The Great British Brew-off?

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MarkA
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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by MarkA » Fri Nov 12, 2021 11:18 pm

Yeah, definitely a shame by the sounds of it. I'll still have a look out of curiosity too, though.

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oz11
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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by oz11 » Fri Nov 12, 2021 11:56 pm

FFS...If these are the best brewing teams each country had to offer (which clearly they aren't) then we're all f**cked.

Seriously, missing a target ABV by a country mile, mistaking Kg for g...

Worth a watch but don't have anything nearby which would break your telly if it got thrown at it.

(I happened to think Mr Blunt was reasonably okay in comparison with the rest...)

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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by john luc » Sat Nov 13, 2021 1:04 am

I'd say its done to show mistakes deliberately. A couple of years ago Diageo approached us in the National Homebrew Club Ireland as they wanted to reposition their red ale, Smithwicks as a crafty brand. They saw we were having an impact on opinion and their marketing boyo's thought to do an add campaign. We said no. However some of the young bucks signed up and they made the add with homebrewers brewing and made to look like eejits. 5 hours filming one good brewer and nothing happened so they asked him to sniff the active fermentation he had on, he did, burnt his nose on the co2 and ye can guess, that's the only clip they put in the add. Unless you have editorial control never agree to have yourself portrayed in such a show.
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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by Wizz69 » Mon Nov 15, 2021 9:41 am

I think the show is watchable, nothing too technical to stress the head, but is mindless entertainment.

It may not be perfect but at least gets craft/homebrewing onto home TVs to create awareness..

Agree that James Blunt was a bad choice and the format seemed to lack any real detail but...

It should have been approached like masterchef having weeks of different entrants leading up to a semi then final.

Am pleased that a production company has green lit this..

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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by MashBag » Mon Nov 15, 2021 9:54 am

Just watched ep1.

It was always going to be light entertainment.
Particularly when "easy drinking" didn't seem to mean anything to some of them. 7% black IPA 😱

It isn't made for us. It's made for the brew kit manufacturers 😅😅

So how many people will have a go after seeing the show? Dunno. IMO they made it look hard and complicated. But I would say that.....

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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by Jocky » Mon Nov 15, 2021 3:08 pm

Reality tv competitions don’t put the most able people in as their contestants - they put the most entertaining ones in.

I’d expect that would exclude anybody that was too serious.

Also for what it’s worth a friend of mine was interviewed for it, and was told that filming the 5 brews would be done on 5 consecutive days, so you’d end up fermenting everything at once, forcing them to have nothing but ambient temperatures for fermentation.

It also makes me wonder whether they also did 1 team per week, meaning that the first team’s beer is 5+ weeks older than the last team when it comes to tasting.
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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by Cobnut » Mon Nov 15, 2021 3:41 pm

Jocky wrote:
Mon Nov 15, 2021 3:08 pm
Reality tv competitions don’t put the most able people in as their contestants - they put the most entertaining ones in.
That explains why I didn't get interviewed ;-)
Jocky wrote:
Mon Nov 15, 2021 3:08 pm
Also for what it’s worth a friend of mine was interviewed for it, and was told that filming the 5 brews would be done on 5 consecutive days, so you’d end up fermenting everything at once, forcing them to have nothing but ambient temperatures for fermentation.
That would never have worked for me; I don't have 5 fermenters. Or even the space for 5!

TBH I watched the first episode (my wife came into the room part way through to hear me castigating it) and wasn't going to bother with any more as I thought Blunt was terrible, the format was awful, most of the brewers can't brew and the "style expert" was laughable. Jaega Wise was pretty good though. She has some credibility as a brewer and a presenter and I thought does a good job given the show's format.

However, my wife suggested last night that we watch some more. So we watched episodes 2-4. I still find it to be a very contrived format, Blunt is STILL terrible, it appears that some of the brewers CAN actually brew, they've clearly enlisted some fairly big name brewery/beer companies (rather than the more interesting ones), no idea who most of the guest judges are and Jaega Wise is still the best thing in the show.

Having said all this, if it gets sufficient interest from the wider public, it can serve to open up interest in beer styles outside of the mainstream cr*p that the big beer co's try to ram down the throats of the mostly un-educated public. And MAY serve to get some people interested in trying some of these more interesting styles rather than drinking eurofizz lager, Yankie tasteless lager or the apologies for bitter or pale ales that one might encounter at a typical sporting occasions.

It sadly doesn't look like they've been challenged to produce a decent English bitter or Mild ale. The producers probably think that's too "old man" for their "target audience".

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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by f00b4r » Mon Nov 15, 2021 4:38 pm

Unfortunately it hasn’t made it to German Prime yet so might have to see if my UK account has a trial of prime available.
Jaega Wise, from what I have seen at a couple of events she has been at and online media, seems to be pretty savvy to the non brewing parts of the beer business; probably where most wanna be brewers would fall down.

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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by Cobnut » Mon Nov 15, 2021 6:06 pm

f00b4r wrote:
Mon Nov 15, 2021 4:38 pm
Unfortunately it hasn’t made it to German Prime yet so might have to see if my UK account has a trial of prime available.
Jaega Wise, from what I have seen at a couple of events she has been at and online media, seems to be pretty savvy to the non brewing parts of the beer business; probably where most wanna be brewers would fall down.
Why would they bother? There's no German HB'ers on the show :D
Fermenting: Sunshine Marmalade
Conditioning: Festbier, Helles Bock
Drinking: Smoky, lager beer, Irish Export Stout, Hazelweiss 2023:2, Cascade APA (homegrown hops), Orval clone, Impy stout, Duvel clone, Conestoga (American Barley wine)
Planning: Kozel dark (ish), Simmonds Bitter, and more!

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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by f00b4r » Mon Nov 15, 2021 6:13 pm

Cobnut wrote:
f00b4r wrote:
Mon Nov 15, 2021 4:38 pm
Unfortunately it hasn’t made it to German Prime yet so might have to see if my UK account has a trial of prime available.
Jaega Wise, from what I have seen at a couple of events she has been at and online media, seems to be pretty savvy to the non brewing parts of the beer business; probably where most wanna be brewers would fall down.
Why would they bother? There's no German HB'ers on the show :D
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I’m surprised at that, there is a pretty healthy homebrew scene in Germany.

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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by Cobnut » Mon Nov 15, 2021 6:27 pm

That’s another of the “quirks” of this show. There’s five teams from UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Italy. Go figure!


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john luc
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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by john luc » Tue Nov 16, 2021 3:38 am

Also not shown in Ireland as well. Looks like I will not miss much so.
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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by spook100 » Sun Nov 28, 2021 8:40 pm

I have watched all five episodes and quite enjoyed it. I thought that, even for a home brewer, watching other people brew on TV would be a bit like watching grass grow; but they managed to keep it fairly entertaining by including other challenges - branding, food pairing etc.
The brewers weren't bad either and all seemed like genuinely likeable people and passionate about brewing. Yes, they made cock-ups, but they are home brewers and that is to be expected. How many of us don't get our measurements wrong, over/under shoot on gravities etc?
The only real criticism that I would have is that it was so European centric. The beauty of home brewing is that there is a whole world of beers to explorer and new ones to invent, but four of the five challenges were traditional, old European styles. It would have been nice to have given them a bit more scope for invention or got them to brew one of the newer styles.
I would recommend watching it (with an open mind ;))
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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by Nashbrew » Thu Dec 02, 2021 1:16 pm

What platform/channel is this on?
Found it it is called Beer masters
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Re: The Great British Brew-off?

Post by zipfly » Thu Dec 02, 2021 1:51 pm

amazon prime

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