roy's outburst was, he still gets a great big fuck-off soapbox to express it, so he doesn't get off as lightly as... well, as he always seems to when he busts shit like this out. Fellow bogan Quoinslandaaaa and sea kitten murdering enthusiast Matthew Hayden also threw his ten cents' worth in, but the gist of his spray was that if the ICC were up to much more than rolling around in piles of cash at their Dubai digs while dusky Arabian handmaidens fanned them with feathers and fed them peeled grapes, NZ might actually have an international schedule and Baz wouldn't need to go on work experience, which was disturbingly close to reasonable sense from the celebrity chef and serial God-botherer. No such risk from Symmo, however. Which brings us to our Weak In Sport Special Feature:
O How Roy Can Just Shut The Fuck Up, Let Me Count The Ways.
1. Roy is a Queenslander. As such, has no business making any comment on things that important thinky states like NSW do, because he clearly has trouble understanding the big words in the press release.
2. Roy isn't playing. For Queensland, Australia, the Delhi Dirt Trackers, the Super Kingly Royal Super Daredevil Kings of Leon or even the Sunnybank-Logan RSL team. If he had, Qld might not have capitulated in the semi like an ordered stoichiometric array of busted arses to a Victorian side with less creative talent than the Ting Tings and less attacking threat than a dugong armed with a wet sock. If you're not playing in the final, your opinion as regards who should be playing in the final is less relevant than the Reverand Fred Nile.
3. Roy is the highest paid motherfucker in the IPL. He gets paid a very large amount of money by whichever of the eight identi-fucking-kit IPL franchises he occasionally can be arsed turning out for, quite a lot more than he should be being paid, and needless to say, quite a lot more than Baz McCullum - despite Baz's 158 off 73 in the first game of the IPL last year. To paraphrase Spaceballs, Baz isn't playing for NSW for money. He's playing for NSW for a shitload of money. Not from the T20 final - his NSW match fee of a couple of gorillas is being donated to Otago Cricket to buy bats and pads for kiddies - but from the ICC Champions Trophy, given his IPL lot went to shit when he buggered off to join the BLACKCAPSLOCK's tour of England after the first few games last year, and could very well perform with similar distinction this term, meaning he'd be out of the Champions tournament, and unable to perform/get paid on the big stage. He wants cash, NSW want a big-shot international star - where's the issue? Sure it's mercenary as fuck, but who the hell is Roy Symonds and his $1.4 million dollar salary to say it?
4. Roy could probably do with keeping his head down at the moment. What with getting booted from the team for going fishing instead of turning up to team meetings (which I suppose is an advance from getting booted from the team for turning up absolutely shitfaced), starting a war with the entire country of India last summer, only playing a handful of games this summer, and playing some pretty ordinary cricket in the games he did turn up for, the last thing we need to hear from Roy is how his heart bleeds for whichever up-and-coming NSW opening bat or keeper misses out because of howwibwle mercenwy Bwendon McCuwwum from the evil land of the sheep-shaggers. Last I checked, NSW's regular T20 opener and keeper were in the Australian ODI side, and fitting in very well thanks very much, largely by playing fucking ordinary cricket (Warner's sixty-odd last night was a minor exemption, but Haddin's persistent case of dropsy needs some form of medical intervention.) Roy needs to concentrate on turning up for the games he's picked in. Baz McCullum even turns up for games he isn't - he flew out of NZ camp the morning of a domestic one-dayer a couple of days ago and got a cab to the ground just in time to pad up and open for Otago against the hated Cantabs. Got a third-ball duck, but that wasn't really the point. And getting out for 10 off 11 in the T20 final (reportage AS IT HAPPENS!) wasn't really the point, nor that he was being comfortably outshone at the time by Test opening prospect Phil Hughes. The point is, if NSW need him in the Champions Trophy, he'll be there. And it cost them next to nothing to do that. What Roy's latest dump-in-public will cost him is yet to be determined.
Nah, you're right, probably fuck all like usual. Who else is going to turn up in homoerotic Solo ads getting into a bit of rough with an amateur nudist if Roy isn't around the place?
The Doctor is OUT, as are the Vics if they don't get Hughes very sharply.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Can we fix it? Yes we Khan
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."
S.T. Coleridge, 1797
"That fucker's off his fucking chops"
Everyone else, as soon as he published it
Which is a pretty fucking ropey link to the Kubler-Ross model (see what I did there? No? Ah shit) of grief management, otherwise known as the Five Stages of Grief. Kubler Ross was, as far as I am aware, no relation of Norman Ross. The Kubler-Ross model has pretty much entered into pop culture now - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance - and is trotted out as a template for dealing with any form of grief or tragedy. Family bereavement, terminal illness, drug addiction, divorce.
To which we can now add having the laptop drive on your MacBook pack the fuck up with extreme prejudice.
I give you:
Denial
Nah, it's just a boot error. On-off and restart should sort it.
followed by
Probably just the chip that gets the BIOS to talk to the hard drive. Had a bad batch of them a while back, delaminated or something. Data'll be fine.
followed by
It's probably mostly backed up. Mostly.
Anger
What the fuck do you mean the hard drive's stuffed?
followed by
What the fuck do you mean my last effective backup was July?
followed by
What the fuck do you mean the staff club isn't running evening bar until next week and you close in 20 minutes? We're trying to hold a fucking wake here people!
Bargaining
I don't really give a toss that Apple usually replace under-warranty HD failures with bigger drives. I'd rather have my shitty original drive WITH MY DATA ON IT.
followed by
I'll exchange you this money for another two handles of Speights thanks mate.
Depression
Can't be that much lost can it? Only my iTunes library. And my photos from Europe. And those two papers I was working on. And the presentations from the Europe evo-devo conference. And pretty much every other document I've changed, saved or edited in the past six months. Life is a shallow, hollow, miserable farce.
followed by
I've run out of beer. Life is a shallow, hollow, miserable farce.
Acceptance
Fuck it, let's just pay some spotty twunt to do data recovery on it.
The Doctor is OUT to convince the boss to cough up several gorillas to cover for his incompetence.
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."
S.T. Coleridge, 1797
"That fucker's off his fucking chops"
Everyone else, as soon as he published it
Which is a pretty fucking ropey link to the Kubler-Ross model (see what I did there? No? Ah shit) of grief management, otherwise known as the Five Stages of Grief. Kubler Ross was, as far as I am aware, no relation of Norman Ross. The Kubler-Ross model has pretty much entered into pop culture now - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance - and is trotted out as a template for dealing with any form of grief or tragedy. Family bereavement, terminal illness, drug addiction, divorce.
To which we can now add having the laptop drive on your MacBook pack the fuck up with extreme prejudice.
I give you:
Denial
Nah, it's just a boot error. On-off and restart should sort it.
followed by
Probably just the chip that gets the BIOS to talk to the hard drive. Had a bad batch of them a while back, delaminated or something. Data'll be fine.
followed by
It's probably mostly backed up. Mostly.
Anger
What the fuck do you mean the hard drive's stuffed?
followed by
What the fuck do you mean my last effective backup was July?
followed by
What the fuck do you mean the staff club isn't running evening bar until next week and you close in 20 minutes? We're trying to hold a fucking wake here people!
Bargaining
I don't really give a toss that Apple usually replace under-warranty HD failures with bigger drives. I'd rather have my shitty original drive WITH MY DATA ON IT.
followed by
I'll exchange you this money for another two handles of Speights thanks mate.
Depression
Can't be that much lost can it? Only my iTunes library. And my photos from Europe. And those two papers I was working on. And the presentations from the Europe evo-devo conference. And pretty much every other document I've changed, saved or edited in the past six months. Life is a shallow, hollow, miserable farce.
followed by
I've run out of beer. Life is a shallow, hollow, miserable farce.
Acceptance
Fuck it, let's just pay some spotty twunt to do data recovery on it.
The Doctor is OUT to convince the boss to cough up several gorillas to cover for his incompetence.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
I don't know much about art... and that's it.
Still ranting at anyone within audible range about PETA and the Sea Kittens (which is not a crappy kids-show pop band, though it sounds like it) - they also tried to lobby America's biggest ice-cream producer to switch from cow's milk to breast milk (meaning to fill one of the four icecream storage tanks which holds a days production at their main factory, they'd need over 53000 lactating women to produce enough milk). I don't have a problem with vegetarianism. Don't agree with it, but I'm not going to object to it. I don't even have a problem with veganism, if that's your choice, and you don't try and impose it on me. I do have a problem, however, with the wilful use of absolute bollocks in the pursuit of pushing absolute bullshit agendas. As such, I hereafter choose to treat PETA with the complete lack of respect they have shown for the intelligence of any of us.
Anyhoo. Bit of a stink at EU HQ in Brussels. Brussels is a pretty stinky city as it is, being Belgian, and hence whiffing strongly of dog piddle. However this particular stink surrounds a modern art 'installation' (which was something I thought happened to dishwashers and air-conditioners) commissioned by the Czech Republic as rotating president of the EU. Rotating presidents are not new, Dubya's been going around in circles trying to sniff his own arse for years, at least until he got little Johnny to do it for him. The Czechs handed the job to their number one art impresario, one Dangerous Dave Cerny, with the impression he'd subcontract out bits to artist from the 27 member states so as to get contributions spanning the breadth of the EU. Instead Dangerous Dave knocked the thing up in his shed with two mates who'd come over to watch the Champions League footy over a couple of Pilsner Urquells.
Now I should mention at this juncture that I don't really... get... art. I mean, I understand painting. Paint something. If it looks a bit like what you wanted to paint, winner winner chicken dinner. If it looks not-a-fuck like what you wanted to paint, it's impressionist. But modern art... contemporary art... Let's go back, back, back in time. Fifteen or sixteen years. Our year 10 science/history excursion to Sydney and Canberra, late 1993. The charts were full of Ace of Base, Gabrielle and Soul Asylum. The YHA we were staying at was full of fleas, and the sauna was full of naked German men who the Captain was happy to chat to for extended lengths of time. For our sins (though not for the Captain's) we were sent to the Museum of Contemporary Art for the afternoon. I don't think they imagined we'd just wander around the place pissing ourselves laughing for three hours.
Five identical blank canvases, numbered one through five?
Half a plaster foot and a deflated balloon?
Forty-seven jam jars each with a crumpled snotty tissue stuffed into them?
Of course, none of this running-around-giggling-like-eejits was ever going to get us laid with the more serious arty types amongst the girlie contingent on tour, but if you'd seen some of the heads involved in our posse, you'd understand that it probably wasn't our lack of incisive badinage re the artist's challenging use of texture and shade that was rate-limiting in that equation.
Point being, I don't know much about art, but I know what makes me laugh. And Dangerous Dave Cerny made me laugh like a busted arse. Setting aside the audacity of pretending to be 27 people at once (to the point where the Czechs only found out the afternoon of the unveiling that it was down to him and his drinking bros), there's the actual work itself: Entropa. A gigantic Airfix model kit of Europe. Italy is a football pitch. Germany is reduced to a network of motorways criss-crossing each other in a shape that is most certainly not anything like a Swastika. France is on strike. Bulgaria is a toilet. Denmark is a Lego sculpture. Romania is a Dracula theme park. And fittingly, the UK, most Euroskeptic of all EU nations, isn't there at all. Yeah, it's just a bunch of cheap, tawdry national stereotypes, but it's all in the execution. Which is what they probably would have done with Dangerous Dave back in the Soviet days. Instead, the question on the lips of EU officials and art commentators alike is as timeless as it is subjective: is it art?
Well, yeah, it's art. It's also fraud. Something about Dangerous Dave (allegedly) trousering three hundred and fifty thousand Euros which was meant to find its way to the other participating national artists in his collective. Which Dangerous will probably claim is part of the installation itself as a commentary on the inherent graft and bureaucratic incompetence of EU governance, along with the way his work 'lampoons the socially activist art that balances on the verge between would-be controversial attacks on national character and undisturbing decoration of an official space'.
Uh, yeah. Probably just as well I married a science chick rather than an arts one. The conversation hurts my head less.
The Doctor is OUT.
Anyhoo. Bit of a stink at EU HQ in Brussels. Brussels is a pretty stinky city as it is, being Belgian, and hence whiffing strongly of dog piddle. However this particular stink surrounds a modern art 'installation' (which was something I thought happened to dishwashers and air-conditioners) commissioned by the Czech Republic as rotating president of the EU. Rotating presidents are not new, Dubya's been going around in circles trying to sniff his own arse for years, at least until he got little Johnny to do it for him. The Czechs handed the job to their number one art impresario, one Dangerous Dave Cerny, with the impression he'd subcontract out bits to artist from the 27 member states so as to get contributions spanning the breadth of the EU. Instead Dangerous Dave knocked the thing up in his shed with two mates who'd come over to watch the Champions League footy over a couple of Pilsner Urquells.
Now I should mention at this juncture that I don't really... get... art. I mean, I understand painting. Paint something. If it looks a bit like what you wanted to paint, winner winner chicken dinner. If it looks not-a-fuck like what you wanted to paint, it's impressionist. But modern art... contemporary art... Let's go back, back, back in time. Fifteen or sixteen years. Our year 10 science/history excursion to Sydney and Canberra, late 1993. The charts were full of Ace of Base, Gabrielle and Soul Asylum. The YHA we were staying at was full of fleas, and the sauna was full of naked German men who the Captain was happy to chat to for extended lengths of time. For our sins (though not for the Captain's) we were sent to the Museum of Contemporary Art for the afternoon. I don't think they imagined we'd just wander around the place pissing ourselves laughing for three hours.
Five identical blank canvases, numbered one through five?
Half a plaster foot and a deflated balloon?
Forty-seven jam jars each with a crumpled snotty tissue stuffed into them?
Of course, none of this running-around-giggling-like-eejits was ever going to get us laid with the more serious arty types amongst the girlie contingent on tour, but if you'd seen some of the heads involved in our posse, you'd understand that it probably wasn't our lack of incisive badinage re the artist's challenging use of texture and shade that was rate-limiting in that equation.
Point being, I don't know much about art, but I know what makes me laugh. And Dangerous Dave Cerny made me laugh like a busted arse. Setting aside the audacity of pretending to be 27 people at once (to the point where the Czechs only found out the afternoon of the unveiling that it was down to him and his drinking bros), there's the actual work itself: Entropa. A gigantic Airfix model kit of Europe. Italy is a football pitch. Germany is reduced to a network of motorways criss-crossing each other in a shape that is most certainly not anything like a Swastika. France is on strike. Bulgaria is a toilet. Denmark is a Lego sculpture. Romania is a Dracula theme park. And fittingly, the UK, most Euroskeptic of all EU nations, isn't there at all. Yeah, it's just a bunch of cheap, tawdry national stereotypes, but it's all in the execution. Which is what they probably would have done with Dangerous Dave back in the Soviet days. Instead, the question on the lips of EU officials and art commentators alike is as timeless as it is subjective: is it art?
Well, yeah, it's art. It's also fraud. Something about Dangerous Dave (allegedly) trousering three hundred and fifty thousand Euros which was meant to find its way to the other participating national artists in his collective. Which Dangerous will probably claim is part of the installation itself as a commentary on the inherent graft and bureaucratic incompetence of EU governance, along with the way his work 'lampoons the socially activist art that balances on the verge between would-be controversial attacks on national character and undisturbing decoration of an official space'.
Uh, yeah. Probably just as well I married a science chick rather than an arts one. The conversation hurts my head less.
The Doctor is OUT.
A fish out of water
The publicity ploy of renaming unpleasant shit to make it sound more appealing, saleable or palatable has been around for years, but has accelerated exponentially in the last image-obsessed, marketing-infested decade or so. ‘Friendly fire’ was coined by some Army PR type for being blowed the fuck up by the Seppos.’Market correction’ is the euphemism for your parents losing three quarters of their super because some speculationary stockbroking twunt and his day-trading arsewit mates couldn’t keep it trousered. And then there’s ‘family-friendly’, as in the political mindset of redneck, racist, homo-hating uber-Christian fucktards.
But now, the gold standard for changing the semantics to fit the purpose. However astonishingly, amazingly, car-crash-stupefyingly misguided.
I give you... the PETA ‘Save the Sea Kittens’ campaign.
I think only taking a look for yourself will truly do this site justice, and explainify the thesis behind this particular bit of intellectual genius. However, perhaps their ‘About the campaign’ screed might give you a clue:
No, they’re not taking the piss. No, it’s not a hoax site set up by the Chaser or the Yes Men. They’re serious. They’re not fish, they’re ‘sea kittens’. And we need to stop hunting and killing them with big scary hooks because it hurts their feelings. And presumably their mouths too.
If your jaw didn’t drop and a wordless ‘Oh for fuck’s sake’ whisper from your slackened lips, best you shut this complicated looking ‘puter down and go do something more in line with your powers of ideological reasoning and your level of intellectual competence. Turning the letters on ‘Wheel of Fortune’ might be about it.
And as for PETA... Jesus fucking Christ. All I can recommend for this august body is that perhaps it should just stick to its core business. Encouraging easily misled ‘politically aware’ twiglet actresses into nuding up in public.
But now, the gold standard for changing the semantics to fit the purpose. However astonishingly, amazingly, car-crash-stupefyingly misguided.
I give you... the PETA ‘Save the Sea Kittens’ campaign.
I think only taking a look for yourself will truly do this site justice, and explainify the thesis behind this particular bit of intellectual genius. However, perhaps their ‘About the campaign’ screed might give you a clue:
People don't seem to like fish. They're slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads—which is weird, to say the least. Plus, the small ones nibble at your feet when you're swimming, and the big ones—well, the big ones will bite your face off if Jaws is anything to go by.
Of course, if you look at it another way, what all this really means is that fish need to fire their PR guy—stat. Whoever was in charge of creating a positive image for fish needs to go right back to working on the Britney Spears account and leave our scaly little friends alone. You've done enough damage, buddy. We've got it from here. And we're going to start by retiring the old name for good. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it's time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?
Ask the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop promoting sea kitten hunting here.
No, they’re not taking the piss. No, it’s not a hoax site set up by the Chaser or the Yes Men. They’re serious. They’re not fish, they’re ‘sea kittens’. And we need to stop hunting and killing them with big scary hooks because it hurts their feelings. And presumably their mouths too.
If your jaw didn’t drop and a wordless ‘Oh for fuck’s sake’ whisper from your slackened lips, best you shut this complicated looking ‘puter down and go do something more in line with your powers of ideological reasoning and your level of intellectual competence. Turning the letters on ‘Wheel of Fortune’ might be about it.
And as for PETA... Jesus fucking Christ. All I can recommend for this august body is that perhaps it should just stick to its core business. Encouraging easily misled ‘politically aware’ twiglet actresses into nuding up in public.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Insert 'Deliverance' theme here
Breeding with your relatives, while easier than going out and catching your own, has its downsides. Generations of inbreeding might have given us social advances like domesticated animals, genetic pedigrees for inherited diseases, and Tasmania, but it's also given us the British Royal family. Which brings us to Poonce Harry's latest act of pig-headed inbred stupidity, not only racially sledging a fellow former Sandhurst Military Creche student but getting caught doing it on camera. Not even Paris Hilton or the Jackass boys are that susceptible to being filmed doing poorly thought out acts of idiocy. Whether this reflects the institutional racism inherent in the military, the institutional racism inherent in the upper echelons of the British class system, or the fact young Harry is a complete fucking knob, is not the question. The question is, how do we eliminate this sort of hideous casual bigotry from modern society? And, more importantly, however do we make it up to the little Paki bastards?
I have the solution. Next year, get a Pakistan team into the beach cricket. (Sorry, the XXXX Gold® Beach Cricket™.) How fucking awesome would that be? Imagine the reverse swing your man Waqar Younis could get with that dodgy ball they use. He was dicey enough back in the test series in ’99 when they almost nicked the Hobart test off us, not withstanding 6/369 chasing in the last dig from Gilly et al. Or Wasi Akrim flogging the thing over deep midwicket with the aid of the prevailing offshore breeze. You could even get old Imran out of retirement – surely he’s a bit over having to duck under the desk every time an old Kombi backfires out in the street, could use a couple of weeks in the sun chasing the XXXX Angels about the place – and even Javegemitefor Miandad might be persuaded so long as we promise D.K. Lillee won’t kick him in the arse again, at least not without sincere provocation. Fair enough, the more fundamentalist members of the subcontinental contingent might object to having to neck the sponsors’ product on camera – much as anyone with working taste buds might – and the Angels might need to burqa-up and tone down some of their racier numbers in order to avoid offending our Islamic brethren, but that’s a price we’re prepared to pay for racial harmony. Aren’t we? We’re not? Arse. That’s that buggered then.
This is the third season of the XXXXing Gawdawful Beach Cricket, originally devised as a means of getting ancient creaking legends of the game like Border, Lillee, Marsh, Viv Richards et al out of the pub and onto the beach, miked up and sledging each other for the entertainment of the paying public. However, the increasing onset of creakiness, along with each nation’s preference for not losing like a confederation of busted arses, has seen the average age of the sides plummetting year on year, and now with the pensioning-off of the likes of Lillee, Thomson and Hadlee, is currently lower than the Greenmount clubbies and only slightly above that of the Angels. With the actual legends of the game being given the arse in favour of barely-retired journeymen, expect to see Dave Warner being given a run in next year’s side. Meanwhile, while some things change, others stay the same, like how much of a fucking insufferable tosser Channel Ten weathertwunt Tim Bailey is. They actually WANT people to watch this shit, yeah?
Speaking of abominations against good taste and dignity, not to mention simple human morality, the New Zealand side look like winning comfortably, based on their pantsing of all-comers in the first round at Greenmount – yes that’s right, NZ are likely to win an international cricket tournament. It’s the apocalypse folks. Cash in your shares and buy up big at the army disposals and the gun shop. NZ’s cause has been helped by skipper Martin 'Advanced Hair' Crowe signing up basically every barely-retired '90s era Kiwi hack still trundling around in the Indian Cricket League – Astle, McMillan, Chrus Hirrus, Dion Nash et al – particularly those with a chip on both shoulders (in the traditional balanced Kiwi way) over the small matter of having been bashed up year after year in competition against most of the members of the Strayan team, who this year as ever are here for the beer (even though the beer in question is XXXX Gold – at least the Kiwis get Speights) and are showing no particular interest in actually trying to win the thing. Either that or Mark Waugh has been slotted a sly five K by the beach cricket equivalent of ‘John the bookie’ and has adjusted his playing standards accordingly.
The Doctor is OUT to get a bet on.
I have the solution. Next year, get a Pakistan team into the beach cricket. (Sorry, the XXXX Gold® Beach Cricket™.) How fucking awesome would that be? Imagine the reverse swing your man Waqar Younis could get with that dodgy ball they use. He was dicey enough back in the test series in ’99 when they almost nicked the Hobart test off us, not withstanding 6/369 chasing in the last dig from Gilly et al. Or Wasi Akrim flogging the thing over deep midwicket with the aid of the prevailing offshore breeze. You could even get old Imran out of retirement – surely he’s a bit over having to duck under the desk every time an old Kombi backfires out in the street, could use a couple of weeks in the sun chasing the XXXX Angels about the place – and even Javegemitefor Miandad might be persuaded so long as we promise D.K. Lillee won’t kick him in the arse again, at least not without sincere provocation. Fair enough, the more fundamentalist members of the subcontinental contingent might object to having to neck the sponsors’ product on camera – much as anyone with working taste buds might – and the Angels might need to burqa-up and tone down some of their racier numbers in order to avoid offending our Islamic brethren, but that’s a price we’re prepared to pay for racial harmony. Aren’t we? We’re not? Arse. That’s that buggered then.
This is the third season of the XXXXing Gawdawful Beach Cricket, originally devised as a means of getting ancient creaking legends of the game like Border, Lillee, Marsh, Viv Richards et al out of the pub and onto the beach, miked up and sledging each other for the entertainment of the paying public. However, the increasing onset of creakiness, along with each nation’s preference for not losing like a confederation of busted arses, has seen the average age of the sides plummetting year on year, and now with the pensioning-off of the likes of Lillee, Thomson and Hadlee, is currently lower than the Greenmount clubbies and only slightly above that of the Angels. With the actual legends of the game being given the arse in favour of barely-retired journeymen, expect to see Dave Warner being given a run in next year’s side. Meanwhile, while some things change, others stay the same, like how much of a fucking insufferable tosser Channel Ten weathertwunt Tim Bailey is. They actually WANT people to watch this shit, yeah?
Speaking of abominations against good taste and dignity, not to mention simple human morality, the New Zealand side look like winning comfortably, based on their pantsing of all-comers in the first round at Greenmount – yes that’s right, NZ are likely to win an international cricket tournament. It’s the apocalypse folks. Cash in your shares and buy up big at the army disposals and the gun shop. NZ’s cause has been helped by skipper Martin 'Advanced Hair' Crowe signing up basically every barely-retired '90s era Kiwi hack still trundling around in the Indian Cricket League – Astle, McMillan, Chrus Hirrus, Dion Nash et al – particularly those with a chip on both shoulders (in the traditional balanced Kiwi way) over the small matter of having been bashed up year after year in competition against most of the members of the Strayan team, who this year as ever are here for the beer (even though the beer in question is XXXX Gold – at least the Kiwis get Speights) and are showing no particular interest in actually trying to win the thing. Either that or Mark Waugh has been slotted a sly five K by the beach cricket equivalent of ‘John the bookie’ and has adjusted his playing standards accordingly.
The Doctor is OUT to get a bet on.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Pidge's Pink-Off
All told, your man Pigeon - that's Glenn Donald McGrath AM to his mother and the tax office - didn't have a bad few days at the Sydney test. Sure, he had Nine's producers trying to get him to break down in tears on camera every day for five days, bud Pidge held stoic. And he did manage to rake in quite a fair swag of coin for the breast cancer foundation named for his late wife, Jane. Over the course of five very pink days in Sydney's inner-east - cue lazy jokes about that making fuck-all change from usual - the Nine commentary team dressed up like an explosion in a Barbie factory, Tony Greig's hat looked even more stupid than ever, over half a million of your Australian dollars were donated to the Foundation, and the pink-frilled lizards of Australian cricket team even got in on the act by winning the game in the second last over for the second year running. Your Correspondent has two unbroken hands and two functional wrists and even he wasn't keeping out the ball which castled the (grudgingly mumbled) heroic Graeme Smith. Then again Your Correspondent has a forward defence which wouldn't look out of place in Under 10s Kanga Cricket, largely because it hasn't developed any further since then.
So all good then. Except... not really. Half a mill sounds like a decent swag on paper. But what does Pidge's Pink-Off Payout actually buy him? Let's say, for argument's sake, that the admin costs are trivial. They won't be, but let's say they are. Say he wants to fund research into breast cancer. He doesn't, but let's say he does, since a lot of other cancer foundations do. How far does his five hundred gorillas get him?
Let's take the average cost of NZ research. The Marsden Fund, who are the 'basic science' fund of NZ, cap the amount you can apply for at $250K per year over a three year grant, plus or minus a bit depending on what discipline panel you apply to - i.e. biomedical research costs more than humanities so they figure you need to ask for more. That $250K would need to cover at least 20% of the time of the principal investigator - even if their salary was already paid for by their employer (it's called salary buyout, and it works really well, and by that I mean it doesn't fucking work at all because the money isn't used by the host department to buy the PI out of their lecturing time and have a teaching fellow do it instead so they can actually do the work... but I digress), plus you'd want a postdoc for three years (so some shit actually gets done), maybe a PhD stipend if you can afford it (probably not), a bunch of consumables money so you're not sitting on your arse playing poker on Arsebook for 3 years, some travel money so you can go to conferences and actually tell people what you're doing so you have some chance of getting another job after this, and... that's it. Oh, and overheads.
Overheads are the real problem. I know Pidge's foundation doesn't actually fund biomedical research. If he did, these figures wouldn't even get near the crux of the issue, because Marsden research is the cheapest research funded by the country which funds research more cheaply than pretty much any other place in the world. HRC (Health Research Council) grants, which are targeted squarely at medical research, often go over a million for a three year project. It's not that salaries are exactly stratospheric - starting salary for a first-year postdoctoral researcher in NZ is less than the starting salary for a first-year field assistant at a coal mine in Gunnedah. AND you get your own ute and satellite phone if you go work for Dawso. But overheads, which pay for... well, overheads I guess... are charged as a proportion of the salaries on the grant, and they're usually the single highest line cost on the grant, more than the salaries themselves. And that's not a problem limited to university research, or even universities in general. The cost of overheads kills productivity in any large bureaucracy. Even, for instance, the cost of running a charitable foundation... or, more particularly for Pidge, the cost of funding Breast Care Nurses in rural Australia, who like the rest of us, can't operate in a vacuum. Funding the salary of one fully paid-up nurse in a decrepit, barren environment with no other facilities would be as morally dubious as a Christian charity encouraging sponsors to give money to one - and only one - starving African child, while the rest of their community dies around them. And obviously no Christian organisation would encourage that, would they?
This isn't, in any way, saying that the work of Pidge's foundation isn't worthwhile - if they'd been around forty years earlier, I might have got to meet my nonna - or that you shouldn't send them cash by the bucket because most of it gets pissed away on admin and bullshit, because there is absolutely no way to avoid that happening. It's just that it's disingenous, and bordering on fradulent, to claim that this is going to make a massive amount of difference. For that reason, the song and dance Nine made about reaching the half-mill at the end of play - even stage-managing the finish by turning the tea break into something resembling the NBN Telethon, although noone phoned up to pledge $500 if Chris Bath took her shirt off - ended up coming off a bit hollow. The wonder wasn't that so much was raised, as Nine wanted you to think. The wonder was that after five days of saturation coverage, it was actually so little.
Then again, that might have been because Australia decided any cause championed by the almost completely objectionable Tony "I'm South African this week" Greig in a fuck-off-horrible pink hat possibly just isn't worth supporting, no matter how right or upstanding the reasoning behind it might be.
The Doctor is OUT.
So all good then. Except... not really. Half a mill sounds like a decent swag on paper. But what does Pidge's Pink-Off Payout actually buy him? Let's say, for argument's sake, that the admin costs are trivial. They won't be, but let's say they are. Say he wants to fund research into breast cancer. He doesn't, but let's say he does, since a lot of other cancer foundations do. How far does his five hundred gorillas get him?
Let's take the average cost of NZ research. The Marsden Fund, who are the 'basic science' fund of NZ, cap the amount you can apply for at $250K per year over a three year grant, plus or minus a bit depending on what discipline panel you apply to - i.e. biomedical research costs more than humanities so they figure you need to ask for more. That $250K would need to cover at least 20% of the time of the principal investigator - even if their salary was already paid for by their employer (it's called salary buyout, and it works really well, and by that I mean it doesn't fucking work at all because the money isn't used by the host department to buy the PI out of their lecturing time and have a teaching fellow do it instead so they can actually do the work... but I digress), plus you'd want a postdoc for three years (so some shit actually gets done), maybe a PhD stipend if you can afford it (probably not), a bunch of consumables money so you're not sitting on your arse playing poker on Arsebook for 3 years, some travel money so you can go to conferences and actually tell people what you're doing so you have some chance of getting another job after this, and... that's it. Oh, and overheads.
Overheads are the real problem. I know Pidge's foundation doesn't actually fund biomedical research. If he did, these figures wouldn't even get near the crux of the issue, because Marsden research is the cheapest research funded by the country which funds research more cheaply than pretty much any other place in the world. HRC (Health Research Council) grants, which are targeted squarely at medical research, often go over a million for a three year project. It's not that salaries are exactly stratospheric - starting salary for a first-year postdoctoral researcher in NZ is less than the starting salary for a first-year field assistant at a coal mine in Gunnedah. AND you get your own ute and satellite phone if you go work for Dawso. But overheads, which pay for... well, overheads I guess... are charged as a proportion of the salaries on the grant, and they're usually the single highest line cost on the grant, more than the salaries themselves. And that's not a problem limited to university research, or even universities in general. The cost of overheads kills productivity in any large bureaucracy. Even, for instance, the cost of running a charitable foundation... or, more particularly for Pidge, the cost of funding Breast Care Nurses in rural Australia, who like the rest of us, can't operate in a vacuum. Funding the salary of one fully paid-up nurse in a decrepit, barren environment with no other facilities would be as morally dubious as a Christian charity encouraging sponsors to give money to one - and only one - starving African child, while the rest of their community dies around them. And obviously no Christian organisation would encourage that, would they?
This isn't, in any way, saying that the work of Pidge's foundation isn't worthwhile - if they'd been around forty years earlier, I might have got to meet my nonna - or that you shouldn't send them cash by the bucket because most of it gets pissed away on admin and bullshit, because there is absolutely no way to avoid that happening. It's just that it's disingenous, and bordering on fradulent, to claim that this is going to make a massive amount of difference. For that reason, the song and dance Nine made about reaching the half-mill at the end of play - even stage-managing the finish by turning the tea break into something resembling the NBN Telethon, although noone phoned up to pledge $500 if Chris Bath took her shirt off - ended up coming off a bit hollow. The wonder wasn't that so much was raised, as Nine wanted you to think. The wonder was that after five days of saturation coverage, it was actually so little.
Then again, that might have been because Australia decided any cause championed by the almost completely objectionable Tony "I'm South African this week" Greig in a fuck-off-horrible pink hat possibly just isn't worth supporting, no matter how right or upstanding the reasoning behind it might be.
The Doctor is OUT.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
On polar opposites
Life is an exercise in polarization. Wherever we go we're polarized, asked to pick a side. As TISM observed, "Yob or wanker, wanker or yob, pass me the brush to tar ya; take your choice then live your life, c'mon pal whatareya?!!" We make these choices, or these choices are made for us, from the day we gain consciousness. Black or white. Boy or girl. Vegemite or Marmite. Stones or Beatles. Labor or Liberal. Evolution or creation. Buffy or Faith. And, for those of us of a certain age - i.e. those who were young impressionable lads in the Eighties - another binary choice. The choice of which supercar poster would get pride of placement over the bedhead. For most, it came down to two names. Ferrari or Lamborghini.
Supercars were epic, monstrous creations in the Eighties. None of the computer-refined widgetry of today, no ABS, stability control or any of that toffee-nosed wank. Supercars of the Eighties were impossible to sit in, hideous to drive, and wanted to kill you. This, then, made them a hell of a lot easier to worship, as eight-year-old boys are wont to do - pestering parents to buy wall posters and Matchbox cars, defacing their pencil cases with supercar names and their schoolbooks with supercar doodles, writing action stories in which the car gets more of a starring role than the lead actor (Knight Rider with better hair). The electronically neutered supercars of today, are they worshipped the same way by kids these days? Would they save up for months to afford a Tamiya model of a Lamborghini Countach LP500S, knowing full well their grotty little bother would smash the crap out of it the moment their back was turned? Would they line up in the un-airconditioned late-summer skank of the Alstonville Motor Show just to get a glimpse of a Countach or a Lotus Esprit? Probably not. They're too busy eloping to Africa for that sort of shit.
But back in the day - we're talking 1985 here, Marty McFly territory - it was all about the supercars. Which meant - with the utmost respect to the Lotuses, Corvettes and 911 Porsches of the world, and never mind the fact that my own bedroom wall circa 1985 actually had Brocky's first Mobil HDT Commodore postered thereupon - supercar war amounted to Ferrari vs Lamborghini, in particular Testarossa vs Countach. They were the ones setting the fastest street-legal top speeds in the magazine tests. They were the ones you chose on Test Drive. And they might have been - and still are - very near neighbours in the same part of northern Italy, but even then they had diametrically opposed philosophies to making supercars. Ferraris were the best of everything, and showed it. Lambos just tried to make your head explode. They were designed with a very sharp ruler and propelled by thermonuclear holocaust. Or, at least, a series of ever-larger V12s (now a 6.5L in today's Murcielago LP640, still derived from the same engine in the 1966 Miura) which were as preposterous as they were powerful.
My loyalties are probably pretty obvious, what with the Countach being name-dropped twice already, and the fact I started this while daydreaming in front of the Top Gear wall calendar at my work desk (Miss January: the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4), a moment preserved for eternity in a recent Arsebook status update. For me, the bull beats the horse. In 1985 Ferrari had the 288GTO, the 512 Berlinetta Boxer and the big-arsed Testarossa, ranged up against the Countach LP500S, and they still couldn't get close. Think of a supercar silhouette in your mind - if you're my age, it's going to be the angular, purposeful wedge of the Countach, and not only because it was the easiest shape to draw in the inside cover of your Maths book. Ever since the thing had been sprung on an unsuspecting world in 1973 it'd defined supercar. If you're a few years younger, it might be a Ferrari F40, but by the late '80s the goalposts had moved dramatically and the Countach was showing its age. Even the 25th Anniversary dress-up couldn't help it keep pace with the F40, Porsche 959 and an increasing deluge of stupefying Callaway Corvettes, though a pair of Mickey Mouse 'ear' intakes helped the massive V12 breathe at high speed, whereas previous high-performance Countaches would auto-asphixiate Michael Hutchence style. By the nineties, Ferrari was well ahead, Lambo was struggling under Chrysler ownership, and had only the Diablo - using mostly Countach derived bits - to take the fight to the F40, F50 et al.
Then, the final insult. Lamborghini was bought by Volkswagen.
And, funnily enough, it worked. The Germans dealt with the shitty detail stuff the Italians couldn't be arsed with, like build quality, wiring that actually worked and designing a seating position that didn't require you to be a lower simian. Leaving the Italians to do their thing in the departments of passion, brio, massive fuck-off V12s and general supercar madness. Today, Ferrari, on the back of their years of Schumacking the arse of everyone else in F1, build technically brilliant, electronics festooned, high-performance track tools. Lamborghini make batshit-insane stealth fighters like the Reventon and Murcielago. Bristling with purpose and menace, usually named after bullfighting weapons or matador-slaying bulls, and crammed full of what Jeremy Clarkson likes to call "POWERRRRR."
Given the choice, I think I know what would be going on my wall today.
Scarlett Johansson.
The Doctor is OUT.
Supercars were epic, monstrous creations in the Eighties. None of the computer-refined widgetry of today, no ABS, stability control or any of that toffee-nosed wank. Supercars of the Eighties were impossible to sit in, hideous to drive, and wanted to kill you. This, then, made them a hell of a lot easier to worship, as eight-year-old boys are wont to do - pestering parents to buy wall posters and Matchbox cars, defacing their pencil cases with supercar names and their schoolbooks with supercar doodles, writing action stories in which the car gets more of a starring role than the lead actor (Knight Rider with better hair). The electronically neutered supercars of today, are they worshipped the same way by kids these days? Would they save up for months to afford a Tamiya model of a Lamborghini Countach LP500S, knowing full well their grotty little bother would smash the crap out of it the moment their back was turned? Would they line up in the un-airconditioned late-summer skank of the Alstonville Motor Show just to get a glimpse of a Countach or a Lotus Esprit? Probably not. They're too busy eloping to Africa for that sort of shit.
But back in the day - we're talking 1985 here, Marty McFly territory - it was all about the supercars. Which meant - with the utmost respect to the Lotuses, Corvettes and 911 Porsches of the world, and never mind the fact that my own bedroom wall circa 1985 actually had Brocky's first Mobil HDT Commodore postered thereupon - supercar war amounted to Ferrari vs Lamborghini, in particular Testarossa vs Countach. They were the ones setting the fastest street-legal top speeds in the magazine tests. They were the ones you chose on Test Drive. And they might have been - and still are - very near neighbours in the same part of northern Italy, but even then they had diametrically opposed philosophies to making supercars. Ferraris were the best of everything, and showed it. Lambos just tried to make your head explode. They were designed with a very sharp ruler and propelled by thermonuclear holocaust. Or, at least, a series of ever-larger V12s (now a 6.5L in today's Murcielago LP640, still derived from the same engine in the 1966 Miura) which were as preposterous as they were powerful.
My loyalties are probably pretty obvious, what with the Countach being name-dropped twice already, and the fact I started this while daydreaming in front of the Top Gear wall calendar at my work desk (Miss January: the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4), a moment preserved for eternity in a recent Arsebook status update. For me, the bull beats the horse. In 1985 Ferrari had the 288GTO, the 512 Berlinetta Boxer and the big-arsed Testarossa, ranged up against the Countach LP500S, and they still couldn't get close. Think of a supercar silhouette in your mind - if you're my age, it's going to be the angular, purposeful wedge of the Countach, and not only because it was the easiest shape to draw in the inside cover of your Maths book. Ever since the thing had been sprung on an unsuspecting world in 1973 it'd defined supercar. If you're a few years younger, it might be a Ferrari F40, but by the late '80s the goalposts had moved dramatically and the Countach was showing its age. Even the 25th Anniversary dress-up couldn't help it keep pace with the F40, Porsche 959 and an increasing deluge of stupefying Callaway Corvettes, though a pair of Mickey Mouse 'ear' intakes helped the massive V12 breathe at high speed, whereas previous high-performance Countaches would auto-asphixiate Michael Hutchence style. By the nineties, Ferrari was well ahead, Lambo was struggling under Chrysler ownership, and had only the Diablo - using mostly Countach derived bits - to take the fight to the F40, F50 et al.
Then, the final insult. Lamborghini was bought by Volkswagen.
And, funnily enough, it worked. The Germans dealt with the shitty detail stuff the Italians couldn't be arsed with, like build quality, wiring that actually worked and designing a seating position that didn't require you to be a lower simian. Leaving the Italians to do their thing in the departments of passion, brio, massive fuck-off V12s and general supercar madness. Today, Ferrari, on the back of their years of Schumacking the arse of everyone else in F1, build technically brilliant, electronics festooned, high-performance track tools. Lamborghini make batshit-insane stealth fighters like the Reventon and Murcielago. Bristling with purpose and menace, usually named after bullfighting weapons or matador-slaying bulls, and crammed full of what Jeremy Clarkson likes to call "POWERRRRR."
Given the choice, I think I know what would be going on my wall today.
Scarlett Johansson.
The Doctor is OUT.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Strange brew
With beer getting arse-bitingly exxy these days (unless you're in NZ when the buck-a-beer carton, while endangered, ain't quite extinct yet) and many thinking of turning to the black arts of DIY beer production, we've delved into the archives to bring you the following, entitled Strange Brew: How to make beer cheaply and badly, or well and for almost as much as you'd end up paying at Dan's, by Doctors Craigos and Yobbo. Be guided by our shared genius (i.e. don't fuck the same things up that we fucked up, or at least not in the same way. In particular don't let your seedy flatmate fill up the brew vessel with water out of the hose.)
Old Chateau Dodgy Brewhouse, St Lucia
Brewing Notes 2003-05
HL 15/2 Heritage Lager
Techo shit:
Setup 9/2/03
• Thomas Coopers Heritage Lager kit 1.7kg
• Coopers Premium Malt Extract 1.5kg
Volume ~23L
Initial temperature ~28ºC (added ice to get wort down to temperature)
Initial SG 1040
Finings added 13/2/03; SG 1012
Bottled 15/2/03 (brown bottles, red/gold caps); final SG 1008
Design basis: no hops added - intended as ‘plain vanilla’ test run with new kit, to determine which hops to add to second batch.
No contamination issues from ice addition or high initial fermentation temperature.
Tasting notes: pleasant enough, drinkable but lacks punch, lacking carbonation, underhopped - a very ‘home brew’ flavoured home brew (i.e. as found in plastic bottles brewed by Chrisso). Suggested hops to augment flavour - Fuggles or ‘Luncheon Lager’ (Cascade/Goldings) combo. The latter is a very reliable combo which always works with drinkable summer ales.
SA 15/2 Sam Adams
Techo shit:
Setup 9/2/03
• Goldrush Mabbott’s Ale (nee St Arnou) kit 1.7kg
• Ultra Brew 1kg
• Hallertau and Cascade hops 12g each
Hallertau and Ultrabrew simmered 10min in ~4L water
Cascade added after removal from heat, left to steep 15min
Volume ~24L
Initial temp ~28ºC (added ice to get wort down to temp)
Initial SG 1030
Finings added 13/2/03 (at half time of Australia vs England football international, Australia 2 England 0; final score Australia 3 England 1); SG 1012; brew quite cloudy at this stage
Bottled 15/2/03 (green bottles, green caps); final SG 1008
Design basis: based on recipe in Western Suburbs Home Brew (WSHB) ‘brewsletter’.
No contamination issues from ice addition or high initial fermentation temperature.
Tasting notes: action good, reasonable head, pleasant Hallertau/Cascade aroma and taste - very drinkable, disappeared very quickly. Winner.
LH 2/3 ‘Luncheon’ Heritage Lager
Techo shit:
Setup 24/2/03
• Thomas Coopers Heritage Lager kit 1.7kg
• Coopers Premium Malt Extract 1.5kg
• Hallertau and Cascade hops 12g each, steeped 10 min
Volume ~23.5L
Initial temp ~21ºC (added large amounts of ice to get wort down to temp)
Initial SG 1040
Finings added 28/2/03; SG 1011; temp ~28ºC
Bottled 2/3/03 (brown bottles, red caps); final SG 1008
Design basis: as per Heritage Lager, supplemented with same hops as Sam Adams (similar to Cascade/Goldings combo in ‘Luncheon Lager’ recipe, hence the name).
Tasting notes: nice head, good action, characteristic ‘Luncheon’ (Cascade) nose. Taste comparison with ‘genuine’ Luncheon Lager (batch brewed by Craigos Sept 2002) - this was more crisp and not as sweet as a Luncheon Lager, which has a fuller, sweeter flavour (made with more liquid malt and the use of Goldings instead of Hallertau).
IPA 23/3 India Pale Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 15/3/03
• Black Rock East India Pale Ale kit 1.5kg
• Ultra Brew 1kg
• Fuggles hops 12g, steeped 10min
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~27ºC (added ice to get wort down to temp)
Initial SG 1037
No finings added
Bottled 23/3/03 (green bottles, white caps, black text); final SG 1012
Design basis: trying for a James Squire IPA style beer, though milder (i.e. not as ferociously hopped) - using Fuggles, as used to make Squire IPA.
Black Rock (NZ) kits evidently higher density than Australian ones, hence smaller volume.
Ultra Brew used rather than Brew Booster on the basis of its higher malt content.
To try and alleviate carbonation issues earlier in the brewseason (i.e. beers flatter than Holland) used new batch of dextrose (our theory: dextrose seems to hydrate with age, so a given volume will contain less dextrose as it gets older) and made a conscious effort to ‘over-sugar’ when bottling (i.e. used up to 1½ teaspoons dextrose per standard bottle)
Tasting notes: oversugaring seemed to work - IPA had good action (small bubbles) and head. Didn’t taste much like Squire IPA though, rather underhopped (and undermalted) by comparison.
SP 23/3 Saaz Pilsner
Techo shit:
Setup 15/3/03
• Morgans Golden Saaz Pilsener kit 1.7kg
• WSHB Czech Pilsner brew enhancer 1kg
Ingredients: dextrose, maltodextrin, light malt and hops (primarily Saaz)
• Saaz and Hersbrucker hops 12g each, steeped 15min
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~28ºC (added ice to get wort down to temp)
Initial SG 1033
No finings added
Bottled 23/3/03 (green bottles, white caps, blue text); final SG 1006; final temp ~26ºC
Design basis: starting with WSHB recipe for Tooheys Pils knockoff (brewed by Craigos late 2002) but using Hersbrucker in place of second bag of Saaz. Hersbrucker used in Hahn Premium (and in Christmas beer brewed late 2002). Intention was to produce a beer somewhere between Pils and Hahn Premium.
As with IPA (bottled same day), oversugaring (1½ teaspoons dextrose per standard bottle) used to improve head volume and quality. Unless otherwise noted, this became the standard method for bottling all future brews.
Tasting notes: good action and head, pale colour, mild aroma - an excellent example of the pilsner variety, appreciated greatly and disappearing quickly.This basic recipe was copied extensively in future brews because we were (a) unimaginative and (b) drunkards.
CD 17/4 Vale Ale
Techo shit:
Setup (date unknown but probably end first week April 2003)
• Coopers Canadian Blonde kit 1.7kg
• Brewiser Body Brew 1kg
• Maltodextrin ~350g
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~28ºC
Initial SG 1042
No finings added
Bottled 17/4/03 (green bottles, white caps, green text); final SG 1012; final temp ~24ºC
Design basis: mild, drinkable, cheap beer for Chateau Dodgy flatmate Yuri to demolish at his leisure (rather than our more painstakingly prepared brews which were disappearing in bulk at the time). Recipe was as per the 2002 UQ Union homebrew competition winning brew, with extra maltodextrin to bolster mouthfeel and head (but mainly to increase the alcohol content). Coded CD for obvious (seedy) reasons.
Tasting notes: sampled after 4½ weeks, quickly tagged ‘Vile Ale’. How the hell did this arse-flavoured bilge win that brewing competition? No nose to speak of, head and action weak to adequate, watery and flavourless, extra alcohol not evident to the taste. Overall, an ideal beer for consuming vast quantities thereof by your less discerning drinker. Vale himself loved the stuff.
W 11/5 Weissbier (Wheat beer)
Techo shit:
Setup 5/5/03
• Morgans Golden Sheaf Wheat Beer kit 1.7kg
• Morgans Wheat Malt Master Blend 1kg (liquid)
• Maltodextrin 250g (to bolster fermentables)
• Hallertau hops 12g, steeped 20min
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~26ºC
Initial SG 1034; dark gold in appearance, little aroma
Finings added at some stage (CB couldn’t remember the exact date); SG 1014
Bottled 11/5/03 (clear Uncle Ted bottles, white caps, purple text); final SG 1012 - high(ish), excess malt/maltodextrin implicated here. Weak ‘wheat beer’ aroma; Hallertau more prominent in aroma
Design basis: first attempt at a white/weiss/whear beer, hoping to avoid ‘skank flavour’ oft-associated with same (eg Hoegaarden, so named from the Flemish Dutch for 'compost of the prostitute'). May have been another WSHB brewsletter recipe (?)
Tasting notes: good head, good action, good taste - nothing like a wheat beer, which was probably why everyone liked it so much. Hard to describe - almost like a fairly plain-vanilla lager really - but quite pleasant.
TN 21/5 Tettnanger Pilsner
Techo shit:
Setup 11/5/03
• Goldrush Pilsner kit 1.7kg
• WSHB light liquid malt 1kg
• Maltodextrin 250g
• Dextrose ~100g (dregs of bag)
• Tettnanger hops 24g (2x 12g bags - one 12g bag simmered 10min then other bag steeped in same volume for 15min)
Volume ~23.5L
Initial temp ~25ºC
Initial SG 1034
Finings possibly added (date/SG not recorded)
Bottled 21/5 (odd bottles, red caps); final SG 1010; temp ~24ºC
Design basis: using ‘framework’ of Tooheys Pils ripoff recipe (i.e two bags of hops - simmer one for bitterness, steep the other for aroma) to try out a different hop, in this case Tettnanger. Produced a relatively dark, malty pilsner.
Tasting notes: head and action good, but discordance between malty sweetness and pilsner bitterness, exacerbated by the bitterness characteristics of the Tettnanger hops. Not a classic. In fact, actually quite arse. Don't try this at home.
A 10/6 Amber Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 31/5/03
• Morgans Royal Oak Amber Ale kit 1.7kg
• WSHB light liquid malt 0.5kg
• WSHB dark liquid malt 0.5kg
• Maltodextrin 250g
• Williamette hops 50g (25g simmered 10 min, then other 25g steeped 10min in same volume, as per above method)
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~27ºC
Initial SG 1036
Finings added 5/6/03; SG 1014
Bottled 10/6/03 (brown bottles, red caps); final SG not recorded but probably around 1010
Design basis: testing new kit and untried hop - also first use of bulk pelleted hops rather than ‘bagged’ (infusion) delivery. Messier but otherwise OK.
Tasting notes: lovely and malty but a tad overhopped. Williamette is a relative of Fuggles and Goldings, gives a fruitier, almost berry-like quality to the aroma. A good beer, could have been better with a little less sheep droppings.
MV 19/6 Mabbott’s Vienna Gold
Techo shit:
Setup 7/6/03
• Goldrush Mabbott’s Ale kit 1.7kg
• WSHB light liquid malt 0.5kg
• WSHB dark liquid malt 0.5kg
• Maltodextrin 250g
• Vienna Gold hops 50g (25g simmered 10 min, then other 25g steeped 10min in same volume, as per above method)
Volume ~21L
Initial temp ~28ºC
Initial SG 1040
Finings added 14/6/03; SG 1016
Bottled 19/6/03 (green bottles, gold caps); final SG 1014; final temp ~28ºC
Design basis: testing untried Vienna Gold hops.
First use of ‘brew belt’ electic heating band to maintain temperature on cold nights - worked well, in that the brew proceeded OK. However...
Tasting notes: fucking awful. this is the worst tasting beer we ever made. Including the ones which went off. It was horrendously overhopped, with the result that it tasted of grass clippings mixed with iron filings. Even Yuri wouldn’t touch it. It was vaguely drinkable only when mixed 50:50 with kiwi beer Tui in some sort of bizarre shandy-style cocktail, and even then, we preferred to throw out the MV and just drink the Tui, which if you've ever drank Tui, is a statement in itself. Months and years of maturation failed to dull the foulness of this brew, which was useful for only one purpose: cleaning the BBQ. Avoid this beer, and avoid Vienna Gold. Use the contents of your mower’s grass catcher instead.
PP 22/6 Paradise Pilsner
Techo shit:
Setup 14/6/03
• Goldrush Pilsner kit 1.7kg
• WSHB light liquid malt 1kg
• Maltodextrin 250g
• Dextrose 250g
• Goldings hops 25g (simmered for bittering)
• CL80 hops 12g (steeped for finishing)
Volume ~23.5L
Initial temp ~26ºC
Initial SG 1043
Finings added 21/6; SG 1012
Bottled 21/5 (green/clear bottles, gold caps); final SG not recorded
Design basis: a Craigos-instigated recipe taken from a homebrew website, very similar to the Tettnanger Pilsner recipe
Brew belt used again for majority of primary fermentation
Tasting notes: another strongly malted pilsner, very similar to Tettnanger Pilsner - rather bittersweet (literally), not my cup of overhopped tea. CL80 hops contributed rather too much XXXX Gold skankiness - one variety to avoid.
Failed winter brews
These brews were set up but failed due to low temperatures and contamination (traced to junior brewing engineer Yuri using garden hose to fill fermenter) - recipes given for future reference.
Luncheon Weissbier
‘Luncheon’ (Cascade/Goldings) style wheat beer. Aiming for more weissbier flavour than obtained from Morgans kit (see W 11/5 brew). Initial SG 1042 (volume ~23L). Setup 20/6.
• Black Rock Whispering Wheat kit 1.7kg
• Morgans Wheat Malt Master Blend 1kg (liquid)
• Maltodextrin 250g
• Cascade and Goldings hops 25g each, steeped 10min
Hitler Lager (the Eunuch from Munich)
‘Vale Ale II’ - another simple, drinkable ale. First use of Wander kit and CSR-Coopers sugar. Initial SG 1033 (volume ~23L). Setup 13/7.
• Wander Munich Lager kit 1.7kg
• CSR-Coopers brewing sugar 1kg
• Cascade hops ~10g (‘a dash’), steeped ~5min
Proton Pils
Simple, flavoursome pilsner - all ingredients sourced from Big W so also bloody cheap. Initial SG 1036 (volume ~23L). Setup 13/7/03.
• Brewiser Pilsner kit 1.7kg
• Ultra Brew 1kg
500g light malt, 250g maltodextrin, 250g dextrose
• Cascade, Saaz and Hallertau hops 12g each, steeped 10min
Back to the shit that actually worked
TB 27/9 Time Bomb
Techo shit:
Setup 20/9/03
• Wander Lager kit 1.7kg
• CSR-Coopers brewing sugar 1kg
• Cascade and Goldings hops ~5g (‘a dash’), dry hopped
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~28ºC
Initial SG 1035
Finings added 21/6; SG 1012
Bottled 24/9 (green bottles, white caps, red text); final SG 1005
Design basis: a simple, drinkable ale, basically a test run to see if we had sorted out our contamination issues, using relatively cheap ingredients. Waited until late September to ensure ambient temp was sufficient to brew without additional heating (eg Brew Belt). Named Time Bomb because we reckoned it was bound to go off at some stage (see 'Failed Winter Brews').
First successful use of Wander kit and CSR-Coopers sugar.
Tasting notes: this turned out really well, light and ‘luncheony’, disappeared very quickly. Cascade/Goldings combo (a recurring theme in the produce of Old Chateau Dodgy Brewhouse) gives that fresh citrusy zest that really sparks up a nice clean lager. You tossers.
RR 19/10 Roger Ramjet (Proton Pils)
Techo shit:
Setup 11/10/03
• Black Rock Pilsner Blonde kit 1.5kg
• WSHB liquid light malt ~250g
• Maltodextrin ~500g
• Dextrose ~400g (added at finings stage)
• Cascade, Saaz and Hallertau hops 12g each, steeped 10min
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~26ºC
Initial SG 1040
Finings added 14/10/03 (with dextrose); SG 1026, temp ~22ºC
Bottled 19/10 (clear bottles, red caps); final SG 1015
Design basis: simple, flavoursome pilsner - based on failed 13/7 recipe using higher quality kitbase and more malt.
Late dextrose addition not so much crafty experimentation as forgetting to put it into the fermenter in the first place.
Tasting notes: great beer - good action and head, pilsner freshness with Hallertau mint and Cascade citrus elements. Went in a hurry.
PW 26/10 Piss Wheat
Techo shit:
Setup 19/10/03
• Black Rock Whispering Wheat kit 1.5kg
• WSHB liquid light malt ~750g
• Maltodextrin 500g
• Cascade and Goldings hops 20g each, steeped 10min
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~29ºC
Initial SG 1039
Finings added 24/10/03 (with dextrose); SG 1019
Bottled 26/10 (brown bottles, gold caps, green text); final SG 1018
Design basis: another variation on the weissbier theme, based on the failed ‘Luncheon Weissbier’ recipe with extra malt
Tasting notes: not brilliant but not bad - good action and head, a little weissbier skank but brightened up with citrusy aroma and smoothed out with malt sweetness. Drinking mostly outsourced to Vale, Y.
05 18/11 Peter Bock
Techo shit:
Setup 8/11/03
• Muntons Bock kit (1.8kg)
• WSHB light liquid malt 1kg
• WSHB dark liquid malt 1kg
• Fuggles hops 12g, dry hopped
Volume ~20L
Initial temp ~22ºC (added ice to get wort down to temp)
Initial SG ~1050 (off measurement scale of hydrometer)
Finings added 15/11/03; SG 1020
Bottled 18/11/03 (brown bottles, white caps, purple text); final SG 1020 - quite high (unsurprisingly)
Design basis: based on a beer called Aviator Bock, brewed by the Wig and Pen brewpub in Canberra, which was a massively malty and ultra-strong dark lager, a gorgeous beer.
Tasting notes: I quote from the original brewing notes - “Jesus Christ what a beer. HUGE malt flavour, rounded and almost fruity (courtesy Fuggles)”. Worked brilliantly, very much like the Aviator Bock which this is based on.
DUFF 23/11 Duff Beer
Techo shit:
Setup 18/11/03
• Morgans Blue Mountain Lager kit 1.7kg
• Morgans Extra Pale Malt Extract 1.5kg
• Hersbrucker hops 12g (finishing)
• Drying enzyme 3g, added with yeast
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~28ºC
Initial SG 1038
Finings added 21/11; SG not recorded
Bottled 23/11 (green bottles, gold caps); final SG 1005
Design basis: a Craigos-instigated recipe taken from… not sure, think he just plucked it out of his arse basically. Brewed to take on a golf trip up to the Sunshine Coast because he was too cheap to buy commercial beer.
First use of drying enzyme since Craigos' 2002 Crown Lager ripoff brew.
Tasting notes: most of this went on the golf trip so not much was kept for tasting purposes. Those sampled for tasting started out as nothing special (early in maturation process) but after around 4 months a really interesting malt element started to come through, presumably due to effects of the drying enzyme ‘mopping up’ the excess sweetness. Wish we’d kept more to see how it improved further as it matured.
CS 8/2 Cerveza del Spurioso
Techo shit:
Setup 1/2/04
• Black Rock Export Pilsner 1.5kg
• WSHB Czech Pilsner brew enhancer 1kg
• Saaz and Hersbrucker hops 12g each, steeped 10min
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~32ºC (used wet towel to bring temp down by evaporative cooling; to 27ºC within ~6hrs)
Initial SG 1034
Finings added 5/2/04; SG 1014
Bottled 8/2/04 (brown bottles, white caps); final SG not recorded
Design basis: first brew in new place (Casa del Spurioso, Mitre St) - decided to begin with the tried and true Saaz Pilsner recipe. Only change was to the kit used.
First use of wet towel method (‘wicked’ into bucket of water) - worked very well, maintainted temp at 24-26ºC throughout brew
Tasting notes: very near last year’s Saaz Pilsner, a cracker. Sharpish saaz flavours, light and golden, great nose. Difficult to pick significant differences between this and ‘03 SP even in extensive back-to-back tastings. And we do mean extensive.
IR 28/3 Irish Red
Techo shit:
Setup 21/3/04
• St Peters Irish Red Fresh Wort kit 15L
• Safale yeast
Volume ~18L
Initial temp ~26ºC (stabilised with Wet Towel Technology™)
Initial SG not recorded but probably fairly high
Finings not added
Bottled 28/3/04 (green bottles, gold caps, red text); final SG not recorded either (due to lack of functional hydrometer as we'd dropped them all on the concrete floor)
Design basis: first use of pre-kettled fresh worts produced by St Peters Brewery in Sydney and available through WSHB.
SGs not recorded over this period of the brewseason as all our hydrometers were non-functional.
Tasting notes: a true Irish red beer in the style of Kilkenny or Monteith’s Celtic, dry and earthy with nice malty elements, not overly bitter. Head and action of excellent quality, very creamy. Large amount of yeast sediment; in hindsight, should have used finings. Definitely one for the fans of your Irish red beers. Of which neither of us were actually one so we should probably have thought this one through a bit better.
DH 12/4 Da Herb
Techo shit:
Setup 4/4/04
• Brewiser Pacific Draught kit 1.7kg
• Ultra Brew 1kg
• Dextrose 180g
• Hallertau hops 12g
• Fresh basil and mint
Hallertau and herbs steeped together 15min
Volume ~21.5L
Initial temp/SG not recorded
Finings not added
Bottled 12/4/04 (green bottles, green caps); final SG not recorded (hydrometer still broken).
Design basis: our most controversial beer. The Old Man was steadfast in his belief that this beer would not work. Whether he is right is still a matter of conjecture. Rather than use hops, we used fresh green herbs from the future Dr Mrs Dr Yobbo's flourishing herb garden - great handfuls of fresh basil and mint.
Kit was out of a cheapo pre-packed box from Big W containing kit, Ultra Brew, hops and bag of dextrose for bottling (which we threw into the wort to supplement the fermentables.
Tasting notes: herb flavour very prominent. VERY prominent. One is nice; two is, um, interesting; three, starting to wear thin. Took a while to get rid of this one. Went very well in cooking though. And cleaning the BBQ, since we'd used up all the Mabbott's Vienna Gold.
46 22/4 The Doctor’s Orders
Techo shit:
Setup 17/4/04
• Coopers Sparkling Ale kit 1.7kg
• Morgans Extra Pale Malt Extract 1.5kg
• Cascade and Goldings hops 15g each, steeped 10min
Volume ~25L
Initial temp/SG not recorded
Finings added 20/4
Bottled 22/4/04 (green bottles, gold caps, blue text); final SG not recorded (hydrometer still broken).
Design basis: envisaged as a ‘session’ beer, one for long hot Qld afternoons and weekends - hence additional volume (to make more of it) and malt (to ensure it wasn’t too watery.) Named (and numbered) in honour of the first MotoGP win for the Doctor (Valentino Rossi) on the Yamaha YZR-M1, in the South African GP.
Tasting notes: went exactly as planned (except that we planned to add a drying enzyme to try and get the late-onset malt element of Duff (18/11), but forgot to buy the drying enzyme.) Tasty, nicely hopped, malt elements just right, good head and action. Went fucking quickly and popular with the ladies. Much like Rossi himself.
RH 9/5 Red Eye Honey Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 3/5/04
• Morgans Pale Malt Extract 1.7kg
• Morgans Caramalt Master Blend 1kg
• Beechworth Honey 1kg
• Hallertau hops 50g (bittering) + 12g (finishing)
• Safale yeast
Half Pale Malt Extract simmered (‘kettled’) 45min in ~4L water with 50g Hallertau; 12g Hallertau then steeped in this for 10min.
Volume ~23L
Initial temp/SG not recorded
Unsure whether we added finings or not
Bottled 9/5/04 (brown bottles, gold caps, purple text); final SG 1012 (finally bought another hydrometer)
Design notes: recipe taken from Morgans ‘brewsletter’ - no actual kit involved, hence ‘kettling’ of malt extract with bittering hops (Hallertau - fairly low alpha acid level, so not strongly bitter).
With the amount of fermentables used (a good kilo over typical levels), figure on 6-6.5% alcohol for this
Tasting notes: A real favourite - really worked well. Hallertau not overly bitter but consistent in its bitterness level, rounded off by excess malt and honey - maybe a little too rounded in the end, as it ended up a little like the overly malted pilsners (TN/PP) brewed in 2003 - nowhere near as discordant though. Would have been interesting to try this brew again perhaps with a drying enzyme to mop up some of the excess sweetness.
PA 25/5 Pale Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 16/5/04
• Malt Shovel Brewery Pale Ale 2 x 1.7kg
• Williamette and Cascade hops ~20g each, steeped 10min
Volume ~20L
Initial temp ~26ºC
Initial SG not recorded (broke new hydrometer trying to record it)
Finings added 22/5; SG 1020 at 23/5
Bottled 25/5 (brown bottles, white caps, red text); final SG 1018
Design notes: Aiming to reconstitute Cascade First Harvest (limited release pale ale) or something like it.
First attempt at using two kits (rather than a kit plus extra malt/sugar), though this method had been attempted by the Old Man at the Broom with another MSB kit.
Considered using bulk priming for bottling but post-finings fermentation took too long.
Tasting notes: big, earthen and malty in the true English pale ale tradition, excellent head and action, but alarmingly over-hopped - extra Williamette and Cascade (named as ingredients in Cascade First Harvest) rather overdoing it. Should have gone sans hops or picked a less hoppy kit to start with. Still a good beer but not one for afternoon sessions.
bp 18/7 (A) Bitter Pils (to swallow)
Techo shit:
Setup 23/5/04
• Black Rock Pilsner Blonde kit 1.7kg
• Morgans Extra Pale Malt Extract 1.5kg
• Saaz (12g), Cluster (12g) and Super Alpha (25g) hops - simmered briefly then steeped 10min
• 3g drying enzyme
Volume ~21L
Initial temp ~26ºC
Initial SG 1058 (seemed rather large at the time)
Finings added (liquid - first use of same); SG 1015; temp ~22ºC - very pale, lots of dissolved gas (cloudy appearance)
Bottling (initial) 30/5/04; SG 1014, no bubbling through airlock
Became obvious during bottle maturation process (June) that each bottle was badly overgassed (direct quote from the original brewnotes: “bp 30/5 is a batch of hand grenades”) Likely that they were bottled too early, before primary fermentation was complete.
Revisited 3/7: Entire 30/5 batch of bottles opened (very carefully - bottlecaps became projectiles very easily) and contents returned to fermenter - 17L recovered, topped off to 20L with Da Herb (DH 12/4, which we were trying to get rid of), and added powdered finings. SG 1018, temp ~22ºC.
Bottled 18/7/04 (green bottles, white caps, green text, hereafter referred to as ‘bp Ultimate’); final SG 1007
Design basis: intended as a cross between Duff (i.e. trying to get that ‘late-onset malt’ using the Morgans Extra Pale malt and the drying enzyme) and Steinlager (or other more bitter pilsners, hence Super Alpha and Cluster.)
First use of liquid finings; when brew maturation went awry over June, contamination was suspected and liquid finings implicated, but turned out not to be the case.
Tasting notes: in the end, turned out surprisingly well. Still overgassed but managably so (though still capable of self-grenading in the boot of cars on hot bumpy journeys). Flavour balance probably slightly compromised by length of (both) primary fermentation(s) - a bit of ‘skank’ definitely crept into the flavour.
Cluster not a good hop; do not use, other than as a weapon.
IBF 6/6 Dark Shark Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 29/5/04
• Malt Shovel Brewery Deep Roast Ale kit 1.7kg
• Morgans Chocolate Malt Master Blend 1kg
• Goldings (10g), Williamette (10g) and Green Bullet (5g) hops - dry hopped
Volume ~15L
Initial temp ~24ºC (an estimate - liquid volume not within range of thermostrip on fermenter)
Initial SG 1054
Finings added 3/6; SG 1024
Bottled 6/6 (brown bottles, white caps, black text); final SG 1023
Design basis: Strong dark ale with staunch stout leanings. Named after Ian Baker-Finch (as tagged by Roy and HG). Brewed in a concentrated volume (around 15L) to get that dense, syrupy stout consistency and mouthfeel.
Tasting notes: Deep and robust scent, burnt-black and malty with coffee and chocolate overtones. Even the head is dark brown. More bitter than Bock, not quite as dense despite concentrated volume. Lord alone knows what the alcohol content is but it ain’t 5%. Large flakes of hop remain in the bottle, adding flavour, but to be avoided when pouring - recommend using a tea strainer.
AA 28/8 Anniversary Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 8/8/04
• Coopers Pale Ale kit 1.7kg
• WSHB Brew Booster 1kg
• Williamette, Goldings and Cascade hops a dash (~5g) each, dry hopped
Volume ~21L
Initial temp ~26ºC
Initial SG 1042
Finings added 21/8/04; SG 1016, still lots of dissolved gas
Due to concerns over long fermentation and possibility of a ‘bp’ repeat, bottled part of batch 22/8 (SG 1009) and part 28/8 (SG 1008) - green bottles, white caps, blue text.
Design basis: testing new Coopers’ Pale Ale kit - brewed to mark Megan and James’ 2½ year anniversary (Megan being a fan of Coopers’ Pale Ale).
Tasting notes: light and pleasant, very Coopers Pale Ale-esque but with hint of citrusy goodness. No real difference between the two batches.
Dr Yobbo’s Graduation Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 22/10/04
• Morgans Pale Malt Extract 1.5kg
• Morgans Caramalt Master Blend 1kg
• Capilano Honey 750g
• Golden Nectar Leatherwood Honey 250g
• Hallertau hops 50g, bittering
• Cascade, Goldings and Super Alpha hops 10g each, finishing
• Safale yeast 7g
• Drying enzyme 3g
Half extract + Master Blend simmered 45min in ~4L water then finishing hops steeped in wort 10min (as per Red Eye recipe)
Volume ~25L
Initial temp ~28ºC
Initial SG ~1050
Finings added 4/11/04; SG 1008; aroma of honey as well as sharp hop bitterness a la James Squire Pilsener
Bottling 6/11/04 (green bottles, patterned caps, custom labels); final SG 1008
Design basis: brewed for Dr Yobbo’s graduation (9/12/04), based on Red Eye Honey Ale recipe (varying finishing hops and type of honey, plus addition of drying enzyme.) Given out to all those who had contributed in a positive way towards the Doctor’s tenure at the IMB and the attainment of his PhD (Piss Head Degree).
Tasting notes: brilliant, as you’d expect. Compared to Red Eye Honey Ale, dryer taste, stronger hop flavours and bitterness, sharpness of leatherwood honey also evident. As most of this was given away, how the flavours of this matured with age isn’t known, but it’s a safe assumption to make that it would have dried up further, the malt would have advanced further, the hops would have rounded off, and it would have tasted Bloody Tops. (Postscript: A couple of old bottles unearthed by the Old Man at Xmas 2007. All of the above is true.)
X 21/11 Xmas Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 14/11/04
• Cascade Golden Harvest Lager kit 1.7kg
• WSHB light liquid malt 1kg
• Cascade and Goldings hops 12g each, steeped 10min
• Hallertau hops 20g, dry hops
• Drying enzyme 3g
Volume ~22L
Initial SG 1040
Finings added 18/11/04; SG 1008
Bottled 21/11/04 (green bottles, red caps); final SG 1006
Design notes: second attempt at a Christmas beer (after 2002’s effort). Based on newly released Cascade kits (available in supermarkets) with the reliable combination of Cascade, Goldings and Hallertau (first used together in the Schoolies Brew of ’02). Again, drying enzyme used to clean up and dry out the taste.
This recipe actually set up as a brew 22/8/04 but fermentation failed due to contamination.
Tasting notes: good summer beer though Hallertau mintiness did tend to predominate over Cascade citrus elements - not entirely complementary with Golden Harvest kit. Still quite a decent brew. Not aged sufficiently by Xmas break to see the benefit of drying enzyme, after which point most of this brew had disappeared. Merry Christmas.
SP 27/11 Summer Pilsner
Techo shit:
Setup 21/11/04
• Morgans Golden Saaz Pilsener kit 1.7kg
• WSHB Czech Pilsner brew enhancer 1kg
• Williamette (5g), Saaz and Hallertau hops (24g each), steeped 10min
• Drying enzyme 3g
Volume ~23L
Initial SG 10403
Finings added 25/11/04; SG 1009
Bottled 27/11/04 (brown bottles, gold caps, black text); final SG 1005
Design basis: back to the reliable Saaz Pilsner recipe for summer, with different (and more) hops, and again testing the use of a drying enzyme to remove any residual malt sweetness in the beer - figured a pilsner would particularly benefit from the use of this treatment.
Tasting notes: again, another good ‘summer’ beer, though again, the Hallertau flavour tends to shout over the top of everything else. Probably overhopped. Again, most of this went over the Xmas break so the effect of the drying enzyme wasn’t able to be determined.
K 16/7 Kleinlager
Techo shit:
Setup 31/3/05
• Black Rock NZ Lager kit 1.7kg
• Brewcraft Brewblend #15 - Lager Enhancer 1kg
• Cascade and Hallertau hops 12g, steeped 10min
• Saflager yeast
Volume ~23L
Initial brew temp ~20ºC, ambient temp ~18ºC
Initial SG 1040
After 4 days: SG 1022, brew temp ~16ºC, ambient temp ~14ºC; lots of dissolved gas and quite the lagerescent pong
Finings added 7/4/05; SG 1012
Bottled 16/4/05 (mixed bottles, predominantly green; gold caps, red text); final SG 1010 (stable since 11/4)
Design notes: first ‘small’ attempt at brewing a true lager (i.e. with lager yeast within lager fermentation temps, keeping in the mid teens) - also first brew in NZ. Vague aim was Steinlager.
Lager fermentation takes longer and seems to generate more carbonation - heavy frothing when bottling, had to leave bottles to settle before topping up and capping.
Tasting notes: took time to mature, initially a touch skanky, but developed into a really nice, clean NZ lager with a zesty hop bouquet.
Wanted to use Goldings but not available in NZ.
Maltier and more interesting than Shitelager.
P 29/5 Proton Pils
Techo shit:
Setup 12/5/05
• Brewcraft Czech Pilsner kit 1.7kg
• Black Rock Blond malt 1.5kg
• Saaz hops 12g, steeped 10min
• Saflager yeast
Volume ~20.5L
Initial brew temp ~18ºC
Initial SG 1048
Finings added 26/5/05; SG 1012
Bottled 29/5/05 (green bottles, gold caps, black text); final SG 1010
Design notes: trying simple pilsner recipe with lager yeast - heavier on malt (as pale as was available) and lighter on hops (sticking with Saaz) than late ’04 Australian efforts.
Again, fermentation took longer than expected and bottling was more difficult due to overfoaming of bottles.
Tasting notes: very nice. A bit darker than expected (probably due to condensed volume as well as high malt content), saaz not as prominent, but still crisp and quite dry despite lack of drying enzyme. Strong alcohol content as well.
B 3/7 Bock
Techo shit:
Setup 12/6/05
• Muntons Bock kit 1.8kg
• Black Rock Amber Malt 1.1kg
• Saflager yeast
Volume ~20L
Initial brew temp ~16ºC
Initial SG 1064
Finings added 19/6/05; SG 1022
Bottled in two batches due to concerns over amount of dissolved gas - first batch 26/6/05, second batch 3/7/05 (mixed bottles, gold caps, blue text); final SG 1018 (consistent between batches)
Design notes: standard bock recipe, as used in Australia, but using a lager yeast (as per traditional German brews). Fermentation took several weeks - probably as much to do with low temps and large amounts of malt to chew through as the characteristics of the Saflager yeast.
Tasting notes: massive malty bock, heavy and syrupy. Would have possibly appreciated a dash of Williamette or similar to round off flavour a touch. Otherwise very good.
The Doctor is OUT to track down a beer.
Old Chateau Dodgy Brewhouse, St Lucia
Brewing Notes 2003-05
HL 15/2 Heritage Lager
Techo shit:
Setup 9/2/03
• Thomas Coopers Heritage Lager kit 1.7kg
• Coopers Premium Malt Extract 1.5kg
Volume ~23L
Initial temperature ~28ºC (added ice to get wort down to temperature)
Initial SG 1040
Finings added 13/2/03; SG 1012
Bottled 15/2/03 (brown bottles, red/gold caps); final SG 1008
Design basis: no hops added - intended as ‘plain vanilla’ test run with new kit, to determine which hops to add to second batch.
No contamination issues from ice addition or high initial fermentation temperature.
Tasting notes: pleasant enough, drinkable but lacks punch, lacking carbonation, underhopped - a very ‘home brew’ flavoured home brew (i.e. as found in plastic bottles brewed by Chrisso). Suggested hops to augment flavour - Fuggles or ‘Luncheon Lager’ (Cascade/Goldings) combo. The latter is a very reliable combo which always works with drinkable summer ales.
SA 15/2 Sam Adams
Techo shit:
Setup 9/2/03
• Goldrush Mabbott’s Ale (nee St Arnou) kit 1.7kg
• Ultra Brew 1kg
• Hallertau and Cascade hops 12g each
Hallertau and Ultrabrew simmered 10min in ~4L water
Cascade added after removal from heat, left to steep 15min
Volume ~24L
Initial temp ~28ºC (added ice to get wort down to temp)
Initial SG 1030
Finings added 13/2/03 (at half time of Australia vs England football international, Australia 2 England 0; final score Australia 3 England 1); SG 1012; brew quite cloudy at this stage
Bottled 15/2/03 (green bottles, green caps); final SG 1008
Design basis: based on recipe in Western Suburbs Home Brew (WSHB) ‘brewsletter’.
No contamination issues from ice addition or high initial fermentation temperature.
Tasting notes: action good, reasonable head, pleasant Hallertau/Cascade aroma and taste - very drinkable, disappeared very quickly. Winner.
LH 2/3 ‘Luncheon’ Heritage Lager
Techo shit:
Setup 24/2/03
• Thomas Coopers Heritage Lager kit 1.7kg
• Coopers Premium Malt Extract 1.5kg
• Hallertau and Cascade hops 12g each, steeped 10 min
Volume ~23.5L
Initial temp ~21ºC (added large amounts of ice to get wort down to temp)
Initial SG 1040
Finings added 28/2/03; SG 1011; temp ~28ºC
Bottled 2/3/03 (brown bottles, red caps); final SG 1008
Design basis: as per Heritage Lager, supplemented with same hops as Sam Adams (similar to Cascade/Goldings combo in ‘Luncheon Lager’ recipe, hence the name).
Tasting notes: nice head, good action, characteristic ‘Luncheon’ (Cascade) nose. Taste comparison with ‘genuine’ Luncheon Lager (batch brewed by Craigos Sept 2002) - this was more crisp and not as sweet as a Luncheon Lager, which has a fuller, sweeter flavour (made with more liquid malt and the use of Goldings instead of Hallertau).
IPA 23/3 India Pale Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 15/3/03
• Black Rock East India Pale Ale kit 1.5kg
• Ultra Brew 1kg
• Fuggles hops 12g, steeped 10min
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~27ºC (added ice to get wort down to temp)
Initial SG 1037
No finings added
Bottled 23/3/03 (green bottles, white caps, black text); final SG 1012
Design basis: trying for a James Squire IPA style beer, though milder (i.e. not as ferociously hopped) - using Fuggles, as used to make Squire IPA.
Black Rock (NZ) kits evidently higher density than Australian ones, hence smaller volume.
Ultra Brew used rather than Brew Booster on the basis of its higher malt content.
To try and alleviate carbonation issues earlier in the brewseason (i.e. beers flatter than Holland) used new batch of dextrose (our theory: dextrose seems to hydrate with age, so a given volume will contain less dextrose as it gets older) and made a conscious effort to ‘over-sugar’ when bottling (i.e. used up to 1½ teaspoons dextrose per standard bottle)
Tasting notes: oversugaring seemed to work - IPA had good action (small bubbles) and head. Didn’t taste much like Squire IPA though, rather underhopped (and undermalted) by comparison.
SP 23/3 Saaz Pilsner
Techo shit:
Setup 15/3/03
• Morgans Golden Saaz Pilsener kit 1.7kg
• WSHB Czech Pilsner brew enhancer 1kg
Ingredients: dextrose, maltodextrin, light malt and hops (primarily Saaz)
• Saaz and Hersbrucker hops 12g each, steeped 15min
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~28ºC (added ice to get wort down to temp)
Initial SG 1033
No finings added
Bottled 23/3/03 (green bottles, white caps, blue text); final SG 1006; final temp ~26ºC
Design basis: starting with WSHB recipe for Tooheys Pils knockoff (brewed by Craigos late 2002) but using Hersbrucker in place of second bag of Saaz. Hersbrucker used in Hahn Premium (and in Christmas beer brewed late 2002). Intention was to produce a beer somewhere between Pils and Hahn Premium.
As with IPA (bottled same day), oversugaring (1½ teaspoons dextrose per standard bottle) used to improve head volume and quality. Unless otherwise noted, this became the standard method for bottling all future brews.
Tasting notes: good action and head, pale colour, mild aroma - an excellent example of the pilsner variety, appreciated greatly and disappearing quickly.This basic recipe was copied extensively in future brews because we were (a) unimaginative and (b) drunkards.
CD 17/4 Vale Ale
Techo shit:
Setup (date unknown but probably end first week April 2003)
• Coopers Canadian Blonde kit 1.7kg
• Brewiser Body Brew 1kg
• Maltodextrin ~350g
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~28ºC
Initial SG 1042
No finings added
Bottled 17/4/03 (green bottles, white caps, green text); final SG 1012; final temp ~24ºC
Design basis: mild, drinkable, cheap beer for Chateau Dodgy flatmate Yuri to demolish at his leisure (rather than our more painstakingly prepared brews which were disappearing in bulk at the time). Recipe was as per the 2002 UQ Union homebrew competition winning brew, with extra maltodextrin to bolster mouthfeel and head (but mainly to increase the alcohol content). Coded CD for obvious (seedy) reasons.
Tasting notes: sampled after 4½ weeks, quickly tagged ‘Vile Ale’. How the hell did this arse-flavoured bilge win that brewing competition? No nose to speak of, head and action weak to adequate, watery and flavourless, extra alcohol not evident to the taste. Overall, an ideal beer for consuming vast quantities thereof by your less discerning drinker. Vale himself loved the stuff.
W 11/5 Weissbier (Wheat beer)
Techo shit:
Setup 5/5/03
• Morgans Golden Sheaf Wheat Beer kit 1.7kg
• Morgans Wheat Malt Master Blend 1kg (liquid)
• Maltodextrin 250g (to bolster fermentables)
• Hallertau hops 12g, steeped 20min
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~26ºC
Initial SG 1034; dark gold in appearance, little aroma
Finings added at some stage (CB couldn’t remember the exact date); SG 1014
Bottled 11/5/03 (clear Uncle Ted bottles, white caps, purple text); final SG 1012 - high(ish), excess malt/maltodextrin implicated here. Weak ‘wheat beer’ aroma; Hallertau more prominent in aroma
Design basis: first attempt at a white/weiss/whear beer, hoping to avoid ‘skank flavour’ oft-associated with same (eg Hoegaarden, so named from the Flemish Dutch for 'compost of the prostitute'). May have been another WSHB brewsletter recipe (?)
Tasting notes: good head, good action, good taste - nothing like a wheat beer, which was probably why everyone liked it so much. Hard to describe - almost like a fairly plain-vanilla lager really - but quite pleasant.
TN 21/5 Tettnanger Pilsner
Techo shit:
Setup 11/5/03
• Goldrush Pilsner kit 1.7kg
• WSHB light liquid malt 1kg
• Maltodextrin 250g
• Dextrose ~100g (dregs of bag)
• Tettnanger hops 24g (2x 12g bags - one 12g bag simmered 10min then other bag steeped in same volume for 15min)
Volume ~23.5L
Initial temp ~25ºC
Initial SG 1034
Finings possibly added (date/SG not recorded)
Bottled 21/5 (odd bottles, red caps); final SG 1010; temp ~24ºC
Design basis: using ‘framework’ of Tooheys Pils ripoff recipe (i.e two bags of hops - simmer one for bitterness, steep the other for aroma) to try out a different hop, in this case Tettnanger. Produced a relatively dark, malty pilsner.
Tasting notes: head and action good, but discordance between malty sweetness and pilsner bitterness, exacerbated by the bitterness characteristics of the Tettnanger hops. Not a classic. In fact, actually quite arse. Don't try this at home.
A 10/6 Amber Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 31/5/03
• Morgans Royal Oak Amber Ale kit 1.7kg
• WSHB light liquid malt 0.5kg
• WSHB dark liquid malt 0.5kg
• Maltodextrin 250g
• Williamette hops 50g (25g simmered 10 min, then other 25g steeped 10min in same volume, as per above method)
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~27ºC
Initial SG 1036
Finings added 5/6/03; SG 1014
Bottled 10/6/03 (brown bottles, red caps); final SG not recorded but probably around 1010
Design basis: testing new kit and untried hop - also first use of bulk pelleted hops rather than ‘bagged’ (infusion) delivery. Messier but otherwise OK.
Tasting notes: lovely and malty but a tad overhopped. Williamette is a relative of Fuggles and Goldings, gives a fruitier, almost berry-like quality to the aroma. A good beer, could have been better with a little less sheep droppings.
MV 19/6 Mabbott’s Vienna Gold
Techo shit:
Setup 7/6/03
• Goldrush Mabbott’s Ale kit 1.7kg
• WSHB light liquid malt 0.5kg
• WSHB dark liquid malt 0.5kg
• Maltodextrin 250g
• Vienna Gold hops 50g (25g simmered 10 min, then other 25g steeped 10min in same volume, as per above method)
Volume ~21L
Initial temp ~28ºC
Initial SG 1040
Finings added 14/6/03; SG 1016
Bottled 19/6/03 (green bottles, gold caps); final SG 1014; final temp ~28ºC
Design basis: testing untried Vienna Gold hops.
First use of ‘brew belt’ electic heating band to maintain temperature on cold nights - worked well, in that the brew proceeded OK. However...
Tasting notes: fucking awful. this is the worst tasting beer we ever made. Including the ones which went off. It was horrendously overhopped, with the result that it tasted of grass clippings mixed with iron filings. Even Yuri wouldn’t touch it. It was vaguely drinkable only when mixed 50:50 with kiwi beer Tui in some sort of bizarre shandy-style cocktail, and even then, we preferred to throw out the MV and just drink the Tui, which if you've ever drank Tui, is a statement in itself. Months and years of maturation failed to dull the foulness of this brew, which was useful for only one purpose: cleaning the BBQ. Avoid this beer, and avoid Vienna Gold. Use the contents of your mower’s grass catcher instead.
PP 22/6 Paradise Pilsner
Techo shit:
Setup 14/6/03
• Goldrush Pilsner kit 1.7kg
• WSHB light liquid malt 1kg
• Maltodextrin 250g
• Dextrose 250g
• Goldings hops 25g (simmered for bittering)
• CL80 hops 12g (steeped for finishing)
Volume ~23.5L
Initial temp ~26ºC
Initial SG 1043
Finings added 21/6; SG 1012
Bottled 21/5 (green/clear bottles, gold caps); final SG not recorded
Design basis: a Craigos-instigated recipe taken from a homebrew website, very similar to the Tettnanger Pilsner recipe
Brew belt used again for majority of primary fermentation
Tasting notes: another strongly malted pilsner, very similar to Tettnanger Pilsner - rather bittersweet (literally), not my cup of overhopped tea. CL80 hops contributed rather too much XXXX Gold skankiness - one variety to avoid.
Failed winter brews
These brews were set up but failed due to low temperatures and contamination (traced to junior brewing engineer Yuri using garden hose to fill fermenter) - recipes given for future reference.
Luncheon Weissbier
‘Luncheon’ (Cascade/Goldings) style wheat beer. Aiming for more weissbier flavour than obtained from Morgans kit (see W 11/5 brew). Initial SG 1042 (volume ~23L). Setup 20/6.
• Black Rock Whispering Wheat kit 1.7kg
• Morgans Wheat Malt Master Blend 1kg (liquid)
• Maltodextrin 250g
• Cascade and Goldings hops 25g each, steeped 10min
Hitler Lager (the Eunuch from Munich)
‘Vale Ale II’ - another simple, drinkable ale. First use of Wander kit and CSR-Coopers sugar. Initial SG 1033 (volume ~23L). Setup 13/7.
• Wander Munich Lager kit 1.7kg
• CSR-Coopers brewing sugar 1kg
• Cascade hops ~10g (‘a dash’), steeped ~5min
Proton Pils
Simple, flavoursome pilsner - all ingredients sourced from Big W so also bloody cheap. Initial SG 1036 (volume ~23L). Setup 13/7/03.
• Brewiser Pilsner kit 1.7kg
• Ultra Brew 1kg
500g light malt, 250g maltodextrin, 250g dextrose
• Cascade, Saaz and Hallertau hops 12g each, steeped 10min
Back to the shit that actually worked
TB 27/9 Time Bomb
Techo shit:
Setup 20/9/03
• Wander Lager kit 1.7kg
• CSR-Coopers brewing sugar 1kg
• Cascade and Goldings hops ~5g (‘a dash’), dry hopped
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~28ºC
Initial SG 1035
Finings added 21/6; SG 1012
Bottled 24/9 (green bottles, white caps, red text); final SG 1005
Design basis: a simple, drinkable ale, basically a test run to see if we had sorted out our contamination issues, using relatively cheap ingredients. Waited until late September to ensure ambient temp was sufficient to brew without additional heating (eg Brew Belt). Named Time Bomb because we reckoned it was bound to go off at some stage (see 'Failed Winter Brews').
First successful use of Wander kit and CSR-Coopers sugar.
Tasting notes: this turned out really well, light and ‘luncheony’, disappeared very quickly. Cascade/Goldings combo (a recurring theme in the produce of Old Chateau Dodgy Brewhouse) gives that fresh citrusy zest that really sparks up a nice clean lager. You tossers.
RR 19/10 Roger Ramjet (Proton Pils)
Techo shit:
Setup 11/10/03
• Black Rock Pilsner Blonde kit 1.5kg
• WSHB liquid light malt ~250g
• Maltodextrin ~500g
• Dextrose ~400g (added at finings stage)
• Cascade, Saaz and Hallertau hops 12g each, steeped 10min
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~26ºC
Initial SG 1040
Finings added 14/10/03 (with dextrose); SG 1026, temp ~22ºC
Bottled 19/10 (clear bottles, red caps); final SG 1015
Design basis: simple, flavoursome pilsner - based on failed 13/7 recipe using higher quality kitbase and more malt.
Late dextrose addition not so much crafty experimentation as forgetting to put it into the fermenter in the first place.
Tasting notes: great beer - good action and head, pilsner freshness with Hallertau mint and Cascade citrus elements. Went in a hurry.
PW 26/10 Piss Wheat
Techo shit:
Setup 19/10/03
• Black Rock Whispering Wheat kit 1.5kg
• WSHB liquid light malt ~750g
• Maltodextrin 500g
• Cascade and Goldings hops 20g each, steeped 10min
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~29ºC
Initial SG 1039
Finings added 24/10/03 (with dextrose); SG 1019
Bottled 26/10 (brown bottles, gold caps, green text); final SG 1018
Design basis: another variation on the weissbier theme, based on the failed ‘Luncheon Weissbier’ recipe with extra malt
Tasting notes: not brilliant but not bad - good action and head, a little weissbier skank but brightened up with citrusy aroma and smoothed out with malt sweetness. Drinking mostly outsourced to Vale, Y.
05 18/11 Peter Bock
Techo shit:
Setup 8/11/03
• Muntons Bock kit (1.8kg)
• WSHB light liquid malt 1kg
• WSHB dark liquid malt 1kg
• Fuggles hops 12g, dry hopped
Volume ~20L
Initial temp ~22ºC (added ice to get wort down to temp)
Initial SG ~1050 (off measurement scale of hydrometer)
Finings added 15/11/03; SG 1020
Bottled 18/11/03 (brown bottles, white caps, purple text); final SG 1020 - quite high (unsurprisingly)
Design basis: based on a beer called Aviator Bock, brewed by the Wig and Pen brewpub in Canberra, which was a massively malty and ultra-strong dark lager, a gorgeous beer.
Tasting notes: I quote from the original brewing notes - “Jesus Christ what a beer. HUGE malt flavour, rounded and almost fruity (courtesy Fuggles)”. Worked brilliantly, very much like the Aviator Bock which this is based on.
DUFF 23/11 Duff Beer
Techo shit:
Setup 18/11/03
• Morgans Blue Mountain Lager kit 1.7kg
• Morgans Extra Pale Malt Extract 1.5kg
• Hersbrucker hops 12g (finishing)
• Drying enzyme 3g, added with yeast
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~28ºC
Initial SG 1038
Finings added 21/11; SG not recorded
Bottled 23/11 (green bottles, gold caps); final SG 1005
Design basis: a Craigos-instigated recipe taken from… not sure, think he just plucked it out of his arse basically. Brewed to take on a golf trip up to the Sunshine Coast because he was too cheap to buy commercial beer.
First use of drying enzyme since Craigos' 2002 Crown Lager ripoff brew.
Tasting notes: most of this went on the golf trip so not much was kept for tasting purposes. Those sampled for tasting started out as nothing special (early in maturation process) but after around 4 months a really interesting malt element started to come through, presumably due to effects of the drying enzyme ‘mopping up’ the excess sweetness. Wish we’d kept more to see how it improved further as it matured.
CS 8/2 Cerveza del Spurioso
Techo shit:
Setup 1/2/04
• Black Rock Export Pilsner 1.5kg
• WSHB Czech Pilsner brew enhancer 1kg
• Saaz and Hersbrucker hops 12g each, steeped 10min
Volume ~23L
Initial temp ~32ºC (used wet towel to bring temp down by evaporative cooling; to 27ºC within ~6hrs)
Initial SG 1034
Finings added 5/2/04; SG 1014
Bottled 8/2/04 (brown bottles, white caps); final SG not recorded
Design basis: first brew in new place (Casa del Spurioso, Mitre St) - decided to begin with the tried and true Saaz Pilsner recipe. Only change was to the kit used.
First use of wet towel method (‘wicked’ into bucket of water) - worked very well, maintainted temp at 24-26ºC throughout brew
Tasting notes: very near last year’s Saaz Pilsner, a cracker. Sharpish saaz flavours, light and golden, great nose. Difficult to pick significant differences between this and ‘03 SP even in extensive back-to-back tastings. And we do mean extensive.
IR 28/3 Irish Red
Techo shit:
Setup 21/3/04
• St Peters Irish Red Fresh Wort kit 15L
• Safale yeast
Volume ~18L
Initial temp ~26ºC (stabilised with Wet Towel Technology™)
Initial SG not recorded but probably fairly high
Finings not added
Bottled 28/3/04 (green bottles, gold caps, red text); final SG not recorded either (due to lack of functional hydrometer as we'd dropped them all on the concrete floor)
Design basis: first use of pre-kettled fresh worts produced by St Peters Brewery in Sydney and available through WSHB.
SGs not recorded over this period of the brewseason as all our hydrometers were non-functional.
Tasting notes: a true Irish red beer in the style of Kilkenny or Monteith’s Celtic, dry and earthy with nice malty elements, not overly bitter. Head and action of excellent quality, very creamy. Large amount of yeast sediment; in hindsight, should have used finings. Definitely one for the fans of your Irish red beers. Of which neither of us were actually one so we should probably have thought this one through a bit better.
DH 12/4 Da Herb
Techo shit:
Setup 4/4/04
• Brewiser Pacific Draught kit 1.7kg
• Ultra Brew 1kg
• Dextrose 180g
• Hallertau hops 12g
• Fresh basil and mint
Hallertau and herbs steeped together 15min
Volume ~21.5L
Initial temp/SG not recorded
Finings not added
Bottled 12/4/04 (green bottles, green caps); final SG not recorded (hydrometer still broken).
Design basis: our most controversial beer. The Old Man was steadfast in his belief that this beer would not work. Whether he is right is still a matter of conjecture. Rather than use hops, we used fresh green herbs from the future Dr Mrs Dr Yobbo's flourishing herb garden - great handfuls of fresh basil and mint.
Kit was out of a cheapo pre-packed box from Big W containing kit, Ultra Brew, hops and bag of dextrose for bottling (which we threw into the wort to supplement the fermentables.
Tasting notes: herb flavour very prominent. VERY prominent. One is nice; two is, um, interesting; three, starting to wear thin. Took a while to get rid of this one. Went very well in cooking though. And cleaning the BBQ, since we'd used up all the Mabbott's Vienna Gold.
46 22/4 The Doctor’s Orders
Techo shit:
Setup 17/4/04
• Coopers Sparkling Ale kit 1.7kg
• Morgans Extra Pale Malt Extract 1.5kg
• Cascade and Goldings hops 15g each, steeped 10min
Volume ~25L
Initial temp/SG not recorded
Finings added 20/4
Bottled 22/4/04 (green bottles, gold caps, blue text); final SG not recorded (hydrometer still broken).
Design basis: envisaged as a ‘session’ beer, one for long hot Qld afternoons and weekends - hence additional volume (to make more of it) and malt (to ensure it wasn’t too watery.) Named (and numbered) in honour of the first MotoGP win for the Doctor (Valentino Rossi) on the Yamaha YZR-M1, in the South African GP.
Tasting notes: went exactly as planned (except that we planned to add a drying enzyme to try and get the late-onset malt element of Duff (18/11), but forgot to buy the drying enzyme.) Tasty, nicely hopped, malt elements just right, good head and action. Went fucking quickly and popular with the ladies. Much like Rossi himself.
RH 9/5 Red Eye Honey Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 3/5/04
• Morgans Pale Malt Extract 1.7kg
• Morgans Caramalt Master Blend 1kg
• Beechworth Honey 1kg
• Hallertau hops 50g (bittering) + 12g (finishing)
• Safale yeast
Half Pale Malt Extract simmered (‘kettled’) 45min in ~4L water with 50g Hallertau; 12g Hallertau then steeped in this for 10min.
Volume ~23L
Initial temp/SG not recorded
Unsure whether we added finings or not
Bottled 9/5/04 (brown bottles, gold caps, purple text); final SG 1012 (finally bought another hydrometer)
Design notes: recipe taken from Morgans ‘brewsletter’ - no actual kit involved, hence ‘kettling’ of malt extract with bittering hops (Hallertau - fairly low alpha acid level, so not strongly bitter).
With the amount of fermentables used (a good kilo over typical levels), figure on 6-6.5% alcohol for this
Tasting notes: A real favourite - really worked well. Hallertau not overly bitter but consistent in its bitterness level, rounded off by excess malt and honey - maybe a little too rounded in the end, as it ended up a little like the overly malted pilsners (TN/PP) brewed in 2003 - nowhere near as discordant though. Would have been interesting to try this brew again perhaps with a drying enzyme to mop up some of the excess sweetness.
PA 25/5 Pale Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 16/5/04
• Malt Shovel Brewery Pale Ale 2 x 1.7kg
• Williamette and Cascade hops ~20g each, steeped 10min
Volume ~20L
Initial temp ~26ºC
Initial SG not recorded (broke new hydrometer trying to record it)
Finings added 22/5; SG 1020 at 23/5
Bottled 25/5 (brown bottles, white caps, red text); final SG 1018
Design notes: Aiming to reconstitute Cascade First Harvest (limited release pale ale) or something like it.
First attempt at using two kits (rather than a kit plus extra malt/sugar), though this method had been attempted by the Old Man at the Broom with another MSB kit.
Considered using bulk priming for bottling but post-finings fermentation took too long.
Tasting notes: big, earthen and malty in the true English pale ale tradition, excellent head and action, but alarmingly over-hopped - extra Williamette and Cascade (named as ingredients in Cascade First Harvest) rather overdoing it. Should have gone sans hops or picked a less hoppy kit to start with. Still a good beer but not one for afternoon sessions.
bp 18/7 (A) Bitter Pils (to swallow)
Techo shit:
Setup 23/5/04
• Black Rock Pilsner Blonde kit 1.7kg
• Morgans Extra Pale Malt Extract 1.5kg
• Saaz (12g), Cluster (12g) and Super Alpha (25g) hops - simmered briefly then steeped 10min
• 3g drying enzyme
Volume ~21L
Initial temp ~26ºC
Initial SG 1058 (seemed rather large at the time)
Finings added (liquid - first use of same); SG 1015; temp ~22ºC - very pale, lots of dissolved gas (cloudy appearance)
Bottling (initial) 30/5/04; SG 1014, no bubbling through airlock
Became obvious during bottle maturation process (June) that each bottle was badly overgassed (direct quote from the original brewnotes: “bp 30/5 is a batch of hand grenades”) Likely that they were bottled too early, before primary fermentation was complete.
Revisited 3/7: Entire 30/5 batch of bottles opened (very carefully - bottlecaps became projectiles very easily) and contents returned to fermenter - 17L recovered, topped off to 20L with Da Herb (DH 12/4, which we were trying to get rid of), and added powdered finings. SG 1018, temp ~22ºC.
Bottled 18/7/04 (green bottles, white caps, green text, hereafter referred to as ‘bp Ultimate’); final SG 1007
Design basis: intended as a cross between Duff (i.e. trying to get that ‘late-onset malt’ using the Morgans Extra Pale malt and the drying enzyme) and Steinlager (or other more bitter pilsners, hence Super Alpha and Cluster.)
First use of liquid finings; when brew maturation went awry over June, contamination was suspected and liquid finings implicated, but turned out not to be the case.
Tasting notes: in the end, turned out surprisingly well. Still overgassed but managably so (though still capable of self-grenading in the boot of cars on hot bumpy journeys). Flavour balance probably slightly compromised by length of (both) primary fermentation(s) - a bit of ‘skank’ definitely crept into the flavour.
Cluster not a good hop; do not use, other than as a weapon.
IBF 6/6 Dark Shark Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 29/5/04
• Malt Shovel Brewery Deep Roast Ale kit 1.7kg
• Morgans Chocolate Malt Master Blend 1kg
• Goldings (10g), Williamette (10g) and Green Bullet (5g) hops - dry hopped
Volume ~15L
Initial temp ~24ºC (an estimate - liquid volume not within range of thermostrip on fermenter)
Initial SG 1054
Finings added 3/6; SG 1024
Bottled 6/6 (brown bottles, white caps, black text); final SG 1023
Design basis: Strong dark ale with staunch stout leanings. Named after Ian Baker-Finch (as tagged by Roy and HG). Brewed in a concentrated volume (around 15L) to get that dense, syrupy stout consistency and mouthfeel.
Tasting notes: Deep and robust scent, burnt-black and malty with coffee and chocolate overtones. Even the head is dark brown. More bitter than Bock, not quite as dense despite concentrated volume. Lord alone knows what the alcohol content is but it ain’t 5%. Large flakes of hop remain in the bottle, adding flavour, but to be avoided when pouring - recommend using a tea strainer.
AA 28/8 Anniversary Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 8/8/04
• Coopers Pale Ale kit 1.7kg
• WSHB Brew Booster 1kg
• Williamette, Goldings and Cascade hops a dash (~5g) each, dry hopped
Volume ~21L
Initial temp ~26ºC
Initial SG 1042
Finings added 21/8/04; SG 1016, still lots of dissolved gas
Due to concerns over long fermentation and possibility of a ‘bp’ repeat, bottled part of batch 22/8 (SG 1009) and part 28/8 (SG 1008) - green bottles, white caps, blue text.
Design basis: testing new Coopers’ Pale Ale kit - brewed to mark Megan and James’ 2½ year anniversary (Megan being a fan of Coopers’ Pale Ale).
Tasting notes: light and pleasant, very Coopers Pale Ale-esque but with hint of citrusy goodness. No real difference between the two batches.
Dr Yobbo’s Graduation Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 22/10/04
• Morgans Pale Malt Extract 1.5kg
• Morgans Caramalt Master Blend 1kg
• Capilano Honey 750g
• Golden Nectar Leatherwood Honey 250g
• Hallertau hops 50g, bittering
• Cascade, Goldings and Super Alpha hops 10g each, finishing
• Safale yeast 7g
• Drying enzyme 3g
Half extract + Master Blend simmered 45min in ~4L water then finishing hops steeped in wort 10min (as per Red Eye recipe)
Volume ~25L
Initial temp ~28ºC
Initial SG ~1050
Finings added 4/11/04; SG 1008; aroma of honey as well as sharp hop bitterness a la James Squire Pilsener
Bottling 6/11/04 (green bottles, patterned caps, custom labels); final SG 1008
Design basis: brewed for Dr Yobbo’s graduation (9/12/04), based on Red Eye Honey Ale recipe (varying finishing hops and type of honey, plus addition of drying enzyme.) Given out to all those who had contributed in a positive way towards the Doctor’s tenure at the IMB and the attainment of his PhD (Piss Head Degree).
Tasting notes: brilliant, as you’d expect. Compared to Red Eye Honey Ale, dryer taste, stronger hop flavours and bitterness, sharpness of leatherwood honey also evident. As most of this was given away, how the flavours of this matured with age isn’t known, but it’s a safe assumption to make that it would have dried up further, the malt would have advanced further, the hops would have rounded off, and it would have tasted Bloody Tops. (Postscript: A couple of old bottles unearthed by the Old Man at Xmas 2007. All of the above is true.)
X 21/11 Xmas Ale
Techo shit:
Setup 14/11/04
• Cascade Golden Harvest Lager kit 1.7kg
• WSHB light liquid malt 1kg
• Cascade and Goldings hops 12g each, steeped 10min
• Hallertau hops 20g, dry hops
• Drying enzyme 3g
Volume ~22L
Initial SG 1040
Finings added 18/11/04; SG 1008
Bottled 21/11/04 (green bottles, red caps); final SG 1006
Design notes: second attempt at a Christmas beer (after 2002’s effort). Based on newly released Cascade kits (available in supermarkets) with the reliable combination of Cascade, Goldings and Hallertau (first used together in the Schoolies Brew of ’02). Again, drying enzyme used to clean up and dry out the taste.
This recipe actually set up as a brew 22/8/04 but fermentation failed due to contamination.
Tasting notes: good summer beer though Hallertau mintiness did tend to predominate over Cascade citrus elements - not entirely complementary with Golden Harvest kit. Still quite a decent brew. Not aged sufficiently by Xmas break to see the benefit of drying enzyme, after which point most of this brew had disappeared. Merry Christmas.
SP 27/11 Summer Pilsner
Techo shit:
Setup 21/11/04
• Morgans Golden Saaz Pilsener kit 1.7kg
• WSHB Czech Pilsner brew enhancer 1kg
• Williamette (5g), Saaz and Hallertau hops (24g each), steeped 10min
• Drying enzyme 3g
Volume ~23L
Initial SG 10403
Finings added 25/11/04; SG 1009
Bottled 27/11/04 (brown bottles, gold caps, black text); final SG 1005
Design basis: back to the reliable Saaz Pilsner recipe for summer, with different (and more) hops, and again testing the use of a drying enzyme to remove any residual malt sweetness in the beer - figured a pilsner would particularly benefit from the use of this treatment.
Tasting notes: again, another good ‘summer’ beer, though again, the Hallertau flavour tends to shout over the top of everything else. Probably overhopped. Again, most of this went over the Xmas break so the effect of the drying enzyme wasn’t able to be determined.
K 16/7 Kleinlager
Techo shit:
Setup 31/3/05
• Black Rock NZ Lager kit 1.7kg
• Brewcraft Brewblend #15 - Lager Enhancer 1kg
• Cascade and Hallertau hops 12g, steeped 10min
• Saflager yeast
Volume ~23L
Initial brew temp ~20ºC, ambient temp ~18ºC
Initial SG 1040
After 4 days: SG 1022, brew temp ~16ºC, ambient temp ~14ºC; lots of dissolved gas and quite the lagerescent pong
Finings added 7/4/05; SG 1012
Bottled 16/4/05 (mixed bottles, predominantly green; gold caps, red text); final SG 1010 (stable since 11/4)
Design notes: first ‘small’ attempt at brewing a true lager (i.e. with lager yeast within lager fermentation temps, keeping in the mid teens) - also first brew in NZ. Vague aim was Steinlager.
Lager fermentation takes longer and seems to generate more carbonation - heavy frothing when bottling, had to leave bottles to settle before topping up and capping.
Tasting notes: took time to mature, initially a touch skanky, but developed into a really nice, clean NZ lager with a zesty hop bouquet.
Wanted to use Goldings but not available in NZ.
Maltier and more interesting than Shitelager.
P 29/5 Proton Pils
Techo shit:
Setup 12/5/05
• Brewcraft Czech Pilsner kit 1.7kg
• Black Rock Blond malt 1.5kg
• Saaz hops 12g, steeped 10min
• Saflager yeast
Volume ~20.5L
Initial brew temp ~18ºC
Initial SG 1048
Finings added 26/5/05; SG 1012
Bottled 29/5/05 (green bottles, gold caps, black text); final SG 1010
Design notes: trying simple pilsner recipe with lager yeast - heavier on malt (as pale as was available) and lighter on hops (sticking with Saaz) than late ’04 Australian efforts.
Again, fermentation took longer than expected and bottling was more difficult due to overfoaming of bottles.
Tasting notes: very nice. A bit darker than expected (probably due to condensed volume as well as high malt content), saaz not as prominent, but still crisp and quite dry despite lack of drying enzyme. Strong alcohol content as well.
B 3/7 Bock
Techo shit:
Setup 12/6/05
• Muntons Bock kit 1.8kg
• Black Rock Amber Malt 1.1kg
• Saflager yeast
Volume ~20L
Initial brew temp ~16ºC
Initial SG 1064
Finings added 19/6/05; SG 1022
Bottled in two batches due to concerns over amount of dissolved gas - first batch 26/6/05, second batch 3/7/05 (mixed bottles, gold caps, blue text); final SG 1018 (consistent between batches)
Design notes: standard bock recipe, as used in Australia, but using a lager yeast (as per traditional German brews). Fermentation took several weeks - probably as much to do with low temps and large amounts of malt to chew through as the characteristics of the Saflager yeast.
Tasting notes: massive malty bock, heavy and syrupy. Would have possibly appreciated a dash of Williamette or similar to round off flavour a touch. Otherwise very good.
The Doctor is OUT to track down a beer.
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