bobjohnson.org

Beers in primary fermentation

noreply@blogger.com (Bob) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:22:00 +0000

I decided that this early spring will be a great time to celebrate with some ultra-high gravity beers made by yours truly! After three trips to St. Charles and one to Warrenville to make sure I had all the necessary supplies and ingredients in my possession, I set out on making the long days of Thursday and Saturday longer by getting up in the actual morning and slaving over a stove to get everything just right...more or less.

After thinking way too much about Belgian IPAs, I decided that I really ought to make one. And after telling all these people I know about my ideas to make an imperial stout with cocoa and chiles for the last year, I finally put my money (maybe a little too much money) where my mouth is. Everything else aside, let's just tell you what goodies are hiding in these fermenters. I'm going back to basics and brewing these with extracts supplemented by specialty grains. Please don't hate.

Belgian IPA

16 oz Belgian Aromatic Malt
4 oz Flaked Oats
--
3 lb Light Golden DME
3 lb Light Pilsner DME
3 lb 45/65 Wheat/Barley Light DME
2 lb Clear Candi Sugar
12 oz Maltodextrin
3 oz Challenger Hops
--
1/2 oz Styrian Goldings Hops
1 oz Sweet Orange Peel
1/3 tsp Cardamom
1/3 tsp Coriander
--
1/2 oz Styrian Goldings
1 oz Czech Saaz
--
Once in secondary, I am going to dry hop with an ounce or so more Saaz, possibly a little Goldings. From there, we've got a lot of time to go. Original gravity is up around 1.10.

Imperial Milk Stout with Cocoa and Chiles

6 oz Munich Malt
6 oz Vienna Malt
8 oz Black Patent Malt
8 oz Belgian Chocolate Malt
--
9 lb Light DME (accidentally misplaced the dark and had to improvise. I hope that the sheer quantity of malt plus the presence of the black patent malt allows for a passable appearance)
1 lb Dark Candi Sugar
1 lb Lactose
2 oz Northern Brewer Hops
--
1/2 oz Hallertau Hops
8 oz Bensdorp Kakao
--
2 tbsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 oz Saaz
--
I only have 4.1 gallons of liquor at the moment, OG@1.11. I plan to introduce another full pound of lactose and ancho chile (along with a gallon of water) when I transfer to secondary.

Both of these beers should be winding down out of primary fermentation around the middle of next week. The Belgian IPA was cooked up on Thursday, the Stout on Saturday.

Stay tuned.

Wow. Oops.

noreply@blogger.com (Bob) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:21:00 +0000

I'll get back on top of this in a bit. I've been spending too much of my free time sleeping. I think I'll have a general article about the evolution behind yeast next. You'll find out when I do.

Belgian IPAs

noreply@blogger.com (Bob) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:56:00 +0000

It is difficult for me to pin myself down to a particular style of beer that I consider to be my favorite, but after months of introspection, I am fairly secure in stating that Belgian IPAs are my favorite. So...what better than to type a little bit up about this style, why it should be considered a style unto itself and to say a thing or two about some of the offerings currently available to the drinking public? Exactly. I can't think of anything either, so without further ado...

Before getting into what specifically defines a Belgian IPA, I will say a thing or two about how we get there in a hierarchical approach to beer classification. Of the Belgian beer tradition, a vast majority of beers fall into a dark or a pale variety, with browns being quite dark, and very little in the way of ambers.

Of the pale Belgian beers, there are four characteristics that will define what sort of a beer it is: 1. Type of grain used, 2. Amount of alcohol in the finished product, 3. Appearance, and 4. Spice and hops.

The first characteristic on the list (type of grain) is the most noticeable in a rundown of styles (i.e. Witbier vs. everything else), but, in the end, the least significant. Belgian brewers do not hold themselves to the arbitrary standard that German brewers do, with the insistence on 100% barley malt in a normal beer, and 50/50 barley/wheat in a wheat beer. In the end, many Belgian beers, regardless of style, will have more than one kind of grain in the grain bill, and to Belgian brewers, this really isn't a big deal. The only time when this is an explicit requirement of style is with the Witbier, where you are expected to have a relatively predominant ratio of wheat among the ingredients.

The second characteristic on the list (alcohol) is much more conspicuous to the consumer. For those of us in the States, we are accustomed to domestic beers that are under 5% alcohol by volume (ABV). Not so in much of Europe, where a standard pale beer normally hovers around that level and many varieties contain yet more alcohol. To a novice, many Belgian beers will seem quite hefty, with many now available above 7% ABV, and some reaching to twice as much. While it is all quite arbitrary, Belgian beers with, let's say, above 7.5% ABV are considered Strong Ales. The common, categories of Belgian Strong Ales (ignoring whether or not to count Trappist-derived varieties) are Dark Strong Ale, Blonde Ale, and Golden Strong Ale.

The third characteristic (appearance) is more than just a superficial distinction based on color. Virtually all beers are brewed primarily from pale barley malt, which provides a light pale color (think Miller Lite), alcohol, and that's about it. Beers will gain their appearance from (while there are exceptions, such as oak aging and infusion of fruit or the like) specialty grain, which is typically a small fraction of the grain bill, but makes all the difference in making a beer both typical and unique. Specialty malts add body and/or color, normally both. Most malts also provide a rich addition of flavor. As a gross generalization, darker malts will add any number of flavor components (let's say, for example, chocolate, caramel and biscuit), but also sweetness. This is because the malt has been roasted, resulting in further complicated chemical reactions that result in the formation of, among other things, complex sugars (which cannot be metabolized by yeast, but are still sweet to the tongue). Long story short, dark and pale beers will taste differently in a blind taste test, so it is this aspect of the dark characteristic that is, in the end, more important than the color. As would be expected, Blonde Ales and Golden Strong Ales are both pale in color. What distinguishes the Golden Strong Ale (a style dating back only about 1950 in an attempt to court drinkers of Pilsner beers) is that the yeast has been filtered from it, as opposed to the Blonde Ale that is hazy with the presence of yeast. The difference between a hazy beer and a clear beer is, as with color, more than just a superficial difference, but I feel that this paragraph has already become long enough, so we'll talk about that another time.

The last characteristic (spice and hops) is a very fluid distinction among Belgian beers. For many, the difference between a Witbier and a Saison is that a Saison has more spice and hops, making it more dry and fragrant...but wait...Witbier has spice and hops, and not all Saisons have a predominant amount of spice or hops. Where is the line drawn? Normally, it just comes down to what the brewer has printed on the bottle [True, today's Saisons are often less cloudy and more alcoholic than Witbiers (not to mention the typical difference in Wheat/Barley ratio), but the traditional Saison falls very close to the traditional Witbier in alcohol content, so I rest my case]. Blonde Ales (virtually indistinguishable from Tripel Ales, if you care to substitute the term) are typically dry and effervescent, but no more than a less alcoholic beer might be. What defines the Belgian IPA, then, is that it shares all characteristics of the Blonde Ale while consciously being brewed with (and being marketed as a beer with) more hops than another beer that shares the same grain bill, same alcohol content and the same appearance.

I feel that, even though it is not widely represented, and even though it is a relatively nascent and ill-defined style (as are most Belgian beer styles), it is distinguished enough to deserve to be called by its own name, and not simply as a subset of another style.

I feel like I have already fleshed out a definition of the Belgian IPA above: a pale, hazy beer that is over 7.5% ABV and contains a good deal more hops than is typical of a Belgian ale. These beers tend to be dry to the tongue, fairly effervescent and light of body, and a bit bitter on the aftertaste. My presumption is that, as the smaller Belgian breweries saw their market share increase among the craft beer audience, they decided to take on the British and American IPA market with a uniquely Belgian interpretation of the style. What resulted is a style that is unique while not over the top to the general or the specialty consumer.

Here are some examples of Belgian IPAs, blurbs about them, and that will close out this post (positives and negatives should be considered relative to style, not to be a good or bad beer sort of thing):

Gouden Carolus Hopsinjoor (Het Anker) - 8% ABV - Pleasant and mild Belgian grainy flavor, wonderful yeasty aroma characteristic of Gouden Carolus beers. 5 stars
De Ranke XX Bitter - 6.2% ABV - Less substantive from the standpoint of anything other than the hops. 4 stars
Urthel Hop-It - 9.5% ABV - Nice and lightly bodied considered the alcohol content, very little in the way of bitterness. 5 stars
Alvinne Gaspar - 8.0% ABV - Extremely effevescent, not as well-balanced as a lot of the other offerings, but still top-class. 5 stars
Belgica IPA (Great Divide) - 7.2% ABV - Remarkably smooth, in light of its ingredients' previous life as an American IPA recipe. 4.5 stars
Houblon Chouffe (D'Achouffe) - 9.0% ABV - A touch quirkier and foamier than the rest. Shares the Hopsinjoor's distinction as a gold standard, in my opinion. 5 stars
Poperings Hommel Bier (Van Eecke) - 7.5% ABV - Very light and effervescent on the tongue, much more hops flavor than bitterness. A tour de force in smoothness versus the rest. 5 stars

As an afterthought, I'm going to have to come up with a more nitpicky rating system. We'll work on that sometime soon.

The Beginning of Oktoberfest

noreply@blogger.com (Bob) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:41:00 +0000

Tomorrow is the beginning of Oktoberfest in Munich. While it's far, far away geographically, this is something that generally holds a great effect on my life, seeing as I work in a German restaurant. This will be the ninth Oktoberfest I will be involved with at a German restaurant, and this is the high season. It is also the low-brow, busy, busy, once-a-year-clientele time of year, where it seems I'm using my brain less than I am my body. It's all right. These things happen, and I turn a profit.

Back to what I was going to go on about though. Oktoberfest officially starts on a Saturday and lasts sixteen days, ending on the first Sunday in October. Originally, it was held later into October, but now, most of it is in September, but it has retained its name. This all started in 1810 as a commemoration of the marriage of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. For the last sixty years, it has been the way it is now: huge, sprawling drunkfest in the pedestrian area of central Munich.

So people come to my restaurant. Due to the general misconception (thanks to its name) that Oktoberfest is an October festival, the "Oktoberfest season," as it were starts on Friday, the day before Oktoberfest starts in Munich, until the end of Oktober, generally seeing a muted conclusion in Halloween, when it seems practically no one goes out to eat.

This is all well and good. Our food is plentiful and well-suited to please the festgoer. Our traditional German varieties of beer (now down to about a fifth of our draft offerings) are available in liter mugs (that being 33.6 fluid ounces plus foam, to a grand total of 46 fluid ounces...a party in a glass.). What I get the most pleasure from at my job, at least when it comes to interactions with customers, is beer talk. We have a impressive, high-brow selection of drafts and bottles, especially our Belgians and American Crafts. It allows for a great deal to talk about, but it all takes a back seat...today.

So, to allow these two things (beer and fest) to coalesce in my brain, I will leave with a few technical notes about Oktoberfest beer.

The water in and around Munich tends to be quite hard in its mineral content, which has a skunking effect on hops. By European convention, beer is made stronger by the addition of more grain malt, which provides the sugar that the yeast converts into alcohol. Grain malt contains a good deal of complex sugars that are not digestible by yeast, leaving a stronger beer sweeter. Again, by convention, this sweetness is cut by the bitterness of hops, and so for all the malt added, so is hops added in abundance.

The problem in Munich, which is known to have been an issue for centuries, is that the hardness of the water would render a strong beer, where hops is added in proportion to malt, unpalatable. This is why Doppelbock beer tends to be sweet and malty, since it is a native Munich style, while strong. The Märzen variety, of which Oktoberfest is a subset, is a stonger beer made as an imitation of the Vienna Lager, which was an amber, stronger Lager developed by Anton Dreher around 1800. Seeing as this was the fashionable brew in Munich at the time of the first Oktoberfest, this style has persisted.

Märzen beers tend to be a bit on the sweet and malty side, with a minimum of bitterness or aroma provided by hops. I am not a great fan of this variety of beers, tending to prefer dry, effervescent varieties. Enough whining though. Right now, we have Spaten Oktoberfest Märzen, 5.9% ABV, with a bit of a dry finish, but only a bit; Ayinger Oktoberfest, 5.8% ABV, which is not the least bit dry, probably more of a quality brew, but definitely not something you could knock back too many of on account of the sweetness; and Three Floyds Munsterfest, 5.5% ABV and a bit on the grainy side for my taste, but really not bad at all once you're a couple sips in. We have already run through our supply of Köstrizer Oktoberfest, 6.0% ABV, an export-only, relatively good Oktoberfest, much more similar to the Spaten Oktoberfest; and Left Hand Oktoberfest, 6.0% ABV, which is a lovingly-crafted, dead-on American rendition of a Munich-style Märzen, only even better balanced and smoother...possibly my favorite Oktoberfest I've had after the Mönchshof Festbier, which I'm looking forward to talking about soon, once it's back on, and my memory's refreshed.

Those are my short beer reviews of the day, with more to come. Of the Oktoberfest beers mentioned, I give the following ratings out of 5 stars, with 3 not being average but still good, and 2 still not bad:

Spaten Oktoberfest: 3 stars
Ayinger Oktoberfest: 4 stars
Three Floyds Munsterfest: 2 stars
Köstritzer Oktoberfest: 3 stars
Left Hand Oktoberfest: 5 stars

Also tried recently:

Great Lakes Oktoberfest (6.5% ABV): 2 stars - This beer has a strange spiciness not appropriate for a Märzen, especially what is touted to be an imitation, not an interpretation. Otherwise, drinkable and refreshing, but still, meh, and the ABV is a bit out of range to be appropriate, in my opinion, though I've heard that Avery has one in the 9% range, so I'll have to check that out soon enough.

Cheers, and look forward to a layout change and more and more and more about beer...and maybe linguistics. We'll see.