Babbs Beer Blog

A history of the club wild brew project by Stephen J. Wharton and Dion Clark The Backstory Back in early 2010 the then head brewer of Mount Tambourine Brewery and active BABBs member, Ian Watson, raised the idea of a solera style brewing project for the club. Members would brew a barrel’s worth of strong …

By Dion Clark Reaching your proper final gravity is something that newer brewers in particular worry about a lot. Here are some tips. Learn your tools Whatever tool you are using for your gravity readings, be sure that it is calibrated. Either a refractometer or hydrometer should read 1.000 when reading distilled water (the stuff …

By Nick Holt Are your beers scoring low 30’s and fault free, but your not getting those competition wins? Take heart, these scores are a sign you are really a good brewer. When a judge says a recipe needs some work or tweaking, this indicates that the beer does not meet all the style parameters …

with Anthony “Ziggo” Zigenbine Sour beers have been around since beer was invented, and this new trend of fruited sours is just their latest incarnation. You can impress your friends by telling them that they’re often known as Catharina Sours, as brewers in the Santa Catherina region of Brazil were the first to popularise the …

by Dion Clark Steve from Hilltops very generously hand delivered three pots of Chinook hop plants to my door recently. As a token of my gratitude, and in normal home brewer fashion I gave him a couple of bottles of my current beers; a Citra-Simcoe Kveik Golden Ale, and a Bretted Table Saison. He quite …

By Steve “Snow” Wharton The annual Queensland Amateur Brewing Championships (QABC) were held recently at Newstead Brewing Co in Milton. The largest event in the competition’s history, 483 beer, cider, and mead entries were brewed, served and judged by 199 participants over 2 days. I personally feel it was the best run competition I have …