Molson Coors have spent a lot of money on the Worthington's microbrewery. And they've hired a former brewer of the year to run it. But I can't say I've noticed anything exciting coming out of their fermenting vessels.
Surely with all the historical logs to plunder and the crazy world of craft innovation there should be a steady stream of drinking delights pouring out of Burton-upon-Trent. Anyone know what's going on?
Tuesday, 25 February 2014
Sunday, 23 February 2014
We were born to go
As I'm sure you're all aware there was a momentous event in London yesterday: Hawkwind were performing Space Ritual
. Over the years I have pretty much seen all the bands I've ever wanted to see, but I did have a slight regret that I was too young to have seen Hawkwind on the Space Ritual tour. It was recorded for what is without doubt the finest album ever made, particularly as it now comes with the Roadhawks version of You shouldn't do that.
The show was in aid of animal charities so I was slightly concerned we'd be harangued by hectoring herbivores throughout the evening but a well timed arrival and toilet break meant I managed to miss most of that.
Hawkwind were supporting themselves so we were treated to a first set which included a lot of stuff from the Astounding Sounds
era before the main event.
At soon after 9pm the band returned and as promised played the entirety of Space Ritual, even including the poetry. I suppose with Bob Calvert long dead, Lemmy not there, and Nik Turner still feuding with Dave Brock it wasn't quite up there with the original but they'd managed to get Brian Blessed to do Sonic Attack which was fun, and way better than the last time I saw them wheel out a celebrity guest when Sam Fox slaughtered Master of the Universe.
We didn't get You shouldn't to that as an encore, instead they did Silver Machine which was quite fitting. It's a bit of a mystery why it never made the album, and it was its success as a single that paid for the Space Ritual tour in the first place.
As to the liquid refreshements I was please to see that craft beer was on sale. Well, it was all on keg and the Guinness was £4.90 a pint so I'm pretty sure it was craft.
. Over the years I have pretty much seen all the bands I've ever wanted to see, but I did have a slight regret that I was too young to have seen Hawkwind on the Space Ritual tour. It was recorded for what is without doubt the finest album ever made, particularly as it now comes with the Roadhawks version of You shouldn't do that.The show was in aid of animal charities so I was slightly concerned we'd be harangued by hectoring herbivores throughout the evening but a well timed arrival and toilet break meant I managed to miss most of that.
Hawkwind were supporting themselves so we were treated to a first set which included a lot of stuff from the Astounding Sounds
era before the main event.At soon after 9pm the band returned and as promised played the entirety of Space Ritual, even including the poetry. I suppose with Bob Calvert long dead, Lemmy not there, and Nik Turner still feuding with Dave Brock it wasn't quite up there with the original but they'd managed to get Brian Blessed to do Sonic Attack which was fun, and way better than the last time I saw them wheel out a celebrity guest when Sam Fox slaughtered Master of the Universe.
We didn't get You shouldn't to that as an encore, instead they did Silver Machine which was quite fitting. It's a bit of a mystery why it never made the album, and it was its success as a single that paid for the Space Ritual tour in the first place.
As to the liquid refreshements I was please to see that craft beer was on sale. Well, it was all on keg and the Guinness was £4.90 a pint so I'm pretty sure it was craft.
Wednesday, 19 February 2014
My sweet obsessions
I’ve found recently that in an amazing bit of serendipity two of my beer obsessions have been picked up by other people.
Someone has popped up on Boak and Bailey’s blog talking about Colne Spring Ale, and unlike me they’ve actually managed to track down some records of the original. I hope more details are posted.
Meanwhile over in Farnham it seems hops are retuning. It's people growing them in their gardens at the moment, and they’re growing First Gold rather than Whitebines, but it's very welcome all the same. They’re having a meeting next week I am to get to. It’ll be good to meet some fellow Farnham hop fans.
I think this calls for a song:
Speaking of which it's Hawkwind on Saturday. Another obsession will be temporarily sated.
Someone has popped up on Boak and Bailey’s blog talking about Colne Spring Ale, and unlike me they’ve actually managed to track down some records of the original. I hope more details are posted.
Meanwhile over in Farnham it seems hops are retuning. It's people growing them in their gardens at the moment, and they’re growing First Gold rather than Whitebines, but it's very welcome all the same. They’re having a meeting next week I am to get to. It’ll be good to meet some fellow Farnham hop fans.
I think this calls for a song:
Speaking of which it's Hawkwind on Saturday. Another obsession will be temporarily sated.
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
The underserving poor have been at the booze again
The Today programme was blahing on about beer this morning. They started at Cameron's brewery but soon moved on. It seems the undeserving poor in the North East can still afford to drink beer when presumably they should be drinking cocoa or going to church or at the very least just stop making a nuisance of themselves.
A load of statistics I'm rather sceptical about were wheeled out, and some guff about booze being too cheap.
Now I'm sure there are people doing themselves harm with their drinking but I'm very dubious about the costs attached to it. Surely drinking yourself to an early grave will cost the NHS less than living till you're so old you're falling apart at the seams and require constant care? It would be nice if they got a real economist on instead of a moralising puritan when they wanted to talk about costs.
And I have to say the people drinking a pint or six sounded a lot more fun than the anti-alcohol campaigner.
The booze bit starts at 1:43:46
A load of statistics I'm rather sceptical about were wheeled out, and some guff about booze being too cheap.
Now I'm sure there are people doing themselves harm with their drinking but I'm very dubious about the costs attached to it. Surely drinking yourself to an early grave will cost the NHS less than living till you're so old you're falling apart at the seams and require constant care? It would be nice if they got a real economist on instead of a moralising puritan when they wanted to talk about costs.
And I have to say the people drinking a pint or six sounded a lot more fun than the anti-alcohol campaigner.
The booze bit starts at 1:43:46
Friday, 31 January 2014
Calculating Bitterness Units
Determining the bitterness units in beer is often done by calculations based on raw materials and boil time. After all not everyone has easy access to a well equipped brewing lab.
But how accurate are the calculations, and which method of calculation should you use? Several different methods exist, each giving different results.
As it's something I've pondered myself I was interest to see that someone has carried out research into this question:
Multiple small batches (20–80 L) of beer were brewed, varying different factors each time, including boil time, starting gravity, hop variety, hop addition (time and amount), hop type (pellet versus whole leaf), and yeast variety. The α-acid concentrations of hops used in the study were measured using HPLC, and the IBUs were calculated using the three formulas based on the measured concentrations. The BUs of the finished beers were determined by isooctane extraction followed by spectrophotometric absorbance at 275 nm. The iso-α-acid content of the finished beers was also measured using HPLC.
Three methods of calculating Bitterness Units were used and:
Interestingly, the measured BUs for most of the beers analyzed matched the Garetz calculation of IBUs most closely.
I still prefer to have hard data rather than estimates but sometimes you have to make do. The rest of the abstract can be read here.
But how accurate are the calculations, and which method of calculation should you use? Several different methods exist, each giving different results.
As it's something I've pondered myself I was interest to see that someone has carried out research into this question:
Multiple small batches (20–80 L) of beer were brewed, varying different factors each time, including boil time, starting gravity, hop variety, hop addition (time and amount), hop type (pellet versus whole leaf), and yeast variety. The α-acid concentrations of hops used in the study were measured using HPLC, and the IBUs were calculated using the three formulas based on the measured concentrations. The BUs of the finished beers were determined by isooctane extraction followed by spectrophotometric absorbance at 275 nm. The iso-α-acid content of the finished beers was also measured using HPLC.
Three methods of calculating Bitterness Units were used and:
Interestingly, the measured BUs for most of the beers analyzed matched the Garetz calculation of IBUs most closely.
I still prefer to have hard data rather than estimates but sometimes you have to make do. The rest of the abstract can be read here.
Saturday, 18 January 2014
Making Malt
The first stage, screening the grains for size and clearing out stray bits of straw was fun:
Most of the process takes place in the steeping and germination vessel:
The steeping and germination vessel wins for shinyness but doesn't move as fast.
The grains will get three steeps, with air rests in between so the grains don't drown. During the germination stage the drum will rotate to stop the rootlets tangling. Kilning next...
Wednesday, 15 January 2014
Premature Yeast Floculation
Premature Yeast Floculation (PYF) is a little understood brewing problem that causes poor fermentations and makes me think of Kevin "Bloody" Wilson.
I heard Professor Alex Speers of Heriot-Watt University give a talk about the other day and I wanted to write up my notes so I though I'd share them with your all. It's fascinating stuff.
Premature Yeast Floculation
Fermentability is related to yeast flocculation: early flocculation causes poor fermentation leading to flavour and filtration problems.
Floculation is reversible and adding the chelating agent EDTA or some sugars can cause yeast to un-floculate.
A number of factors affect flocculation: FLO and other genes coding for proteins such as zymolectin, mannan, oxylipin and affecting the charge on the cell.
Environmental factors also have an effect such as:
The negative effects of PYF on beer include:
PYF is believed to be caused by factor/s from barley or malt. Possibly due to fungal infection, pressure during steeping, malting CO2 levels, other barley stresses.
Malt made with low O2 water may be implicated.
In breweries malts are blended by variety, year and maltster so it makes problems hard to trace!
Laboratory methods have been adapted to use smaller scale fermentations than tall tubes using 15ml of congress wort (9°P) +4% glucose at 21°C (three repetitions).
Measure turbidity/density. Use SMA yeast (a German lager strain).
Describe the °P change and absorbance change on graphs. Statistics will need to be used to look at the curves.
Test tube fermentations are slightly poorer than actual fermentations due to early yeast setting as a higher proportion will have settled out before CO2 starts being produced.
Looked for an anti-microbial peptide in malt that may have been affecting the yeast but they didn’t find it so looked for larger compounds.
Tried different degrees of filtration of wort and found a 100 kDa fraction causes PYF. Arabinoxylan may be involved, possibly with a linked peptide.
During PYF yeast has less surface charge. PYF flocs are more tightly bound than control flocs.
Barley exposed to different fungal pathogens was malted and brewed with. Infected malt caused PYF, more disease resistant barley varieties caused less PYF.
PYF malt has higher FAN
Lab analysis of malt tends to stop at wort production so fermentation not included.
More studies needed on:
I heard Professor Alex Speers of Heriot-Watt University give a talk about the other day and I wanted to write up my notes so I though I'd share them with your all. It's fascinating stuff.
Premature Yeast Floculation
Fermentability is related to yeast flocculation: early flocculation causes poor fermentation leading to flavour and filtration problems.
Floculation is reversible and adding the chelating agent EDTA or some sugars can cause yeast to un-floculate.
A number of factors affect flocculation: FLO and other genes coding for proteins such as zymolectin, mannan, oxylipin and affecting the charge on the cell.
Environmental factors also have an effect such as:
- Sugar
- O2
- CO2/turbulence (keeps yeast in suspension)
- Cell age
- Fimbrae
- N
- Temperature
- pH
- CSH (hydrophobicity)
- Ethanol
- Ca2+
The negative effects of PYF on beer include:
- High sugar levels
- Irregular flavours
- Yeast autolysis
- More chance of infection
- Lower ABV
- Higher diacetyl
- Money losses!
PYF is believed to be caused by factor/s from barley or malt. Possibly due to fungal infection, pressure during steeping, malting CO2 levels, other barley stresses.
Malt made with low O2 water may be implicated.
In breweries malts are blended by variety, year and maltster so it makes problems hard to trace!
Laboratory methods have been adapted to use smaller scale fermentations than tall tubes using 15ml of congress wort (9°P) +4% glucose at 21°C (three repetitions).
Measure turbidity/density. Use SMA yeast (a German lager strain).
Describe the °P change and absorbance change on graphs. Statistics will need to be used to look at the curves.
Test tube fermentations are slightly poorer than actual fermentations due to early yeast setting as a higher proportion will have settled out before CO2 starts being produced.
Looked for an anti-microbial peptide in malt that may have been affecting the yeast but they didn’t find it so looked for larger compounds.
Tried different degrees of filtration of wort and found a 100 kDa fraction causes PYF. Arabinoxylan may be involved, possibly with a linked peptide.
During PYF yeast has less surface charge. PYF flocs are more tightly bound than control flocs.
Barley exposed to different fungal pathogens was malted and brewed with. Infected malt caused PYF, more disease resistant barley varieties caused less PYF.
PYF malt has higher FAN
Lab analysis of malt tends to stop at wort production so fermentation not included.
More studies needed on:
- Comparison of yeast strains
- Varietal tests and resistance to pathogens
- Malt house effects (especially CO2)
- Hull less barley
- Treatment and re-use of steep water
- Mode of action
- Relation to cell toxicity
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