‘Moritz and Morris, writing in 1891, i.e. before the introduction of filtered draught beers in England, state:-This ninteenth century view seems to have held sway all through the twentieth century. It's only in the twenty first that brewers discovered how to change worthless cloudy beer into something highly valuable by simply labelling it "craft".
“Beer nowadays is demanded in absolutely brilliant condition, and however good it may be in other respects it will be returned to the brewer as unsalable if it is in the least cloudy or turbid. That such is the case is probably due first to the importation into this country of Lager and Pilsner beers (which are always brilliant) and to the substitution in public houses and restaurants of the old fashioned mugs by glasses. The brewer, therefore, must strain every nerve to send out beer which will be absolutely brilliant within a very short time of its delivery at the customers’ cellars.”’
Thursday, 22 October 2015
Some early thoughts on beer clarity
Reading through an old JIB article I saw something from even earlier being quoted on the hardy perennial issue of beer clarity:
Great stuff Ed. You can't re-invent beer, just polish a turd it seems.
ReplyDeleteAs I have seen about 50 beers this year with added herbs,spices ,fruit and veg brewed in the UK I would say we have re-invented beer. oldgeezer
DeleteMaybe I spend too much time reading beer history but I can't see things that have been done for millennia as something new.
DeleteI'm going to re-invent beer by using hops instead of gruit.
DeleteOoooo...innovative. Sounds awesome.
DeleteGreat post.
ReplyDeleteI was always slightly suspicious of the argument that glassware contributed to the popularity of Pilsner, as mentioned here — it just seemed too pat, too materialist, too easy. However I recently found a Czech newspaper article from 1887 that talks about the importance of beer color, clarity and appearance due to the widespread use of glasses, and it notes that only the Bavarians at the time were still drinking out of ceramic mugs, rather than glassware, "like we used to, back in the good old days."
Not a big fan of most cloudy "craft" beers myself.
Interesting, it's always good to see contemporary accounts. I suspect having paler beers made clarity more important too.
Delete