The Ed
The Ed
I had not been here in a while but a day job colleague dragged me along for lunch one day. While it’s no Wheaty it is better than the average pub and seems to be keen on getting more good beer into the bar. There wasn’t anything really interesting on tap but I saw some Moo Brew, Rogue and others in bottle in the fridges.
As I was checking out the selection the bar manager noticed me looking and offered me a glass of the Coopers 3 year old aged stout he was drinking. I, obviously, gratefully accepted this and had a bit of chat with him. The stout was excellent. The aging takes the bitterness and a bit of the harsher yeast flavours off the beer. It comes out much more malt driven with chocolate and coffee flavours. It still retains enough bitterness to be very drinkable though.
From my conversation it sounds like they are moving more in the craft beer direction to stand out a bit and he gave the impression that had some passionate locals. It’s baby steps but it is really good to see. It is a great pub too. Nice cosy bar a great beer garden and good food from all reports. When we go out for lunch it doesn’t normally involve solid food so I can’r report on that. If you are in the area it is a pub worth checking out. If more people go there and order the craft beers hopefully they will get even more of them and perhaps get some on tap.
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Beer/Brewing 101 – Ingredients
So this is where we start with brewing 101. Please comment or contact me if you find any errors in this. I know brewing reasonably well but I’m not a brewing scientist and I’m certainly not infallible. I’m going to do a summary of the main brewing ingredients. There are lots of variants and they won’t all be covered here, hopefully I will cover most variations over this course of these posts.
The primary ingredient is water. Kind of obvious but still very important. Water can have a much bigger impact than you would expect on finished beer. Water is the reason pilsener came from the Czech Republic and porters came out of London. Without going into specifics at this time the mineral make up in water affect the expression of different flavours and mouthfeel. You actually want some minerals in all brewing water for the yeast and for some styles you want pretty hard water. I will go into this in more detail when I do a post on water later on.
The next major ingredient is malt or malted grain. This is mostly barley but wheat is also common. Other grains are used but are rare in comparison to barley and wheat. Barley is the most common as it has a husk which makes it bad for bread and many other products but the husk is an asset for the mashing process in making beer. The mash will be covered soon. Malted grains are grains that have been heated in a moist environment until they just start to sprout. This releases starchy sugars from the grain. Once it starts to sprout it is roasted at high temperatures to stop the sprouting and to change flavour. The grain can be roasted to different levels to add colour and flavour. The malt provides the fermentable sugar that the yeast will turn into alcohol and C02.
The third of the four main ingredients is hops. Hops primary purpose is to provide bitterness to the beer. Without hops beer would be very sweet and not very drinkable. Historically many things have been used to provide bitterness but hops are used almost exclusively now days. Hops also provides flavour and aroma to the beer. There are infinite varieties of hops that are suited to different uses. Some hops can provide lots of bitterness but are low in flavour and aroma an some will do the reverse. They can do any and all combinations of these things.
Next we have the last of the main ingredients, yeast. The yeast is what eats the sugars and turns it into alcohol and C02. There are many varieties of yeast that will give distinctly different flavours to your beer. However, they can be roughly grouped into two basic types. There is ale yeast and lager yeast. Ale yeast works at higher temperatures, typically 18-22C, and produces more esters and fruity flavours. Lager yeast typically works at lower temperatures, typically 8-12C, and produces cleaner crisper flavours.
There are many other ingredient that are used in beer. Just malt wise there are many varieties with different levels of roasting, caramelised and even smoked malts. Various sugars are also used. This is often seen as a bad thing but in the right beer and used properly it can have a great impact on beer. Honey and fruit are becoming more common. I’m not a fan of them in general but they seem to be becoming popular. There is even a brewery in the USA using cedar tips for bittering so the possibilities are endless.
I was going to make this post an overall summary but it’s getting a little long so I will leave at an ingredients summary and get into the brewing process in the next post. My main reference is How To Brew by John Palmer. It’s a great book for free online or buy the updated dead tree edition.
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Double Barrelled Locals at The Wheaty
It’s that time again. This coming Wednesday, the 7th of July, is the first one of the month so it’s time for two new locals on tap at The Wheaty. This month the contenders are Brewboys and Steam Exchange.
From the Brewboys we will be getting the Ace of Spades stout. One of their classic beers. This is a stout of my favourite type. It’s big enough to be nice and warming but not over the top so it becomes super sweet. Has some nice roast qualities with a good bitterness level to add to the drinkability. It’s just a great stout. If you haven’t had it off tap before you should get down and try some. If you have had it before chances are you will be there because you don’t want to miss another chance at having it on tap.
From Steam Exchange we have the truffles. The truffles was designed to be a dessert beer. Loosely described as a chocolate, bourbon vanilla porter. It’s a great beer but not a session beer. A small glass with dessert is excellent and one or two on a winter afternoon infront of the fire would work too. The last time I had it was at a whisk(e)y and beer tasting and it was an awesome match with a highly peated malt like Ardbeg 10.
Hope to see the local beer community out there on Wednesday night.
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Beer/Brewing 101 Introdcution
I figure there are probably lots of beer lovers and geeks out there that don’t really know how their beer is made. Not everyone comes from a background of home or commercial brewing. Many that do don’t get past the Cooper’s kits. I intend to go through a basic overview of the brewing process. I don’t want to go too deep but will provide links for those that wish to go further. I don’t have a brewing science degree or anything but I have learnt a fair bit over the years. If you find mistakes please let me know. My main learning about brewing was from the book “How to Brew” by John Palmer. You can use the old version for free online or buy the new and updated one.
The first Brewing 101 post will be up in a a couple of days. The first in the series will cover the basics of brewing ingredients. I was going to try to cover the basic process also but it got a little long for that. Once the basics of ingredients and process I will start getting into more specifics by covering styles.
I will be at The Wheaty on Friday to try the new creatures beer. I will most likely be wearing a Toronado tshirt and black hoody so come up and say hi if you make it.
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Little Creatures ABA at The Wheaty Friday
Apparently it’s time for another limited release from Little Creatures. They have produced an American style brown ale. The word is that it is a hop bomb but still carries a good malt backbone. It is set to go on tap at The Wheaty from 1500 on Friday the 2nd. Seems odd that they are producing a brown ale shen Little World Beverages owns White Rabbit. White Rabbit’s flagship beer is a brown ale.
If you are lucky there will be some Stone and Wood beers left on tap too. I had a great night at The Wheaty last night with two of the guys from Stone and Wood. They have the draught ale and the Stone beer on tap. Both good easy drinking beers that you could easily have a few pints of. The brewers are gentlemen too.
I’m going to make it down to try the new effort from Creatures
. Get There!
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