QHC Update

Three weeks to go!

What's new? - MT Brewery and Witches Chase have come on board - that means two more beers for tasting through the day, and a fourth course at the Beer and Fod Matching dinner.  Two award winning cheeses, matched to a Belgian Tripel, brewed by this year's State Champion Beer Brewer.  That's a minimum of 5 different beers, four courses, and two guest speakers for just $67 - its a steal!

Yamanto Tavern and the new Brisbane beer cafe at New Farm - Bitter Suite are also providing us with 6-packs of craft beers to give away through the day.  There are heap of freebies now to go with the beers and great food provided by the Southbank Tech restaurant.

The Systems War took place this weekend and it was a classic showdown between different all-grain brewing rigs, from the most basic to an all-in-one computer controlled rig from Germany.  You'll get to taste the resuls and vote on your favourite at the Conference.

If you have not bought your tickets yet for the conference, head to www.theqhc.com.au and get them.  The dinner is available to all Brewers Choice customers and their friends - you don't need to attend the conference to have a great night out.

Get yourself a brew brother

Many of you have brought in mates to our stores because they have been so impressed with your brewing that they've wanted to get started themselves.

This month we'd like to reward you for introducing your friends to us!  Bring a friend with you to one of our stores this month and when they sign up to our VIP Program, Brewers Choice will reward you with a 10% discount on your next purchase and give your friend a great price on a starter kit.

Product Profile - NEW premium oakchips

This month, keep an eye out for the new range of Brewers Choice Premium Oak Chips.  We are introducing three new Premium style chips to the range:

American Hi-Van Oak – This oak is ideal for whiskeys and will impart a stronger vanillan flavour.  However, it can be used on a much wider range of spirits as well.  Check out our recipe for Spiced Rum, designed by Sim (Manager – Enoggera), for a great example of using these oaks to add new flavour profiles to your spirits.

French Complex Oak – This oak gives real complexity to the flavour of spirits.  It is particularly ideal for Brandy and Cognac, but can be added to any of the dark spirits for more depth of flavour.

French Mocha Oak – This is something new.  Use this oak to add a mocha (coffee/chocolate flavour) to your spirit.

To celebrate the new products, there is $1 off all oak this month, and 10% of all oak barrels.

The oaks are new and we are still experimenting with them.  We would love some test pilots on these oaks, so we are going to run a competition this month:

Premium Oak Competition
Buy a packet the next time you are in one of our stores, come up with a great recipe for the oak, and then submit your recipe to your local Brewers Choice Store Manager.

PRIZE - The best recipe received this month will receive $50 worth of product from our stores.  If there is more than one great recipe, we’ll give away more stuff, so get brewing and creating!

How to use Oak

All dark spirits (rum, whisky, bourbon, brandy etc) when made traditionally are water clear when they come out of the still. They are then stored in oak barrels to mature.  Using maturing barrels results in a darker colour, smoothness and enhanced flavour in the finished spirit.

Home Brewers can achieve excellent affects using oak as well.  Click here to read the full article on Oaking.

Staff Profile - Simeon Bonetti

Name:  Simeon Bonetti
Position:  Manager – Brewers Choice - Enoggera
Star Sign:  Gemini.
Why do you love your job?  I get to see people turn their habit into a hobby.
Favourite Brew:  Yorkshire Bitter.
What are you doing when you’re not at work?  Beer in hand, designing new recipes!
If you were a beer, which one would you be? Why?  Oatmeal stout – Full of flavor, slightly bitter but goes down smooth. Quite a traditional Ale - Drinks well even when it’s young, and leaves the impression of a time gone by.
Favourite quote:  “Brewers enjoy working to make beer as much as drinking beer instead of working.” — Howard Rudolph

VIP Points

To those who are waiting on VIP vouchers to come, we are still having complications with the providers of the software we use.  Rest assured, all records of how many points you have, are intact and unaffected.  

I have been on the phone constantly with the providers and have expressed my, and your, displeasure at the delay.  As soon as the problem is resolved, we will get the vouchers printed and in the mail.

Thank you all for your patience and we sincerely apologise for the inconvenience.

Oktoberfest recipes

All Grain Vienna Lager
Styrian & Saaz hops and coloured malts produce a beautiful copper coloured beer with a firm, fruity caramel aroma, a smooth complex malt character and a long, crisp and clean finish. 

Click here for the recipe.

Sauerkraut
Sauerkraut is a delicious German side dish and is one of those foods you either love or hate. Captain Cook sailed the world for years with sauerkraut to prevent scurvy.  Great Roman warlords carried it into battle. And variations of the stuff can be found the world over.  But most importantly, it goes great with beer and German Sausages.

For a recipe of our version click here

Bratwurst
Bratwurst is a delicious traditional German sausage composed of pork, beef, or veal. The name is from Old High German: brät - fine chopped meat and wurst - sausage. Bratwurst are usually grilled and sometimes cooked in broth or beer. Yum! 

For an easy to make Brewers Choice Bratwurst kit, click here.
 

The Hop Bag - Cultivating & Re-using liquid yeasts

Liquid yeast is the highest quality yeasts that home brewers can use, producing flavour specific, wonderful tasting beers.  However, liquid yeasts are more expensive to buy than the dry variety so using it for a single batch can be costly.

Fortunately, you are able to reuse liquid yeast for numerous brews. Check out our Blog to see how James has outlined the six easy to follow steps on how to do this...click here to expand.

Customer Feedback Survey - Fill out & WIN!

As a customer of Brewers Choice, we really appreciate that you support our stores and hope that it is because we provide you with all the expertise and support you need to be a great brewer.  But I suspect we could do even better, so we would really like to know exactly what you think of us and how we can improve!

We have put together a little survey - it will only take 4 minutes to do and may mean that you have an even more satisfying exprience when shopping with us.  Please click on this Survey link and fill it out as truthfully as you can.  We would really appreciate it.

In return, when you provide your details, you will go in the draw to WIN 2 nights accomodation at Mantra Resort - Kingscliff! Its a beautiful resort and you will feel like you have been away for a week.  And don't worry, those who have already provided their details will be in the running too!

Thank you very much in advance.

Keep it in Good Condition

If you have a Kegmate Fridge, you will know how great they are - especially at parties, when all your mates all decide they need one as well! 

Keep your fridge in working order this Summer - most of the problems that occur with these fridges are a result of a power surge blowing the digital display and temperature setting. 

Avoid any problems during storms this summer, plug your Kegmate into a power board with a Surge protector on it.

When using the kegmate, also make sure you only use the flat of your fingers to press the buttons, never something sharp.  It is also a good idea to have caps over the end of the spouts to stop litle insects building nests in your taps (it really happens!).  Finally, give your taps a good clean out every so often.  Caps and cleaning kits are available at all our stores.  You might be surprised at what is inside your taps, esepcially if you haven't been using them much over winter.

Yamanto Open for Business

If you saw the QT this week, you would be excused for thinking that the Yamanto store was closed at the moment.  The front of the store was smashed down when a truck drove away from a robbery next door.  Graeme, our hard-working Saturday Manager, spent a very early morning getting the store back in shape and safe for customers.

We will be getting work done on the front soon, but in the meantime, Yamanto is still definitely open for business.