Cobweb ale

I dusted the cobwebs off my brewing equipment yesterday. Literally. Too long a stint in the attic draped them with silken threads. Another golden ale was my plan yesterday, but this time with a little more body than the last one. To this end I added 10% dextrin malt to the grist, which will fill out the body but will not alter golden colour I desire. It looked like this:

3.9 kg Maris Otter
400 g Carapils

35g Northdown 60 mins
15g Cascade 20 mins
15g Centennial 10 mins
15g Centennial 0 mins

Mashed at 66 C

40 IBU

Saf o5

OG 1.040

I made modest additions of calcium sulphate and calcium chloride to boost the calcium in my liquor and add some fullness. I had to make some major adjustments to my tap water because a grist that pale will not tolerate 200 ppm alkalinity, which is what I found in my water. I used lactic acid to bring the pH down to around 5.5 which corresponds to alkalinity of around 25 ppm.

While brewing I sampled two ales from this quarter's CAMRA beer club delivery. Interestingly, in the literature with the delivery CAMRA almost apologised for the inclusion of a golden ale, noting that a great many of them are not up to standard. I have whinged about this for quite some time, having been plagued with entire deliveries from CAMRA of listless, thin and gassy golden ales. Crop Circle from the Hopback Brewery was the worrisome golden ale in this delivery, but it can't be dismissed as bland. In fact this ale packs quite a bit of flavour, with a harsh hop character. Lemons strike you on the nose and the addition of maize to this beer gives it a lighter body. Along with this I tried Potholer from Cheddar Ales. This is my kind of English ale. Full biscuit malt with lip smacking, well rounded hop bitterness, topped off with rich foam and a mouth watering copper hue.

This is American beer

July fourth rolls around again. There is no real need for celebration in Dublin but a number of theme events are held around the city. It seems only fair that a nod is given, what with the warm American embrace our very own St Patrick's Day enjoys across the pond. None of these events are related to beer sadly, but that must surely change in the near future because there is vast selection of excellent American beer available in the city. Most of it is in bottles but a willing publican would not find it difficult to muster all these bottles together and stage an American beer festival all of our own.

American craft beer is excellent. No qualifications or caveats are required. American craft brewers are leading the way with a spirit of adventure without compromise, creating the best beer in the world. In celebration of this intrepid journey I opened a bottle of Flying Dog's Gonzo Imperial Porter. I sampled this beer in Copenhagen last year and was torn by it. A beer as black as that should not smell like an IPA. It just shouldn't! Thankfully I can say I have grown since then. Become more open minded, and had a whale of time in the process. From the bottle the hops are greatly subdued but still present. Luscious brown foam tops the ominous black lurking beneath. Treacle, tar and some smoke fill the mouth all rounded off with big body and warming alcohol. Unsurprisingly it is damn bitter, but perfectly balanced. A impressive beer that perfectly mirrors the no fear attitude of American craft brewers.

Lipids

Lipid is the chemical name for the many types of fat in animal and plant matter. They are the things of love handles, saddle bags and muffin tops. We're drawn to them and can't help the attraction because they are packed full of energy, and our modern lifestyles are still dictated by the needs we had on the plains of Africa 20 thousands years ago when fat was in short supply and the humans that survived tended to be those that deposited fat for later use.

Lipids take the generic form shown below:

The simplest form is glycerol and lipids of this structure are called triglycerides. The R group on the left hand molecule represents long chain fatty acids of various lengths. Triglyceride is the storage form of fatty acids and these long chains can be cleaved off the molecule and metabolised when energy is required. The long chains have further variation in the extent to which they are saturated. Saturation refers to the type and number of bonds between the carbon atoms in the chain. Fatty acids are grouped into saturated and polyunsaturated. The classic animal fat that we eat is stearate and looks like this:
It contains 18 carbon atoms with single bonds between each of the atoms and forms a solid at room temperature due to the tendency of the long chains to tangle and clump together. Lard is the classic saturated fatty acid presentation.

Unsaturated fatty acids contain double bonds between one or more of the carbons in the chain of the molecule. This prevents the chains from tangling and produces the liquid forms of fat we usually associate with vegetable oils. Linolenic acid is a polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) with 3 double bonds that kink the molecule and prevent packing together of the chains:



Lipids are pesky things in the brewing process. Malt contains about 3.5% lipid material but less than 5% of this material usually makes its way into wort. Mash filters, used by the big time brewers are the worst offenders for this. During the mash filter process the mash is squeezed by an air compressed membrane, removing every last drop of extract from the process but squeezing out a lot of undesirable elements too. This represents the higher end of lipid extraction, while traditional mash tuns can cut this back to around 0.3%.

The presence of lipids is quite obvious; turbid wort contains greater lipid content. This can be clearly seen during the recirculation of wort in batch sparging at home. In general it is beneficial to reduce lipid content in wort, and brewers have differing requirements for the turbidity of the wort they produce. Yeast benefit from lipids in wort and a more vigorous fermentation is often noted, but this must be balanced against the potential problems later in the production line.

Lipid extraction can be increased through a number of ways:

• The use of over modified malt


• A finer malt grind - particularly hammer milling used in mash filters


• Higher mash and sparge temperatures


• Fast wort run off


• Lack of adjuncts


• Squeezing the mash to recover residual extract

Lipids can be removed later in the process during boiling and clarification steps, particularly through the removal of break material, but generally brewers like to prevent excess lipids entering the wort in the first place. The most common supply of excess lipid in wort comes from the last runnings. In the home brew setting this is of little concern because we rarely look to extract every last drop from the wort, but for commercial brewers working on tight margins the few degrees of extract left in the mash tun at the end can really start to add up. It is common for brewers to remove the lipid laden last runnings and add them to the strike water in the next mash.

Lipids can cause a number of problems in the brewing process. The most common of these is the undesirable oxidation steps they undergo at the hands of lipoxygenase enzymes, the result of which is potent, unpalatable off flavours that make the beer stale. The classic off flavour stems from trans-2-nonenal, the molecule that provides the cardboard flavour in oxidised beer. The main concern about oxidation of lipids in the mash is the formation of compounds that are more polar and therefore more water soluble. Water soluble compounds are far more likely to make it all the way into the finished beer and cause problems with shelf life.

Further to this most obvious and common lipid problem is the more obscure interaction of lipids with other malt constituents. For example, amylose - the form of starch found in malt, complexes with lipids forming molecules that are inaccessible to the malt amylase. The unsuccessful break down of malt starch during mashing causes all sorts of problems with extract recovery and, later on, haze in the finished beer. Alterations to beer flavour also stem from lipid interactions through the formation of complexes with esters during fermentation. Esters provide most of the fruity and aromatic flavours in beer that do no stem from hops. These flavours can be diminished by lipid interaction and alter the flavour of the beer.

Not quite dark enough

Brown ale always leaves me cold. As does its less sun tanned Irish cousin red ale (your Irish cousin will always be redder and less tanned than you are). Perhaps I desire too much, but a straight up brown ale lacks flavour. I tried some good brown ales in my pre-blog days but they were from the Dogfish Head stable and heavily adulterated. The first was Raison D'Etre, a very complex ale made with raisins. The second was their India Brown ale, again tinkered with, but this time with copious quantities of hops. More recently Brooklyn Brewery's brown ale didn't hit the mark either. For me brown ale becomes interesting when a brewer takes the bull by the horns and adds a decent measure of roasted malt and transforms a limp brown ale into a porter or stout. The vast majority of brown ales cannot stand alone. The metallic notes particularly irk me.

Cooper's call this beer their Dark Ale, but it's a brown ale, I'm sure of it. Aside from the deep brown colour it also has the metallic flavour I associate with these beers. And yet I cannot gripe too much. It has porter-like qualities in the form of port and malt loaf, yet it is also slightly stout like too. It has a lingering bitterness and distinct alcohol heat despite the modest 4.5% alcohol content. As with all Cooper's beers it has copious amounts of yeast in the bottom of the bottle - far too much. I agree with my father who says there is eating and drinking in bottle conditioned ale but I couldn't bring myself to put quite that much in the glass. So, something of an in-between beer with too much flavour to be the brown ale I dislike so, but not quite enough to push it into true dark beer territory.

I don't know why I bother

I have a rule that compels me to sample a beer on the menu if I have never tried it before. I should revise this rule for Irish ethnic restaurants because it invariably leaves a beer glass shaped hole in my soul. It happened with Tsing Tao. It happened with Shiva. Singha and Cobra hurt me too. I will never learn. I am doomed to play out these petty follies forever. It happened again with Alfa Beer in my local Greek restaurant. In truth I knew what I was getting into but couldn't help myself. The lager is just like every other beer produced in hot countries; it tastes of very little, with perhaps a twinge of malt at the end. The label does not mention any adjuncts, making this beer all malt and quite an achievement to get so little body and flavour into it. Once again this is a beer I would probably drink while basking in the Greek sun but it just doesn't cut the mustard here. For sure it washed down dinner very well - all these beers do that, but the food tasted far better than the beer and it was a shame to rinse the flavour from my mouth.

A big bottle of small beer in big glass

I tried Anchor's Old Foghorn on a blustery evening in Dublin a few months ago and declared it my kind of barley wine. I stand over this judgement, so it was with great anticipation that I tried Anchor's Small beer, made from the weak sparge from Old Foghorn's meaty mash. Further to this was a long held desire to try this beer stemming from the glossy picture filled beer books of Jackson and Protz fame that I pored over many years ago. I can't explain why these beers stuck in my mind but I was dead keen to try them and in some sad way never thought I would because things were decidedly grim in the Irish beer scene back then.

At a mere 3.2% abv it must surely be one of the weakest beers on the American market today, save for any of the diluted excuses for beer that are presented to drinkers in some of the dry states. The most striking thing about this beer is its excellent clarity and liveliness - a persistent stream of bubble surge from the bottom of the glass, peppering the wonderful copper hue with activity. The foam is dense and long lived, offering plenty of hops and malt. This beer would make the perfect aperitif - it is bitter as hell, far more bitter than any English brewer would make the standard bitter that is alluded to on the label. The ghost of Old Foghorn is definitely in there, betrayed by the same, though understated sweet malt favour that makes the barely wine so enjoyable. It seems that Americans can do low alcohol beer every bit as well as the big hitters that are so popular at the moment.

Tasty Dublin

This was my third annual trip to Taste of Dublin culinary event. Each year has seen a steady increase in the amount of beer related stalls and events, culminating this year in an event organised by the Beer Naturally Academy specifically to pair food with beer and raise the public awareness of the complexity of flavour that beer can provide. Now, this sounds grand indeed, but the Beer Naturally campaign was established by the big boy brewers who are feeling the nip at their ankles from the nascent craft beer industry in Ireland. It is therefore difficult to imagine that this concept was developed with the hope of getting more people to drink craft beer. On the contrary, the goal of this project is to sell more macro beer by dressing it up in the same way that wine is so readily pushed as a gastronomical experience. On whole this is a good thing for beer in Ireland because consumers are far more likely to listen to brands that they are already familiar with, and brand loyalty in Ireland is unparalleled anywhere else in the world, if recent research is to be believed.

Our host for the half hour session was Master Beer Sommelier Mark Stroobandt, a man I had never heard of, but he has a mighty impressive title. Some craft brewers present elsewhere in the venue told me that Mr Stroobandt was goaded for carrying out these sessions, that playing up to the likes of Diageo and Co. is no way for a beer enthusiast to go about his business, but even master beer sommeliers need to pay the bills.

The first beer for tasting was Carlsberg paired with cheddar cheese. The cheese was good, as was the idea of getting the group to spoon some foam out of the glass and taste it. It was explained that we were tasting the dry bitterness of hops when we taste foam like this and it is in this respect that bitter beer acts an excellent aperitif. An important message, I think, and one that I have espoused for quite some time. As for the pairing itself, I can't say it did a whole lot for me because the beer didn't taste of a whole lot.

Heineken was our next stop, paired with Thai chilli prawns. Heineken was described as having a sweeter maltier nose to Carlsberg, with less hop character. Sadly I couldn't eat the prawn - a pesky mild allergic reaction prohibits my enjoyment, but I listened while he talked the others through it and explained that the beer washes away the flavour of the chilli leaving an emptiness on the palate, but the chilli soon reasserts itself. I can't say this was ground breaking stuff and of the pairings on offer I imagine that lager and hot spices was the most familiar to the group.

Moving swiftly (too swiftly I thought) to Paulaner and smoked French sausage, a demonstration was given on how to pour wheat beer (very important) followed by a chastising of those who put lemon in white beer (even more important). Mr Stroobandt went so far as to say that it was often dangerous to float wax laden lemons in your beer.

Without a second to fully digest any sausage or wheat beer we were on to a 'local' beer - Swithwick's Irish Ale. Mr Stroobandt was concerned that the uninitiated among us might find this ale a little sharp because of the use of roasted barely in the grist, but a non beer geek friend of mine and a few others present seemed to really enjoy it, suggesting it was far better than they remembered. Sun dried tomato and mozzarella were paired with this, an uninspiring match - the nibbles were tasty and the beer was alright but I didn't sense any great synergy between the two.

On the table before us throughout the event was some very rich looking chocolate cake. Initially I thought it would be matched with the Smithwicks, the only beer on offer dark enough to suggest a pairing, however at the end of the other pairing we were presented with some mini glasses of Guinness to go with the cake. This proved to be the best pairing of the day by a country mile. The rich Belgian chocolate cake brought out a sweetness in the Guinness and was likely the most eye opening aspect of the day for those present. Guinness is normally seen as a heavy, bitter drink that many find hard to stomach but this pairing altered the way that Guinness was perceived by the group. The mini Guinness glasses were given to us at the end as a gift from the Beer Naturally Academy - a wise thing to do because many of us were going to nick them anyway.

Over all this was a great event that will have helped to promote beer as a complex addition to food, equalling anything that the wine world can offer. The action is aimed at more mainstream beer, but I know from personal experience that even a slight shift in attitude or perception can lead to a very enjoyable journey of beer appreciation.

A not so bitter little gnome

When I spied La Chouffe's Houblon IPA Tripel I imagined is was in the same vain as Duvel Tripel Hop, the beer I rang in 2009 with. Lots of hops and alcohol on the label suggest a similar drinking experience to the Duvel beast but this didn't prove to be the case. I over chilled the beer in the kitchen fridge, as opposed to the more temperate climes in my beer fridge. The chilling happened because the bottle is green and my beer fridge has a glass front and sits next to a window. This combined with the promised hop content of the beer make me very wary of the demon skunk aroma. Thankfully I avoided any unpleasantness, but ended up with a very hazy, thick, soup like liquid which could have passed for freshly squeezed orange juice given the heady citric fumes stemming from the glass. It is not hugely bitter but does give up plenty of alcoholic warmth. This is not a triple IPA in the American mould at all; there would have to be an order of magnitude increase in the bitterness for that. I don't like to pin down beers into categories and styles, but the concept of a triple IPA is entirely American and it seems strange to me that La Chouffe would make a beer, call it a triple IPA and then make it dissimilar to the expected beer style. Why not just call the beer something else? The Duvel tripel hop does not proclaim to be an IPA of any sort but I recall noting it was in fact like a very well refined big hitting IPA. Curious. Perhaps La Chouffe are hoping to penetrate different markets. As the beer warmed up much more complexity came forth mainly in the form of chewy malt, balancing things out nicely. This is a tasty beer but won't go down well with BJCP types.

Back to it

Things have been quiet in the Black Cat Brewery. A spell of exam preparation put pay to much activity - a similar thing happened last May when I had another round of exams to do. Happily they are all over now and all going well I should pick up a diploma in brewing science in the near future that I plan to conjure into a masters degree with a little more writing and research but thankfully no more written exams.

During this quiet spell I sustained myself on a number of German lagers that I picked up from the German discount stores. These were easy drinking, in small measures which helped with keeping a clear head and also suited the scorching weather Ireland was blessed with over the last few weekends that always seems to arrive when students are locked away in dark rooms . Boak and Bailey preempted my thoughts on hop extract last week with a post mirroring my attitude to the ubiquitous use of hop extract in German beers. I can't say I tasted anything too bad in these beers - the malt tended to more than make up for the lack of hop character because it is invariably quite satisfying, but its use does smack of a certain industrialisation in the brewing process which is something I like to avoid whenever possible. Still, they more than did the job over the last few weeks and I will continue to keep a few stashed in the fridge for easy drinking.

Two beers of note that broke the mould of my Continental lager frenzy were Fuller's Chiswick Bitter and Young's Bitter. I have waited quite some time for these to turn up in Ireland, the anticipation was ratcheted somewhat over the last few weeks by the promises of off license owners who spoke of an imminent influx of English ale, which never seemed to materialise. Eventually they arrived, but I'm not certain they were worth the wait. Fuller's Bitter is very promising on the nose; all ESB and Pride and just asking to be gulped, which I did, only to be met with a thin and slightly metallic body. Some nice crisp English hops made up for some of the lack of body but overall it was disappointing. I know, I know it's only 3.5% and by now most of you know how much I love this sort of beer, but it is entirely possible to have this little alcohol and have a bit of padding in the beer. The funny thing about drinking this beer is the way it outlined the degree of conditioning I have undergone while drinking Fuller's ESB and London Pride. Each time I brought the glass to my mouth and got a whiff of that unmistakable Fuller's aroma I was tricked into thinking it was going to be something special, but was let down each time. It was quite demoralising by the last mouthful.

The Young's was a little better, and stronger in the bottle form. I recall having a few pints last year and enjoyed every last drop of its 3.5% incarnation on cask. From the bottle it is live and lacks the hops in the Fuller's. The extra malt gives a fuller body and makes it more satisfying, but I enjoyed it more from cask. Is this always the story with bottle versions of iconic cask ales? It seems like that to me most of the time, but perhaps it should be borne in mind that the beers were brewed to be served from cask and perhaps will never fair well in the bottle when compared the cask. Young's beefed up their bitter for bottle perhaps in the hope of making it better suited to this from of serving and it certainly does give a better show than the unadulterated Chiswick Bitter. I'd certainly have the Young's again but the Fuller's may well be ignored the next time I drop by the off license.