How to brew Australia's top selling beer at home
What beer gets the boat down to the ramp and the cooler full of ice?
Great Northern (of course).
It’s Australia's number 1 selling beer - made for long days on the water and best shared with mates.
It doesn't just have to be the ‘beer for up here’ - it can be the beer for right here, on tap at your place with our home brew recipe kit.
It’s easy to make your own version of this crisp fresh lager at home and it's way cheaper than grabbing a case from the local bottle shop.
Our recipe works out at around 87 cents per schooner (or about $16.50 a case) to make it home. Yeah - it might take a little longer than just stopping in the drive through to pick up a slab. But how good it is going to taste, knowing you’ve made it yourself.
Become a home brewer of Australia’s fav beer, with our Game Fisher Home brew recipe kit (our version of Great Northern).
Game Fisher Home Brew Recipe
Beer Style:
- Lager
Volume
- Makes 21 Litres (or about 44 schooners)
Ingredients
- 1x Mangrove Jacks Gold Lager
- 1 x Light Malt 500g/Dextrose 500g
- 10g Cluster hops
- 10g Chinook hops
Method
(Be prepared - have your brewing space and all your equipment ready with everything clean and sanitised)
- Open the can of Mangrove Jacks Gold Lager and add contents to the fermenter. Put aside the yeast that is under the lid (you’ll need this later)
- Add the Light Malt and Dextrose and use a sanitised mixing spoon to stir until it is fully dissolved - don’t worry if there are a few lumps, that’s normal and they will dissolve over time.
- Top up your fermenter with tap water to the 23 litre mark and stir to make wort.
- Cool the wort to be between 18 –22°C
- Using a hydrometer, take a gravity reading (this will be the original gravity or OG), note it down so that you can calculate the alcohol by volume (ABV) at the end of the ferment.
- Pitch the yeast - Cut open the yeast packet (the one that came with the extract can) with sanitised scissors and sprinkle it over the top of your wort. Do not add yeast if your wort temp is above 25°c. The yeast will die and you won’t get beer.
Ferment It
- Place the lid on the fermenter with the airlock half filled with water. Store your fermenter in an area where it’s mostly dark and the temperature is constantly between 18°C and 22°C.
- Leave to ferment for at least 5 days.
- Dry Hop - on day 4 add the Cluster and Chinook Hops to the fermenting wort.
- Check the specific gravity (SG) -after 5 days in the fermenter take a SG reading with your hydrometer and note it down. Repeat this daily until the readings are exactly the same for 2 consecutive days and under 1.016
- Transfer your beer to a 2nd fermenter. This takes the wort off the old yeast and trub (that’s the gunk at the bottom of the fermenter). Not all brewers do this but it will result in a clearer beer.
- Add the beer finings and wait another 5-7 days before bottling or kegging.
Bottle It
- If you are bottling your brew, fill clean 750ml bottles to about 3cm from the top.
- Add 2 carbonation drops.
- Secure the lids.
- Leave the bottles in a dark place, where the temperature is constantly between 18°C and 22°C for at least 2 weeks.
- Chill and drink - enjoy!
Keg It
- Transfer your brew to a clean 19L keg
- Gas it at 40psi for 48 hours (if the beer is cold when you transfer it to the keg, gas for 20 hours)
- Chill, tap and drink - enjoy it with your mates.
Ready to brew your own version of Great Northern at home? Buy the recipe kit now.
