Diageo screw Brewdog

This is slightly off-topic, but I thought you might find this interesting. You can’t make this sort of stuff up.

http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/diageo-v-brewdog

Frankly, I don’t think craft breweries like Brewdog are a threat to the monstrous super-tankers that are the drinks giants. I just can’t see craft beer taking any appreciable slice of the “fizzy crap” end of the market any time soon. And let’s face it, that must be 95% of the market. But it’s very interesting that Diageo see Brewdog as a threat. Something of an own-goal methinks…

The importance of maturation

When we first started making beer I was obviously extremely keen to start drinking our beers as soon as possible. Andy, on the other hand, was always the voice of restraint. He argued that every beer needs plenty of time to mature before it is consumed.

He’s absolutely right of course, and if you read my previous post about the American Amber Ale tasting you’ll see what I mean. When we first tried it (after a couple of weeks in the barrel) the flavours just had not blended. It was like drinking two different beers in one glass.

I have a suspicion that some of the “green” taste that many people associate with home-brew beers is largely down to lack of maturation too.

So what happens to the flavours during maturation? It’s a little hard to express, but once you start tasting beers through their lifecycle you start to pick up on how the flavours mellow out and blend over time. It’s a bit like eating a chilli that has not had a couple of hours of slow simmering: the flavours are all there, but are separate and distinct. Time is needed for them to blend into a new thing.

Initially the bitterness of a beer is much more pronounced. This eases off after 4-6 weeks, and so is something that needs to be compensated for in the recipe if you want a very bitter beer. Also, unfortunately, the hop flavours and (especially) aromas ease off too. This is perhaps the one downside to a long maturation – you can loose those crisp young fresh hop aromas. I certainly noticed that with the First Gold Experiment (again, see previous posting).

So how long should beer be matured for? Well I’d say 2-3 weeks as an absolute minimum. (Andy would say 4-6 weeks minimum!). For a light hoppy beer the minimum is probably OK; for a dark ale like a porter it should be more. For lagers, maturing them for a long time very cold is all part of the process – it is not a lager if this isn’t done. In fact “lager” is the German word for “store”.

As far as we are concerned, this extended maturation phase means a couple of things:

1. We need more barrels! Currently we have three. That is just about enough, but having four would allow us to leave beers alone for longer.
2. We should aim to brew some of our darker winter beers earlier and lay them down in bottles for a long maturation phase. We plan to do this soon – we have a winter porter on the list for the brew after next.

Mini Beer Festival

I had some ex-work friends over on Thursday night. We usually go into Wilmslow for beer, curry and a chat once a month, but since I have three barrels of beer ready to drink in the garage, I suggested they come to me first for a sampling session.

So the poor guys ended up trapped in my garage whilst I babbled on about step infusion mashes and alpha acid isomerisation. They nodded with polite interest, but I am pleased to say that the beer was consumed with some enthusiasm. It’s fortunate that the by-product of my hobby is something most of my friends seem very happy to drink!

I have previously blogged about the making of all three of the beers we drank that night, but what I haven’t done is write some tasting notes now the beers are being drunk. So here we go.

First Gold Experiment

Many of our beers at the moment use just a single hop variety. We’re doing this because there is such a huge range of hops available these days, and we want to understand what they are like. I first heard about the First Gold variety through the Badger beer of the same name. It’s an English dwarf hop with huge versatility both for bittering and also for flavour and aroma.

We made a simple, pale ale and used plenty of First Gold hops. Initially it had a wonderful sweet, spicy and slightly citrus (for an English hop) aroma and good robust bitterness. Over the weeks this has eased off a lot, leaving a rich and balanced English ale. We’re very pleased with this variety and I’d certainly choose to use it again.

American Amber Ale

The recipe for this was based on a recipe in Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff. It has a fairly complex grain bill: pale ale malt, munich malt, two types of crystal malt and also biscuit malt. You can certainly get the orangey flavour of the munich malt in this rich and sweet amber ale. The hops are two US varieties: Centennial and Amarillo.

When we first tried this beer it was a strange beast. The aroma of the hops was very strident – quite a distinct flowery and citrus aroma. But the taste of the beer just didn’t match it. It was like drinking two different beers in the same glass. I worried that we’d cocked it up, but it is surprising what a number of weeks maturation can do. Gradually the strong hop aroma eased off enough for the beer to blend itself into a satisfyingly sweet ale. The colour of the head is curiously orange (probably that munich malt).

I think if we did it again I would try to make it a little less sweet, but other than that I’m very pleased with it.

The Guildford Ginger

This is probably the most experimental of the three. We devised the recipe by looking on a few internet forums, and then sticking a finger in the air.

The amount of ginger to use was our major concern – some people reported a few hundred grams; others over a kilogram! In the end we used 800g of very fresh grated ginger in the boil, and it was perfect. The beer has a robust ginger aroma and flavour without being too overpowering. There is also a slight kick at the back of the throat that stays with you for quite a while. You know you are drinking ginger, without it going too far. We’d happily brew this one again without any changes to the recipe.