NZ draught with ideas from Monteiths Orig.

The following are my opinions about Monteiths Original and guess work about the historical recipe it is inspired by.

The starting point is Monteith's Original, which in my opinion is a pretty nasty beer, and without much flavour.

The following are my opinion based on tasting this beer cold and on other occasions warm and flat: The flavour has minimal maltiness, no detectable caramel (as described by the brewer). There is a slight sharpness, either from roast malt, tannins or hops, however there is no roast malt flavour. There is low to moderate bitterness and low hop flavour. The mouth feel is light, but not crisp. Colour is copper. With the beer warm and flat, the yeast character is mild, slighty unpleasant, possibly from lager yeast.

The packaging says that the beer is inspired by the original 1868 recipe. Examples of Australian draught beer recipes from the same era (Bronzed brews by Peter Symons) had pale malt, sugar, black malt or caramel colouring. The minimal malt flavour of Mointeith's original likely indicates the use of a significant amount of sugar. Another point about the 1868 recipe is that there were minimal specialty malts available. Crystal malt was probably not available. Pale malt and likely black malt would have been available.

The objective here is not to brew something like Monteith's Original, but to use ideas from the beer to brew a "NZ draught" that is pleasant, easy drinking, but with enough flavour to be interesting. The first attempt will use malts and sugars that would likely have been available in 1868.


Monteith's Original has 4% alcohol and measured FG of 1.010 from flat sample.

The Monteith's brewery on the west coat is in Greymouth. NZ water tends to be soft and water from bores in the grey river are also likely to be (low in calcium and magnesium). I think the beer will benefit from some hardness - aiming for 50ppm calcium and moderate/balanced chloride/sulphate.