Why New Brewers Should Use Fresh Wort Kits

Let me share with you the story of my first ever brew. Full of ambition and blind-optimism I decided that my first brew would be an 8.6% Christmas Ale brewed with cherries, vanilla, maple syrup, and cinnamon. The brew was called Bad Santa and, if made correctly, should resemble Christmas pudding. The author of the recipe, however, probably didn’t anticipate that the brew would be made in a second hand Coopers kit, sanitised with a passing wipe of three week old chux, and fermented under my house at a steady 32 degrees.

After several weeks of fantasizing about my future as a master brewer my brew was finally complete. I remember getting my Duvel tulip glass all ready for the grand tasting and inviting a few mates around for the occasion. After cleaning up the first beer that fountained out of the bottle, I poured the second stubby with shaking hands into the only glass I owned that I felt would be fit for a of such a high quality.

The beer resembled pond sludge and smelled like off yogurt. If only it was actually pond-sludge with yogurt….Bad Santa tasted unbelievably bad.

Even santa himself was disappointed

In retrospect I understand why it was such a failure. I didn’t start with a simple recipe, I didn’t properly clean and sanitise my equipment, I  fermented at far too high a temperature, I over primed my bottles… etc, etc. But at the time I was far too excited to care about any of this.

Since my first disaster of a brew I slowly improved, but my first actual tasty beer wasn’t achieved until I brewed using a Fresh Wort Kit. If I were to recommend any brewing method to a new brewer it would be a Fresh Wort Kit. They are the simplest and most reliable way to make an excellent beer and are far more customisable than they may initially appear.

What makes these kits so good is that they are 100% all-grain beer kits, produced at the White Lies Brewery in Brisbane, usually about a week ago (hence the name FRESH worts).  There’s no chemicals, no cooking the tin at 60+ degrees to pasteurise it, and not sitting in warehouses for months.  Just a bucketful of fresh malty flavour.  It is all I ever brew for friends and none of them ever say “Oh, this is home brew is it?”  So, if you want to make the best beers, without going to the effort of all-graining yourself, these are the answer.

Simply fill your fermenter with the Fresh Wort drum, add hops and/or grain packs if your recipe requires it, and let it ferment (at the right temperature!).

There are 5 base styles of kits – Pilsner/Lager, Pale Ale, Amber, Black Catand Golden Wheat, and nearly any type of beer can be made from these bases.

Here’s a few Fresh Wort Kit recipes that are perfect for new brewers:

• Galaxy Ale (Similar to Stone and Wood Pacific Ale)
• American Pale Ale
• Bright Ale