For the last 4 years, I don't think there has been any more widely requested beer for us to brew than a Hefeweizen. I have always been reluctant to do so since our equipment doesn't allow for raising the mash temperature. Being able to do a stepped infusion mash would allow us to conduct an acid rest which would create ferulic acid for the yeast to convert into 4-vinylguaiacol. 4VG is the compound that gives great hefeweizens their clove-like flavor. Many American brewers try to brew hefeweizens with a single infusion mash and they end up with banana bombs.
I think a large part of the problem is that there is a belief among American brewers that the Germans are only using Pilsen and Wheat malts in their hefeweizens. That was what I had always been toldm(and what is stated in the BJCP guidelines... If you pay attention to a guideline where everything is made up and points don't really matter). While historically it is true that German hefeweizen brewers typically did use only Wheat and Pilsner malt, they also typically did decoction mashes. A decoction is where you pull a portion of the mash, boil it, and add it back to the main mash to raise the temperature. A decoction results in a darker wort and sweet melanoiden flavors.
Most of the brewers in Germany now are still using multiple rest temperatures, but they do so with stepped infusions. A stepped infusion is very different because the mash is never boiled and the wort is not darkened. Instead, jackets around the mash tun are filled with steam to bring the temperature up. To my surprise, I learned that many Bavarian brewers had begun using darker colored malts and crystal malts in their hefeweizens. When discussing hefeweizen recipes with one of my professors at Doemens, they even suggested a recipe that was about 10% crystal malts. The color of that beer was a golden color reminiscent of Schneider's hefe and even though it was such a large percentage of crystal malt, it did not taste overly sweet the way I had expected. Surprisingly, the beer also had a great balance of clove to banana flavors.
As it turns out, some of the malts being made for hefeweizens today can achieve some natural phenolic flavors without the use of an acid rest. Weyermann CaraWheat even says in the description "It is almost 100% caramelized, and contributes some phenolic wheat flavors along with mild notes of caramel, almond, and biscuit." It is not surprising then that using this malt would contribute to a more traditional hefeweizen flavor and color than what we typically see from American brewers that are copying old German grain bills and not decocting their mashes. It is also not surprising that German brewers determined that decoctions were a waste of time if they could get the same flavors from an infusion mash.
The other important piece of hefeweizen brewing is the yeast. Hefeweizen yeast is a true top cropping yeast strain. It will alter its fermentation flavor profile rapidly if brewers crop yeast from the bottom of the fermenter. The vast majority of American breweries have closed cylindroconical fermenters, meaning the only real way to crop yeast is from the bottom. In Germany, wheat beer brewers use open top fermenters and they skim the yeast off the top. Many American brewers will attempt to bottom crop the yeast and they end up with flavorless hefeweizens with an excess amount of sulfur. We will not be reusing our yeast as a result. We did one yeast starter large enough for all of our batches.
The yeast strain we chose has the classic banana and clove flavors, but in addition, it produces plum, pear, and red apple esters. I have never been a fan of banana bombs and I would much rather have a well balanced hefeweizen more complex fruity flavors and high drinkability.
This is going to be a fun beer to release and it will be our first beer in cans. Be on the lookout for the cans in mid-April!
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Hopback!
It seems like for the last year, everything that we have done with hoppy beers has been working on decreasing bitterness while increasing overall hop flavor and aroma. I've probably stressed that point in hoppy beers more than anything else. When we introduced our Hopbursted IPA, it was really the beginning of a new (to us) process that we've used in every hoppy beer ever since. However, even when we put all of our hops in the kettle after we stop boiling, we still extract significant amounts of bitterness. In fact, a little over a year ago, we found out that our Pale Ale was getting about 45 IBU's just from our flameout hop addition after we sent our beers to a lab for analysis. After getting our results back, the way I began formulating recipes became much more exact with IBU calculations and it has helped us determine how we can cut back the bitterness levels.
As most of you know by now, we are changing the Weedy's Double IPA recipe. After brewing test batches at home, I realized that there would be no way for me to replicate the low amounts of bitterness I was getting on my 5 gallon system while getting all the hop aroma I was able to extract unless we changed some of our approach. We ended up getting a new hopback which is going to help out a lot. A hopback is really a pretty simple piece of equipment, but not one that is used very commonly. It is just a vessel that you fill with hops and run wort through before pumping the wort through the heat exchanger. With the hops being in contact with the hot wort for such a short amount of time, there is not time for the alpha acids to isomerize, so no bitterness is extracted. Instead, you are basically stripping the hops of their essential oils and capturing them in the wort.
Since the hopback has a false bottom, it can be filled with whole leaf hops. Our equipment was set up to be used with pellets, but whole leaf hops can offer some substantial benefits. Since the hops never get hammered, they are never subject to heat or any other type of damage and you don't lose any of the hop matter. Another nice benefit from the brewery production side is that the whole leaf hops will act as a filter when trub starts to come out of the kettle. When we were brewing the Double IPA before, the amount of hops that went into it meant that we only would recover about 23 barrels of beer out of an anticipated 30 barrel batch. Now, we will be able to filter out some of the hop material and recover some additional wort, hopefully getting us up to 26-27 barrels of beer.
The biggest advantage though to using a hopback is the way the oils get extracted right before chilling. There are a lot of people that think that a hopback just provides the oils in the same way that dry hopping does, so they determine that a hopback isn't worth their time. That isn't truly the case. The since all the essential oils are in the wort for all of the active fermentation, they have the ability to undergo a process known as biotransformation.
Biotransformation has turned into somewhat of a buzz word for a lot of brewers lately, but many brewers have yet to really learn what it is. The simple explanation is that yeast has the ability to take a compound (in this case, oils) and convert them into a different compound. The most common type of biotransformation is Geraniol into Beta-Citronella. Geraniol is a hop compound that is associated with floral flavors, sometimes even getting rose-like. Biotransormation can convert that compound into beta-Citronella which is very orange citrusy. Beers brewed with Citra (the hop that I have been frustrated with not being able to find), have proven to have a high amount of Citronella in them.
That has led to a lot of experimentation to find a way to maximize the flavors we desire from Citra, while using more readily available hops. Using hops high in Geraniol content (Cascade, Bravo, Apollo) therefore could potentially be used in a way that would allow us to get a Citra-like flavor. With the right yeast strain, it is possible that we could even create a more intensely aromatic Double IPA than would be possible with the yeast strain we were using before when we were using Citra. The yeast strain we have found has allowed us to take full advantage of biotransformation in a way that no other yeast strain I've seen is capable of doing.
Of course, the key to any good beer is to achieve some sort of balance of flavors. If the only flavor compound we got was Citronella, we wouldn't have a beer that resembles any type of hoppy flavor profile that we would enjoy. So the rest of the balancing act is getting flavors to compliment and balance the Citronella. In this case, some of the hops that we are using are high in Linalool. On its own, linalool has a distinctively fruity pebble flavor. With all the other flavor compounds though, it provides a sweet passion-fruit like flavor. When you combine those flavors along with the esters that our yeast strain provides (which have a very distinctive peach, mango, and tropical flavor), you can create a flavor profile unlike anything you will find from any hop with a neutral yeast strain.
Because of this biotransformation, it is actually pretty different to use a hopback than it is to just dry hop the beer. The great thing is that you can then dry hop during fermentation to take advantage of some other biotransformations, and follow that round of dry hops up with a second round of dry hopping post-fermentation in order to take advantage of the flavor compounds that were previously transformed and are then lost. This way, you can get a completely full range of flavors, taking advantage of 100% of the possible flavors from the hops. Using the whole leaf hops also means that all of the possible flavors haven't been lost or destroyed in the pelletizing process.
It is going to be a lot of fun getting this hopback installed and put to use!
Friday, March 4, 2016
Weedy's Update and Brett IPA Brewday
I've been having people asking me a lot of questions about how the new Weedy's recipe is coming along. I think we are close to having a recipe in place and we should be brewing it at some point in March. There are a lot of things we will be doing with it that will be pretty unique.
In my last blog post, I talked a lot about yeast and how we will be evolving a strain to get more of the peach esters. That is working out well so far. The first 5 gallon test batch has a lot of intense aromas from the yeast and it has the juiciness that I was hoping for. However, the yeast strain has the ability to take certain hop compounds and transfigure them into other flavor compounds... So basically, every hop that I am used to tasting one way could come out tasting completely different than what I think of them tasting like. In this case, I got a lot of mint flavor from Chinook hops and the Cascade gave a little bit of orange rind and earthiness. The end result is a very interesting, complex beer, but not what I would want to brew regularly. The second batch is just done fermenting and will be dry hopped differently. I have high hopes for it.
That said, the first batch showed a lot of promise as we re-formulate our recipe. It is very intensely hoppy, but the perceived bitterness is so low that I was actually worried that we wouldn't be able to scale the recipe up to our brewhouse because our hop utilization is pretty high. That has led us to buying a hopback to start using for this beer. A hopback is a small vessel where you can place hops to run wort through them right before chilling the wort and pitching yeast. The hops are in contact with the hot wort for such a small amount of time that you don't extract bitterness, but you do get all the hop aroma and flavor. That also will mean that we can use whole hops instead of pellets and have even better aroma.
While a hopback is fairly uncommon to see these days, that is far from the most unique thing this beer will feature. The thing that I'm most excited about is we will be doing open fermentation in horizontal fermenters. Utilizing the open fermenters, we will have more ester production from the yeast and the beer will clear slightly better (although, this will be a cloudy DIPA as it won't have any fining agents or be filtered). With open fermentation, we will be able to ferment the beer for the normal 3-4 days and then we will transfer the beer to a separate aging vessel where it will be dry hopped with whole leaf hops and naturally carbonated.
The beer will be cloudy. As I said in the last post about yeast, we want all the hop oils and resins that coat the yeast cells to remain in suspension. We won't be fining, filtering, or centrifuging because we want the flavors that are attached to the yeast cells. In addition to removing hop oils and resins, fining agents strip polyphenols ( an essential part of hop flavor), filtering introduces oxygen, and centrifuging puts excessive amounts of sheer force on the yeast, all of which can negatively effect hoppy flavor and aromas.
The natural carbonation is the last piece of the puzzle for this beer. It is pretty rare to see modern breweries "spund" fermenters. The basic idea with spunding is that you close off the fermenter right before the beer reaches its final gravity and let pressure build. This means we will be dry hopping under pressure and getting more aroma from the hops, but more importantly, the bubbles that form from natural carbonation are smaller than force carbonation. That means it will exhibit better head retention and release more aroma from the glass. The reason most breweries don't do that is because it increases the likelihood of sulfur compounds and diacetyl. However, since we will be fermenting in shallow fermenters, the risk of diacetyl is significantly lessened and sulfur production will not be a concern. With all the steps we are taking to increase flavor and aroma while decreasing bitterness, I think we will be seeing a very intense, unique DIPA.
Also, now that we got our Brett Pinstripe out of the fermenter (bottles should be shipping next week for those keeping an eye out for them), we are able to brew our next Brett beer. This time, we are brewing a Brett IPA with whole leaf Amarillo, Mandarina Bavaria, and Citra. I requested a custom Brettanomyces blend for this one which will give us a lot of stone fruit flavors as well as a subtle pineapple flavor. While the common school of thought with hoppy beers is always to drink fresh, this is one that I think will be great fresh and as it ages it will be fun to see how it changes. I expect a dry, subtly funky, moderately fruity, and very citrusy IPA to come out of this when it is fresh and as it ages, the stone fruit character will come out more and the funkiness will increase as it ages. As is the case with all of our hoppy beers, the Brett IPA is hop bursted and since Brett typically masks bitterness in IPA's, the perceived bitterness level will be very low. Be on the lookout for it sometime in April!
In my last blog post, I talked a lot about yeast and how we will be evolving a strain to get more of the peach esters. That is working out well so far. The first 5 gallon test batch has a lot of intense aromas from the yeast and it has the juiciness that I was hoping for. However, the yeast strain has the ability to take certain hop compounds and transfigure them into other flavor compounds... So basically, every hop that I am used to tasting one way could come out tasting completely different than what I think of them tasting like. In this case, I got a lot of mint flavor from Chinook hops and the Cascade gave a little bit of orange rind and earthiness. The end result is a very interesting, complex beer, but not what I would want to brew regularly. The second batch is just done fermenting and will be dry hopped differently. I have high hopes for it.
That said, the first batch showed a lot of promise as we re-formulate our recipe. It is very intensely hoppy, but the perceived bitterness is so low that I was actually worried that we wouldn't be able to scale the recipe up to our brewhouse because our hop utilization is pretty high. That has led us to buying a hopback to start using for this beer. A hopback is a small vessel where you can place hops to run wort through them right before chilling the wort and pitching yeast. The hops are in contact with the hot wort for such a small amount of time that you don't extract bitterness, but you do get all the hop aroma and flavor. That also will mean that we can use whole hops instead of pellets and have even better aroma.
While a hopback is fairly uncommon to see these days, that is far from the most unique thing this beer will feature. The thing that I'm most excited about is we will be doing open fermentation in horizontal fermenters. Utilizing the open fermenters, we will have more ester production from the yeast and the beer will clear slightly better (although, this will be a cloudy DIPA as it won't have any fining agents or be filtered). With open fermentation, we will be able to ferment the beer for the normal 3-4 days and then we will transfer the beer to a separate aging vessel where it will be dry hopped with whole leaf hops and naturally carbonated.
The beer will be cloudy. As I said in the last post about yeast, we want all the hop oils and resins that coat the yeast cells to remain in suspension. We won't be fining, filtering, or centrifuging because we want the flavors that are attached to the yeast cells. In addition to removing hop oils and resins, fining agents strip polyphenols ( an essential part of hop flavor), filtering introduces oxygen, and centrifuging puts excessive amounts of sheer force on the yeast, all of which can negatively effect hoppy flavor and aromas.
The natural carbonation is the last piece of the puzzle for this beer. It is pretty rare to see modern breweries "spund" fermenters. The basic idea with spunding is that you close off the fermenter right before the beer reaches its final gravity and let pressure build. This means we will be dry hopping under pressure and getting more aroma from the hops, but more importantly, the bubbles that form from natural carbonation are smaller than force carbonation. That means it will exhibit better head retention and release more aroma from the glass. The reason most breweries don't do that is because it increases the likelihood of sulfur compounds and diacetyl. However, since we will be fermenting in shallow fermenters, the risk of diacetyl is significantly lessened and sulfur production will not be a concern. With all the steps we are taking to increase flavor and aroma while decreasing bitterness, I think we will be seeing a very intense, unique DIPA.
Also, now that we got our Brett Pinstripe out of the fermenter (bottles should be shipping next week for those keeping an eye out for them), we are able to brew our next Brett beer. This time, we are brewing a Brett IPA with whole leaf Amarillo, Mandarina Bavaria, and Citra. I requested a custom Brettanomyces blend for this one which will give us a lot of stone fruit flavors as well as a subtle pineapple flavor. While the common school of thought with hoppy beers is always to drink fresh, this is one that I think will be great fresh and as it ages it will be fun to see how it changes. I expect a dry, subtly funky, moderately fruity, and very citrusy IPA to come out of this when it is fresh and as it ages, the stone fruit character will come out more and the funkiness will increase as it ages. As is the case with all of our hoppy beers, the Brett IPA is hop bursted and since Brett typically masks bitterness in IPA's, the perceived bitterness level will be very low. Be on the lookout for it sometime in April!
Monday, January 25, 2016
Weedy's Double Yeast Choices
After going to an awesome bottle share yesterday and talking to everyone there, I realized that a bunch of people were excited to get information about the new recipe I'm working on. Coincidentally, I'm anxious to start talking about it! Since I'm working on a yeast starter right now for a few test batches to be brewed this week, I figured I'll start my experiment updates with covering some yeast options.
When most people want to talk about DIPA recipes, everyone wants to discuss the hops. Obviously, hops are the big distinguishing ingredient of DIPA's. However, most people will get their exciting hops and then skimp on yeast selection. In my experience, anytime a homebrewer is asking for advice on a double ipa recipe, the common advice is always something like follows. 1. Keep the grain bill simple with little to none caramel malts. 2. Pick your favorite "C" hops (Cascade, Centennial, Citra, Chinook, Crystal, Columbus, etc.) and load up the hop additions at the end of the boil. 3. Pick a clean fermenting American Ale yeast (Wyeast 1056, White Labs 001, or Safale US-05). This is a proven recipe for success and it will make for a good starting point for a typical DIPA.
For the longest time, I followed that advice and I have made some really good beers that way. But now with so many people following the same formula for success, I've had to wonder what there is that is exciting about new Double IPA's. If everyone is doing that, what sets apart the great double IPA's from the average ones (other than brewing proficiency)? There are potentially 900-950 flavor compounds that can come from fermentation alone... Why wouldn't we want to take advantage of the potential flavors?
That train of thought lead to me thinking about some of the great double IPA's that have been brewed recently. In the last 2 years, we have seen a huge shift in the craft beer community as far as what is considered a great DIPA. One trend that I thought was funny was the sudden interest in cloudy DIPA's which seem to be typical of Northeastern breweries. The trend has caught on so much that now Stone has released an unfiltered variation of their Enjoy By series. It was so funny to me that we had released batches of cloudy Weedy's in the past by mistake and felt bad about it and now we have huge breweries purposefully releasing cloudy beers and customers that are complaining that the beers aren't cloudy enough.
So a week or two ago I had a little bit of a lightbulb moment. Stone's Unfiltered Enjoy By was a beer that I thought was pretty good, but not great. I didn't think that it had the same flavor components that some of the Northeast cloudy IPA's have and as a result, it really just kind of tasted like yeasty Enjoy By. In contrast, the Northeast IPA's I've had always seem to have significantly more hop flavor than the clearer, extremely hoppy West Coast IPA's. I started wondering how the cloudy IPA trend came to be. My theory: A few breweries brewed really good IPA's with special yeast strains (Notably, Conan yeast in Heady Topper and Hill Farmstead beers). Beer enthusiasts realized that the beer was world class beer despite the cloudy appearance and began to associate cloudy IPA's with these extremely tasty beers. So now cloudy IPA's are all the rage and breweries like Stone, Boston Beer, and others are trying to cash in on that by releasing their own beers that have sediment in the bottle.
The problem with that train of thought though, is that the breweries that are mimicking the appearance aren't getting the same flavors that the Northeast breweries are getting. Why? Because they are using yeast strains that are too neutral in flavor. What I believe has happened with some strains of yeast is that they have evolved in a way that they lose their ability to fall out of suspension when they are coated with hop oils and resins. Some yeast strains normally fall out of suspension very easily, but once you dry hop a beer that uses one of those specialized strains, they lose their ability to flocculate. So since those yeast cells are coated with hop oils and resins, there are flavors on those cells that would normally be lost in a clearer beer.
In addition to that, some of these strains have developed esters that can be confused for hop flavor. Some people describe these esters with words like "tropical," "peachy," "juicy," "fruity," "pear," and "melony." So when drinking an aggressively hopped double ipa fermented with one of these yeast strains, the distinction between hop flavors and fermentation flavors can be lost. With flavor profiles like that, it is hard to imagine why the common advice is still to use a neutral American Ale yeast strain. There are two yeast strains that I believe exhibit these characteristics that I will be experimenting with.
The first one is a strain that evolved from English yeast (believed to have originally been Boddington's house yeast). It is only available through a very small yeast lab and is not actually available for most brewers to use. However, if you know how to propagate yeast colonies, it can be a very rewarding strain. The second strain is from Wyeast and it is the strain that the first one is believed to be evolved from.
Since the beginning of my research on these yeast strains, I have known that I want to maximize the esters they produce. To do so, there are a few things that brewers normally try to control. 1. Temperature of Fermentation. 2. Amount of Yeast Pitched 3. Amount of Aeration of the Wort. The thing that most brewers don't have the ability to control which also has an impact on ester formation is the amount of pressure exerted on the beer in fermentation.
In most American breweries, the common type of fermentation vessel is a Cylindro-Conical vessel. These fermenters are great for the majority of beers a brewery would want to brew. However, there are flavor compounds that can be achieved with other types of fermenters. For example, if a fermenter is wide and shallow, the yeast wouldn't have as much pressure built up on it during fermentation and would increase ester production and decrease diacetyl production. Fortunately for us, we have a 1,000 gallon vessel that was originally intended to be used for lagering. For a multitude of reasons, we never did set it up as a lagering tank. Now, it can be used as a fermenter and we can have all the benefits that would come from open fermentation without the big downside (potential contamination from open air).
So the beginning of our DIPA experiment starts with yeast... The ingredient most frequently thought of last in a double. So where does that get us started?
1. The beer should exhibit intense esters that will be tropical in flavor
2. The beer will be cloudy with yeast covered in essential hop oils and resins
3. The beer will have a soft mouthfeel and will still be dry like our DIPA always has been
I would call that a good start!
When most people want to talk about DIPA recipes, everyone wants to discuss the hops. Obviously, hops are the big distinguishing ingredient of DIPA's. However, most people will get their exciting hops and then skimp on yeast selection. In my experience, anytime a homebrewer is asking for advice on a double ipa recipe, the common advice is always something like follows. 1. Keep the grain bill simple with little to none caramel malts. 2. Pick your favorite "C" hops (Cascade, Centennial, Citra, Chinook, Crystal, Columbus, etc.) and load up the hop additions at the end of the boil. 3. Pick a clean fermenting American Ale yeast (Wyeast 1056, White Labs 001, or Safale US-05). This is a proven recipe for success and it will make for a good starting point for a typical DIPA.
For the longest time, I followed that advice and I have made some really good beers that way. But now with so many people following the same formula for success, I've had to wonder what there is that is exciting about new Double IPA's. If everyone is doing that, what sets apart the great double IPA's from the average ones (other than brewing proficiency)? There are potentially 900-950 flavor compounds that can come from fermentation alone... Why wouldn't we want to take advantage of the potential flavors?
That train of thought lead to me thinking about some of the great double IPA's that have been brewed recently. In the last 2 years, we have seen a huge shift in the craft beer community as far as what is considered a great DIPA. One trend that I thought was funny was the sudden interest in cloudy DIPA's which seem to be typical of Northeastern breweries. The trend has caught on so much that now Stone has released an unfiltered variation of their Enjoy By series. It was so funny to me that we had released batches of cloudy Weedy's in the past by mistake and felt bad about it and now we have huge breweries purposefully releasing cloudy beers and customers that are complaining that the beers aren't cloudy enough.
So a week or two ago I had a little bit of a lightbulb moment. Stone's Unfiltered Enjoy By was a beer that I thought was pretty good, but not great. I didn't think that it had the same flavor components that some of the Northeast cloudy IPA's have and as a result, it really just kind of tasted like yeasty Enjoy By. In contrast, the Northeast IPA's I've had always seem to have significantly more hop flavor than the clearer, extremely hoppy West Coast IPA's. I started wondering how the cloudy IPA trend came to be. My theory: A few breweries brewed really good IPA's with special yeast strains (Notably, Conan yeast in Heady Topper and Hill Farmstead beers). Beer enthusiasts realized that the beer was world class beer despite the cloudy appearance and began to associate cloudy IPA's with these extremely tasty beers. So now cloudy IPA's are all the rage and breweries like Stone, Boston Beer, and others are trying to cash in on that by releasing their own beers that have sediment in the bottle.
The problem with that train of thought though, is that the breweries that are mimicking the appearance aren't getting the same flavors that the Northeast breweries are getting. Why? Because they are using yeast strains that are too neutral in flavor. What I believe has happened with some strains of yeast is that they have evolved in a way that they lose their ability to fall out of suspension when they are coated with hop oils and resins. Some yeast strains normally fall out of suspension very easily, but once you dry hop a beer that uses one of those specialized strains, they lose their ability to flocculate. So since those yeast cells are coated with hop oils and resins, there are flavors on those cells that would normally be lost in a clearer beer.
In addition to that, some of these strains have developed esters that can be confused for hop flavor. Some people describe these esters with words like "tropical," "peachy," "juicy," "fruity," "pear," and "melony." So when drinking an aggressively hopped double ipa fermented with one of these yeast strains, the distinction between hop flavors and fermentation flavors can be lost. With flavor profiles like that, it is hard to imagine why the common advice is still to use a neutral American Ale yeast strain. There are two yeast strains that I believe exhibit these characteristics that I will be experimenting with.
The first one is a strain that evolved from English yeast (believed to have originally been Boddington's house yeast). It is only available through a very small yeast lab and is not actually available for most brewers to use. However, if you know how to propagate yeast colonies, it can be a very rewarding strain. The second strain is from Wyeast and it is the strain that the first one is believed to be evolved from.
Since the beginning of my research on these yeast strains, I have known that I want to maximize the esters they produce. To do so, there are a few things that brewers normally try to control. 1. Temperature of Fermentation. 2. Amount of Yeast Pitched 3. Amount of Aeration of the Wort. The thing that most brewers don't have the ability to control which also has an impact on ester formation is the amount of pressure exerted on the beer in fermentation.
In most American breweries, the common type of fermentation vessel is a Cylindro-Conical vessel. These fermenters are great for the majority of beers a brewery would want to brew. However, there are flavor compounds that can be achieved with other types of fermenters. For example, if a fermenter is wide and shallow, the yeast wouldn't have as much pressure built up on it during fermentation and would increase ester production and decrease diacetyl production. Fortunately for us, we have a 1,000 gallon vessel that was originally intended to be used for lagering. For a multitude of reasons, we never did set it up as a lagering tank. Now, it can be used as a fermenter and we can have all the benefits that would come from open fermentation without the big downside (potential contamination from open air).
So the beginning of our DIPA experiment starts with yeast... The ingredient most frequently thought of last in a double. So where does that get us started?
1. The beer should exhibit intense esters that will be tropical in flavor
2. The beer will be cloudy with yeast covered in essential hop oils and resins
3. The beer will have a soft mouthfeel and will still be dry like our DIPA always has been
I would call that a good start!
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Weedy's Double is Getting a Facelift
For the last 2 years, we've known that the Weedy's Double IPA recipe was in need of a change, but we've been able to delay the need. 2 years ago, we were told that we would no longer be able to get Citra hops from our supplier due to high demand and low quantity. We have watched as the resale value of Citra has gone from $12 per pound to $30 per pound. In the past, we have made some pretty crazy prices for ingredients in order to make the highest quality beer possible, but at $30 per pound, were forced to draw the line. We were lucky enough that we were able to get enough Citra for two batches of Weedy's this year since we were on a waiting list just in case there was extra available.
Running out of Citra actually did come as a bit of a surprise since we did have it on contract for a few years. However, the reason for the shortage was made apparent recently. With the release of New Belgium's Citradelic, I ran some quick math. Using some very generous estimates, I estimated that they would be using between 50,000-100,000 lbs of Citra in the coming year. There was already a shortage before they began brewing Citradelic, so while it is unfair to point the finger only at New Belgium, the truth is there are hundreds of breweries that would have loved to have Citra available to them that would have brewed beers that are much more exciting than Citradelic is.
As a result, we have had to face some really difficult questions... Should we stop brewing Weedy's (one of our most popular beers)? Should we try to find a hop substitute? Is it time for a full on recipe change?
In regards to stopping brewing the beer, we would be forced to do so if we couldn't come up with a recipe that was better than the original. Just being as good as the original would not be enough. Finding a hop substitute is not a real option either. Galaxy is a hop that is very similar to Citra (and arguably, Mosaic is similar as well) but neither of those hops are more readily available than Citra now.
The idea of changing a successful recipe is always a difficult thing to wrap our heads around . Many breweries (even large craft breweries) will change recipes for this exact same reason as we are now, but instead of being open about it, they try to hide it. As consumers, when we notice the change, it is all too often that we are disappointed. For that reason, if we are going to change the recipe I decided that the beer can't just be as good as the original, it needs to be better. In addition, I want to be very open about the fact that we have changed the beer. I really believe our consumers deserve to know that.
Sidetrack rambling: Something interesting about the original recipe is that we never intended for it to become a regular beer when we first brewed it. I wanted to brew a small batch of a Double IPA for the taproom back in 2011. I used a recipe that was very similar to some recipes that I had brewed at home when I was 19 years old and the beer sold shockingly well. A 1 barrel batch was soldout in 3 nights. Naming the beer was also pretty funny... When I kegged the beer and put it on tap, we didn't have a name for it. I suggested putting it on the board without a name and just calling it "Double IPA." Doug thought I should get credit for the beer and he put my name in front of it. After seeing how well it sold in the taproom, Pants and Chris (Alabama sales rep) decided we should put it in bottles and Chris suggested keeping the name as it was. So there I was, 21 years old with a Double IPA with my name on it available in bottles at grocery stores.
So now we are faced with the task of giving a very popular beer an upgrade. Over the next few weeks, I will be brewing some homebrew batches (breaking out the old homebrewing equipment!) and experimenting with a few theories I've been working on. In the last few weeks, I've tried about 20 different Double IPA's and I've been taking notes on specific things that I think are good and bad about each beer. In addition, I've been reading reviews on BeerAdvocate, RateBeer, Untappd, and on other blogger's posts.
Through my research, I've learned some very interesting things about hop varieties and some specialized yeast strains. I believe completely that with the experiences I've had in the last 4 years, education from brewing school, and with the new products available to brewers today that I will be able to develop a recipe that blows the original out of the water. This is going to be a wildly fun project for me and in addition to experimenting with new hop varieties and yeast strains, we will be experimenting with different fermenter shapes and designs which will allow us to utilize flavor compounds that no other brewery in Alabama (or that I know of in the Southeast) is capable of reproducing. Stay tuned over the next few weeks as I keep updates on the experiments!
Running out of Citra actually did come as a bit of a surprise since we did have it on contract for a few years. However, the reason for the shortage was made apparent recently. With the release of New Belgium's Citradelic, I ran some quick math. Using some very generous estimates, I estimated that they would be using between 50,000-100,000 lbs of Citra in the coming year. There was already a shortage before they began brewing Citradelic, so while it is unfair to point the finger only at New Belgium, the truth is there are hundreds of breweries that would have loved to have Citra available to them that would have brewed beers that are much more exciting than Citradelic is.
As a result, we have had to face some really difficult questions... Should we stop brewing Weedy's (one of our most popular beers)? Should we try to find a hop substitute? Is it time for a full on recipe change?
In regards to stopping brewing the beer, we would be forced to do so if we couldn't come up with a recipe that was better than the original. Just being as good as the original would not be enough. Finding a hop substitute is not a real option either. Galaxy is a hop that is very similar to Citra (and arguably, Mosaic is similar as well) but neither of those hops are more readily available than Citra now.
The idea of changing a successful recipe is always a difficult thing to wrap our heads around . Many breweries (even large craft breweries) will change recipes for this exact same reason as we are now, but instead of being open about it, they try to hide it. As consumers, when we notice the change, it is all too often that we are disappointed. For that reason, if we are going to change the recipe I decided that the beer can't just be as good as the original, it needs to be better. In addition, I want to be very open about the fact that we have changed the beer. I really believe our consumers deserve to know that.
Sidetrack rambling: Something interesting about the original recipe is that we never intended for it to become a regular beer when we first brewed it. I wanted to brew a small batch of a Double IPA for the taproom back in 2011. I used a recipe that was very similar to some recipes that I had brewed at home when I was 19 years old and the beer sold shockingly well. A 1 barrel batch was soldout in 3 nights. Naming the beer was also pretty funny... When I kegged the beer and put it on tap, we didn't have a name for it. I suggested putting it on the board without a name and just calling it "Double IPA." Doug thought I should get credit for the beer and he put my name in front of it. After seeing how well it sold in the taproom, Pants and Chris (Alabama sales rep) decided we should put it in bottles and Chris suggested keeping the name as it was. So there I was, 21 years old with a Double IPA with my name on it available in bottles at grocery stores.
So now we are faced with the task of giving a very popular beer an upgrade. Over the next few weeks, I will be brewing some homebrew batches (breaking out the old homebrewing equipment!) and experimenting with a few theories I've been working on. In the last few weeks, I've tried about 20 different Double IPA's and I've been taking notes on specific things that I think are good and bad about each beer. In addition, I've been reading reviews on BeerAdvocate, RateBeer, Untappd, and on other blogger's posts.
Through my research, I've learned some very interesting things about hop varieties and some specialized yeast strains. I believe completely that with the experiences I've had in the last 4 years, education from brewing school, and with the new products available to brewers today that I will be able to develop a recipe that blows the original out of the water. This is going to be a wildly fun project for me and in addition to experimenting with new hop varieties and yeast strains, we will be experimenting with different fermenter shapes and designs which will allow us to utilize flavor compounds that no other brewery in Alabama (or that I know of in the Southeast) is capable of reproducing. Stay tuned over the next few weeks as I keep updates on the experiments!
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
The Return of the Pils!
Last year was the first time we brewed our Spring seasonal Pilsener. When it came out, I made the statement that I thought it was the best beer we'd made. I still believe that even though we have improved our processes and techniques, that the Pils is the best beer we have in our portfolio.
It was funny when we released it a year ago, we had no clue how popular it would be. We had concerns that too many people would see "Pilsener" and be reminded of Lite American "Triple Hops Brewed" beers... The thought was that craft beer drinkers would pass over it thinking it was supposed to be a light beer and light beer drinkers would complain that it was too hoppy.
To combat the lite beer conception, we made sure that we always referred to it as "German Style Pilsener" and then we tried to stress that we used all German ingredients and that the concept for the beer came from Augustiner's Pils. We used a hop schedule very similar to Augustiner, which is a fairly unique schedule in which all the hops are added in the whirlpool... It is essentially a hopbursted Pils recipe, instead of the more common technique used by Germans where they have a bittering addition and two flavor additions. When I first had the Augustiner Pils in Germany, I couldn't believe how much fresher the beer tasted than all the other Pilseners I drank in Germany. The hops came through with a little bit of a spicy, grassy, and lemony flavor.
My only complaint with the beer was that the hop flavor felt incomplete without a little bit of bitterness. That's a fairly common trait of German noble hop varieties, so when I developed the Pils recipe last year, I did have a very small bittering addition of about 5 IBU's. The other 28 IBU's comes only from a whirlpool addition of a blend of hops from the Hallertauer region of Germany.
A lot of people seem to remember that we insisted on using a specific type of Pils malt that wasn't available through our supplier, but we felt strongly enough about it that we spent almost $4,000 just for the shipping of the malts (Normally for the same amount of malt, our shipping cost would be closer to $300). We bought all that we could of the Pils malt and it only allowed us to brew 180 barrels of the beer. This year, we ordered a full truckload of malts from Weyermann and we will be able to brew either 360 or 420 barrels, plus 60 barrels of an Imperial Pilsener to follow in late Spring.
The funny thing about how happy I was with the beer last year though, was that it wasn't actually the recipe that I really wanted to brew. I wanted to use Hallertau Mittlefreu hops, but they are not widely grown and we could not find any available. I ended up settling on a blend that included a Mittlefreu substitute, Hallertau Tradition. Even with settling on other hops, we had to order some hops last year that were two years old due to low availability. Knowing that it would be a problem when we needed to brew more this year, I went ahead and got all the hops that we thought we would need on contract for this year's batches. In a somewhat ironic twist of fate however, we got word that Germany's hops had a terrible yield this year and our contract for next year was rejected. It doesn't impact this year's hops, but we knew we would need to do some experimentation to come up with a good substitute for next year.
Funnily enough, a friend at a hop supplier called me and told me that he would let us contract for the original hops that I wanted to use last year and that he could also get us the Mittlefreu for experimentation for this year. So while we are brewing the same recipe as last year, we also are getting to experiment with what would have been the original recipe so that we can work out next year's beer without any dip in quality. I actually anticipate liking the Mittlefreu version a little bit better, especially since the hop supplier uses a low temperature pelletizer which allows more hop oils to be retained in the pellets, which means an even fresher flavor which more closely resembles whole leaf hops. The flavor of the different hop varieties will be very similar to the original, and it actually may not even be noticeable in a blind taste test that the hops are different. That said, the experimental batch will not be released on its own and what will be shipped in bottles and draft will be the same as last year's recipe, but I probably will pull a keg or two for the taproom for those interested in trying it.
I think of all the beers that we have brewed recently, this is the one that I still look forward to the most. At the end of today, we will already have brewed the first 180 BBL of this year's Pils. In about 6 weeks, I fully anticipate my personal productivity level to take a severe nosedive. Prost!
It was funny when we released it a year ago, we had no clue how popular it would be. We had concerns that too many people would see "Pilsener" and be reminded of Lite American "Triple Hops Brewed" beers... The thought was that craft beer drinkers would pass over it thinking it was supposed to be a light beer and light beer drinkers would complain that it was too hoppy.
To combat the lite beer conception, we made sure that we always referred to it as "German Style Pilsener" and then we tried to stress that we used all German ingredients and that the concept for the beer came from Augustiner's Pils. We used a hop schedule very similar to Augustiner, which is a fairly unique schedule in which all the hops are added in the whirlpool... It is essentially a hopbursted Pils recipe, instead of the more common technique used by Germans where they have a bittering addition and two flavor additions. When I first had the Augustiner Pils in Germany, I couldn't believe how much fresher the beer tasted than all the other Pilseners I drank in Germany. The hops came through with a little bit of a spicy, grassy, and lemony flavor.
My only complaint with the beer was that the hop flavor felt incomplete without a little bit of bitterness. That's a fairly common trait of German noble hop varieties, so when I developed the Pils recipe last year, I did have a very small bittering addition of about 5 IBU's. The other 28 IBU's comes only from a whirlpool addition of a blend of hops from the Hallertauer region of Germany.
A lot of people seem to remember that we insisted on using a specific type of Pils malt that wasn't available through our supplier, but we felt strongly enough about it that we spent almost $4,000 just for the shipping of the malts (Normally for the same amount of malt, our shipping cost would be closer to $300). We bought all that we could of the Pils malt and it only allowed us to brew 180 barrels of the beer. This year, we ordered a full truckload of malts from Weyermann and we will be able to brew either 360 or 420 barrels, plus 60 barrels of an Imperial Pilsener to follow in late Spring.
The funny thing about how happy I was with the beer last year though, was that it wasn't actually the recipe that I really wanted to brew. I wanted to use Hallertau Mittlefreu hops, but they are not widely grown and we could not find any available. I ended up settling on a blend that included a Mittlefreu substitute, Hallertau Tradition. Even with settling on other hops, we had to order some hops last year that were two years old due to low availability. Knowing that it would be a problem when we needed to brew more this year, I went ahead and got all the hops that we thought we would need on contract for this year's batches. In a somewhat ironic twist of fate however, we got word that Germany's hops had a terrible yield this year and our contract for next year was rejected. It doesn't impact this year's hops, but we knew we would need to do some experimentation to come up with a good substitute for next year.
Funnily enough, a friend at a hop supplier called me and told me that he would let us contract for the original hops that I wanted to use last year and that he could also get us the Mittlefreu for experimentation for this year. So while we are brewing the same recipe as last year, we also are getting to experiment with what would have been the original recipe so that we can work out next year's beer without any dip in quality. I actually anticipate liking the Mittlefreu version a little bit better, especially since the hop supplier uses a low temperature pelletizer which allows more hop oils to be retained in the pellets, which means an even fresher flavor which more closely resembles whole leaf hops. The flavor of the different hop varieties will be very similar to the original, and it actually may not even be noticeable in a blind taste test that the hops are different. That said, the experimental batch will not be released on its own and what will be shipped in bottles and draft will be the same as last year's recipe, but I probably will pull a keg or two for the taproom for those interested in trying it.
I think of all the beers that we have brewed recently, this is the one that I still look forward to the most. At the end of today, we will already have brewed the first 180 BBL of this year's Pils. In about 6 weeks, I fully anticipate my personal productivity level to take a severe nosedive. Prost!
Friday, November 20, 2015
New Beer Brewday: Brett Fermented Pinstripe
Today we are working on the Pinstripe variant that I have been looking forward to the most. While people love the flavored variants, my favorite thing with brewing has always been experimenting with malt, hops, and yeast. It is somewhat unfortunate that yeast is the most commonly overlooked ingredient in the brewing world since fermentation accounts for over 90% of the flavor compounds in every beer we drink. Our twist on this Pinstripe variant will exploit that statement in a pretty extreme way... Today we are brewing the first 100% Brettanomyces fermented beer to go in bottles in Alabama.
One of the fun things about Brett is that it seems to have a mind of its own. Even the brewers most experienced with Brett fermentations will tell you that it is unpredictable. Even when brewers repeat beers with the exact same recipe, temperatures, pH levels, water chemistry, etc. Brett seems to behave a little bit differently every time you brew with it. The unpredictability combined with the fact that brewers get concerned about cross contaminating "clean" beers is the main reason that we don't see more beers on the market.
I am hoping that by brewing this beer we can clear up a few common misconceptions about Brett beers. I was a huge fan of Yazoo's naming of their recent beer "Brett... Not Sour." So many people think of Brett beers as sour beers because Brett is a common component in sours. Brett on its own though does not produce *much* lactic acid. In fact, when used on its own, a lot of times Brett resembles normal Saccharomyces fermentations as far as flavor goes. The Brett strain that we chose for this Pinstripe variant is well known for its pie cherry flavor.
Another common misconception is that Brett beers have a horse blanket flavor. However, when Brett is used on its own, it does not have another yeast strain to compete with and it is unable to re-esterficate another yeast's byproducts. It is possible to still get a little bit of barnyard funk, but the dominant flavored typically involve more spicy flavors, or (my preference) fruity flavors. In some cases, Brett flavors can even be confused for fruity hop characters.
Lastly, people always expect Brett beers to take years to be ready to drink. In actuality, Brett fermentations can be done in the same amount of time as most lagers (12 days or so). Some of the confusion comes because Brett has the ability to ferment much larger chains of sugar than Saccharomyces can. When Brett is added to a clean fermentation, the Saccharomyces strain will only leave behind the larger sugar chains and the Brett works slowly to metabolize them. She used on its own though, the Brett is much more active and will tear through the larger sugar chains with ease. However, the timeline that Brett follows is very different from Saccharomyces... Instead of having a lag phase, log phase, stationary phase, and death phase, it will go through a lag, log, lag, stationary, and then a very long lag phase before dying.
Because of this unique timeline, Brett can live for a very long time. It will also continue to evolve the flavors in a beer for its entire lifespan. For this reason, I recommend buying several bottles and collaring them to experience all the different flavor profiles that Brett can develop. A lot of breweries will age Brett beers before sending them out, but we want you to be able to enjoy a fresh bottle, as well as aged bottles. If everything goes well with our fermentation, this beer could be ready to drink in as little as 4 weeks. I will be cellaring a case myself and I plan on drinking a bottle fresh, one at 3 months, another at 6 months, another at 12 months, and then one every six months afterwards. The maximum amount of pie cherry flavor should be present in the 3-6 month age range.
This should be a very unique beer for our area and even pretty unique for beers brewed in the U.S. New Belgium and Lost Abbey are frequently credited with being the first breweries to brew 100% Brett beers and that was only in 2004 that the first batch was brewed. Since then, very few breweries have taken the risk to brew 100% Brett beers, and I am very excited to be included in that group after today!
One of the fun things about Brett is that it seems to have a mind of its own. Even the brewers most experienced with Brett fermentations will tell you that it is unpredictable. Even when brewers repeat beers with the exact same recipe, temperatures, pH levels, water chemistry, etc. Brett seems to behave a little bit differently every time you brew with it. The unpredictability combined with the fact that brewers get concerned about cross contaminating "clean" beers is the main reason that we don't see more beers on the market.
I am hoping that by brewing this beer we can clear up a few common misconceptions about Brett beers. I was a huge fan of Yazoo's naming of their recent beer "Brett... Not Sour." So many people think of Brett beers as sour beers because Brett is a common component in sours. Brett on its own though does not produce *much* lactic acid. In fact, when used on its own, a lot of times Brett resembles normal Saccharomyces fermentations as far as flavor goes. The Brett strain that we chose for this Pinstripe variant is well known for its pie cherry flavor.
Another common misconception is that Brett beers have a horse blanket flavor. However, when Brett is used on its own, it does not have another yeast strain to compete with and it is unable to re-esterficate another yeast's byproducts. It is possible to still get a little bit of barnyard funk, but the dominant flavored typically involve more spicy flavors, or (my preference) fruity flavors. In some cases, Brett flavors can even be confused for fruity hop characters.
Lastly, people always expect Brett beers to take years to be ready to drink. In actuality, Brett fermentations can be done in the same amount of time as most lagers (12 days or so). Some of the confusion comes because Brett has the ability to ferment much larger chains of sugar than Saccharomyces can. When Brett is added to a clean fermentation, the Saccharomyces strain will only leave behind the larger sugar chains and the Brett works slowly to metabolize them. She used on its own though, the Brett is much more active and will tear through the larger sugar chains with ease. However, the timeline that Brett follows is very different from Saccharomyces... Instead of having a lag phase, log phase, stationary phase, and death phase, it will go through a lag, log, lag, stationary, and then a very long lag phase before dying.
Because of this unique timeline, Brett can live for a very long time. It will also continue to evolve the flavors in a beer for its entire lifespan. For this reason, I recommend buying several bottles and collaring them to experience all the different flavor profiles that Brett can develop. A lot of breweries will age Brett beers before sending them out, but we want you to be able to enjoy a fresh bottle, as well as aged bottles. If everything goes well with our fermentation, this beer could be ready to drink in as little as 4 weeks. I will be cellaring a case myself and I plan on drinking a bottle fresh, one at 3 months, another at 6 months, another at 12 months, and then one every six months afterwards. The maximum amount of pie cherry flavor should be present in the 3-6 month age range.
This should be a very unique beer for our area and even pretty unique for beers brewed in the U.S. New Belgium and Lost Abbey are frequently credited with being the first breweries to brew 100% Brett beers and that was only in 2004 that the first batch was brewed. Since then, very few breweries have taken the risk to brew 100% Brett beers, and I am very excited to be included in that group after today!
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