The Beer Tap

Sláinte

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Its 9 am and bars have been open for three hours already.  I have not ventured out yet, but I think the first Guinness is not too far off.  Before beginning the full celebration I decided to do a little learning about the holiday I was drinking to celebrate.  Some where along the way as a kid I learned about St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland.  What else was there to this story?  Here's the cliff notes version of what I discovered over at Wikipedia. 

Saint Patrick was born in Roman Britain about AD 385, originally called Maewyn.  At the age of 16, he was sold into slavery by a group of Irish marauders that raided his village. During this time in captivity he became closer to Christianity and would later formally study under a bishop.  He then realized that his true calling in life was to convert pagans to Christians and spent the rest of his life in this service.  St. Patrick died on March 17th in 461 AD which explains the date of our modern day celebration.

So what about the snakes?  Apparently there never were any snakes in Ireland to begin with.  Historians believe that this might have been a metaphor for converting people to Christianity and away from their pagan ways.  St. Patrick was also rumored to have raised people from the dead.  I would assume that this was also not true but since I was not there I will still give him the benefit of the doubt that he was a great man.  He is a Saint after all.

Now that I have had my history lesson, I am off to enjoy the celebration.  Sláinte!

Public Service Announcement: Please remember that friends do not let friends drink green beer.  They instead laugh at people who think beer needs green food coloring.  They point and ridicule and cause green beer drinkers great humiliation.  Green beer just ain't natural. 

Slow boat to India

If you read my last post, you are expecting another description of a brewery and/or tour.  Unfortunately the tour was sold out (45 minutes in advance!) and I was not able to make it.  So instead I decided to talk about IPAs.  I brewed an IPA on Saturday and thought that it would be fun to look into the history of the style.  I have heard the basics about shipping the beer to India, but wanted to dig a little deeper.  Thanks to Ray Daniels and his book “Designing Great Beers” and Wikipedia for the details…

The British Empire appointed its first governor to India in 1774.  With this event, ships began to regularly travel back to England with spices and silk.  Since India was self-sufficient, the ships often traveled from England to India without any cargo.  George Hodgson of the Bow Brewery in East London recognized an opportunity to take advantage of low freight rates on these empty vessels and began shipping his specially developed IPA in the 1790’s.

Why the special formulation?  The long, hot journey proved a difficult one for the dark ales and porters that were common in England at that time. Ships typically left London, sailed south past the equator along the coast of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and then crossed the Indian Ocean to reach India.  It was a 6 month trip across many climates and the rough waters of southern Africa resulted in an extremely violent voyage.  The standard, sweet ales and porters of England surely would have spoiled along the way.

In order to make the trip, Hodgson modified one of his existing “paler” ales.  First, the new beer was highly hopped to take advantage of the preservative nature of the hop acids.  Whole hops were often added to the pitch-coated casks for additional protection during the journey.  The second change was to reduce the original gravity of the beer and to use paler malts.  Doing so created a more fermentable wort allowing the yeast to consume a larger amount of sugars. The finished “dry” beer contained less sugar for bacteria and wild yeast during the long voyage.

Fast forward 200 plus years and the style is still alive today.  Many of the IPAs available in Britain today are actually closer to a regular pale ale than their cousin of the past.  In America, however, the style has taken firm roots among the craft and microbrew communities.  And in typical American fashion, they have pushed the limits of bitterness and alcohol content to the point of creating a new category, Double IPA.  Another interesting note about modern day… from what I can tell, IPA is not sold in India today. They are drinking lagers almost exclusively.  Their loss!

So here is the low down on my American IPA.  A slight modification on one of my regulars that has a bit of a following among friends:

• OG: 1.065
• Malts: Pale (American), 60 L Crystal, Cara-Pils, Biscuit
• Hops: Chinook (A strong hop to help give me the bitterness necessary for the style), Cascade (For flavor and aroma, dry hopping to follow) 
• Yeast: White Labs California Ale Yeast – High attenuation (Ferments up to 80% of sugars)
• Vessel: Glass with heater and jacket to help keep the yeast happy, no wood or pitch!

Pumpkin in my beer?

If you have been beer shopping over the last few weeks, you have probably noticed at least one pumpkin beer on the shelves.  This seasonal offering seems to be gaining in popularity.  Even Anheuser-Busch is getting in on the game!

Pumpkin as a brewing ingredient is hardly a new phenomenon.  Back in colonial times, brewers often used pumpkins as a source of fermentable sugars.  Barley was still grown back in Europe and was either scarce or expensive.  Deprive a man of beer and its amazing what he is willing to try to get a good buzz.  These old recipes often called for dried pumpkins.  I have no idea what that would taste like, but I cannot imagine that it would be great.  Pumpkin by itself can often be pretty bland until you add that magic pie spice.   

Today, pumpkins are roasted and added to the mash to provide both flavor and some sugars, but only as an addition and not as the primary source of fermentables.  Modern beers also add flavor from the inclusion of brown sugar or any number of the spices that make up pumpmik spice: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, mace, and clove.  For the pumpkin flavors to shine through, the addition of these ingredients needs to be subtle.  From what I have tasted, the beers offered today offer a wide range of flavors.  Anywhere from really sweet and spicy to subtle.  Grab a few today for the Halloween weekend and see which one you prefer!

Here are just a few brewers offering a pumpkin beer:

• Shipyard - Pumpkinhead Ale
• Dogfish Head - Punkin Ale
• Anheuser-Busch - Jack's Pumpkin Spice
• Lakefront Brewery - Pumpkin Lager
• Buffalo Bills Brewery - Pumpkin Ale

Oktoberfest Beer Part 1

Since brewing began with the rise of early civilizations, brewers throughout time have been forced to create novel solutions to problems that modern technology has since easily solved.  The Germans may be best known for techniques and innovations in the creation of lager beers.  In this post we’ll look at only one of these innovations.  Back in the day, brewers of the old world did not have refrigeration to then keep the beer fresh.  Instead, they relied on caves and cellars to store beer at an appropriate temperature…about 45-55 deg F.  Since they lacked the ability to control temperature, these brewers stopped producing beer in the warmer months of the year. 

      

In March, the brewers would brew a beer slightly higher in alcohol to store in the caves for consumption later in the summer.  This is where the term “lagerbier” originated: the word “lagern” is German for “to store”.  The last beer produced in the spring before the summer was called Märzen, which is German for March.  As fate would have it (or maybe it was planned…I’m not sure), the marriage and first Oktoberfest as described in an earlier post, took place late in the summer when this beer was being pulled from the cellars for consumption.  As beer and concessions became part of the festivities in the few years after the original celebration, this beer was eventually called Oktoberfest.  The origins of the modern day Oktoberfest style according to the BJCP: “Origin is credited to Gabriel Sedlmayr, based on an adaptation of the Vienna style developed by Anton Dreher around 1840, shortly after lager yeast was first isolated.”

      

Up next…what does an Oktoberfest taste like?  I’ll follow that up with information on modern commercial beers to try.