Learning to love lager

Occasionally there’s an outbreak of ecumenicalism amongst my fellow beer nerds, and exhortations to appreciate beer in all its forms. “Bollocks to that” is my usual response. I prefer some types of beer to others and I don’t see why I should drink the ones I don’t like just because they also happen to be beer.

But I’ve been forced to accept this has left gaps in my beer knowledge. When I was in a beer tasting competition last year it became clear that I wasn’t that good at spotting different lager styles. So like a general re-fighting his last battle I stocked up on a selection of different lagers to taste before the competition this year.

This year's competition

I have started to get better at spotting lager styles, and though I still have a long way to go we won the competition again and my new knowledge was of some help. Though not as much as it could have been - it's hard to decide which way to jump when blind tasting. Lagers and ales I can now separate not just on the unpleasant vegetal DMS content of many lagers, but also on the general lack of aroma of lagers compared to ales, due to their low ester levels from unnaturally cold fermentation. I know Pilsners should have noticeable hop bitterness, but Helles don’t (which makes them particularly dull beers but I digress). Bocks and Dobblebocks I could have a reasonable chance at identifying as they’re like strong ales but with less aroma.

Victory again

But what about the rest? Are there any top tips on telling a Czech pilsner from a German one? What classic beers or styles do I really need to get to grips with? Come to think of it I need to work on kölsch too, any others? Anyway, suggestions welcome.

Beer Before Brewdog

A comment over at Boak and Bailey’s blog has got me pondering of late. James Watt from Brewdog trotted out their creation myth again, including this on beer before they started their brewery:

"I am also really excited about how the beer scene in the UK has changed over the last few years. It was fucking awful back in 2007. We wanted to be a catalyst for change. And we believe we have only been able to be that catalyst by doing all the crazy, high octane things that so many people took objection to at the time."

As I’d been drinking beer for many years before 2007 I cast my mind back to see if I could recall what I’d been drinking in the dark days before Brewdog. I usually have trouble remembering anything more than a weekend ago but a few dusty old brain cells seem to be still firing. 
My drinking career started back in the late 80s. Since then there’s been a lot of cask beer drunk obviously. Cask beer is not always served at its best, but when it is can be absolutely sublime, and to this day I can still honestly say that the best beer I’ve ever had was a cask beer. The cask beers were overwhelmingly below 5% ABV, with CAMRA beer festivals usually being the only places there was anything stronger.

Bottled beers were another matter though. Stronger beers like Imperial Russian Stouts and Barley Wines were out there if you could find them. I was lucky that a local brewery had a well stocked off licence with a good range of imported beers, particularly from Belgium. So Trappist beers, lambics, Flemish red and brown ales were relatively easy to get hold of. Supermarkets, as today, could be variable, but Sainsbury’s had an own label geuze back in the early 90s, and I found many American Craft Beers in Safeways (late 90s, early 2000s?). Goose Island IPA was the stand out beer, and to this day it remains a favourite. In fact when I first drank Brewdog Punk IPA (2007 or 2008) I thought, great, someone in Britain is making a beer in the style of American craft beer and I did shop around to find their beers when I could. Goose Island did wipe the floor with Punk when I compared them side by side though.

Since 2007 American pale ale style beers have become a lot easier to find, as have beers of higher strength and Brewdog undoubtedly played a part in this. A lot more beer styles that previously I only found as imports now seem to be brewed domestically, and if that’s your thing there are now premium niche products served on keg which I can’t remember seeing before. Not that I pay much attention to keg fonts though so they could have been out there before.

So before 2007 I had drunk a wide range of beers of excellent quality, from a wide range of styles and strengths. Perhaps if I was young, inexperienced, and from a crap hole in the middle of nowhere my experiences would have been different.

I’d be interested to hear any thoughts from other drinkers that weren't in short trousers in the dark days before Brewdog.

Drinking a real 1000 IBU beer

I've read a few times about beers with 1000 International Bitterness Units, though I don't think any of the claims have stood up to analysis. The highest level I know of is a beer with 323 IBU from the Pitstop brewery.

I believe the level of isomerised alpha acids you can get to dissolve is around 100mg/L making it very difficult to get above 100 IBU. But it seems if, like the man from Pitstop, you add hop extract you can get the level higher. Which is something my thoughts turned to when I got my hands on a solution of 30% isomerised alpha acid.

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold

A simple calculation of how much I needed to add to beer to get to an iso-alpha acid concentration of 1g/L was all I needed to do to get to 1000 IBU.So that's what I did. I won't name the poor innocent beer I violated this way, but its IBU level will have been no more than 30 before I added the extract. Once I was happy it was well mixed it was time for a drink.

I took a careful sip and I must admit I can't really describe the taste as awesome. I can describe it as shockingly revolting though. This was just concentrated bitterness, no other flavours or aromas just pure, unmitigated bitterness. The only thing it reminded me of was the intensity of awfulness in my mouth when I first tried to eat lime pickle, though I dare say that was mild and flavoursome in comparison.

Still, I'd made up the drink so I had to try again. The second sip was still extremely bitter, though my obviously overloaded taste buds reacted with less horror this time . So I had a swig, which tasted much the same. There was still some of the beer left but I didn't see the point in drinking any more. I'd drunk the 1000 IBU beer, and it had tasted pretty much as you'd expect. So I chucked the rest and to try and rinse my mouth of the iso-alpha acids I had a half of the unadulterated beer. After what I'd been drinking before I'd expected it to taste of nothing, but in fact as it mingled with the iso-alpha acids in my mouth it tasted really bitter, but at a more bearable level.

I went to bed after that and you'll be pleased to hear my tongue didn't dissolve in the night. I don't think I'll be doing this one again though.

Script for a Jester's Beer

 So here I am once more, in the playground of the broken hearts

But enough of that, I know you're only here for the beer. I've been doing more homebrewing of late and one I made was a pale ale with craft beer levels of new English hops in it - Endeavour for bittering and lots of Jester for late and dry hopping.

I was interested to see if English hops really could compare with the assertive flavours so characteristic of craft beer. The flavour wasn't quite what I was expecting. It was certainly very fruity, with perhaps a bit of citrus, but it reminded me of plums more than anything else. It didn't really taste like American hops, the flavour being more like what I got with the Australian hop Galaxy. Interesting though, and definitely a success for English hop breeders.

Brewing with Burton water

I recently found further information explaining the mysteries of mashing. I had again become perplexed by why water from Burton-upon-Trent is ideal for brewing pale ales, and was looking for answers.

I understood why the high gypsum (calcium sulphate) content is good, as the calcium reacts with phosphates and polypeptides in the mash to liberate hydrogen ions and lower the pH. But what about the high carbonate content of Burton water? Carbonate has a buffering effect which will oppose the action of the calcium, and keep the pH too high, which can lead to poor extract and haze formation.

Delving deeper into this dilema I reached for Lloyd Hind's Brewing Science and Practice, as I'd left my copy of Cyrus Uprum's Brewing Compendium at home. Lloyd Hind is the best source I've found on Burton water as he details mineral content of water from several different Burton water sources. I though the answer may lie in comparing the different analyses. Maybe only some wells were good for brewing pale ales with, and they had water with lower carbonate content?

It turned out the solution was simpler. Lloyd Hind says of Burton water: "Waters of this character appear to be unsurpassed for pale ales and are used without treatment of any sort, ... 

... other than boiling for half an hour or an hour previous to reducing to mashing temperature."

So the famous Burton brewing water was not used untreated! Boiling water may be the simplest of liquor treatments*, but a liquor treatment it is. Boiling hard water causes calcium carbonate to precipitate out of solution, which is how scale forms on a kettle. So it is Burton water, with the carbonate reduced, that is unsurpassed for pale ales.











*Actually in practice adding some acid is a lot bleedin' easier but you do need get the water analysed and calculate how much acid is needed to get rid of the carbonate.

Recommended Brewing History Books.

Once again Boak and Bailey's call for long reads has prompted me to pull my finger out. I don't think this will be my lengthiest post but there's links here to stuff that will keep you going for weeks.

Back in May when Chris Marchbanks gave a talk on brewing history he gave out a list of books he recommended. Here's the list with comments and some suggestions of my own. I've provided links for the books which in some cases link will take you to the complete book online, in others it's to an online retailer. Some of the books are dirt cheap and some are dead expensive.


Brewing History Books

30 or so of the must have/read interesting old and new books about all aspects of the history of beer, brewing and related topics.

Reynolde Scot – A Perfect Platform of a Hoppe Garden (1574)

This is the earliest English book on hops, to give you some idea of the age it's worth noting that the author is better known for his other book The Discoverie of Witchcraft.

Hubert H Parker – The Hop Industry (1934)

Not online but well worth reading if you can get hold of a copy as it a wealth of interesting historical information. I've posted a few titbits from it but I really should get round to doing more.

 

Ray A Neve –Hops (1991)

Out of print for many years and generally going for around two hundred quid a copy, I gave up trying to find a copy at a price I was prepared to pay and got my local library to order it for me, which was at the much more reasonable three quid if I remember rightly. Now re-printed in paperback but still pricey.

Malt and Malting

H Stopes – Malt and Malting (1885)

Classical malting text from the father of Marie Stopes, and this one's online.

Hugh Lancaster – Practical Floor Malting (1908)

This one can be searched in google books. 

Dennis E Briggs –Malts and Malting (1998)

A current text book from one side of the great barley modification controversy. Sadly it's not cheap, but on the plus side it's in the library at work.

Christine Clark – The British Malting Industry Since 1830 (1998)

Not read this one but some second hand copies are going at a reasonable rate.

Beer Philospohy/Science

William Ellis – The London and country brewer. ... By a person formerly concerned in a common brewhouse at London (1742)

Not read this one.

John Richardson –The philosophical principles of the science of brewing (1788)

Or this one.

W L Tizard – The Theory and Practice of Brewing (1843)

Fortunately this one can be downloaded. Not that I have yet, but the books are starting to pile up around me again so it will have to wait.

L Pasteur – Studies on Fermentation (1879)

This one can also be downloaded. It's interesting to note that Pasteur didn't recommend pasteurisation for beer, though he did for wine. Things didn't work out as he suggested though, as much beer is now routinely pasteurised whereas it's hardly used with wine.

H Lloyd Hind – Brewing Science and Practice (2 vols) (1938)

I've heard these books still fetch a good price as a lot of the information is still relevant for modern cask ale brewers. Another one in the work library for me, though it can be searched on google books if your work library isn't so well stocked.

Hough, Briggs and Stevens – Malting and Brewing Science (2 vols) (1971)

Another one that's not cheap, but when it's in your work library that isn't such a concern. It's on google books.


Packaging

Arthur Hartley – The Bottling of English Beers (1906)

For some reason this book is currently unavailable. Surely a re-print is due?

C F Foy - Principles andPractice of Ale, Beer and Stout Bottling (1955)

Couldn't find this one online either so it seems my knowledge of the history of beer packaging is going to stay limited.

Biographical/Brewery Company Histories

Guy Thorne – The Great Acceptance – FN Charrington (1913)

One that is online. I only got ten percent of the way through it before giving up though as it's about a brewery heir who rejected his inheritance and devoted his life promoting abstinence and evangelical christianity. All very interesting I'm sure, just not to me.

Walter P Serocold – The Story of Watneys (1949)

This one is on google books.

Sydney O Neville – Seventy Rolling Years (1958)

He had a long career in the brewing industry and his portrait is in Brewers' Hall. I got hold of a copy of the book after a recommendation from Ron and it is an excellent read.

Colin C Owen – Greatest Brewery in the World – Bass Ratcliffe and Gretton (1992)

On google books.

Jonathan Guinness –Requiem for a Family Business (1997)

This one can be got at a reasonable rate, though I haven't read it yet myself.

Pubs

Richardson and Eberlein – The English Inn Past and Present (1925)

Haven't got this one.

Mark Girouard – Victorian Pubs (1975)

On google books. 

Peter Clark – The English Alehouse 1200 – 1830 (1983)

As is this one.

Travelogue

Alfred Barnard – Noted Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland (4 vols) (1889)

These beauties are all online in PDF format.

Michael Jackson – The World Guide to Beer – 1977

On google books and The New World Guide to Beer can be snapped up cheap. From a quick comparison I don't think there's a huge difference between the two editions so if you're interested I'd get that one.

Pete Brown –Hops and Glory (2009)

My favourite of noted historian Pete Brown's books, his other offerings are also well worth a read.

General and Brewing History

John Bickerdyke – TheCuriosities of Ale and Beer (1889)

This one is online.

Peter Mathias – The Brewing Industry in England 1700 – 1930 (1959)

This one's on google books.

H S Corran – A History of Brewing (1975)

As is this one.

Gourvish and Wilson –The British Brewing Industry, 1830-1980 (1994)

But this one isn't, though it is in the work library.

Brian Harrison – Drink and the Victorian 1825 – 1872 (1994)

Also available on google books.

Martyn Cornell –Beer: The Story of the Pint (2003)

A great book from the man behind the excellent Zythophile blog. Also well worth reading is his

Amber, Gold and Black: The History of Britain's Great Beers, and he has his own list of recommended beer history books here.

Ron Pattinson – Numbers! (2008)

I must have half a dozen of Ron's book, including the one I'm mentioned by name in, but I must admit this isn't one of them. I know Ron has a fondness for long tables of as many statistics as he can get hold of. As this book has the title 'Numbers!' I suspect that's exactly what it is: lots and lots of numbers with little in the way of text. I haven't got a copy as that doesn't sound like the most thrilling read but as Chris has recommended it I may have to reconsider. If you don't follow his blog you should if you have in interest in beer history, and he has a range of books on offer exploring different areas of mainly British beer hstory.

Brewery History Society – Century plus plus of British Brewery 1890 - 2012 (2013)

If you've ever wondered what breweries there were in a particular village, town or county this is the book for you, it lists lots.

That's it for Chris' recommendations, but whilst I'm here I'll add a few of my own:


George Clinch - English Hops (1919)

Apart from a supposed picture of a male Fuggle plant this is an excellent book on history of English hops and even better it's freely available in PDF form.

A H Burgess - Hops (1964)

This book is well worth getting, and contains more historical information than Neve. 

Mass Observation - The Pub and the People: A Worktown Study (1943)

 This is a fascinating and detailed account of pub life in 1930s Bolton. Compared to the modern day some things are strangely similar and some things are strangely different.

Andrew Campbell - The Book of Beer (1956)

Give a wide ranging account from the 1950s, and intriguingly includes some pub crawl lists. I have been tempted to try re-doing one and see how much has changed but I've never got round to it so far.

Frank Baillie'sThe Beer Drinkers Companion, Christopher Hutt's The Death of the English Pub and Richard Boston's Beer and Skittles give the story of British beer from the 1970s and should be on every discerning beer geek's bookshelf.

Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey -Brew Britannia: The Strange Rebirth of British Beer

If you weren't lucky enough to inherit the previously three books, and even if you were, Boak and Bailey's excellent account of the fight for decent British beer from 1963 to 2013 is a must. It also has the merit of being another book which I'm mentioned in by name:

Brian Glover - The Lost Beers and Breweries of Britain (2012)

Details 50 iconic ales from Britain, and when as is often the case the beer has sadly passed into history lists the most similar beer available today.

Ray Anderson - Brewers and Distillers by Profession (2012)

A fascinating history of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and its predecessor organisations, it's also an excellent source of information on over a century of British brewing. 

The popular Pixham pop-up pub

At the weekend I was once more drinking differently in Dorking. After experiencing the delights of a micropub in the week it was a pop-up pub this time. Considering Dorking isn't exactly short of normal pubs - it's probably on a popular route somewhere or full of alkies, or perhaps like Ripley both - it's strange not to have gone to any of them but there you go.

The pop-up pub was a one day only event held in the Old Pixham School, just outside Dorking. I know the guy behind it all through the IBD and when he mentioned it was happening I was intrigued. When I mentioned it to my mates that live in Dorking they were also interested so to Pixham we popped.

The building looked suspiciously like it was Brewers' Tudor which was rather appropriate.

Inside there was a handy sign so we soon found the bar...

...and the friendly bar staff.

There were two polypins of beer and plenty of bottles. The draught beers were both £3 a pint, despite one being 2.8% ABV, and the other 5.6! I stated on a mix of both as I couldn't quite bring myself to drink a 2.8% beer but didn't feel like having a session on a 5.6. If I remember rightly the weak beer was by Siren and the strong one by Buring Sky, anyway both beers were of the popular pale and taste of American hops style so they mixed well.

Very reasonably priced food was laid on by locals, and you got to vote for your favourite with the winner being presented with a trophy in the shape of a kebab.The only real drawback of the event was it was like drinking in an old classroom.

Still, I had a great night so I'll certainly try to get there the next time it's held, which will apparently be in February.