BOUTIQUE home beers are very much the flavour of the month, reports SARAH HUDSON

It's almost un-Australian. Beer, once the icon of boozy blokes at barbecues, has come of age.

No longer is it just about ales, bitters, lagers and long necks; the flavour spectrum now includes rose petal, chocolate and chilli, lemon myrtle and honey and ginger.

And it's all thanks to the boom in home brewing and regional Victorian microbreweries, according to Andrew Davison, member of VicBrew and chairman of the national home brewing conference.

"Beer used to be cheap, yellow fizzy stuff Australians drank to get drunk," says Andrew.

"That market won't go in a hurry but increasingly beer is now about appreciation rather than intoxication.

"In so many ways beer is easier to pair with food compared to wine and so there's a huge growing interest in beer and food pairing.

"And the range of variables you have to explore with beer is infinite.

"Beer's flavour and aroma are dominated by malt, hops and a bit of yeast. With hops it's all about essential oils. So anything with an essential oil can produce flavour ... although I don't like eucalyptus beer."

Andrew says while microbreweries are continuing to sprout around the state, home brewing has rocketed in popularity with clubs and brew shops leading the boom and about 50,000 home brewing supermarket kits sold last year.

In addition, an avenue that is becoming increasingly popular for those at the extreme end of home brewing is contract brewing, where beers are produced by local microbreweries, who have spare production capacity, and then marketed by the individual brewer.

"Home brew has come a long way since the early days of exploding bottles and beer that tasted like green apples," says Andrew.

"You can look at home brewing as a spectrum that starts with people buying kits from the supermarket who aim to brew an inexpensive, basic beer.

"It then progresses to more complex brewing techniques for those who want to experiment with each of the ingredients and processes that define the flavour, colour, aroma and, ultimately, quality of their beer."

Andrew says with home distilling of spirits still illegal, beer is the most popular alternative for those seeking a "home made" alternative.

But he says there can be a stigma attached to home brewers who use a kit.

"But I believe people make a choice about time and equipment," he says.

"You can brew an award-winning beer from a kit bought off the supermarket shelf.

"You just won't have as much control over the final product."

So what are the tricks to making successful beer, particularly for the home brewer? How do you ensure a top-quality brew?

Keep it clean

"With supermarket kits, the main thing a brewer needs to be aware of is being clean, if not sterile," says Beechworth's Bridge Road Brewers owner Ben Kraus.

"The best way to mess up a beer is to be unhygienic. You can't be too clean.

"If you aren't clean, bacteria will proliferate and create a sourness and acidity."

Ben, who was originally in the wine industry, started his Beechworth brewery five years ago with two beers.

He now makes 2500 litres a week and about 10 different varieties.

He says that, unlike wine, which is acidic, beer is susceptible to bacterial infection because of the high pH levels.

"Also, beer is only about 5 per cent alcohol and wine is more than 12 per cent. Alcohol stops bacteria living."

Ben recommends washing your hands with alcohol, not water, sterilising containers and if you're working in a dusty old shed, clean it.

Temperature control

"This is the fermentation phase," says Ben.

"If you can control the temperature a beer ferments at, you can make a high-quality beer, otherwise it's potluck."

A lager should be fermented at 7C to 10C: "not too warm or too cold".

An ale should be fermented at 16C to 20C.

"The easiest way to do it is to make lager in winter and ales in summer."

Lesson 3: Your equipment

"A hydrometer is your best friend," says consultant brewer and owner of Gippsland's Yarragon Ale House, John Greenwood.

John says while it's easy to make home brew, with no expensive materials required, a hydrometer, which measures the gravity of liquids, is vital.

"When people don't use a hydrometer, they bottle before the brew is ready to be bottled," he says.

"If it hasn't finished fermenting then it can be dangerous. That's when bottles explode."

Hydrometers will also avoid a common home brewing problem: bloating, which occurs when the incorrect levels of sugars are used.

John has travelled the world hunting unusual beers and now has a contract brew, Effen, which is also Dutch for "good times".

And he is about to form his own brewing club in Yarragon.

Equally John says choose a kit wisely: "a quality brand is best. Cheap is not always the best."

Ingredients

Head brewer for Mildura Brewery, Stefan Walker - who recently moved to Byron Bay Brewery - says the best home brews are made from real malted barley, called "all grain", rather than the tins of malt extract.

"They create beers that all taste a bit the same. Brewers need to find a good home brew," says Stefan.

"When buying hops make sure they have been kept refrigerated at the shop."

Stefan says avoid adding too much sugar in the fermenter as it makes beer thin and tasteless.

"And too much sugar in the bottle will result in beer which is too gassy, a common fault in home-brewed beers,'' says Stefan.

Andrew Davison says kits generally come with a yeast and syrup.

He advises buying alternative yeast as kit varieties are ``designed to have a good shelf life but not necessarily generate great beer''.

With more than 200 yeasts available, he says brewers should instead visit a brew supply shop and ask about yeast flavours.

"It's not like bread. The variability of beer yeasts is enormous,'' says Andrew.

Likewise, malts come in about 100 varieties and add another layer of variability.

Age a brew

"Don't be in a hurry to drink it,'' says John Greenwood.

"Anyone can make quality beer.

"You don't have to be Einstein but you do have to be a little bit patient. The biggest mistake you can make is to drink it too soon.

"I recommend that a home brew should be in the bottle for about three months.

"After that they're ready to drink.''

However, he does not pinpoint a use-by-date.

"I have drunk beers that are 25 years old and they were fabulous,'' he says.

Stefan Walker disagrees: "Don't age the beer for more than a month. Unless it is very high in alcohol - above 7 per cent - it won't improve.''

Keep a log book

"One day you'll be drinking a brew and you'll think 'how the hell did I make that?','' says John Greenwood.

For that reason it's important to keep a record of the date a brew was made,  ingredients,  weather, how you did it, what you did: "even whether you were in a good mood or not''.

Further, he says, experiment.

"Don't be scared to make a beer with fruit or lavender or anything. Some things go better than others but one person's delight is another's disappointment.

"One of the best beers I've ever made was a chocolate and chilli stout. It was a godsend.''

The Victorian Amateur Brewing Championships (Vicbrew 2009), October 3 and 4 in Melbourne. Details: www.vicbrew.org