Michael Eder, whom I've mentioned before, speaks perfect English. There are, inevitably, the bizarre translations that all Germans seem to use when speaking English--"in former times" instead of "in the past" or "previously;" substituting "as" for "the" in sentences like "The slower you go, the later we'll be;" and the curious mix-up of "whatever" and "whatsoever." But his English is so near perfect that he can joke about Facebook applications, teach other foreigners slang, and dish out American-style sarcasm at the drop of a dime. He even persuaded over twenty native English speakers to refer to our European Study Tour as "the Round Trip."
Since my earlier summaries of the Round Trip were mainly plot driven, I thought it only appropriate to add one final interpretive post to the Brew School Compendium. Call it meta-critical or self-reflective or whatsoever: here are some thoughts on the lessons we learned, the beers we tasted, and what the Round Trip meant to us, newly minted graduates.
1) After two weeks and over twenty brewery tours, we are as well trained to lead tours as breweries as to brew the beer.
2) Belgium is, undoubtedly, the greatest beer drinking country on earth. I will spend much of 2010 figuring out how to get back there and am already searching for excited, able-bodied companions who want to bike, trek, blog and drink their way through the Ardennes. There are roughly 150 breweries in the country. At a rate of 5 a day, we can scour the whole place in a month. Any takers?
3) Not all "big" breweries are the same, nor are their beers. Siebel pushes hard for its craft beer loving students to appreciate the art, science, and contributions of the world's largest breweries, and visiting places like Bofferding, Rothaus, Stiegl, and Bavaria proved that big breweries do make better beer than "connoisseurs" give them credit for. There are, of course, several breweries in the world that aspire to a brewerless future. They are soulless.
4) Back to Belgium: there is an emergent style that my classmates and I "discovered" (though Tim Webb argues for it in his guide to Belgian beer as well) that is unlike anything I've seen in the US. What Webb calls the "hoppy blonde" seems to me a super bitter, strong blond ale. I personally prefer "Belgian bitter," because its hoppiness is entirely that--there is virtually no hop aroma or character, but there is a neverending tongue-bruising bitterness that helps hide the high alcohol content of these otherwise golden beers. De Ranke XX Bitter, Taras Boulba from Brasserie de la Senne, and La Rulles Estivale are some of the better examples I came across. It will be interesting to try and recreate this style, and I wonder if something so bitter has potential in the US market.
5) When we first met Eder, he told us that there is a second law in European beer culture: the Schweinheitsgebot. Despite the training I underwent at the taco truck near Joey Bosworth and Chris MacLeod's house all summer, I ate more pork in volume and body parts than I ever expected or wanted to. Beer and pork pair beautifully together, and every brewery and supplier we visited honored us with their best food and drink, but I think that for the next few months, I'll experiment with beer and food pairings that don't involve swine.
6) On a two week bus trip across Europe from brewery to brewery, the person you sit next to matters. Thank God for John Dykstra.
In the spirit of lists, how about an important one: what were the best beers you tasted in Europe, Ben? Here are the top ten beers and the moments I was lucky enough to have them:
1) Cantillon Iris--a dry-hopped gueuze that is not only the best beer I had in Europe; it's one of the two or three best beers I've ever had period. Occasionally available in the US. Katie Kern and I got to share it with Troy Kilpatrick, a wandering Australian that Katie had met at her hostel, when we visited Poechanellekelder in Brussels. We sipped and conversed with the two most down to earth Los Angelinos we had ever met.
2) Drie Fonteinen Oude Gueuze--another gueuze at the top of the list. Armand, the brewer/blender/owner at 3F, generously shared some of the final blends that included lambic he had made himself with all thirty-three of us on the Round Trip.
3, 4, and 5) Schneider Weisse, Schneider Weisse Tap 5, Schneider Weisse Tap 1--three variations on a hefeweizen from the best brewery in Germany. Schneider became the most popular place for a good beer for us Siebel folks. It's no surprise that Germans who know beer really well love Schneider so much. The night that Sam Barber, Chris MacLeod, and Andrew Lyle and I realized that they had all of the different weizens turned what was otherwise set to be a mellow night into a lively night of food, beer, and discussion. The frau of a server we had expected us to be an in-and-out group.
6) Rodenbach Grand Cru--John Dykstra, my good friend and busmate, has gone from sour tyro to sour junkie in the last twelve weeks. Like La Folie, the American interpretation which Rodenbach inspired, the Grand Cru is sharply sour and full of cherry flavor. Watching John enjoy his first Rodenbach in Belgium during our pseudo-Thanksgiving was enough to get this beer into the top 10.
7) Duvel--the "Devil" of an ale that proved light beer can be strong. It is the original Belgian strong golden ale, and having it fresh at the brewery was a fitting introduction to Belgian beer in Belgium. There were thirty-three of us who could have chosen any of the dozen or so beers that Duvel Moortgat makes during our free run in their taproom; it is telling that all 33 (half of 66, mind you) chose Duvel for our first beer.
8) Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen--the original smoked beer proves that it is a style with drinkability. I don't know that I had ever felt beer and history come together so dramatically as while enjoying a pint of Schlenkerla in their taproom that was built originally in 1316. Smoked beers are rare in the US and oftentimes show an injudicious use of rauch malt; Schlenkerla's smoked marzen is available year-round here and shows what restraint can do to make a beer better.
9) Augustiner Pils--you get made fun of by Munchner waiters for ordering pils. Thank god that the Lewis and Clark crew knew to ask for an Augustiner Pils the first time we visited their bier hall. On tap, which is near-on impossible to find, it is even better. Chris MacLeod reports that it may be available vom fass at Mama's Kebap House. If German gyros weren't good enough already, the idea of a scharfer kebap with pils is divine.
10) Paulaner Am Nockherberg Kellerbier--kellerbiers are ruddy, musty, woody, lightly carbonated and spicy. They're a complex style that rarely gets made outside of Germany, but they are incredibly flavorful beers that deserve more attention. Paulaner's version is available on tap only at their ornate brewery tap room, but it is worth the trip to Kolumbusplatz to have it. A great style that I wish American brewers attempted more frequently.
And finally...
Now that both Siebel and the Round Trip are done, it is time to go forth and brew. Lyn Kruger, the president of Siebel, presided over our graduation and gave us only one directive: "Go and make really great beer!"
At Siebel, I had a unique chance to learn, make friends with great brewers, travel to amazing sites, and get an insider's look at the world of brewing. I entered enthused and am leaving impassioned.
When my parents visited me in Chicago, about four weeks into the program, I told them that for the first time in a few years, I felt deeply excited and driven about what I was doing. The path to starting and running my own brewery was underfoot, and it was undoubtedly the right way. What the journey to that point in the coming months and years will look like is impossible to know, but I will get there.
Oh, and if you've made it to the end of the blog, and through the first part of the path to life as a brewer with me, remember to bring a copy of this final post in to my brewery as a coupon for a free pint.
Thanks for reading.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Denouement, Part 2
The weekend, spent between Brussels and Leuven, requires a blog entirely of its own. Amongst other famed beer spots, we visited Delirium Cafe, Restobieres, Poechanellekelder, Moeder Lambic, and Brocante. Had it not been for European piety and Sunday closures, we would have added Porte Noire and Bier Circus to that list as well. Alas, one can only get so upset that he got to go to only five famous beer bars instead of seven in Brussels.
Boarding the bus on Monday of week two, I felt a different vibe in the air, and my own feelings were shifting. Though we had four more days of visits ahead of us, everyone was eyeing our return to Munich and the flights back to the US. Beer school was in its final week, and like horses nearing the barn, all of us were feeling anxious to get home.
Adding to the shiftiness, Michael announced that we would be getting our final exam results that morning. To pass the course and earn the brewer's diploma, you had to score an 85% or higher on the final. Scoring between a 50 and 84% allowed you to take an oral exam in Munich. Michael, thanksfully, ended the suspense in short measure, and I learned that I had passed the written final. "We're graduates. That's crazy," John Dykstra said to me later in the day.
Our Monday trek took us across Wallonia, the southern, French-speaking part of Belgium that is also called the Ardennes, to the far eastern corner of the country. Here, in what is called the Vallée des Fées, "Valley of the Fairies," the countryside transitions from the Dutch-like lowlands in Flanders to rolling valleys and lush farmland. It is also home to Brasserie d'Achouffe, a sucessful Belgian microbrewery known in the US as one of the pioneers of the so-called "Belgian IPA."
The brewery takes the local fairy tale lore seriously, it's flagship beer, La Chouffe, means gnome or dwarf in the local Wallonian dialect. There, the brewmaster toured us through their production and bottling facilities, gifted us all with Chouffe glassware, and gave us what was undoubtedly the most bizarre piece of brewery schwag we received the entire trip: a bell-tipped gnome hat.
It seemed oddly appropriate that the final brewery of our final week at school was famous for its interpretation of an American style of beer. Brasserie d'Achouffe's Houblon Chouffe ("Hoppy Gnome") combines American and Noble hops used in North American double IPAs with a Belgian-style trippel. That Belgian brewers would look to American craft beer for inspiration was a point of major affirmation for US brewers, and for both its significance and unique flavor, Houblon Chouffe is a darling of American beer geeks.
That afternoon, we crossed into the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, a country that I never expect to have occasion to visit again. It is a nice notch on the belt of a traveler, I suppose, and our visit to the Brasserie Nationale Bofferding was very enjoyable. Their eponymous lager proves that not all light European lagers are created equal: theirs easily topped all the others we had had for drinkability and crispness.
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Our Tuesday visits took us back into Germany to KHS, a company that makes filling machines, and Kieselman, who specializes in valves for breweries. It will be many years before I'm able to purchase or use anything that they make.
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Wednesday and Thursday saw us zigzagging across southern Germany, Switzerland, and Austria as we visited four final breweries, each noteworthy in its own right.
Leaving Freiburg on Wednesday morning, we climbed high into the Black Forest. We pulled in to the parking lot at Rothaus, the highest brewery in Germany, early enough to allow us to have a snowball fight. We saw their stunningly shiny brewhouse, visited their fermentation cellar with over 65 tanks, and sampled both their pilsner and marzen. Mohren, just over the Swiss-Austrian border, was the most reviled brewery we visited, in part due to their racist caricature of a logo. That their beers were dull seemed like karmic justice.
Our final day, spent in and around Salzburg, was spent at the Trumer and Stiegl breweries. Trumer, which operates a North American brewery out of Berkeley, makes the most award-winning pilsner in the world, and Stiegl is the largest brewery in Austria.
The "end is near" effect had really settled in by Thursday morning, and everyone was looking forward to our return to Munich. Indeed, it would have taken divine intervention to get people as excited for a brewery visit on Day 12 of our tour as on Day 1. Thankfully, Trumer gave us just that in the form of our tour guide, Joanna. "This woman is curing my hangover with her enthusiasm," one of my classmates said. "She's got sunshine coming out of her ass."
Joanna's enthusiasm for all things Trumer was contagious. She showed us the beautiful lounge next to their lager fermentation room--where, unusually, they use open fermentation in cylindro-conical tanks--and the "Creative Brewery," where locals can come in and brew their very own batches on a small 1 barrel system.
Stiegl, then, had much to live up to as our final and (only) post-Joanna tour. And their generosity, offering us dinner and numerous halbs in their bierstube made for an appropriate end to the tour.
We returned to Munich that evening. Our stomachs full of two weeks worth of pork, our suitcases weighted down by gifts and beers collected along the way. We had finished the round trip in good style. We were ready to graduate, return home, and brew.
Boarding the bus on Monday of week two, I felt a different vibe in the air, and my own feelings were shifting. Though we had four more days of visits ahead of us, everyone was eyeing our return to Munich and the flights back to the US. Beer school was in its final week, and like horses nearing the barn, all of us were feeling anxious to get home.
Adding to the shiftiness, Michael announced that we would be getting our final exam results that morning. To pass the course and earn the brewer's diploma, you had to score an 85% or higher on the final. Scoring between a 50 and 84% allowed you to take an oral exam in Munich. Michael, thanksfully, ended the suspense in short measure, and I learned that I had passed the written final. "We're graduates. That's crazy," John Dykstra said to me later in the day.
Our Monday trek took us across Wallonia, the southern, French-speaking part of Belgium that is also called the Ardennes, to the far eastern corner of the country. Here, in what is called the Vallée des Fées, "Valley of the Fairies," the countryside transitions from the Dutch-like lowlands in Flanders to rolling valleys and lush farmland. It is also home to Brasserie d'Achouffe, a sucessful Belgian microbrewery known in the US as one of the pioneers of the so-called "Belgian IPA."
The brewery takes the local fairy tale lore seriously, it's flagship beer, La Chouffe, means gnome or dwarf in the local Wallonian dialect. There, the brewmaster toured us through their production and bottling facilities, gifted us all with Chouffe glassware, and gave us what was undoubtedly the most bizarre piece of brewery schwag we received the entire trip: a bell-tipped gnome hat.
It seemed oddly appropriate that the final brewery of our final week at school was famous for its interpretation of an American style of beer. Brasserie d'Achouffe's Houblon Chouffe ("Hoppy Gnome") combines American and Noble hops used in North American double IPAs with a Belgian-style trippel. That Belgian brewers would look to American craft beer for inspiration was a point of major affirmation for US brewers, and for both its significance and unique flavor, Houblon Chouffe is a darling of American beer geeks.
That afternoon, we crossed into the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, a country that I never expect to have occasion to visit again. It is a nice notch on the belt of a traveler, I suppose, and our visit to the Brasserie Nationale Bofferding was very enjoyable. Their eponymous lager proves that not all light European lagers are created equal: theirs easily topped all the others we had had for drinkability and crispness.
_________________________________
Our Tuesday visits took us back into Germany to KHS, a company that makes filling machines, and Kieselman, who specializes in valves for breweries. It will be many years before I'm able to purchase or use anything that they make.
_________________________________
Wednesday and Thursday saw us zigzagging across southern Germany, Switzerland, and Austria as we visited four final breweries, each noteworthy in its own right.
Leaving Freiburg on Wednesday morning, we climbed high into the Black Forest. We pulled in to the parking lot at Rothaus, the highest brewery in Germany, early enough to allow us to have a snowball fight. We saw their stunningly shiny brewhouse, visited their fermentation cellar with over 65 tanks, and sampled both their pilsner and marzen. Mohren, just over the Swiss-Austrian border, was the most reviled brewery we visited, in part due to their racist caricature of a logo. That their beers were dull seemed like karmic justice.
Our final day, spent in and around Salzburg, was spent at the Trumer and Stiegl breweries. Trumer, which operates a North American brewery out of Berkeley, makes the most award-winning pilsner in the world, and Stiegl is the largest brewery in Austria.
The "end is near" effect had really settled in by Thursday morning, and everyone was looking forward to our return to Munich. Indeed, it would have taken divine intervention to get people as excited for a brewery visit on Day 12 of our tour as on Day 1. Thankfully, Trumer gave us just that in the form of our tour guide, Joanna. "This woman is curing my hangover with her enthusiasm," one of my classmates said. "She's got sunshine coming out of her ass."
Joanna's enthusiasm for all things Trumer was contagious. She showed us the beautiful lounge next to their lager fermentation room--where, unusually, they use open fermentation in cylindro-conical tanks--and the "Creative Brewery," where locals can come in and brew their very own batches on a small 1 barrel system.
Stiegl, then, had much to live up to as our final and (only) post-Joanna tour. And their generosity, offering us dinner and numerous halbs in their bierstube made for an appropriate end to the tour.
We returned to Munich that evening. Our stomachs full of two weeks worth of pork, our suitcases weighted down by gifts and beers collected along the way. We had finished the round trip in good style. We were ready to graduate, return home, and brew.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Denouement, Part 1
Brew School is officially over, and I've made it safely back to Portland, diploma in hand. (Though I promptly left it behind on the Munich-to-Chicago flight, only realizing my mistake after deboarding.) Since I neglected my blog for much of the final weeks in Europe, I've decided to put up some new posts after the fact. Better late than never.
After our final exam, we spent the final two weeks of the course on what Siebel calls the "European Study Tour." In reality, there is little studying but lots of touring, and the brew crew treks across Western Europe visiting breweries, brewing equipment manufacturers, ingredient suppliers, and the like. It is part-networking, part-education, and majority-dream come true for beer geeks. Our trip took us from Munich north to the Hallertau, the world's largest hop growing region, then on to Franconia and west to Dusseldorf and the Germany-Netherlands border. From there we headed toward Amsterdam and then south across Holland. We spent five days in Belgium, mostly near Brussels in the small college town of Louvain/Leuven. From there, we tacked back east into Luxembourg, across Switzerland, and into the Austrian Alps. After two weeks we returned to Munich, full of beer, heavy with schwag from our visits, and tired of spending hours upon hours on our bus. This mega post is my attempt to cover some of the craziness that took up those two weeks.
Monday morning, November 23, we left Munich just after 7 in the morning. As we loaded the bus, Michael Eder, our lead instructor and, now, tour guide, explained that there were only three rules about the trip: leave the bus in good shape; use the WC only in case of emergency ; and don't vomit on the bus.
The first leg of our journey was short: less than an hour north of München is the Hallertau region. Not surprisingly, it is home to the German division of Hopsteiner, one of the world's global players in the hop trade. They've got warehouses and production facilities in all of the world's major hop growing regions, and their Hallertau facility is especially impressive. The centerpiece is a 21-storey warehouse that is refrigerated and fully automated: a storage bin for over fifty million dollars worth of hops. "The comptuer is the only thing that knows where everything in the warehouse is," our guide told us, "it would take us weeks to try and locate a particular order if we had humans doing it."
After a tour of the facility used to produce hop extract products, we jumped back on our bus and headed nine kilometers to their hop pellet plant. Despite the image that Boston Beer and, more recently, SABMiller have propagated of brewers using whole-leaf hops in their beer, most brewers, the world round, use hop pellets. They require less storage space, get marginally better utilization in brewing, are easier to remove after use, and have a longer shelf life. Pellets are made by cooling and crushing whole hops, sieving the powder, and then forming it into pellets.
Our second stop was at Weyermann, the most famous specialty malt producer in Europe. Weyermann's pilsner, cara, and rauch malts are common in American craft beer, and it was when we arrived for dinner that we realized how much they valued us as potential, future customers. Other than a brief fling with the University of North Carolina, I've never really been wined and dined before, but Weyermann set a precedent on the trip that was hard to match, though many of the other breweries and, especially, suppliers tried. For dinner they had prepared a full buffet of Franconian specialties, ranging from smoked meats and fish to cooked porks, huge cheeses platters, chicken, pickled vegetables, roast beef, and more.
To complement the buffet, they served us unending amounts of one of their house beers. Like many maltsters, Weyermann has an in house pilot brewery both for their own internal use and to test recipes for their customers. Bamberg is the home of smoked beer (rauchbier), which is a rare style that includes a portion of malt that has been smoked over a beechwood. The result is a beer that has flavors of smoked meat and barbecue. It's certainly not a flavor that wins over all beer drinkers, and it's not meant to be consumed in huge quantities, but when used judiciously, smoked malt can add a unique and complex flavor to any traditional beer style. Weyermann is famous for its rauch malt, and their in-house version was one of the best versions of the style that I've ever had. Unlike many American copycats of rauchbier, the Weyermann version (as well as the one at the Schlenkerla brewery that we tasted later in the night) was very restrained in its smokiness and paired beautifully with many of the cold meats, cheeses, and breads.
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After a night in Bamberg, we headed west to visit Ziemann-Bauer, a major manufacturer of brewing tanks, who recently had designed the equipment for the expansions at breweries like New Belgium and Dogfish Head. From there, we continued west to Dusseldorf, home to another of Germany's great beer styles: alt.
Alt is, next to pilsner, the hoppiest of German beer styles. It is an ale, fermented and lagered like a bottom-fermenting beer. The best alts have a distinctive hop flavor and aroma to match a strong malt presence. Dusseldorf is home to the few breweries that still make alt, and the city and style are nearly synonymous. During our visit, we managed to sample alts from three different breweries in town and were able to see the unity and diversity within the style.
Last year, Michael had taken over as the director of brewing operations for Uerige, a small brewpub that has produced alt for centuries in the city's Altstadt, so it was only logical that we head there to see his brewery first. There, we found a brewery that mixed some very antique brewing technology--an open coolship for settling out hot break, an open-plate heat exchanger for cooling, barrels that are bunged and unbunged by an old Portuguese boxer--with world class bottling, fermentation, and distillation equipment. Their in-house alt was noticeably hoppier and lighter-bodied than the others we tasted in Dusseldorf and had a spiciness that came from having been aged in a wood barrel.
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"When it's Monday, you can look out the window of your house and see who's going to be arriving on Friday," Michael quipped when we crossed into the low-lying farmland of the Netherlands. In contrast to the landscape, the Heineken brewery outside of Amsterdam (not to be confused with the Heinken "Experience," a Disney-esque experience in the capital) stands apart. Heineken is the world's third largest brewery, and for all of us, this plant was the largest we had ever visited. Indeed, between the 25 or so American brewers in the class, it's unlikely that we all, during our entire careers as brewers, will produce as much beer combined as the Heinken facility does in one day. The intimidation factor was compounded by an eerie, and perhaps regrettable, characteristic of the brewhouse: it was brewerless.
The technical director, who gave us our tour, explained that his proudest accomplishment at Heinken was by reducing the number of brewers by over 60%. The 60 or so people who still were employed as brewers worked rotating shifts in a control room for the fully automated facility, each completing one specific task--their area of expertise that had kept them from getting cut when the brewing team was reduced from 165 to its current state. "We measure brewhouse efficiency in how much beer we produce per FTE," the technical director explained, "and we want to be the most efficient brewhouse in the world. Plus, most brewers just sit around all day and plan the next barbecue."
This, of course, was not encouraging or inspiring for aspiring brewers. "At least they gave us a USB drive," one of my classmates said as we reboarded the bus.
It did not, however, take long for our faith to be restored. We crossed the Netherlands quickly, heading south for the Belgian border and stopped for the evening about 20 kilometers north in Tilburg. It is home to the Brouwerij de Konigshoeven, also known as La Trappe, one of the most singular monasteries in the world.
Monastic brewing is one of the most celebrated traditions in the world of fermentation. The cloister breweries throughout Germany and Belgium have guarded and maintained many of the world's most revered brewing techniques. And amongst, monk brewers none are esteemed higher than the Trappists. There are only seven Trappist breweries in the world, all purveyors of the classic Abbey styles of beer--ales that were brewed to high strength to substitute for food during times of fasting. Six of the seven are in Belgium; La Trappe is the seventh. Clearly, our visit to the monastery was a beery pilgrimage, but after our morning experience, it was a source of inspiration as well.
Given the rigors of daily prayer, the monks themselves are only present for some of the work demanded in a modern brewery. The lay brewmaster toured us around the grounds, showing us abbeys, chapels, a brewhouse with cathedral-like archways, and a barrel-room that would be the envy of many an American craft brewer. He also explained that in addition to the brewery, the monastery had an on-grounds bakery and was planning on starting a cheese-making operation as well. What's more, the monks also employed many disadvantaged locals to tend the grounds and aid in their greenhouses. "Maybe that's where all of the unemployed Heineken brewers ended up," someone suggested.
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When we crossed into Belgium the next afternoon, there was an air of excitement hitherto unseen amongst everyone. Perhaps it was the knowledge that we were, at least temporarily, free from the conservatism and restrictions of the Germany Purity Laws; perhaps it was the idea that we were slated to visit breweries that are famous worldwide. Perhaps we felt like we were in a land of kindred spirits.
American brewing has taken liberally from all three of the great European brewing traditions. Most of our classic American styles are hopped-up versions of English ales; American macro lagers are watered down version of German lagers. But it has been from Belgium that New World craft brewers have learned to experiment in the way that sets American beers apart. less concerned with precision than German brewers or drinkability than English ones, Belgian brewers have always been the bete noires of the world's brewers, always playing with new ingredients, spices, wild yeasts, fruit. It doesn't hurt that they have a great proclivity for brewing beer that's high in alcohol content as well. Indeed, Belgian beer is the original "big beer."
And our first stop was not to disappoint. Like our visits in Bamberg and Dusseldorf, we headed straight to the source of one of Belgium's classic styles: Duvel Moortgat. Duvel, Flemish for "devil," is the original strong Belgian golden ale. Brewed to 17 plato and 8% alcohol, it looks like a pilsner and has the strength of a big IPA or barleywine. In addition to sharing some of the secrets of how Duvel is brewed, Dimitri, the brewmaster, gave us free reign of the tap room for an hour after the tour. Kids in a candy store, of course, do not get drunk, which meant that the scramble to taste the wide variety of Belgian styles Duvel made--complex fruit beers, sour browns, abbey style tripels and dubbels, a wit and of course Duvel itself--scaled up in enthusiasm and slop by the hour's end. It had taken four days, but on our ride to the hotel, the bus's bathroom finally found itself in use.
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We spent Thanksgiving night in Leuven, substituting moules-frites and sour beers for turkey. With the help of BeerAdvocate and a copy of the Good Beer Guide to Belgium, we discovered the back alley cafes with enviable beer cellars and extensive draft lists that make beer lovers weak in the knees.
But nothing, nothing, as beer lovers and brewers could match Friday. Our itinerary took us into Brussels, only 25 km from Leuven, to the Brasserie Cantillon and Drie Fonteinen, two of the few breweries in the world dedicated to making lambic.
What, exactly, is lambic, and why is it so rare? One of the first things that initiates learn about beer is that there are basically two types of beer: ale and lager. In fact, there is a third: lambic. Whereas ale and lager are brewed from cultured yeast, lambics are beers created entirely through spontaneous fermentation. In the brewhouse, lambics are prepared like any other beer--though aged hops are used as opposed to fresh hops; but after cooling, lambics are left in a shallow tank overnight in a room with open windows so that nearby microorganisms can "contaminate" the beer and infect it. Bacteria and wild yeast that brewers keep out of other beers at all cost are invited to take over in a lambic. This means that funky, sour flavors develop and, because it's a far slower fermentation, the beer takes years to make. After a night open to the elements, the wort is transfered to wooden barrels and left unbunged so that a still, young lambic is produced. Straight lambic is aged anywhere from 1 to 3 years, and then either blended together to make gueuze or mixed with fruit to make beers like kriek and framboise. Because of its odd flavors and the intensive labor required to make it, lambic had, until recently, been relegated to a teensy corner of the Belgian beer world. It is still a boutique product, but it is making a comeback. Cantillon and Drie Fonteinen were both essential to its survival and recovery.
Cantillon is a museum-brewery, subsidized by the Belgian government, and they make some of the most exotic mixed lambics in the world: rhubarb lambic, dry-hopped gueuze, apricot lambic, amongst others. As we toured the dusty, cobweb-ridden facilities ("An army of spiders protects beer from the insects that want to get into the barrels; that is the second way that we depend on nature to make lambic," our tour guide explained), it became clear that we were in a brewery unlike any other in the world.
Our afternoon visit to Drie Fonteinen was equally inspiring. Armand Debelder, the master blender and brewer, at "3F" told us the tragic story of how a broken thermostat caused him to lose huge amounts of gueuze earlier this spring and, effectively, had prevented him from brewing more. Now, buying barrels from other breweries and blending, Armand explained the intricacies of developing a palate for blending different threads of lambic to produce an excellent beer. "Et voila," he said handing all thirty-five of us glass after glass of from his few remaining house-brewed lambics. As president of the lambic makers guild, Armand took it upon himself to inspire us to return to the US and help spread the gospel about gueuze. Indeed, his order to go forth and brew the greatest beer in the world made for a fitting end to our first week of touring.
As we boarded the bus and headed back to Leuven for the evening, I turned to one of my classmates, and we started talking about the weekend ahead. What were we going to do in Belgium? At the very least, we were to seek out more lambic and gueuze.
After our final exam, we spent the final two weeks of the course on what Siebel calls the "European Study Tour." In reality, there is little studying but lots of touring, and the brew crew treks across Western Europe visiting breweries, brewing equipment manufacturers, ingredient suppliers, and the like. It is part-networking, part-education, and majority-dream come true for beer geeks. Our trip took us from Munich north to the Hallertau, the world's largest hop growing region, then on to Franconia and west to Dusseldorf and the Germany-Netherlands border. From there we headed toward Amsterdam and then south across Holland. We spent five days in Belgium, mostly near Brussels in the small college town of Louvain/Leuven. From there, we tacked back east into Luxembourg, across Switzerland, and into the Austrian Alps. After two weeks we returned to Munich, full of beer, heavy with schwag from our visits, and tired of spending hours upon hours on our bus. This mega post is my attempt to cover some of the craziness that took up those two weeks.
Monday morning, November 23, we left Munich just after 7 in the morning. As we loaded the bus, Michael Eder, our lead instructor and, now, tour guide, explained that there were only three rules about the trip: leave the bus in good shape; use the WC only in case of emergency ; and don't vomit on the bus.
The first leg of our journey was short: less than an hour north of München is the Hallertau region. Not surprisingly, it is home to the German division of Hopsteiner, one of the world's global players in the hop trade. They've got warehouses and production facilities in all of the world's major hop growing regions, and their Hallertau facility is especially impressive. The centerpiece is a 21-storey warehouse that is refrigerated and fully automated: a storage bin for over fifty million dollars worth of hops. "The comptuer is the only thing that knows where everything in the warehouse is," our guide told us, "it would take us weeks to try and locate a particular order if we had humans doing it."
After a tour of the facility used to produce hop extract products, we jumped back on our bus and headed nine kilometers to their hop pellet plant. Despite the image that Boston Beer and, more recently, SABMiller have propagated of brewers using whole-leaf hops in their beer, most brewers, the world round, use hop pellets. They require less storage space, get marginally better utilization in brewing, are easier to remove after use, and have a longer shelf life. Pellets are made by cooling and crushing whole hops, sieving the powder, and then forming it into pellets.
Our second stop was at Weyermann, the most famous specialty malt producer in Europe. Weyermann's pilsner, cara, and rauch malts are common in American craft beer, and it was when we arrived for dinner that we realized how much they valued us as potential, future customers. Other than a brief fling with the University of North Carolina, I've never really been wined and dined before, but Weyermann set a precedent on the trip that was hard to match, though many of the other breweries and, especially, suppliers tried. For dinner they had prepared a full buffet of Franconian specialties, ranging from smoked meats and fish to cooked porks, huge cheeses platters, chicken, pickled vegetables, roast beef, and more.
To complement the buffet, they served us unending amounts of one of their house beers. Like many maltsters, Weyermann has an in house pilot brewery both for their own internal use and to test recipes for their customers. Bamberg is the home of smoked beer (rauchbier), which is a rare style that includes a portion of malt that has been smoked over a beechwood. The result is a beer that has flavors of smoked meat and barbecue. It's certainly not a flavor that wins over all beer drinkers, and it's not meant to be consumed in huge quantities, but when used judiciously, smoked malt can add a unique and complex flavor to any traditional beer style. Weyermann is famous for its rauch malt, and their in-house version was one of the best versions of the style that I've ever had. Unlike many American copycats of rauchbier, the Weyermann version (as well as the one at the Schlenkerla brewery that we tasted later in the night) was very restrained in its smokiness and paired beautifully with many of the cold meats, cheeses, and breads.
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After a night in Bamberg, we headed west to visit Ziemann-Bauer, a major manufacturer of brewing tanks, who recently had designed the equipment for the expansions at breweries like New Belgium and Dogfish Head. From there, we continued west to Dusseldorf, home to another of Germany's great beer styles: alt.
Alt is, next to pilsner, the hoppiest of German beer styles. It is an ale, fermented and lagered like a bottom-fermenting beer. The best alts have a distinctive hop flavor and aroma to match a strong malt presence. Dusseldorf is home to the few breweries that still make alt, and the city and style are nearly synonymous. During our visit, we managed to sample alts from three different breweries in town and were able to see the unity and diversity within the style.
Last year, Michael had taken over as the director of brewing operations for Uerige, a small brewpub that has produced alt for centuries in the city's Altstadt, so it was only logical that we head there to see his brewery first. There, we found a brewery that mixed some very antique brewing technology--an open coolship for settling out hot break, an open-plate heat exchanger for cooling, barrels that are bunged and unbunged by an old Portuguese boxer--with world class bottling, fermentation, and distillation equipment. Their in-house alt was noticeably hoppier and lighter-bodied than the others we tasted in Dusseldorf and had a spiciness that came from having been aged in a wood barrel.
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"When it's Monday, you can look out the window of your house and see who's going to be arriving on Friday," Michael quipped when we crossed into the low-lying farmland of the Netherlands. In contrast to the landscape, the Heineken brewery outside of Amsterdam (not to be confused with the Heinken "Experience," a Disney-esque experience in the capital) stands apart. Heineken is the world's third largest brewery, and for all of us, this plant was the largest we had ever visited. Indeed, between the 25 or so American brewers in the class, it's unlikely that we all, during our entire careers as brewers, will produce as much beer combined as the Heinken facility does in one day. The intimidation factor was compounded by an eerie, and perhaps regrettable, characteristic of the brewhouse: it was brewerless.
The technical director, who gave us our tour, explained that his proudest accomplishment at Heinken was by reducing the number of brewers by over 60%. The 60 or so people who still were employed as brewers worked rotating shifts in a control room for the fully automated facility, each completing one specific task--their area of expertise that had kept them from getting cut when the brewing team was reduced from 165 to its current state. "We measure brewhouse efficiency in how much beer we produce per FTE," the technical director explained, "and we want to be the most efficient brewhouse in the world. Plus, most brewers just sit around all day and plan the next barbecue."
This, of course, was not encouraging or inspiring for aspiring brewers. "At least they gave us a USB drive," one of my classmates said as we reboarded the bus.
It did not, however, take long for our faith to be restored. We crossed the Netherlands quickly, heading south for the Belgian border and stopped for the evening about 20 kilometers north in Tilburg. It is home to the Brouwerij de Konigshoeven, also known as La Trappe, one of the most singular monasteries in the world.
Monastic brewing is one of the most celebrated traditions in the world of fermentation. The cloister breweries throughout Germany and Belgium have guarded and maintained many of the world's most revered brewing techniques. And amongst, monk brewers none are esteemed higher than the Trappists. There are only seven Trappist breweries in the world, all purveyors of the classic Abbey styles of beer--ales that were brewed to high strength to substitute for food during times of fasting. Six of the seven are in Belgium; La Trappe is the seventh. Clearly, our visit to the monastery was a beery pilgrimage, but after our morning experience, it was a source of inspiration as well.
Given the rigors of daily prayer, the monks themselves are only present for some of the work demanded in a modern brewery. The lay brewmaster toured us around the grounds, showing us abbeys, chapels, a brewhouse with cathedral-like archways, and a barrel-room that would be the envy of many an American craft brewer. He also explained that in addition to the brewery, the monastery had an on-grounds bakery and was planning on starting a cheese-making operation as well. What's more, the monks also employed many disadvantaged locals to tend the grounds and aid in their greenhouses. "Maybe that's where all of the unemployed Heineken brewers ended up," someone suggested.
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When we crossed into Belgium the next afternoon, there was an air of excitement hitherto unseen amongst everyone. Perhaps it was the knowledge that we were, at least temporarily, free from the conservatism and restrictions of the Germany Purity Laws; perhaps it was the idea that we were slated to visit breweries that are famous worldwide. Perhaps we felt like we were in a land of kindred spirits.
American brewing has taken liberally from all three of the great European brewing traditions. Most of our classic American styles are hopped-up versions of English ales; American macro lagers are watered down version of German lagers. But it has been from Belgium that New World craft brewers have learned to experiment in the way that sets American beers apart. less concerned with precision than German brewers or drinkability than English ones, Belgian brewers have always been the bete noires of the world's brewers, always playing with new ingredients, spices, wild yeasts, fruit. It doesn't hurt that they have a great proclivity for brewing beer that's high in alcohol content as well. Indeed, Belgian beer is the original "big beer."
And our first stop was not to disappoint. Like our visits in Bamberg and Dusseldorf, we headed straight to the source of one of Belgium's classic styles: Duvel Moortgat. Duvel, Flemish for "devil," is the original strong Belgian golden ale. Brewed to 17 plato and 8% alcohol, it looks like a pilsner and has the strength of a big IPA or barleywine. In addition to sharing some of the secrets of how Duvel is brewed, Dimitri, the brewmaster, gave us free reign of the tap room for an hour after the tour. Kids in a candy store, of course, do not get drunk, which meant that the scramble to taste the wide variety of Belgian styles Duvel made--complex fruit beers, sour browns, abbey style tripels and dubbels, a wit and of course Duvel itself--scaled up in enthusiasm and slop by the hour's end. It had taken four days, but on our ride to the hotel, the bus's bathroom finally found itself in use.
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We spent Thanksgiving night in Leuven, substituting moules-frites and sour beers for turkey. With the help of BeerAdvocate and a copy of the Good Beer Guide to Belgium, we discovered the back alley cafes with enviable beer cellars and extensive draft lists that make beer lovers weak in the knees.
But nothing, nothing, as beer lovers and brewers could match Friday. Our itinerary took us into Brussels, only 25 km from Leuven, to the Brasserie Cantillon and Drie Fonteinen, two of the few breweries in the world dedicated to making lambic.
What, exactly, is lambic, and why is it so rare? One of the first things that initiates learn about beer is that there are basically two types of beer: ale and lager. In fact, there is a third: lambic. Whereas ale and lager are brewed from cultured yeast, lambics are beers created entirely through spontaneous fermentation. In the brewhouse, lambics are prepared like any other beer--though aged hops are used as opposed to fresh hops; but after cooling, lambics are left in a shallow tank overnight in a room with open windows so that nearby microorganisms can "contaminate" the beer and infect it. Bacteria and wild yeast that brewers keep out of other beers at all cost are invited to take over in a lambic. This means that funky, sour flavors develop and, because it's a far slower fermentation, the beer takes years to make. After a night open to the elements, the wort is transfered to wooden barrels and left unbunged so that a still, young lambic is produced. Straight lambic is aged anywhere from 1 to 3 years, and then either blended together to make gueuze or mixed with fruit to make beers like kriek and framboise. Because of its odd flavors and the intensive labor required to make it, lambic had, until recently, been relegated to a teensy corner of the Belgian beer world. It is still a boutique product, but it is making a comeback. Cantillon and Drie Fonteinen were both essential to its survival and recovery.
Cantillon is a museum-brewery, subsidized by the Belgian government, and they make some of the most exotic mixed lambics in the world: rhubarb lambic, dry-hopped gueuze, apricot lambic, amongst others. As we toured the dusty, cobweb-ridden facilities ("An army of spiders protects beer from the insects that want to get into the barrels; that is the second way that we depend on nature to make lambic," our tour guide explained), it became clear that we were in a brewery unlike any other in the world.
Our afternoon visit to Drie Fonteinen was equally inspiring. Armand Debelder, the master blender and brewer, at "3F" told us the tragic story of how a broken thermostat caused him to lose huge amounts of gueuze earlier this spring and, effectively, had prevented him from brewing more. Now, buying barrels from other breweries and blending, Armand explained the intricacies of developing a palate for blending different threads of lambic to produce an excellent beer. "Et voila," he said handing all thirty-five of us glass after glass of from his few remaining house-brewed lambics. As president of the lambic makers guild, Armand took it upon himself to inspire us to return to the US and help spread the gospel about gueuze. Indeed, his order to go forth and brew the greatest beer in the world made for a fitting end to our first week of touring.
As we boarded the bus and headed back to Leuven for the evening, I turned to one of my classmates, and we started talking about the weekend ahead. What were we going to do in Belgium? At the very least, we were to seek out more lambic and gueuze.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
And on the fifth day, God created Belgium
Good morning from Leuven/Louvain, a mid-size college town on the outskirts of Brussels!
I'm sorry that I haven't updated the blog since leaving for our European study tour last week, but internet has been scarce in our hotels (and costly), so I am waiting to get back to Munich to post updates on all of our travels.
A few quick notes: we had a great first week visiting numerous breweries, maltsters, hop suppliers, and tank makers. We even met the man who is, by most accounts, the most famous and expert blender of Belgian lambics.
Today we head to Belgian Luxembourg as well as the Grand Duchy itself for visits to two breweries. Then, in the next few days we head back east toward Germany and Austria, where we'll have three days before returning to Munich on Thursday night.
Again, sorry for the delay; the updates will be posted later this week; and in the meantime, my photos are all up-to-date on Facebook. Check em out!
I'm sorry that I haven't updated the blog since leaving for our European study tour last week, but internet has been scarce in our hotels (and costly), so I am waiting to get back to Munich to post updates on all of our travels.
A few quick notes: we had a great first week visiting numerous breweries, maltsters, hop suppliers, and tank makers. We even met the man who is, by most accounts, the most famous and expert blender of Belgian lambics.
Today we head to Belgian Luxembourg as well as the Grand Duchy itself for visits to two breweries. Then, in the next few days we head back east toward Germany and Austria, where we'll have three days before returning to Munich on Thursday night.
Again, sorry for the delay; the updates will be posted later this week; and in the meantime, my photos are all up-to-date on Facebook. Check em out!
Friday, November 20, 2009
And the topics were...
So the prediction wasn't too far off, though there were far more yeast-related questions than I expected.
As a review, here were the topics I predicted for the seven questions on the final:
1) malt analysis and enyzme activity
2) ''hotside'' brewhouse processes
3) off-flavors and fermentation
4) brewhouse calculations
5) microbiology and beer spoilage
6) quality control with beer flavor, foam, and haze
7) filtration, maturation, storage and cellaring operations
The actual topics were...
1) enzymes
2) mashing techniques
3) brewhouse calculations: hops
4) brewhouse calculations: brewery capacity and malt requirements
5) yeast health
6) yeast propagation and fermentation
7) yeast biochemistry and sugar consumption
So, giving myself a little lenience, topics 1, 2, 3/4, and 6 were all expected, though I only thought there would be one calculation. That there was nothing on off-flavors or microbiology was the biggest surprise, but I felt confident with the questions I answered and am cautiously optimistic that I won't have to sit an oral exam.!
Now, off for a final weekend in München; I have two more pre-European Brew Tour posts in mind and should have the posts up on Sunday night.
As a review, here were the topics I predicted for the seven questions on the final:
1) malt analysis and enyzme activity
2) ''hotside'' brewhouse processes
3) off-flavors and fermentation
4) brewhouse calculations
5) microbiology and beer spoilage
6) quality control with beer flavor, foam, and haze
7) filtration, maturation, storage and cellaring operations
The actual topics were...
1) enzymes
2) mashing techniques
3) brewhouse calculations: hops
4) brewhouse calculations: brewery capacity and malt requirements
5) yeast health
6) yeast propagation and fermentation
7) yeast biochemistry and sugar consumption
So, giving myself a little lenience, topics 1, 2, 3/4, and 6 were all expected, though I only thought there would be one calculation. That there was nothing on off-flavors or microbiology was the biggest surprise, but I felt confident with the questions I answered and am cautiously optimistic that I won't have to sit an oral exam.!
Now, off for a final weekend in München; I have two more pre-European Brew Tour posts in mind and should have the posts up on Sunday night.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The final
Our final exam is tomorrow. This has been a point of moderate stress for the brew crew.
In the past ten weeks, we've covered thousands of pages in textbooks, slide shows, pamphlets, lab manuals, and articles on brewing. We've spent 350 hours in class, and the course has kept a consistent, "if it's Tuesday, we must be studying yeast" kind of clip, which is to say that review and repetition are not highly prized in World Brewing Acadmey pedagogy. And tomorrow, we write our exam: there will be seven essay questions, and you answer five of them. To pass, you are required to get an 85%. Anyone who scores between a 50 and an 84 must take an oral exam--administered by scary German brewing instructors--when we return from our European brewery tour. Score below a 50, and you leave diploma-less.
Despite the temptation of Munich beer life, folks have been pretty studious the last few days, and there seems to be a direct correlation between amount of studying and anxiety around the exam. Rightfully so; every one of us is probably more invested in this exam than any we took in high school or college, and the volume of information that might be on it is intimidating. In the last few days, I've pulled out all my old tricks for studying for a big exam (though, I don't know that I've ever taken one whose breadth is quite so, well, broad). Flash cards, typed outlines, diagrams, tables, oral pop quizzes on the train with friends, study sessions in front of a big blackboard, and reading and re-reading. My final effort, to both solidify my baseline knowledge and to try out a new study format, is this: studying via blogging.
So I've guessed, and answered, the questions that I expect to see on the exam. Once the deed is done (and we've all opened our bottles of Triumphator Doppelbock afterwards), I'll let you know how I fared. Back in middle school, I was pretty good at predicting who the Oscar nominees would be in any given year, so maybe I'll get a couple right. If I don't, I may have an oral exam to study for.
The rest of this entry is for the beer geeks. See how you do on the pseudo-final. The answers are included in the first comme
1. Raw Materials: Malt Analysis
Q: Your brewery receives a shipment of pale malt with the following analysis from the maltster. Discuss the values below, identify whether they are "in spec," and explain how this malt might perform in the brewhouse. What steps might you take later in the brewing process if you were using this malt to brew a pilsner?
moisture content 4.2% pH 5.7 sacc. time 7 min.
apparent deg. attenuation 85% extract 82% friability 94%
Total % Protein 10.5%
F-C 1.5% friability (glass) 2% Kolbach Index 49%
A: In general, this is a high quality, if slightly overmodified malt. The only measurements that are "out of spec" are the friability (acceptable range 80-90%), saccharification time (10-15 minutes), and the Kolbach Index (38-43%). The off values in all three of these areas suggest that the maltster allowed enzyme activity to continue too far during germination. Nonetheless, the malt has an appropriate level of total protein and shows good potential for B-amylase activity given its high extract %. This malt will produce a wort that is highly fermentable, with few residual dextrins (given the high alpha amylase activity); however, it will be imbalanced with regard to different types of proteins. Specifically, it will favor high free amino nitrogen levels, which will make for good fermentation, over higher molecular weight proteins that are essential for foam stability and saturation of carbon dioxide. To brew an excellent pilsner with this beer, a brewer could add dextrin malt (aka "carapils") to the grain bill, skip a protein rest during mashing, and/or use a foam enhancing agent such as alginate.
2. "Hot Side" Brewhouse Operations
Q: List the components of a classic "4 vessel" brewhouse. Discuss the role of each in the production of wort, and give specific examples of ways that each part of the brewhouse process impacts the final character of beer.
A: The four vessels are the mash tun, lautering tun, wort kettle, and whirlpool. In the mash tun, milled malt is mixed with hot water in order to solubilize sugars, proteins, and minerals into a solution that eventually will become hot wort; during this process, complex starches and proteins are broken down into simpler sugars (such as maltose, glucose, sucrose, maltotriose, and unfermentable dextrins) and smaller polypeptides, amino acids, and nitrogen, respectively. Lautering separates the liquid wort from spent grain by using the milled husks of malted barley as a natural filter bed. Later, the lautering process is completed by sparging, in which additional sugars, proteins, minerals, and polyphenols are "rinsed" into wort and the total volume of liquid is increased. This hot wort is then boiled for anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes in order to sterilize the liquid, evaporate excess water and distill the dissolved extract, isomerize essential alpha acids from hops, volatilize undesirable compounds, form a hot break of undissolved proteins and polyphenols that are undesirable in finished beer, fix the carbohydrate profile of the wort through the denaturizing of enzymes, and form additional color and flavor compounds via Maillard reactions between sugars and amino acids. Finally, the whirlpool separates the hot wort from the trub of proteins, polyphenols, and hop matter that can interfere fermentation and beer stability. As it leaves the whirlpool, beer is cooled for fermentation and cellaring.
In terms of flavor or "character" impacts, each step in the process is critical. During the mash, a brewer controls time, temperature, thickness, and pH in order to stimulate enzyme activity that may create a lghter- or heavier-bodied beer. Similarly, certain rests during the mash can impact yeast behavior during fermentation. The classic example of this is using an extended protein rest to increase ferulic acid production during fermentation, which helps contribute a distinct clove flavor to certain German and Belgian-style ales. Lautering requires special precision on the part of the brewer: temperatures that are too high in the lautering tun will leach undesirable, astringent tannins into the final beer, and temperatures that are too low will create a beer that is highly viscous, difficult to filter, and hazy. During the boil, a brewer controls the "hop character" of beer by determinging when to add additions: a brewer who desires significant hop aromas without accompanying bitterness may wait to add her additions until late in the boil. A vigorous boil also helps remove DMS (dimethyl sulfide) from the wort--DMS can impart an undesirable cabbage, vegetal, or corny flavor to beer. Finally, proper whirlpooling removes compounds that can negatively impact yeast performance. Poor fermentation can lead to high levels of diacetyl, acetaldehyde, haze, and oxidation.
3. Fermentation Off-Flavors
Q: What is acetaldehyde? Why is it produced during fermentation? How can a brewer "fix" a beer with acetaldehyde?
A: Acetaldehyde is a specific aldehyde that is produced as an intermediate byproduct of fermentation. All healthy fermentation produces acetaldehyde; however, its presence in finished beer is consider a negative characteristic. Typically, it is associated with flavors of green apple or grape skin. I personally find that it has the aroma of raw pumpkin.
Yeast produce acetaldehyde as part of the complex process that converts glucose into ethanol. In order to produce biologically useful energy (ATP), glycolysis occurs inside yeast cells. During glycolysis, glucose uses NAD and ADP to create ATP, hydrogen, and pyruvic acid (converted to pyruvate to maintain internal pH of the yeast). The yeast then "wants" to get more NAD in order to continue to produce energy and grow. This is why fermentation occurs, and it is where acetaldehyde enters the equation. Pyruvate undergoes an oxidative decarboxylation, a fancy way of saying that it loses carbon dioxide, and is converted into acetaldehyde. The "natural" next step undertaken by healthy yeast, with a sufficient amount of zinc, is to turn that acetaldehyde into ethanol and NAD. In other words, acetaldehyde is the compound produced en route to "getting NAD back" during fermentation.
Acetaldehyde correlates directly to yeast stress: that is, any criteria that negatively impacts yeast health and vigorous fermentation increases levels of acetaldehyde. This includes high yeast pitching rates, high pressure inside a fermenter, and low free amino nitrogen in wort. High fermentation temperatures increase acetaldehyde production and speed its conversion into ethanol. Typically, beer with high levels of acetaldehyde require a longer fermentation, krausening, or a fresh dose of yeast, all of which are acceptable techniques to "fix" this off-flavor.
4. Brewery Microbiology
Q: You lead the microbiology lab at a large lager brewery. You detect a bacterial contamination from pediococcus in your beer. List the steps that you have taken in the lab to identify pediococcus as the culprit of beer spoilage, including "sensory" tests.
A: There are three basic tests that breweries use to identify microorganisms: the gram stain (or KOH test), the catalase test, and basic microscopy. All bacteria can be categorized as either gram negative or gram positive. This means that when stained, the outer membrane of the bacteria appears bright under the microscope and is an indicator of the basic structure of the bacteria. Typically, more resilient bacteria are gram positive, including the primary class of beer spoilers: lactic acid bacteria. As an alternative to the gram stain, many brewing scientists prefer the KOH test. In a lab a cultured microorganism is mixed with a little bit of KOH. If the resultant mixture is "ropey," the organism is KOH positive. The KOH and gram tests are inversely correlated.
The Catalase test determines whether a microorganism is aerobic or not. Hydrogen peroxide is dropped onto a microogranism on a lab plate; if there is a bubbling reaction, the organism is respiring and thus aerobic. Pediococcus is catalase negative, whereas other micrococci that are not beer spoilers are usually catalase positive. A beer spoiler that is gram positive (KOH negative) and catalase negative is either pediococcus or a type of lactobacillus. The final identification can be done by microscopy: using a simple microscope to identify the organisms shape. Cocci are round whereas bacilli are rod-shaped. A pediococcus infection can be identified organaleptically as well due to its distinct "rancid butter" aroma and flavor in beer.
Other common beer spoilers include lactobacillus, acetobacter/gluconobacter, enterobacteriaceae, megasphera, pectinatus, and zymomonas.
5. Brewhouse Calculations: Grains, Hops, and Efficiency
Q: Calculate the malt and hop requirements for a 500 liter (cast out wort) batch of American pale ale with an original gravity of 15 degrees Plato (by weight) and 55 IBUs. Select appropriate American hop varieties, and give plausible alpha acid percentages for each addition. Your brewhouse has an overall efficiency of 82%, and you typically have a 26% utilization on hops.
A: 1. Malt calculation
Malt (kg) = {volume of wort (hl) x .96 x gravity (g/100 ml)} / brewhouse efficiency (%)
= (5 hl x .96 x 15.89 g/ml) / 82
= 93.01 kg
2. Total Alpha Acids Required
AA (kg) = {volume of wort (liters) x target IBU (g/ml)} / hop utilization (%)
=(500 x 55) / .26
=105.77 g of AA
3. Distribution of AA for Each Addition
1st Addition: CTZ (bittering) 16%AA 50% =52.885 g AA
2nd Addition: Cascade 6% AA 20% =21.154 g AA
3rd Addition: Cascade 6% AA 30% =31.731 g AA
4. Actual Hops Required
hops (kg) = kg AA / % AA
1) CTZ = 52.885/16% =330.53 g
2) Cascade = 21.154/6% =352.57 g
3) Cadcade = 31.731/6% =528.85 g
So those are the five questions, I plan on answering. How did you do? Dark horse topics that might show up: fermentation regimes; quality control around beer haze, gushing, foam, or flavor; filtration; and water chemistry. Stay tuned to see if I score as well at predicting the test as I do on it.
Bis dann...
In the past ten weeks, we've covered thousands of pages in textbooks, slide shows, pamphlets, lab manuals, and articles on brewing. We've spent 350 hours in class, and the course has kept a consistent, "if it's Tuesday, we must be studying yeast" kind of clip, which is to say that review and repetition are not highly prized in World Brewing Acadmey pedagogy. And tomorrow, we write our exam: there will be seven essay questions, and you answer five of them. To pass, you are required to get an 85%. Anyone who scores between a 50 and an 84 must take an oral exam--administered by scary German brewing instructors--when we return from our European brewery tour. Score below a 50, and you leave diploma-less.
Despite the temptation of Munich beer life, folks have been pretty studious the last few days, and there seems to be a direct correlation between amount of studying and anxiety around the exam. Rightfully so; every one of us is probably more invested in this exam than any we took in high school or college, and the volume of information that might be on it is intimidating. In the last few days, I've pulled out all my old tricks for studying for a big exam (though, I don't know that I've ever taken one whose breadth is quite so, well, broad). Flash cards, typed outlines, diagrams, tables, oral pop quizzes on the train with friends, study sessions in front of a big blackboard, and reading and re-reading. My final effort, to both solidify my baseline knowledge and to try out a new study format, is this: studying via blogging.
So I've guessed, and answered, the questions that I expect to see on the exam. Once the deed is done (and we've all opened our bottles of Triumphator Doppelbock afterwards), I'll let you know how I fared. Back in middle school, I was pretty good at predicting who the Oscar nominees would be in any given year, so maybe I'll get a couple right. If I don't, I may have an oral exam to study for.
The rest of this entry is for the beer geeks. See how you do on the pseudo-final. The answers are included in the first comme
1. Raw Materials: Malt Analysis
Q: Your brewery receives a shipment of pale malt with the following analysis from the maltster. Discuss the values below, identify whether they are "in spec," and explain how this malt might perform in the brewhouse. What steps might you take later in the brewing process if you were using this malt to brew a pilsner?
moisture content 4.2% pH 5.7 sacc. time 7 min.
apparent deg. attenuation 85% extract 82% friability 94%
Total % Protein 10.5%
F-C 1.5% friability (glass) 2% Kolbach Index 49%
A: In general, this is a high quality, if slightly overmodified malt. The only measurements that are "out of spec" are the friability (acceptable range 80-90%), saccharification time (10-15 minutes), and the Kolbach Index (38-43%). The off values in all three of these areas suggest that the maltster allowed enzyme activity to continue too far during germination. Nonetheless, the malt has an appropriate level of total protein and shows good potential for B-amylase activity given its high extract %. This malt will produce a wort that is highly fermentable, with few residual dextrins (given the high alpha amylase activity); however, it will be imbalanced with regard to different types of proteins. Specifically, it will favor high free amino nitrogen levels, which will make for good fermentation, over higher molecular weight proteins that are essential for foam stability and saturation of carbon dioxide. To brew an excellent pilsner with this beer, a brewer could add dextrin malt (aka "carapils") to the grain bill, skip a protein rest during mashing, and/or use a foam enhancing agent such as alginate.
2. "Hot Side" Brewhouse Operations
Q: List the components of a classic "4 vessel" brewhouse. Discuss the role of each in the production of wort, and give specific examples of ways that each part of the brewhouse process impacts the final character of beer.
A: The four vessels are the mash tun, lautering tun, wort kettle, and whirlpool. In the mash tun, milled malt is mixed with hot water in order to solubilize sugars, proteins, and minerals into a solution that eventually will become hot wort; during this process, complex starches and proteins are broken down into simpler sugars (such as maltose, glucose, sucrose, maltotriose, and unfermentable dextrins) and smaller polypeptides, amino acids, and nitrogen, respectively. Lautering separates the liquid wort from spent grain by using the milled husks of malted barley as a natural filter bed. Later, the lautering process is completed by sparging, in which additional sugars, proteins, minerals, and polyphenols are "rinsed" into wort and the total volume of liquid is increased. This hot wort is then boiled for anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes in order to sterilize the liquid, evaporate excess water and distill the dissolved extract, isomerize essential alpha acids from hops, volatilize undesirable compounds, form a hot break of undissolved proteins and polyphenols that are undesirable in finished beer, fix the carbohydrate profile of the wort through the denaturizing of enzymes, and form additional color and flavor compounds via Maillard reactions between sugars and amino acids. Finally, the whirlpool separates the hot wort from the trub of proteins, polyphenols, and hop matter that can interfere fermentation and beer stability. As it leaves the whirlpool, beer is cooled for fermentation and cellaring.
In terms of flavor or "character" impacts, each step in the process is critical. During the mash, a brewer controls time, temperature, thickness, and pH in order to stimulate enzyme activity that may create a lghter- or heavier-bodied beer. Similarly, certain rests during the mash can impact yeast behavior during fermentation. The classic example of this is using an extended protein rest to increase ferulic acid production during fermentation, which helps contribute a distinct clove flavor to certain German and Belgian-style ales. Lautering requires special precision on the part of the brewer: temperatures that are too high in the lautering tun will leach undesirable, astringent tannins into the final beer, and temperatures that are too low will create a beer that is highly viscous, difficult to filter, and hazy. During the boil, a brewer controls the "hop character" of beer by determinging when to add additions: a brewer who desires significant hop aromas without accompanying bitterness may wait to add her additions until late in the boil. A vigorous boil also helps remove DMS (dimethyl sulfide) from the wort--DMS can impart an undesirable cabbage, vegetal, or corny flavor to beer. Finally, proper whirlpooling removes compounds that can negatively impact yeast performance. Poor fermentation can lead to high levels of diacetyl, acetaldehyde, haze, and oxidation.
3. Fermentation Off-Flavors
Q: What is acetaldehyde? Why is it produced during fermentation? How can a brewer "fix" a beer with acetaldehyde?
A: Acetaldehyde is a specific aldehyde that is produced as an intermediate byproduct of fermentation. All healthy fermentation produces acetaldehyde; however, its presence in finished beer is consider a negative characteristic. Typically, it is associated with flavors of green apple or grape skin. I personally find that it has the aroma of raw pumpkin.
Yeast produce acetaldehyde as part of the complex process that converts glucose into ethanol. In order to produce biologically useful energy (ATP), glycolysis occurs inside yeast cells. During glycolysis, glucose uses NAD and ADP to create ATP, hydrogen, and pyruvic acid (converted to pyruvate to maintain internal pH of the yeast). The yeast then "wants" to get more NAD in order to continue to produce energy and grow. This is why fermentation occurs, and it is where acetaldehyde enters the equation. Pyruvate undergoes an oxidative decarboxylation, a fancy way of saying that it loses carbon dioxide, and is converted into acetaldehyde. The "natural" next step undertaken by healthy yeast, with a sufficient amount of zinc, is to turn that acetaldehyde into ethanol and NAD. In other words, acetaldehyde is the compound produced en route to "getting NAD back" during fermentation.
Acetaldehyde correlates directly to yeast stress: that is, any criteria that negatively impacts yeast health and vigorous fermentation increases levels of acetaldehyde. This includes high yeast pitching rates, high pressure inside a fermenter, and low free amino nitrogen in wort. High fermentation temperatures increase acetaldehyde production and speed its conversion into ethanol. Typically, beer with high levels of acetaldehyde require a longer fermentation, krausening, or a fresh dose of yeast, all of which are acceptable techniques to "fix" this off-flavor.
4. Brewery Microbiology
Q: You lead the microbiology lab at a large lager brewery. You detect a bacterial contamination from pediococcus in your beer. List the steps that you have taken in the lab to identify pediococcus as the culprit of beer spoilage, including "sensory" tests.
A: There are three basic tests that breweries use to identify microorganisms: the gram stain (or KOH test), the catalase test, and basic microscopy. All bacteria can be categorized as either gram negative or gram positive. This means that when stained, the outer membrane of the bacteria appears bright under the microscope and is an indicator of the basic structure of the bacteria. Typically, more resilient bacteria are gram positive, including the primary class of beer spoilers: lactic acid bacteria. As an alternative to the gram stain, many brewing scientists prefer the KOH test. In a lab a cultured microorganism is mixed with a little bit of KOH. If the resultant mixture is "ropey," the organism is KOH positive. The KOH and gram tests are inversely correlated.
The Catalase test determines whether a microorganism is aerobic or not. Hydrogen peroxide is dropped onto a microogranism on a lab plate; if there is a bubbling reaction, the organism is respiring and thus aerobic. Pediococcus is catalase negative, whereas other micrococci that are not beer spoilers are usually catalase positive. A beer spoiler that is gram positive (KOH negative) and catalase negative is either pediococcus or a type of lactobacillus. The final identification can be done by microscopy: using a simple microscope to identify the organisms shape. Cocci are round whereas bacilli are rod-shaped. A pediococcus infection can be identified organaleptically as well due to its distinct "rancid butter" aroma and flavor in beer.
Other common beer spoilers include lactobacillus, acetobacter/gluconobacter, enterobacteriaceae, megasphera, pectinatus, and zymomonas.
5. Brewhouse Calculations: Grains, Hops, and Efficiency
Q: Calculate the malt and hop requirements for a 500 liter (cast out wort) batch of American pale ale with an original gravity of 15 degrees Plato (by weight) and 55 IBUs. Select appropriate American hop varieties, and give plausible alpha acid percentages for each addition. Your brewhouse has an overall efficiency of 82%, and you typically have a 26% utilization on hops.
A: 1. Malt calculation
Malt (kg) = {volume of wort (hl) x .96 x gravity (g/100 ml)} / brewhouse efficiency (%)
= (5 hl x .96 x 15.89 g/ml) / 82
= 93.01 kg
2. Total Alpha Acids Required
AA (kg) = {volume of wort (liters) x target IBU (g/ml)} / hop utilization (%)
=(500 x 55) / .26
=105.77 g of AA
3. Distribution of AA for Each Addition
1st Addition: CTZ (bittering) 16%AA 50% =52.885 g AA
2nd Addition: Cascade 6% AA 20% =21.154 g AA
3rd Addition: Cascade 6% AA 30% =31.731 g AA
4. Actual Hops Required
hops (kg) = kg AA / % AA
1) CTZ = 52.885/16% =330.53 g
2) Cascade = 21.154/6% =352.57 g
3) Cadcade = 31.731/6% =528.85 g
So those are the five questions, I plan on answering. How did you do? Dark horse topics that might show up: fermentation regimes; quality control around beer haze, gushing, foam, or flavor; filtration; and water chemistry. Stay tuned to see if I score as well at predicting the test as I do on it.
Bis dann...
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Guest Column!
This just in courtesy of our man in Praha, Joey Bosworth...a full report on our adventures last weekend. Like I wrote in my brief 'we're in Prague' blurb last Saturday, Joey loves the city and had planned an extensive tour for us so that we might see some of the gems of the Czech beer scene. While the beer had its ups and downs, the spirit of adventure was always high, and everyone had a wonderful time. Not only is Joey a gracious host, he's a solid chronicler of beer travels. Czech it out:
''After dropping off gear and parking the car, the first order of business was to visit an anchor of the Prague microbrew community. A restaurant and taproom called Pivovarskey Klub, it is one of the only places in Prague to have multiple Czech microbrews on tap. The Klub also happens to be the premier Czech bottleshop, with a huge selection of international brews. Everything went well and along with getting their first taste of gulash, the brewers worked their way through most of the draught selection. The standout was the Stepan lager brewed across town at the Klub’s sister brewery, Pivovarsky Dum. To me it is an excellent example of a basic Czech pilsner, clean, bright with decent hop presence. After our stomachs were lined with a protective layer of thick Czech gulash, we moved on to the wide selection available at our next stop.
Several weeks ago I went to a Belgian beer festival hosted by a luxury hotel here in Prague. I was nervous at first as I was the only person in the room speaking English, but tasty beer turned out to be universal. I made some friends, and after the festival they took me Zly Casy, which translates as ‘Mean Times’. I get a kick out of exclusivity, so I appreciated the lack of advertisement outside and out-of-the-way location. The offerings inside were even better. Zly Casy has sixteen beers on tap, all microbrews from the Czech Republic, with an emphasis on newly opened breweries and innovative beers. The brew crew once again worked through the more promising offerings on the draught list. Every beer passed around the table brought a new discussion of phenols, polyphenols, esters, and other aspects of beer composition known only to the initiated. While most of the conversation was far above my head, it was exciting to hear a combination of both passion for brewing and knowledge of the process. Eventually the night moved to a hazy exploration of the Czech Republic's native liqueurs, including Slivovice a rather harsh plum brandy, and Becherovka, an herbal digestif.
Despite having misplaced several members of the party the night before, Saturday morning we got on a train to Beroun, the next stop on my ad-hoc Tour de Pivo. A short ride away from downtown Prague, Beroun has little to recommend itself as a tourist destination. Stepping off the train feels like a going back in time twenty years as the entire town gives off a distinctly Soviet industrial feel. Despite the gloomy atmosphere, Beroun does have a fascinating brewpub called Berounsky Pivovar. It is one of my favorite pubs to visit with friends because of its location, which is a scrapyard full of Soviet era military hardware. The décor aside, the pub itself is exceptionally friendly. For a place that doesn’t see very many strangers, the wait staff always seems happy to see new customers, even if they speak terrible Czech. Unfortunately, the beer was a disappointment. According to the polyphenol posse, the flaws were most likely caused by heavy metals in the water used by the brewery, as well as oxidation and dying yeast. The day was not over however, and we returned back to Prague to continue the tour.
After visiting Prague Castle and several other medieval attractions we continued on to U Medvidku, a microbrewery hidden behind a larger Budvar pub. U Medvidku, whose brewmaster was honored several days ago at the Czech Beer Awards, inspired disbelief among the Siebel crew. Apparently the quaint wooden fermenting tanks and open air cooling device were not up to the strict hygiene standards so ingrained by their study. The beer, which is usually one of my favorites, showed signs of sitting in the lines, and we once again left in disappointment. After stopping to pick up the previously lost members of the group, we went on to the third brewery of the day, a touristy but essential stop on the Prague brewery circuit called Novomestsky Pivovar. This stop was the quickest of all, the two small tasters we ordered had the same heavy metal taste that we encountered in Beroun. Despairing at my apparent betrayal by Czech beer I proposed we move on to my personal stock of Belgian IPAs. All was made well as we shared an excellent Houblon Chouffe while overlooking a beautiful oldtown Prague.
The next day the mash tun mob set off again for Munich, having experienced the ups and downs of Czech beer and undoubtedly determined to perfect their own pilsner recipes.''
Where Joey's story ends, I'll start up: we spent Sunday afternoon touring the famous Pilsner Urquell brewery in Plzen, about an hour west of Prague. Pilsner Urquell is the home of the pilsner beer style, and we had a great time admiring the mix of hypermodern and far antique technologies that they use to produce the beer. The highlight, universally agreed upon by the Siebel crew, was a visit to the extensive tunnel network underneath the current brewery, where thousands upon thousands of wooden barrels for fermentation and maturation. Some of those barrels are still used today, and we were lucky to taste this ''keller'' version of the pils, which had the complex mix of woody, musty, and spicy hops that great German kellerbiers have. It was the best beer we tasted in the Czech Republic.
We made it back to Munich safe and sound on Sunday night, ready to buckle down and work hard in our final week of class.
PS Photos to follow shortly!
''After dropping off gear and parking the car, the first order of business was to visit an anchor of the Prague microbrew community. A restaurant and taproom called Pivovarskey Klub, it is one of the only places in Prague to have multiple Czech microbrews on tap. The Klub also happens to be the premier Czech bottleshop, with a huge selection of international brews. Everything went well and along with getting their first taste of gulash, the brewers worked their way through most of the draught selection. The standout was the Stepan lager brewed across town at the Klub’s sister brewery, Pivovarsky Dum. To me it is an excellent example of a basic Czech pilsner, clean, bright with decent hop presence. After our stomachs were lined with a protective layer of thick Czech gulash, we moved on to the wide selection available at our next stop.
Several weeks ago I went to a Belgian beer festival hosted by a luxury hotel here in Prague. I was nervous at first as I was the only person in the room speaking English, but tasty beer turned out to be universal. I made some friends, and after the festival they took me Zly Casy, which translates as ‘Mean Times’. I get a kick out of exclusivity, so I appreciated the lack of advertisement outside and out-of-the-way location. The offerings inside were even better. Zly Casy has sixteen beers on tap, all microbrews from the Czech Republic, with an emphasis on newly opened breweries and innovative beers. The brew crew once again worked through the more promising offerings on the draught list. Every beer passed around the table brought a new discussion of phenols, polyphenols, esters, and other aspects of beer composition known only to the initiated. While most of the conversation was far above my head, it was exciting to hear a combination of both passion for brewing and knowledge of the process. Eventually the night moved to a hazy exploration of the Czech Republic's native liqueurs, including Slivovice a rather harsh plum brandy, and Becherovka, an herbal digestif.
Despite having misplaced several members of the party the night before, Saturday morning we got on a train to Beroun, the next stop on my ad-hoc Tour de Pivo. A short ride away from downtown Prague, Beroun has little to recommend itself as a tourist destination. Stepping off the train feels like a going back in time twenty years as the entire town gives off a distinctly Soviet industrial feel. Despite the gloomy atmosphere, Beroun does have a fascinating brewpub called Berounsky Pivovar. It is one of my favorite pubs to visit with friends because of its location, which is a scrapyard full of Soviet era military hardware. The décor aside, the pub itself is exceptionally friendly. For a place that doesn’t see very many strangers, the wait staff always seems happy to see new customers, even if they speak terrible Czech. Unfortunately, the beer was a disappointment. According to the polyphenol posse, the flaws were most likely caused by heavy metals in the water used by the brewery, as well as oxidation and dying yeast. The day was not over however, and we returned back to Prague to continue the tour.
After visiting Prague Castle and several other medieval attractions we continued on to U Medvidku, a microbrewery hidden behind a larger Budvar pub. U Medvidku, whose brewmaster was honored several days ago at the Czech Beer Awards, inspired disbelief among the Siebel crew. Apparently the quaint wooden fermenting tanks and open air cooling device were not up to the strict hygiene standards so ingrained by their study. The beer, which is usually one of my favorites, showed signs of sitting in the lines, and we once again left in disappointment. After stopping to pick up the previously lost members of the group, we went on to the third brewery of the day, a touristy but essential stop on the Prague brewery circuit called Novomestsky Pivovar. This stop was the quickest of all, the two small tasters we ordered had the same heavy metal taste that we encountered in Beroun. Despairing at my apparent betrayal by Czech beer I proposed we move on to my personal stock of Belgian IPAs. All was made well as we shared an excellent Houblon Chouffe while overlooking a beautiful oldtown Prague.
The next day the mash tun mob set off again for Munich, having experienced the ups and downs of Czech beer and undoubtedly determined to perfect their own pilsner recipes.''
Where Joey's story ends, I'll start up: we spent Sunday afternoon touring the famous Pilsner Urquell brewery in Plzen, about an hour west of Prague. Pilsner Urquell is the home of the pilsner beer style, and we had a great time admiring the mix of hypermodern and far antique technologies that they use to produce the beer. The highlight, universally agreed upon by the Siebel crew, was a visit to the extensive tunnel network underneath the current brewery, where thousands upon thousands of wooden barrels for fermentation and maturation. Some of those barrels are still used today, and we were lucky to taste this ''keller'' version of the pils, which had the complex mix of woody, musty, and spicy hops that great German kellerbiers have. It was the best beer we tasted in the Czech Republic.
We made it back to Munich safe and sound on Sunday night, ready to buckle down and work hard in our final week of class.
PS Photos to follow shortly!
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