Suregork Loves Beer

I’ve been having a blast working at the brewing laboratory at VTT, and today I thought I’d try a couple of beers brewed at work. The first two are research-related, while the third was brewed in honor of VTT’s 70th anniversary. The first two beers are related to a project that attempts to shorten fermentation time, without affecting the quality of the final beer. I can’t reveal any details, but I’ll give some general information on the beers. Both beers, the ‘control’ and the ‘treated’, were fermented with the same yeast (S. pastorianus) and wort supplied by a Finnish brewery (usually we use our own wort and yeast for experiments). The ‘treated’ beer finished fermenting over 24 hours before the ‘control’ beer, and both reached similar attenuation and had similar concentrations of aroma compounds and vicinal diketones. The real test will be whether they taste the same, so let’s try them out. I asked my girlfriend to pour the beers into three glasses (2+1), so I could attempt a blind triangle test. The beers should be quite standard ‘bulk lagers’, so am not expecting anything mind-blowing.

Glass 1:

Appearance: The beer pours with a crystal clear golden-yellow color. A small foam head sits on top of the beer, but it disappears really quickly. All in all, the beers look identical.

Aroma: The beer has a very light and clean aroma. A sweet, grainy almost bready maltiness is all I can pick out. Maybe some slight apple-like tones in the background?

Flavor: The flavor is also light, and it focuses mostly on a sweet grainy maltiness. The flavor is not as clean as the aroma, as there are some slight solvent-like tones present, which could be caused by higher alcohols or esters. I can’t detect any buttery tones from vicinal diketones. The finish is quite dry and crisp, and the bitterness level is low. A quite typical ‘bulk lager’, that is a little less clean than the primes of the style.

Mouthfeel: The body is light and the beer has a medium carbonation level. Easy to drink.

 

Glass 2:

Appearance: Similar to Glass 1.

Aroma: The aroma of this glass is also very clean and light. As good as identical to Glass 1, with a sweet grainy maltiness dominating.

Flavor: Similar to Glass 1, but it feels like the flavor is a little more malty, there might be just a minor VDK presence, and there is a little less solvent tones. Could this be different from Glass 1? As I return to the glass later, I start to question my initial thoughts, as these are so similar.

Mouthfeel: The mouthfeel is similar to Glass 1, but it maybe is slightly creamier.

 

Glass 3:

Appearance: Similar to Glass 1. Maybe just slightly more head retention.

Aroma: Again, very similar to the other two. I can’t tell apart any of the beers on aroma basis at least.

Flavor: Again, very similar to the other glasses. A grainy maltiness, with slight solvently off-tones.

Mouthfeel: Very similar to the other glasses.

 

Results:

I’m having a very hard time telling these apart, and I feel at least Glass 1 and 2 are different from each other, but I’m having a difficult time deciding on Glass 3. My final guess is that Glasses 1 and 3 are the same, while Glass 2 is different. I slightly preferred Glass 2, but as I said, these were very similar.

 

The correct answers were:

1. Treated

2. Control

3. Control

 

Well, that means that I at least wasn’t able to correctly tell them apart. This is a good result for us, as this means that our technique for speeding up the fermentation process doesn’t influence flavor considerably. I repeated the tasting for my girlfriend (who had poured up the beers for me, and also initially tasted them while I was tasting them), and according to her there was a noticeable difference between them. As I try the beers again, knowing what beer is what, I can sense a slight difference between them, as the control beer features a slightly more ‘slick’ mouthfeel, while the treated beer has slightly more solvent-like flavors (as I thought I noticed during my blind-tasting), especially during the aftertaste. All in all, this was a very interesting experiment, and the beers were really similar (enough to fool me).

 

The next beer of the evening is the 70th anniversary lager. This beer is a standard ‘euro lager’, brewed for as wide of an audience as possible. I helped out with brewing and gave some tips for recipe formulation. The beer has been brewed with pilsner, pale ale and vienna malts, and hopped with Northern Brewer, Perle and Saaz. The bitterness level came out a little lower than expected, and is around 15-20 IBU. The beer was fermented with S. pastorianus strain A-63015, and alcohol level has been adjusted to 5.0% ABV. We also recently brewed a 70th anniversary ale (amber ale), with pale ale, vienna, crystal 150 and chocolate malt, and we hopped it with Northern Brewer, Perle and Cascade (huge amounts of late hops). The ale is currently maturing, and am really looking forward to trying the final beer. The ale was brewed with more demanding beer drinkers in mind. But let’s see how the lager tastes!

Appearance: The beer pours crystal clear (it has been filtered before bottling) and with a golden-yellow color. A slight fluffy white head is formed during the pour, but it collapses very quickly leaving no lacing along the glass. I wish the beer would have had a little better head retention.

Aroma: The aroma is light and clean, with some tones of a grainy and bready maltiness, and a really small amount of almost apple-like esters. Nothing mind-blowing, but it fits the style well, as there is no diacetyl or other off-smells present.

Flavor: The flavor is quite light as well, spinning mostly around the slightly sweet and grainy maltiness, that features a very light touch of biscuits and caramel as well. A very light floral hoppiness is present as well, which is joined by the same esters present in the aroma. The finish is quite dry and not very bitter. Again, the flavor is very clean, with maybe a slight hint of diacetyl and some fruity esters being present.

Mouthfeel: The beer has a light and crisp body, and a medium carbonation level, making it very easy to drink.

Overall: I wasn’t expecting much before trying the beer, and the beer wasn’t anything mind-blowing, but I was positively surprised over how clean tasting this beer was, as making a light lager requires skill from the brewer. I would maybe up the bitterness just a notch, throw in some more late hops to increase the hop presence (as it was non-existing at the moment), and try to increase the head retention (by adjusting the mash schedule or throwing in some wheat or carapils malt).

 

Really looking forward to returning from my winter holidays and continuing research!

 

 

Last Sunday was a long day, as two friends (Johan & Marcus) and I brewed up two batches of smoke-themed beers (a smokey lager and peat-smoked porter). We started at around 11:30 AM and put the primaries in the fermentation fridge at around 7:30 PM, so a total of about 8 hours. Everything went quite well, but we did have some problems. First, we noticed the cordless drill my friend had brought for my malt mill wasn’t that powerful, so crushing the grains took some time. The battery in the drill lasted through about half the grain bill of each beer, meaning we had to make a total of 3 battery changes. Luckily he had two battery packs, so we had one constantly in the charger. Mashing went well, and with batch sparging we hit total efficiencies of 62% for the lager and 68% for the porter; which is an improvement over my previous batches. I’m still sure that the efficiency could be boosted a bit by crushing finer. Boiling went well, but the hop filter in my boiler kept getting clogged, even though we used cones instead of pellets, so it took some time to get the beers into their fermenters. In the end, the lager hit an OG of 1.050 and the porter an OG of 1.064. The taste samples were promising, but it became evident that we had been a bit too conservative with the amount of smoked malts in each of the beers, as there wasn’t much smokey character present in either of the pre-fermentation samples. Hopefully a smokey aroma and flavor will become more pronounced after fermentation. As if we hadn’t had enough problems already, I managed to grab the wrong combination of fermenting bucket + lid from home, which meant the lid didn’t fit the bucket perfectly. We fixed this by using some tape, to keep it down. After 24 hours the porter, fermented with WLP002, was already bubbling vigorously at an ambient temperature of 16C (meaning the beer itself is probably around 18-19C), while the lager showed no signs of activity in its fermentation fridge (set at 10.5C). Lagers usually have a longer lag time though, and since carbon dioxide is more soluble in cooler water, it will take more time before ‘visible fermentation’ is achieved. Hopefully the beers turn out good (and I won’t mind even though the beers don’t turn out smokey).

Sunday I will be brewing two beers together with a couple of friends. One friend expressed a desire for smoked beer, so both beers we will be brewing will have a smoky character. We will be brewing a Smoked Lager, inspired by the German Rauchbiers, and a Smoked Porter, brewed with peated malt from Scotland. It’s probably gonna be a long day, but hopefully we end up with 38 liters of tasty beer. This will be the first time I try brewing a lager, and have managed to get a new fermentation fridge, that I will put to use for it. You can find the recipes below.

Recipe: Smoked Lager
Style: Classic Rauchbier

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 27 l
Post Boil Volume: 24 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 20 l   
Bottling Volume: 18 l
Estimated OG: 1.054 SG
Estimated Color: 16.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 26.1 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt            Name                                Type     #    %/IBU         
2.00 kg        Pilsner (2.3 SRM)                   Grain    1    39.3 %        
1.00 kg        Munich (10.2 SRM)                   Grain    2    19.6 %        
1.00 kg        Smoked Malt (Weyermann) (2.0 SRM)   Grain    3    19.6 %        
0.50 kg        Caramunich II (Weyermann) (63.0 SRM Grain    4    9.8 %         
0.25 kg        Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)        Grain    5    4.9 %         
0.25 kg        Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM)               Grain    6    4.9 %         
0.09 kg        Carafa Special III (Weyermann) (470 Grain    7    1.8 %         
25.00 g        Hallertauer [4.30 %] - Boil 60.0 mi Hop      8    11.5 IBUs     
25.00 g        Hallertauer [4.30 %] - Boil 30.0 mi Hop      9    8.9 IBUs      
25.00 g        Hallertauer [4.30 %] - Boil 15.0 mi Hop      10   5.7 IBUs      
25.00 g        Hallertauer [4.30 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop      11   0.0 IBUs      
1.0 pkg        German Lager (White Labs #WLP830) [ Yeast    12   -             
									

Recipe: Peat-Smoked Porter
Style: Robust Porter

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 27 l
Post Boil Volume: 23 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 19 l   
Bottling Volume: 18 l
Estimated OG: 1.069 SG
Estimated Color: 49.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 40.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt           Name                                Type     #    %/IBU         
4.90 kg       Pale Ale (2-row) (3.0 SRM)          Grain    1    79.5 %        
0.80 kg       Chocolate Malt (Thomas Fawcett) (50 Grain    2    13.0 %        
0.35 kg       Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SR Grain    3    5.7 %         
0.11 kg       Peat Smoked Malt (2.8 SRM)          Grain    4    1.8 %         
28.00 g       Columbus [12.00 %] - Boil 90.0 min  Hop      5    36.6 IBUs     
14.00 g       Mt. Hood [6.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min   Hop      6    4.2 IBUs      
1.0 pkg       English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) [3 Yeast    7    -             
									

 

Brewery: Kunstmann

Country: Chile

Style: Lager

ABV: 5.8%

Size: 330 ml

Bought from: Gift from Chile

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Yesterday I also tried two beers that my father had brought home from a business trip in Chile. The craft beer scene in Chile is expanding at a high rate, with new breweries opening all the time, so it will be really interesting to see what kind of beer they make. First up is an unfiltered lager (Lager Sin Filtrar), brewed by La Cerveceria Kunstmann, the largest ‘craft brewery’ in Chile. My Spanish isn’t the best, so it was a bit difficult to find any information on this brew, but it seems that it has been brewed with some Crystal malt and German hops. The bottle is interesting as well, since it has a misty/frosted/dirty (can’t find the word) look. Unfortunately I realized while drinking that the Best Before Date was 2 weeks ago, so this might explain some of observations.

 

Brewery: Mikkeller

Country: Denmark (Brewed in Belgium)

Style: (American) Premium Lager

ABV: 5%

Size: 330 ml

Bought from: Alko, 3.95€

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This is a lager brew by Mikkeller for the Danish burger bar ‘Burger & Bun’ found in Copenhagen. This lager is hopped with some nontraditional hop varieties (American influence), featuring Columbus, Nelson Sauvin, Centennial, Simcoe and Amarillo, boasting an IBU of around 30 for Pils-style. Not a big fan of light, and especially lightly hopped lagers, but this one seemed promising. PS. Sorry about the crappy photo, will try to get a new one if I ever drink this one at home!

 

Brewery: Stadin Panimo

Country: Finland

Style: American Lager

ABV: 4.5%

Size: 330 ml

Bought from: K-Citymarket, 3.90€

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I got a request from a friend to review more beers that are easily accessible, so here is one from a Finnish microbrewery, available in almost every bigger K-Supermarket or K-Citymarket. Stadin Panimo is a Helsinki-based microbrewery that has been operating since 1999. Their beers are usually available on tap in better pubs, and some of their products can be bought from larger supermarkets (I believe you can even get some from the Arkadia Alko).

 

Brewery: Oettinger

Country: Germany

Style: Lager

ABV: 4.9%

Size: 330 ml

Bought from: Gift from Germany

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Had some different beers this weekend, some of them very good. First up was a Dixie (by Dixie Brewing), which is an American Lager that was quite tasteless, but very easy to drink. Would probably make a good thirst quencher in the summer, but otherwise it was nothing special.

Next up was an Anchor Porter, which is an American Porter. The beer poured very dark brown/black with a tan head. Flavour was sweet, roasted, and chocolatey, and the beer had a thick creamy feel. Not a big fan of darker beers, but this one was really tasty.

Next up was a Bitter & Twisted (by Harviestoun Brewery), which is an English IPA. The beer poured a golden color, and had a very citrusy (lemon) aroma. The taste was malty with hints of grassy and citrusy hoppiness. A tasty English-style ale.

Then it was time for a Sierra Nevada Hoptimum from Oluthuone Kaisla. This huge (10.4% ABV, 100 IBU, 660 ml bottle) Imperial IPA is a limited edition release from Sierra Nevada, hopped with Magnum, Simcoe, Citra, Chinook, and a new unnamed hop variety. The beer poured an amber color with a minimal head. The beer was full of fruity, piney and citrusy aroma and flavour, balanced with a sweet and malty backbone. A fantastic beer, that is one of my absolute favorites. Unfortunately the beer is limited, hard to find (only available in Kaisla), was expensive, and was a bit big to drink on my own.

Next was a visit to Olutravintola Pikkulintu, where I had a Pikkulintu Triple IPA (brewed at Grassroots Brewery). A full review of it will be posted later.

Finally I had a Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA, which was a bit fresher than the last one I had last weekend, but it still disappointed me a bit. Almost no hop aroma, and taste was lacking as well. I remember it being much better. Maybe I’ve just been unlucky receiving another one that has gone a bit bad.