Chocolate Waltzin’
What goes into the creation of a beer?
I’ll be honest. I’ve read a few random things in my time about producing new beers, my favourite a rating on our Belgian Dubbel style ale that we called Handel. One of the Ratebeer clan (Ratebeer is a website where people give their descriptions and ratings of different beers) described it as such… “Some brown malts were brewed with some Belgian yeast and some hops were thrown in without any genuine conception of how the finished beer would taste”. This actually made me laugh out loud! I won’t make any assumptions about how much this guy knows about brewing (although it seems he’s already decided how we make beer), but it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Using this example, Handel was actually based on a tried and true homebrew recipe from a young American homebrewer, Leah Handel, who had come over to learn about microbrewing with us and with Kelham Island Brewery in Sheffield. Her homebrew beer was tasted by Dave Wickett of Kelham Island when he was with Garrett Oliver, the esteemed Brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery in the US. They thought it was great, thus she came over, learnt a bit about commercial brewing and gave us the chance to brew her beer on a large scale. We used a similar combination of malts as her recipe, as well as hops that we hand selected (well, nose selected actually… Brewers Gold, Hersbrucker, Vanguard and Pioneer) and to stick to its Belgian roots, we even made our own Belgian Candied Sugar in the Thornbridge Kitchen (one of the advantages of one of our brewers, Matt, having been a chef).
We then used the same strain of Trappist Ale yeast that had been used by Leah, but instead of allowing the intensely complex aromatics that some of the Belgian yeast can give to a beer, we made a decision to use a blend of this yeast with our own Thornbridge strain… something we had done successfully before. The beer fermented down, and then was matured for 4 or so months before being racked into cask.
So yeah, I guess you could say we actually did have some type of thoughts about how the beer would taste! I’m all for people rating beer and letting us know whether they love or hate it, but if you are going to make comments like that, I think facts are pretty important!
This brings me to me next story of beer creation!
We’re really lucky to have great locals at our pub. Around Christmas this year, they brought the staff in all manner of sweets and chocolates and lovely Christmas cards. It was great! Best of all was that I’d steal a chocolate every now and then and I managed to steal a small Terry’s Chocolate Orange segment. I’ve had lots of different orange and chocolate combinations before, but this was really nice. A whack of sweetness, some smooth creaminess, a small hint of bitter from the dark chocolate and a perfumed orange character. Could I recreate this as a beer?
I thought and I thought and realised that the best way to do it would be as a mild. Where to next? I researched into mild production and found out some interesting facts, particularly pertaining to the strengths of milds in the past! Just over a hundred years ago, milds were weighing in at 6 and 7 % and used as many hops (in kilograms per barrel) as we do now in Jaipur!!! And these were the mild beers! (Remember, that mild refers to ale that was hopped in a lesser quantity than other beers such as bitters, pale ales etc.)
I went into our malt store and got a load of different malts and put them into glasses. I crunched through them all, sniffed them and finally decided on a combination of pale ale malt, mild ale malt and a few different roasted, specialty malts. I wanted something that tasted like chocolate… lots of warm cocoa character, a bit of dusty astringency and a load of smoothness. The malts finally decided upon, the next stage was water profile. Milds were big in the Midlands and also down South, where the water was ideal for Porter, Stout and generally dark beer production. London’s water profile is quite high in carbonates, which work wonders with dark, roasted malts and mellows out their astringency. Here at Thornbridge, we’re quite lucky and have very soft water. It means when it comes to developing and brewing different styles of beer we can alter the water chemistry by adding different amounts of brewing salts… gypsum, sodium chloride, sodium bicarbonate. The more balanced London water was the decision… I didn’t want the drier character that the Dublin water profile gives to its dark beers.
Brew day was upon us and again a decision was made based on the type of fermentability and residual mouthfeel we wanted in the finished beer. Because we do single-step infusion mashing in our brewhouse, we went for a slightly higher than usual mash temperature to allow a little more non-fermentable carbohydrate to come through. Molecules from the grains called glucans help with the viscosity and mouthfeel of a beer so I wanted to retain some of these. Coupled with the fullness that some roasted malts can give, it should work perfectly!
Hop o’ clock! Saaz and Sorachi were chosen… for one I didn’t want a load of bitterness, this was a mild and for once wasn’t about the hops… something of a rarity for us at Thornbridge! But I couldn’t resist, so the aromatic Sorachi Ace, with it’s wonderful over-ripe orange and coconut characters still managed to make the cut.
I also happen to like layers of flavour in a beer and think that complexity can come from using ingredients other that water, yeast, malt and hops. This is where one of the local Peak District chocolatiers comes in! CocoaDance, my favourite chocolate-makers, do fairs and farmers markets around Derbyshire and have sold some of their fantastic chocolates to many a prestigious store! I was most impressed when I came to the Thornbridge fair a few months back and found that Dave Golubows, the chocolatier, had made a chocolate truffle using Jaipur IPA for the fondant filling. It was great!
Myself, Stefano, our head brewer, and Rob Wainwright, our chocolate-loving chef from the Coach and Horses went out to visit CocoaDance in the beautiful Castleton, right at the base of the behemoth that is Mam Tor. His quaint little factory is great and he talked us through the chocolate-making process with a passion and excitement that reminded me so much about us talking of beer. I asked him all that I could and queried him on my concept… that I wanted to make a beer that tasted like a chocolate orange, yet something that was drinkable. We had used Seville orange zest in one of our beers before, but I was worried about its bitterness. He suggested one of his favourite dark chocolate matches, mandarin peel. I tried some and was impressed by the punch of citrus oils, the spicy, peppery, almost woody characters and the light but zingy orange bitterness. I was sold!
So in went some mandarin peel and a hint of star anise just to add a little extra warmth and liquorice nose.
The beer fermented down to 3.5% AbV and now it was time to add some chocolate. I’d had the chance to talk to a few brewers that have used chocolate in its various guises before. Some brewers go for a chocolate essence, which I’m not too keen on… I’d rather something a bit more natural. Cocoa powder and chocolate itself has been known to cause all sorts of problems clogging up filters during the wort boiling and I didn’t want any chocolate that was filled with milk fats or vegetable oils that could affect head retention. The only way forward was with true cocoa beans. We ordered a small sample of cacao nibs (the broken up beans that chocolate is made from) and aged one of our stouts, Saint Petersburg on them to see what sort of character they would give the beer. Wow! It was choco-alcoholic heaven! Decision made, we transferred the finished mild on to the organic cacao nibs that I sourced from Supernutrients and now we wait…
I’ve already christened the beer CocoaDance, it already tasted chocolaty and citrusy before the maturation on chocolate, so I can’t wait to taste it over the coming days as it waltzes on to be my dream beer.
Our First Beer Festival!
We’re in the throes of putting together our first beer festival at the Coach and Horses in Dronfield. Catherine, the itinerant landlady is in planning mode and we’re going through a selection of our favourite ales and lagers as I type. We’re only a small pub. We can seat about 40 people, so we’re going to start small with between four and six handpulls in a little tent outside, as well as our five handpulls in the pub itself.
It’s actually surprising how much organisation goes into something like this. That CAMRA branches can do it again and again is an impressive feat. We need to look at all of those little things. Awnings, shelter for if it rains… this is England after all… live music, hopefully a little bit of blues to get the toes tapping, a bar, a barbeque, staff… the list goes on!
But the part that is most interesting is which beers to choose! I’ll be honest and say that I’ve gone for a beer selection from some of my favourite UK microbreweries. Beers not just chosen for their brilliance, but because the folk that produce them are great. Hopefully, we can pull off a festival that does them all justice! So what will we be able to sup come May 24-25?
First up, we’re going to try and get some great cask ale from Fyne Ales up in the west of Scotland. Situated at the head of Loch Fyne, this is a great brewery and where I cut my teeth as an assistant brewer when I first arrived in the UK. Their beers are well-balanced, great drinking and brewed with water that runs from a burn in the Highland hills above the brewery. I’m hoping to get their delicious Highlander and well-hopped Avalanche.
Next on the wish list is a cask or two from the southern brewing gurus, Dark Star, from Brighton. At Thornbridge we recently had the pleasure of brewing with their head brewer, Mark Tranter, an awesome guy who brews bloody good beers and inspires us to do the same! We brewed an awesome Old Ale together which is currently maturing away to be bottled at a later date. Hopefully we’ll get some of their delicious Hophead down here and maybe some of their Espresso Stout or American Pale Ale. Will wait and see what beers they have available come May as they’re all good!
A little closer to home, we’ve just contacted Marble Brewery in Manchester. Dominic Driscoll, their brewer comes into the Coach and Horses occasionally with Janine Shorrock (brewster at Ashover Brewery). I’ve also visited their pub and tried their great beers. We’re pushing for some of their impressive JP Best, a bitter and hopefully some of their Ginger Beer. These guys brew exciting and interesting beers, so will be cool to get some here!
Marble Brewery
What beer festival would be complete without some Brewdog beers! I began brewing at Thornbridge with Martin Dickie, the founder and brew-maestro of the Mega-Microbrewery up in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire in 2006 and I’m always impressed by his beers. Last year they won a couple of World Beer Cups over in the States, the Oscars of the brewing world and they produce consistently good beers that push the boundaries of British brewing. Fingers crossed for a cask of Punk IPA and maybe even a keg of their new dark lager, Zeitgeist!
We currently have Taddington Brewery’s Moravka, a 5% Pils-style lager that is brewed just a few miles from Thornbridge. You can read what Stonch says about it here. I’ve been lucky enough to try the unfiltered form straight from the lagering tank and was incredibly impressed by its delightful noble hop character. Fingers crossed that we can get a keg of this rare beast for all to try!
Last but not least, will be our Thornbridge beers! Every beer that we’ve brewed in the last two and a half years has been through our handpulls, so needless to say, we guarantee to have a good selection come festival weekend. I’m positive that Jaipur will be there and I’ll let you know closer to the festival what other delectable delights that we’ll have ready!
More details will be posted as they come available. Hope to see you there!
Rants and Reactionary Ramblings
There’s been a lot of press around lately in a few trade-related magazines regarding microbreweries. The articles have mentioned brewers from a few larger breweries talking about the inconsistency of beers produced at microbreweries and that microbreweries are seemingly just one-trick ponies crafting beers that mostly just have novelty value to get CAMRA folk to try them.
Is this just a story for stories sake, an attempt to completely divide an industry that should be working together now more than ever, or just sour grapes from larger breweries who have been producing good, traditional, quality beers that, have unfortunately not moved with the consumers palate.
I live in a pub called the Coach and Horses in Dronfield, North-East Derbyshire. My Kiwi girlfriend, Catherine manages the pub. It provides us with wages and is our home. As it is the Thornbridge Brewery tap, it is also partly responsible for me having a job. We serve beers (and by beers, I mean the generic term of ales and lagers) that are not Thornbridge beers. I’m not a fan of some of them and some of them are produced by large breweries. I find their quality and consistency excellent, yet I find them lacking in flavour. Yet, according to some customers and other folk I chat to, this was not always the case.
It is almost as if an accountant has come along, tried to cut costs wherever possible, spoke with managers of the brewing process, convinced them to use cheaper hops, or an isomerised hop extract that provides a similar bitterness and aroma for a cheaper amount or even to use caramel extract instead of kilned specialty malts to cut costs. But I’m sure this has never happened.
I’m also sure that no marketing executives have ever convinced the brewery bosses that triple filtering a beer sounds like a great thing to turn into a marketing initiative as it somehow denotes that the beer is of superior quality. I’m sure they’ve explained that the average beer drinker is oblivious to the fact that filtration can steal some flavours and aromas from the beer and that the perception of a beer all comes down to their brand awareness and how it makes them feel as they hold the bottle/branded glassware, logos held high for all to see.
I’m sure these same brand managers have never come up with billboards highlighting the use of cheap, starch-filled brewing adjuncts such as maize or corn in place of richly flavoured malts as part of the marketing strategy.
I can keep going, but I’m sure you get the point. It is true that microbreweries can sometimes produce inconsistent beers. I know this because I am a brewer in a microbrewery and I know that we constantly work on flavour matching our beers due to the inconsistencies that can come with small-batch production and the effect that variations in ingredients can have on these batches.
But what I also know is that I once worked in a large brewery. I learnt about the importance of quality and consistency of product. I understand it and everything we do at Thornbridge is based around the production and delivery of a high quality product.
I do though, have a bit of a gripe with consistency of flavour when it comes to microbreweries.
We are producing a product that comes from nature. The water, hops, barley and yeast are (or were) living things. In winemaking, the irregularities in grapes that occur from nature result in a vintage. One year the wine is incredible. The next, it is terrible and should be all made into vinegar. This is accepted in winemaking, yet not in brewing. Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head Brewery might have the answer in one of the best articles I’ve read for a long time. Read it here. Sam likes to say that Mother Nature makes wine, while brewers make beer.
Does this mean that people are happy to accept that it was a crap year, it rained far too much, so the Chardonnay tastes like water, yet the minute their pint of ale doesn’t taste the same as that one they drank four years ago, that the brewers are doing something wrong? Hmmmm. Maybe. Yet, from experience, I can say that when you brew beers that are, for example, heavily hop-lead beers, and the subtle nuances that can occur in a hop crop from year to year are exacerbated by using a massive amount, then yeah, it might taste slightly different. Brewers don’t accept this though, which is why we always experiment with a variety of hops, in variable amounts to ensure that the beer tastes as good, if not better year upon year. Inconsistent maybe, but hopefully better!
Brewers do make beer, and if they aren’t working in a mega-beer factory producing quality, consistenct products, they’re probably toiling away over a hot copper, recording every possible variable that they can with a lack of expensive laboratory analysis, sensors and automated and computerised equipment. These guys are also trying their damnedest to produce flavour-filled, quality and hopefully consistent products as well.
To any large brewery folk reading this, us small guys just want exactly what you want. We look up to you and all of the quality checks and the facilities you have to educate and learn. The potential vehicle you could use to let everyone know about great beer. I love being a brewer because of the comradeship and passion and openness that permeates this industry. So, let’s all just work together and teach people about beer. No more grumpiness about micros stealing market share, yet doing it with bad beer. Please!
I know, I live in a dream… Somebody get me a beer!
The Cold Stuff in Austria
Well, it applies to a couple of things really… firstly the snow and secondly the beer. I’ll be honest… I didn’t have high hopes of finding such a diverse and interesting range of well-built lagers up in the Alps, but I guess I was at altitude, so any hopes were high by default!
We had landed in Kitzbuhel in the North Tyrol region, about an hour and a half from Salzburg for a solid week of snowboarding with a bit of beer and food thrown in for good measure. Great place and my first experience of boarding in Europe, so the scenery and incredible beauty of the town and its buildings were something to behold… especially when it began snowing! Even more amazing was the fact that although the roads became more and more covered and white, powdery goodness, the cars kept driving around. This was in stark contrast to the week before in the UK, where a few inches in some places caused local economies to plummet, people to call work describing how their cars were snowed in and entrepreneurial folk to sell cheap, closing down sale Woolworths knives attached to the bottom of stolen shoes as high-tech ice skates. Yet, here in Austria it was business as usual… so confusing for a Kiwi lad like myself!
So we hit the slopes, I smashed my body to pieces all in the name of fun and come lunchtime it was time to head to an Apres-Ski restaurant for a snack to eat and maybe some liquid refreshment. There are times when I try my damnedest to remove the “brewer’s hat” which has been firmly sewn to the skin of my head so that I can just enjoy a beer for beer’s sake and I’ll admit that with a bit of coercion, the hat found its way to the chair next to me and the first drop of golden liquid that touched my lips was probably the finest I’d had in many a while. The beer in question was Steigl Pils. Stiegl is brewed in Salzburg and uses that ultimate Pilsener hop, the mighty Saaz. On draught it was incredibly refreshing and had a delicate, grassy hop kick that was very clean and definitely needed!
This was to become something of a habit! We’d drop our friends children off at ski school in the morning, hit the slopes for an hour or three, then off we’d go to the closest restaurant on the mountains for a beer and a snack! The food was fantastic! Sausages with sauerkraut, Nuremberg style, was a favourite of mine, as was the local Tyrolean bacon dumpling soup (Speckknodelsuppe). Hearty meat-filled goulash was ideal after a day wallowing through powder as well!
The local Billa supermarket touted an impressive selection of both bottled and canned beer as well as a vast selection of alcohols, with Schnapps a plenty! Each night I’d grab a few different beers and take them back to the hotel to taste. Although we had no fridge in our room, the double windows just so happened to fit beer bottles between them, so we had our own natural refrigerator!
First up was a 5.3% Kapsreiter Landbier Hell… supposedly this is a Landbier, which is a Franconian style lager, often unfiltered, with a good dose of malt and a whack of hop. This beer was okay, they’d used Tettnang, which I was hoping would be more apparent. If I was after a nice crisp, clean, very light coloured lager, then this was the beer for me!
Next up was a Wieselburger Stammbrau Pilsener. Weiselburger also brew Kaiser and Schloss beers, so am guessing they’re a pretty big operation! Not to knock them for being a big brewery but this was pretty standard as a 5.4% lager. It was relatively clean, with some sweetness and a bit of body, yet was lacking any hop-punch or the bitterness that I expect from a pilsener.
I had high hopes for the next beer, which was a 4.9% pilsener called Samson Budweiser. This was confusing…it had the same address as the famous Czech Republic brewery, it even had part of the name, yet the Samson moniker?? I took a sip and prepared myself for an Asterix-like transformation. No difference. I walked over to the bed and tried lifting it. Still weak. I looked in the mirror…yep, hair was long, so there was potential for some Samson-like strength there. I took another sip. Impressive bitterness in the swallow, nice noble hop note with a little malt-spice. I like this beer… even if it doesn’t make me strong. Maybe if I was to drink another five?
My favourite beer of this session had to be the delicious Zipfer Stefani Bock. This was heading more down the pale strong lager route than the rich, caramel bock path, but was a stunning beer. In no way, shape or form did this force it’s 7.1% AbV down my throat. The alcohol was well-masked and the hop and ester combined to give a bit of citrus and grass with a pinch of spicy, white pepper. Best of all was the crisp, dry finish. So smooth as well. My beer of the trip!
Six beer bottles hanging on a wall...
The next day dawned, a lot of snow had fallen, yet the sun tried it’s hardest to give us a winter-tan. It failed, yet gave us just enough time to sneak into a beer-tent on the slopes where I tried a Schneider Weisse. The waitress rinsed the tall glass with a spurt of fresh water, then gently poured most of the beer into the glass. I sat there stunned! This wasn’t the Schneider Weisse I knew was it? The beer poured a rich orange colour and was as clear as the most filtered of cheap, crap lagers! Where was my yeast! Where was my dosing of turbid, hazy wheat proteins! Would I have to have a good steak tonight just to make up for this lack of amino acids in my diet?
My panic was short lived. With a flick of her shapely wrists, she swirled the remaining portion of beer in the bottle and topped up the glass – a swirling dervish of yeast and protein made its way to the bottom of my glass, allowed the thick, white head to claw its way to the rim and looked me straight in the eyes. It said “Drink me, I am a perfect glass of beer.” I did. Divine as usual, caramel with a touch of spice in the middle and some very subdued wheat beer yeast characters. The yeast provided a little mouth-dryness though the softness of the wheat came through in the swallow, all full and fruity and magical. I looked out of the beer-tent at a vista of Alps. I like Europe…
Three Boarders, Two Schneiders, Two Bitburgers and a Radler. Oh yeah, and a skier...
The next night saw a few more beers sampled. Body sore, yet spirit fighting against being broken by the snow that seems so soft when it’s falling; I soldiered on and forced the liquids down my gullet all in the name of research. It can be a tough job this brewing thing… A Schloss Eggenberg Premium Bier at 4.0% was first. Some caramel and a bit of egg yolk on the nose. A nice rich, golden colour, some clean hop though not much bitterness and some metallic hop in the aftertaste. This was pretty average really, not a lot of character though this was drunk quite cool, so this may have subdued some of the flavours. I needed something a bit more exciting!
Would Zillertal Schwarzes, a 5.2% Schwarzbier live up to its label and be Premium Classe as indicated? Very sweet in the mouth with a touch of treacle and a little metallic, golden syrup tin character. This had very little perceived bitterness but some dry astringency from the roasted malts that helped balance the sweetness. Some cardboard in the finish didn’t bode to well and turned this from okay to average.
I’d been holding this beer back for no other reason than the fact that it had the word “Bio” written on it. Weitra Brau Hadmar Bio Bier from Bierwerkstatt Weitra Brau (it took me about a minute to write this sentence) poured like a standard lager with a lovely dark, burnished gold colour. It had some initial sweetness and a malty, almost toffee-like flavour. Apple and fruity hop danced across the nose with a distinctive green sultana character coming through as the beer warmed slightly. It also finished with a maltiness that reminded me of both Sam Adams Boston Lager and of Brooklyn’s lager. This was a surprisingly good beer!
I can't read the label!
Due to my earlier love of the Zipfer beer, this time I went for a Zipfer Marzen to finish the night. 5% and full of esters in the mouth (some slightly gluey) and a spicy, almost ginger character in nose. This showed a little bit of dryness and an almost residual bitterness that doesn’t quite do any favours to in balancing the sweetness. Not bad, but definitely nothing on their Stefani Bock! I will admit though, that the sugary, lemon juice and beer blends known as Radler did help to slake the thirst as well!
The week saw a few more beers tasted and a few more tumbles on the board, but I really loved Austria and would go back again in a heartbeat! The more I read about its breweries and beers, the more I want to travel there and find some hidden craft-brewed gems. I think next winter is as good a time as any!
