Saturday, November 19, 2016
Lemondrop Helles
Until the time that I went to Germany for school, I didn't have much of an affection for Helles or Pilseners. I had a thought that German brewers were stuck in the past and that the Helles and Pils styles should have evolved to keep up with other modern styles. In a way, the German light lagers have changed over the years, but I would argue that they have actually taken a step in the opposite direction of American craft beer and instead have followed a trend of making the styles even less hoppy in recent years. Good luck telling a German brewer to change their ways though... It wasn't until I tried Augustiner Pils that I really began to change my mind about these styles.
Augustiner Pils is a great hopbursted pilsener and features a lot of lemony, spicy noble hop characters from the use of what I was told was Hallertauer Mittlefrüh. It was the first German Pils that I had where the brewer deviated from the norm and created a beer that really stood out in its class. After drinking that beer, I dedicated most of my spare time in Germany talking with my professors about what goes into making a world class Pils and Helles. I realized that the hopbursted Pils idea was something that could be received well by American craft beer drinkers that normally would pass on the style and I set out to create a Pilsener that I thought would resonate well in the Southeast and used all traditional Pils ingredients. Now, I'm excited to be brewing a Helles that I think is the direction that German brewers would have gone with the style if brewers followed the same trends that we have seen in America: Essentially taking the style and using new techniques and ingredients to create something still recognizable as being a Helles, but upgraded.
One thing that I found interesting about brewers in Munich was that they took great pride in the appearance of their beers. So many hours were discussed about the importance of creating the palest beer possible (as my professors would say, it should not be yellow or gold, but the color of straw) with fast rising bubbles that feed a thick, lasting foam. It would seem that the answer would be simple: use the lightest malts available and carbonate to a high level. However, there are so many more factors that influence color. Perhaps most importantly after the ingredient selection is the equipment used and water chemistry. In Munich, their water is fairly hard with an elevated pH level and doesn't allow for them to brew beers that are quite as light colored as in other areas of Germany or in the Czech Republic. Luckily for us though, we have our reverse osmosis water allowing for us to have a blank slate to start from and a fairly low pH off the bat. For the water, I added only a slight bit of calcium, sulfate, chloride, and magnesium. It was really the smallest amount of each mineral necessary in order to have an effective mash and to have good yeast flocculation. The target pH level was right on at 5.2 without the need for any adjustments.
For the malt, I went with a widely used Pils malt from Schill Malting in Osthofen. Their pils malz is the lightest fully modified malt I have found available at 1.2 degrees lovibond. It was obvious when I opened the bags that the malt was very consistent and light colored and its moderate protein levels should allow for a great head retention. The mash temperature was low and the mash was long to encourage more simple sugars to create a dry easy drinking beer. The wort was very light colored going into the boil kettle and I'm fortunate to have a steam jacketed boil kettle to create a very gentle rolling boil which helps to minimize darkening of the wort.
Up until the boil, everything was mostly true to style (other than the soft water) and what would likely be expected of a German brewer. The boil is where the deviation occurred. Instead of using traditional noble hops, I wanted to use a hop variety that has a lot of the character that I expect from noble hops, but without the earthy, spiciness. A recent varietal, Lemondrop, is perfect for this. It has a true lemon like flavor and is unmistakable. Although it is an American variety, a few progressive German brewers have had success in brewing Pileners with it. In addition to using a newer American hop variety, the only hop addition for our Lemondrop Helles was a whirlpool addition. As a result, the hop flavor and aroma will be more pronounced than what would me expected of a malt forward German Helles. It will almost blur the lines for hop aroma between a German Helles and a German Pils, but the bitterness level will be exactly in line with a Helles at 18 IBU as opposed to a Pilsener at 30-35 IBU (or if you're my German professors, you might say 33 IBU, no less, no more, is the perfect bitterness for a modern Pils).
The yeast strain we used is the lager yeast from Augustiner and it is very distinctive for being able to fully attenuate a beer, but still leave an impression of maltiness. It is a yeast strain that I have used almost exclusively for lagers for a few years now. The Lemondrop Helles will be ready by early December at the latest and should be one of the beers we have on tap at the grand opening of our taproom. Prost!
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Strong Scotch Ale
As I get caught up on my blog posts, I'm going to try to refer saying "I'm super excited about this one!" in reference to every beer we've brewed... Except for this one, because I'm super excited about this one.
I've always loved barrel aging beers and the barrels we got for this are very intriguing for me. I've aged beers in unused barrels, bourbon barrels, and wine barrels. My first week in Tombstone, I received an e-mail from a cooperage that they had scotch barrels available. All of the owners of the brewery and I love Scotch, so right when I read the e-mails, I told Matt that they were available and he said buy them. Less than 5 minutes after getting the e-mail the barrels were ordered and we were making plans to purchase a bottle filler for this beer.
We asked specifically that we receive Islay barrels from Laphroaig and Ardbeg. When the barrels showed up, we realized that we got all Ardbeg barrels and one other barrel from a distiller I've never heard of: Glenglassaugh. I was hoping to find the peatiest barrels available and we got exactly what we were looking for. One of the Ardbeg barrels still had about 3 gallons of scotch in the bottom of the barrel.
We talked about what beer we wanted to put into them and we discussed the usual whiskey barrel styles, stouts, barleywine, Old Ales, etc. and we decided to brew a Strong Scotch Ale or Wee Heavy instead.
The fun thing about doing a traditional Strong Scotch Ale is that it features the malt flavors so prominently. Many brewers opt to use a high quality base malt and then brew the beer with a normal one hour boil and use melanoiden malts or crystal malts to get the beer amber colored or to get the sweet caramelly flavors. What we did instead was the old school method of boiling the wort for 5 hours (I actually went closer to 6 hours to boil off enough volume to reach our intended gravity). With the 5 hour boil, the wort gets dark and takes on a very rich, bready flavor and the flavors that develop are very complex with descriptions like honey, caramel, biscuit, or sometimes even burnt raisin. We used an old traditional floor malted Maris Otter for the base and it really accentuated the bread and the caramel malt flavors as well as some of the honey and even a little bit of milk chocolate.
We brewed the beer to go into the barrels at 11.9% ABV which meant we needed a very strong yeast strain. The yeast that we used really brings out a lot of the raisin flavor and leaves a very crisp mouthfeel like you might expect to find in a lager, so even though the beer is extremely complex and thick, it feels very drinkable at the high ABV. The thick body should provide a platform to support the scotch barrel flavors, and when the beer comes out (Sometime in early January), this will be one of the beers that I anticipate trying more than anything I've brewed before. Be on the lookout for this in bombers right after the new year!
I've always loved barrel aging beers and the barrels we got for this are very intriguing for me. I've aged beers in unused barrels, bourbon barrels, and wine barrels. My first week in Tombstone, I received an e-mail from a cooperage that they had scotch barrels available. All of the owners of the brewery and I love Scotch, so right when I read the e-mails, I told Matt that they were available and he said buy them. Less than 5 minutes after getting the e-mail the barrels were ordered and we were making plans to purchase a bottle filler for this beer.
We asked specifically that we receive Islay barrels from Laphroaig and Ardbeg. When the barrels showed up, we realized that we got all Ardbeg barrels and one other barrel from a distiller I've never heard of: Glenglassaugh. I was hoping to find the peatiest barrels available and we got exactly what we were looking for. One of the Ardbeg barrels still had about 3 gallons of scotch in the bottom of the barrel.
We talked about what beer we wanted to put into them and we discussed the usual whiskey barrel styles, stouts, barleywine, Old Ales, etc. and we decided to brew a Strong Scotch Ale or Wee Heavy instead.
The fun thing about doing a traditional Strong Scotch Ale is that it features the malt flavors so prominently. Many brewers opt to use a high quality base malt and then brew the beer with a normal one hour boil and use melanoiden malts or crystal malts to get the beer amber colored or to get the sweet caramelly flavors. What we did instead was the old school method of boiling the wort for 5 hours (I actually went closer to 6 hours to boil off enough volume to reach our intended gravity). With the 5 hour boil, the wort gets dark and takes on a very rich, bready flavor and the flavors that develop are very complex with descriptions like honey, caramel, biscuit, or sometimes even burnt raisin. We used an old traditional floor malted Maris Otter for the base and it really accentuated the bread and the caramel malt flavors as well as some of the honey and even a little bit of milk chocolate.
We brewed the beer to go into the barrels at 11.9% ABV which meant we needed a very strong yeast strain. The yeast that we used really brings out a lot of the raisin flavor and leaves a very crisp mouthfeel like you might expect to find in a lager, so even though the beer is extremely complex and thick, it feels very drinkable at the high ABV. The thick body should provide a platform to support the scotch barrel flavors, and when the beer comes out (Sometime in early January), this will be one of the beers that I anticipate trying more than anything I've brewed before. Be on the lookout for this in bombers right after the new year!
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Catching Back Up: Hazy Hoppy Beers
Normally I like to update my blog posts as I'm brewing new beers. Unfortunately, I'm still getting the flow of brewing on a new system and as a result, I haven't figured out how to schedule my down time on brew days to allow for blog updates. I'm going to try to get caught up on all our new beers in the next few days and I've already got quite a few beers to write about! Instead of having a bunch of repeat information as I talk about our Pale Ale, IPA, and Double IPA, I figured I could lump them all into one post because they are all brewed with similar techniques.
Each one of these beers is brewed as a "Northeast" or "New England" style as has been popularized by some of the Vermont breweries. These beers are hazy, juicy, intensely aromatic, and, perhaps most notably, they feature a rich, creamy mouthfeel.
When I first began researching these beers a year ago, I thought that the idea of brewing cloudy beers was just a marketing gimmick by breweries that wanted to rush beer out the door. It took a while for me to accept that there was a very good reason for these beers to be cloudy. After trying several examples, I began to realize that there were a few common qualities shared between the highest quality examples. What stood out to me the most was that there was a unique fermentation flavor profile and that they were not being brewed with typical American Ale yeast.
We ended up using a yeast strain that is known for it's peachy ester production. In addition to the unique esters that the yeast produces, it is also a little unique in that it loses its ability to flocculate (clear) in the presence of dry hops. The reason that this is the case is because hop oils smear the yeast cell membrane and then the yeast loses its ability to aggregate. Without being able to aggregate together, the individual yeast strains don't have enough mass to fall to the bottom of the fermenter. What that means though is that all the hop oils that coat the yeast cells also stay in suspension and are not lost, but rather the yeast acts as a sort of hop oil delivery vessel.
Furthermore, the yeast strain we're using is very effective at performing biotransformations. The yeast can actually take one type of hop oil and transform it into other types. The main transformation that we understand is the biotransformation of geraniol into beta-citronella. Geraniol is known as a hop compound that comes across as rosy or floral and beta-citronella is the compound that can taste like candied oranges or tangerine. While you might wonder why we would want to use a biotransformation instead of just using a hop variety that is high in beta-citronella, the reason is that bio-transformations seem to create a synergistic effect resulting in a greater intensity of aroma.
The last unique characteristic of our yeast strain is that it has the ability to create high levels of glycosides which are important to create a creamy mouthfeel. We then enhance that effect with the use of flaked oats and flaked wheat to create a uniquely creamy sensation although the beer is dry and easily drinkable.
These beers are also all hopbursted (the pale ale with 100% Amarillo hops, and the IPA and DIPA with Citra, Simcoe, and Amarillo), meaning we add all of our hops near the end of the boil and in the fermenter. Using this type of technique, we strive to still achieve the same amount of bitterness, but the quality of bitterness is more pleasant and doesn't linger the way traditional bittering techniques do. Since the hops are not in contact with the hot wort for nearly as long as traditional methods, we use 30-40% more hops for each style than what you would typically see in traditional examples.
While all of our beers are still likely to receive tweaks, I have been really pleased with the results of these three and the tweaks for these (if there are any) will be very minor and will be completely geared towards elevating our favorite attributes to the next level.
Each one of these beers is brewed as a "Northeast" or "New England" style as has been popularized by some of the Vermont breweries. These beers are hazy, juicy, intensely aromatic, and, perhaps most notably, they feature a rich, creamy mouthfeel.
When I first began researching these beers a year ago, I thought that the idea of brewing cloudy beers was just a marketing gimmick by breweries that wanted to rush beer out the door. It took a while for me to accept that there was a very good reason for these beers to be cloudy. After trying several examples, I began to realize that there were a few common qualities shared between the highest quality examples. What stood out to me the most was that there was a unique fermentation flavor profile and that they were not being brewed with typical American Ale yeast.
We ended up using a yeast strain that is known for it's peachy ester production. In addition to the unique esters that the yeast produces, it is also a little unique in that it loses its ability to flocculate (clear) in the presence of dry hops. The reason that this is the case is because hop oils smear the yeast cell membrane and then the yeast loses its ability to aggregate. Without being able to aggregate together, the individual yeast strains don't have enough mass to fall to the bottom of the fermenter. What that means though is that all the hop oils that coat the yeast cells also stay in suspension and are not lost, but rather the yeast acts as a sort of hop oil delivery vessel.
Furthermore, the yeast strain we're using is very effective at performing biotransformations. The yeast can actually take one type of hop oil and transform it into other types. The main transformation that we understand is the biotransformation of geraniol into beta-citronella. Geraniol is known as a hop compound that comes across as rosy or floral and beta-citronella is the compound that can taste like candied oranges or tangerine. While you might wonder why we would want to use a biotransformation instead of just using a hop variety that is high in beta-citronella, the reason is that bio-transformations seem to create a synergistic effect resulting in a greater intensity of aroma.
The last unique characteristic of our yeast strain is that it has the ability to create high levels of glycosides which are important to create a creamy mouthfeel. We then enhance that effect with the use of flaked oats and flaked wheat to create a uniquely creamy sensation although the beer is dry and easily drinkable.
These beers are also all hopbursted (the pale ale with 100% Amarillo hops, and the IPA and DIPA with Citra, Simcoe, and Amarillo), meaning we add all of our hops near the end of the boil and in the fermenter. Using this type of technique, we strive to still achieve the same amount of bitterness, but the quality of bitterness is more pleasant and doesn't linger the way traditional bittering techniques do. Since the hops are not in contact with the hot wort for nearly as long as traditional methods, we use 30-40% more hops for each style than what you would typically see in traditional examples.
While all of our beers are still likely to receive tweaks, I have been really pleased with the results of these three and the tweaks for these (if there are any) will be very minor and will be completely geared towards elevating our favorite attributes to the next level.
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