Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Aussie Hops Series: Galaxy - Presented By HPA
3 Playsin 1 hour
In partnership with HPA, Australia's leading hop grower, we're delighted to publish a series of podcast episodes - an Aussie Hop Series - looking closely at some of the country's most recognised and impactful hop varieties.
We'll be speaking with leading brewers from across Australia and abroad, as well as experts from HPA, discussing their experience with these iconic hops, what they've learned along the way, as well as some technical tips and tricks to maximise the impact of these hops in their beers.
In this first episode, we spoke to Caolan Vaughan, head brewer at Stone & Wood, and Michael Capaldo from HPA, about Galaxy, a hop that today needs almost no introduction. We hope you enjoy the chat!
For more information on HPA and their range of hops, visit https://www.hops.com.au/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Aussie Hops Series
00:00:04
Speaker
Hey guys, it's Craig from The Crafty Pint here and welcome to our Aussie Hops series presented by HPA. Now, over the next few weeks, we're going to be talking to some of Australia's best brewers about some of Australia's favourite hops.
00:00:17
Speaker
ah With me to chat today about Galaxy, one of my favourite hops, I've got Kielan Vaughan, a head brewer of Stone & Wood, and Michael MC Capaldo from HPA. Kielan, how are you, mate?
Meet the Experts: Kielan Vaughan and MC Capaldo
00:00:29
Speaker
Mate, I'm very well, thank you. It's great to be here and thank you for that i lovely introduction. I'm not sure about one of the best brewers in the Australia, but we'll take it. i Take it when you can get it, Keelan. And MC, good to have you on the show.
00:00:41
Speaker
Great to be here. Thanks for having us. No worries, mate. Now, ah MC, let's start with you. Let's talk
Galaxy Hop: History and Impact
00:00:47
Speaker
Galaxy. Let's um give our listeners, I guess, the the background, the profile. What's what's that hop about?
00:00:54
Speaker
um Give me the story in a nutshell. Well, A bit of a background, it's been ah in our breeding programs from from way before craft mainstream really hit ah the Australian consumer's taste buds and really came on board as our first hop that really exploded in people's mouths and really created what we call impact in beer.
00:01:18
Speaker
And it's really appropriate to have Stone and Wood on this call because Stone and Wood, at the same time as Galaxy's trajectory was starting to to grow, and And we were transitioning away from growing hops purely for alpha and more towards the flavor and aroma.
00:01:32
Speaker
Um, you know, Brad Rogers, and all the team at Stonewood created this beer called Stonewood Pacific Ale. That was a single hop galaxy beer. And, you know, as that big grew in, in popularity, um, along with a lot of other beers, um, that we're using galaxy, our farms planted more and and bought more, um, land to grow more galaxy. So it's, it's galaxy success stories been a success story of the brewers who created great recipes and grew their brands around it really.
00:02:02
Speaker
In terms of the flavor profile,
Galaxy's Role in Stone & Wood's Success
00:02:03
Speaker
um i think I think just giving like, you know, words doesn't almost do a great hop justice, but it's always been, I think passion fruit kills, jump in if you've got something different, but passion fruit's always been one of the the vibe words that jumps out with it.
00:02:19
Speaker
Citrusy, sweet fruits, um you know, lemons and oranges, even guavas. It really depends on how about how you decide to use the hop,
00:02:31
Speaker
ah And that's what leads to how, what sort of flavor output you get from the input you put in from it really. And in terms of, I guess, is Galaxy, would you say it's one of HPA's biggest hops today? or Oh, definitely. hpa It's definitely HPA's biggest hop by far. Yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker
<unk>'ve We've had some struggles over the years just keeping up with supply. And I think we hit that balance a couple of years ago now. So a bit like a brewery who's growing out of control. Keelan, I think I remember back in the day, the the availability message is, you know,
00:03:06
Speaker
You can't get Stonewood Pacific Ale right now, but bear with us. We're doing our best to grow. I think in like 2012, we got that when I was working in a brew pub. um We've had that same sort of growing pains, but right now availability is really good and it will be for the for years to come.
00:03:21
Speaker
Now, Keelan, I guess from Stonewood's perspective, obviously, as MC mentioned, Galaxy is kind of synonymous with Stonewood. i What was your first experience of of coming across the hop yourself?
00:03:34
Speaker
Look, my first experience, look, it would have been in Pacific Ale. So before I joined Stone & Wood, I think I was working Little Creatures and back in the day there were investors in it and we were bringing over to WA and my first taste, I think, was at like Clancy's Brew Pub and I was just like, well what is this?
00:03:52
Speaker
um And drinking it next to some other great beers and it's just, yeah, absolutely blew my mind with the sort of, the flavor profile that's uh just i don't think anyone in australia had seen anything like it um at the time american hops are really sort of taken off and this just was so very unique and and different and as you said like stone and wood and hba or gallus stonewood and galaxy have just there There are so many synergies between the success of... We couldn't have done it without, I think, each other. Well, I think HPA would have been selling hops without us, but, geez, ah the growth trajectory of um Pacific Ale and Galaxy's demand, yeah, we've just... Yeah, it's a match made in heaven. It's a hop we
Versatility of Galaxy in Brewing
00:04:39
Speaker
rely on ah incredibly, and and we will for for many years to come.
00:04:46
Speaker
Is it a hop? Do you use it in obviously Pacific Ale but um ah other beers across the Stonewood portfolio? Yeah, look, we, look, we, I'm not gonna lie, we use a lot of it. So we, uh, we like to use it in lots of different beers.
00:04:58
Speaker
Look, it goes in from things like stone beer, our winter seasonals for bittering. Um, we also have it in our cloud catcher or cloudy. We've also got it our hinterland hazy or hazy is it now? hazy Stonewood hazy pale ale.
00:05:12
Speaker
Um, you know, we, we've, we use it in many beers, uh, but Pacific ale is definitely the lion's share of its use, but, uh, there's a good dose of it in, uh, are hazy as well. So if anyone hasn't had the chance to try that, I highly recommend getting some fresh beer into them.
00:05:29
Speaker
you You mentioned, I guess, be using it for bittering and so forth in other beers. I
Mastering Galaxy's Flavors
00:05:35
Speaker
guess, what what do you see as the the point of difference with Galaxy compared to other hops on the market?
00:05:41
Speaker
Look, we I think we know this hop better than most. um We know the subtleties that you can get from it, but we also know how to use it with a whack um And I think when it first came on the market and i think people were really kind of like with anything new and something so impactful in beer, you kind of you're learning how to use them. But look, we we can we can get subtle nuances from it just by using it, you know, maybe late in the boil and and you're not trying to make something hoppy, just it really carries through some really nice sort of flavour.
00:06:16
Speaker
you're not you're not getting so much of the aroma, you're losing sort of some vegetal sort of characteristics, you can see some hops and it just gives a really nice sort of background. But the bitterness, like it's a high alpha hop as well, like so many hops these days, um but it has a wonderful bitterness. So, and look, we have you know numerous beers that that that the the sole bitterness edition is literally comes from from Galaxy.
00:06:41
Speaker
um Pacific Ale and of course, that's ah it's a single hop beer, It's only made with Galaxy, know, start a boil and a dry hop edition. It's i started off being a very simple beer and um to be made at the original brewery down in Bironia Place in Byron has, yeah, now it's a bit of ah a bit of a juggernaut yeah.
00:07:01
Speaker
and
Brewing Tips with Galaxy
00:07:02
Speaker
yeah Well, Keelan, I don't want you to give away the the recipe for Pacific because I'm sure that's a a trade secret about as important as the ah the recipe for Coca-Cola. But um can you give me any any kind of tips and tricks? If I'm a professional brewer listening in to this podcast, i what what are the tips to to using Galaxy to getting the most from that hop?
00:07:26
Speaker
Yeah, look, it really there's so many factors that it I think you could spend a whole... podcast just talking about sort of the hows. But look, it's a very simple beer. It would start off being a very simple beer, you know, trying to make it en masse.
00:07:41
Speaker
ah like we do today, it definitely brings its challenges. But um look, it starts ah it's a low bitterness beer. So we're not, it's not because it has yeast in solution, but the yeast does carry bitterness. You actually don't want to bitter it too too heavily um just because you can get that sort of carryover from um kind of would call a yeast bite. The bitterness is carried in within the yeast.
00:08:04
Speaker
um So you start with a low BU. That's definitely, um for to make Pacific Ale, it's a 4.4% beer. It's light, it's refreshing, it's fruity. um So you don't you want everything to be the balance. So it's, despite it being almost like a one of the early pioneers of hazy beer, you know it's I see it more as like influences from sort of like BU levels from ah like a Hefeweizen and things like that. So it's actually quite low in bitterness.
00:08:32
Speaker
um ah So that is definitely a key characteristic. um yeah Look, we have dry health Pacific ale over the years in many different ways to try and make it easier, to try and make it ah it change the impact and things like that. And we always sort of come back to the same thing.
00:08:48
Speaker
um Yeastrain does play an important part. You can't make it without certain yeast strains just because of the bio transformation that you can get. So yeast strain selection is very important, ah but also time temperature you're dry hopping obviously it's a there's no other late hop addition in this beer it is it's bitterness it's just a starter boil addition and then we have a dry hop addition and and it's not a like back in the day yeah look it was it was on the higher well people weren't dry hopping as much as what they do today uh now i'd say it's a very low flavored sort of dry hop beer but uh
00:09:26
Speaker
you know, we're in the sort of ah realm of like two grams per liter. It's, it's, it's not high, uh, but you don't need it to be, uh, we make other beers for that, for that purpose. We
Pairing Galaxy with Other Hops
00:09:36
Speaker
want everyone to be, well, we want people to drink lots of our beer.
00:09:40
Speaker
Let's, be let's be honest because, uh, it's a beer that is just designed for, you know, refreshment and quaffability and, uh, and to be enjoyed uh, responsibly, but,
00:09:52
Speaker
to be enjoyed. So yeah. right I think you've, ah you've nailed the coiffability factor for sure with Pacific Ale. Killing, you mentioned ah yeast strains and sort of, I guess what there's particular yeast strains that work well with galaxy. I'd be interested to hear about those and also um other hops that you think pair well with, with galaxy, obviously not in Paco, but in other beers that you've, you've brewed.
00:10:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Good question. So look, I think you can make any beer with any yeast, but to get the characteristics that we love, the fruity characteristics, which are there, but need a little bit of, you know, they need a little bit of love from, from the yeast to get that side of biotransformation. They all have different impacts. So even though there are yeast strains that may be sold as the same thing, they may not have the same impact in the beer. And that's,
00:10:45
Speaker
Just as an example, you've got ah like Y Labs or Y Yeast, both sell the same strain, but how they impact in the beer does not always translate. And and we see similar things with um whether one might be a little bit more haze positive, one might flocculate a little bit more, just how the hot flavor changes ah during active fermentation dry hopping ah can can really you know, change the impact and change the level of intensity of fruit characteristics or tropical characteristics that we do get in Pacific Ale.
00:11:20
Speaker
And it's really that time, that temperature and the strain. So for us, we love ah one of those strains and one not as much. so ah Fair enough. not goingnna Not going to name favourites.
00:11:33
Speaker
It's probably heavily documented out there what we like to use, probably from my mouth. do
Exploring New Products: Galaxy Spectrum
00:11:39
Speaker
a google and uh in terms of hop pairings i guess um yeah outside of pack ale other beers that you've used galaxy in what are the hops play nicely with yeah look look the benefit of galaxy it can be used with uh on its own but it can also be used with like any number of hops obviously we love the combination in our hazy we have uh galaxy eclipse and big secret i think that is just such a like a winning combo
00:12:06
Speaker
um in that beer it's probably 40 percent 50 percent of the dry hopping rate would be galaxy in the and the other made up with the other two and i really love that combo i just think that's uh it shows some of the best characteristics of all of them um but it's such a versatile hop look we're we're lucky we're Craft beer has come such a long way. Even just thinking about when we all sort of started getting into this into this game in early 2000s that it's the variety in what's available and just what's available international. um
00:12:46
Speaker
Look, American hops, amazing. New Zealand hops, absolutely amazing. But look, we love, we we we we're here in Australia and we have some of the best grown ingredients around why when we love to be able to promote promote those and and use those and and celebrate Australian grown ingredients. So I think there isn't a better combination than using some some of our good friends at HPA SOPs.
00:13:13
Speaker
100%. And mate, have you tried Galaxy Spectrum? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Actually, we've tried we've tried variations of it, haven't we, Maihi, over the years. um I think we've tried every single product that Galaxy has come out in.
00:13:29
Speaker
And that look, they all perform different. They all and all have a different place. um Look, we've looked at it for trying to make Pacific Gala easier and have less sort organic material in the beer and things like that.
00:13:43
Speaker
and And look, for us, we can't make Pacific Gala exactly the same, so we still use T90. But we've... absolutely made other beers using the Spectrum and some of the other variety ah some of the other formats that you can get it in.
00:13:59
Speaker
And we've they're all brilliant, but they're they're just a slightly nuanced um yeah way of using it. And it sort of yeah changes the
Conclusion and Future Episodes
00:14:09
Speaker
way you might want to, or what flavor you might want to get out of it, or what what is the benefit that you might get.
00:14:14
Speaker
um We love them, but for us in Pacific Ale particularly, it's yeah we can't beat that. But the technology that's gone into developing some of the new you know advanced hot products, it's absolutely fantastic. And um yeah, I wish we had it back, you know, 2008 when Stonewood started developing. I think ah developing the beer in the early days with something like Spectrum would have been wouldve made our life a little bit easier.
00:14:45
Speaker
Absolutely. Brewers these days are lucky to have a such wonderful products available. so That's it. Well, Keelan, that is a fantastic insight into Galaxy and how ah you've utilised that hop so successfully with Stone & Wood and Pacific Gale in particular.
00:15:03
Speaker
MC, any final words to add? What what should brewers know about about Galaxy hops? I reckon Keelan nailed it. I don't think we need to do anything anymore, to be honest.
00:15:15
Speaker
Fantastic. Guys, well, thank you very much. I really appreciate your time on this first episode of the HPA Aussie Hops series. And thanks to HPA for making this happen. um We'll be back next week with another leading brewer talking about another great Aussie hop.
00:15:30
Speaker
ah In the meantime, if you want to learn more about Australian hops, head to hops.com.au. Thanks.