Thunder Road Brewery is an independent local brewery located in Brunswick with a commitment to fresh exciting brews that contain only the best ingredients and possess a truly unique flavour. In 2014 Thunder Road Brewery has been committed to botanicals, they’re trailing over 100 rare botanicals to create rich and floral flavours.
Beat Eats headed down to Thunder Road Brewery’s brewery to chat to head brewer Colin Paige about the brewery’s new recipe for Collingwood Draught. “Internally, as a brewing team we thought it was only a three or four pinter but as brewers we love our seasonable beers so we really wanted something that would pass the, as we describe it here in the brewery, ‘the gallon test’. It was about tweaking the drinkability,” begins Paige.
Essentially what Paige is describing is taking a beer heavy set flavour that fills your belly quicker than concrete in a wombat hole to the beer that you can sit on for an entire test match of cricket. “The ingredients are exactly same in that we have used the same yeast, we’ve used the same malt, and we have used the same hops. The core difference is that we have tweaked back the character of that malt. We knew the beer was a little bit sweet and that really effected drinkability for us so what we have tried to do is create a beer that has a lot of same malt characters but also has great drinkability,” concludes Paige on mastering the malt of Collingwood Draught.
For all those backyard brewers out there now is the time to start taking notes because Paige now delves into the technicality of softening a malt beer for the sake of drinkability. “So we have tweaked back what we call the final gravity which is essentially the malt weight of the beer so we’ve tweaked that back and to maintain the balance we have had to pull back the bitterness a little bit but we are using the sap hop varieties to create the balance in flavour and the balance in the aroma.
Poured into a pint glass Collingwood Bitter is a fine looking beverage with a all richness associated with a malt draft. Paige explains that the brewery had to work harder than usual to maintain the appearance but increase the drinkability of the brew. “With pulling back the malt character it is a little bit lighter than it was but it still has that autumnal light copper hue.”
Thunder Road Brewery are currently open for membership. To sign up for the VIP Growler Club is $25.
BY FAT PRESTON WITH THOMMY TEABAG
Thunder Road Brewery is located at 130 Barkly street Brunswick. Winter hours are Monday to Friday 10am to 6pm. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Call 1800 831 817, visit thunderroadbrewing.com or email [email protected] for more info.
