Microbrewed Adventures Page 3
Bert Grant at the Yakima Brewing and Malting Company, 1986
I would call it “American-style” imperial stout. Massive amounts of hops were added for bitterness, flavor and a wondrous floral and citruslike aroma. Combined with loads of black malt and roasted barley, this pitch-black ale was supercharged with all-malt ingredients offering an alcohol level of 8.75 percent. At the time, Bert claimed, “This is probably the strongest draft beer in North America and possibly in the world.”
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BERT GRANT’S PLANET IMPERIAL STOUT
Robust, black, roasted malt and barley character unveil themselves only to be joined by the massive citruslike hop flavors and aromas of American-grown Galena and Cascade hops and the intense, clean, refreshing bitterness of Northern Brewer hops. Rich and malty, with symphonic ale-fruity notes, this beer is satisfying for all robust stout enthusiasts. The recipe can be found in About the Recipes.
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There are lots of microbrewed beers that have since surpassed Grant’s original Russian imperial stout in alcohol, but no one has so successfully pioneered such a robust style of ale as profoundly as Bert Grant. In 1982 he founded his Yakima Brewing and Malting Company. In 1984 he took the world by storm. When Bert died in 2001, at age 74, beer maven Michael Jackson wrote, “To whom will we turn now when the world needs saving?”
Bert, you did us proud. Your legacy lives on with every imperial strength and imperially hoppy ale. There are many who continue to remember June first and second at the 1984 Great American Beer Festival.
Matters of Beer Style
IT’S FIRST and foremost all about the beer. This is why I first whet your appetite with a few classic brewery adventures and their legendary beers. But once you begin to enjoy the flavor and diversity of beer, there may be nothing more conversational among homebrewers and beer enthusiasts than the questions dealing with what defines beer style.
Some no doubt would prefer to enjoy or make “just beer,” and to hell with stylistic endeavors. After all “its the beer, stupid.” And then there are the royal guardians of beer styles and notaries of authenticity upholding the grand traditions of beer. I can appreciate both sides of the issue, having developed the beer style guidelines for the Association of Brewers and various competition guidelines since 1979. What strikes me as most important is that beer styles evolve. New ones arrive; old ones fall by the wayside. Old ones help steer a course and uphold the pride and tradition of brewing. New ones give current generations of brewers the opportunity to develop their creative skills and perhaps one day “invent” a beer that 200 hundred years from now will be upheld as a classic.
I AM RELAXING and having a homebrew, taking note of my thoughts and considering that the essence of style has a basis that is other than simply circumstantial. I consider styles based on one of eight principal characters:
Malt
Hops
Yeast
Water
Alcohol
Process
Packaging
Special ingredients
One may ask, where do color, head retention and mouthfeel fit in? They are considered, to be sure, but in my opinion are not the basis of style. They may help define styles and the variation within a tradition, but if there is an overriding basis, I’ll stick to these essential eight.
Let’s consider some examples of classic styles that might fit into these eight “boxes.”
Malt. The predominant character of a bock beer, such as Heller bock, dark bock, Maibock, Doppelbock and Eisbock, is its maltiness. Malt more than any other character defines this style. The same might be true for English-style brown ale. Yes, hops, yeast, water, alcohol, processing and packaging all have a role in creating this style, but if you don’t have a strong malt character you’ll never have a bock or brown ale, whereas the other seven characters can vary while still achieving a variation of the true style of these two beers.
Hops. The India pale ale style of beer is based on hops. The style is virtually defined by the audacious employment of this ingredient.
Yeast. Bavarian-style wheat (Weiss or Weizen) beer is singularly defined by the special strains of yeast used in fermentation. No, I am not saying it is the wheat or the lack of hops—these components can be varied. But without the special yeast you cannot authentically achieve this style of beer.
Water. This is a tricky one. I hesitated to include it, but for the sake of discussion I beg the question: Does the peculiarly hard quality of water define the basis of classic Burton-type pale ales? I think it does, more than any other ingredient. The quality of the water affects the final perception of hops and malt, so important in British pale ales. There are dozens of malts, hops, yeasts and processes that can be integrated into the making of pale ale, but perhaps without the uniqueness of the water one cannot brew to tradition. I also contemplated pilseners on this basis. Soft water is essential for pilseners, but is it as essential as the process of lagering to evolve the smoothness of classic pilseners? Then there is the yeast, but with the proper processing ale yeast can achieve closeness to this style. Hops? Yes, the type does help define the classic pilsener. I haven’t decided on this one yet. I need another homebrew.
Alcohol. Barley wine and Belgian-style Tripels, for example, have got to have alcohol. Without it these styles do not exist in mind or matter. Hard water, soft water, noble hops, ale hops, American hops, cold or warm fermented, dark or lighter—the essence of this style is alcohol and all the resulting qualities that naturally occur.
Process. German-style Altbiers come immediately to mind. Warm fermentation and cold lagering are the conditions that precede all Altbiers. Without employing this process, which imparts some unique attributes to their overall quality, Altbiers could just as well be another bitter or sweet brown ale or a dark lager. Warm ferment–cold lager is the most important defining basis of this enjoyable brew.
Packaging. This is a tricky one. Can packaging alone define the basis of a style? As beer enthusiasts we’d hate to consider it, but the realities of the beer world may preclude our own preferences. Let’s consider many of the sweet fruit lambics that are making their way into the market. They simply could not exist without special considerations during packaging; sweet fruit juice or flavoring is added at packaging time. The beer is then pasteurized to prevent fermentation in the bottle, a process identical to the making of some classic English-style sweet stouts. Millions enjoy these sweet fruit beers and sweet stouts. Packaging more than anything else is the basis of these styles, more so than the specifications of malt, hops and yeast. Would you agree?
Special ingredients. Herein lies the beer that may not be considered classic by most beer enthusiasts—yet. In this day and age, special ingredients have come to overwhelm the character of many beers. Belgian Wit (wheat or white) beers almost qualify for consideration on this basis. Their unique blend of orange peel and coriander and the quality of the yeast seem to be the principal basis of Belgian-style Wit beer. Chili beer, pumpkin beer, spiced holiday-cheer beer, cranberry beer and cherry beer all may represent a style whose basis is a specialty ingredient. Perhaps special ingredients are a catchall second-string basis for all those beers that are in their early stages of evolution. We don’t know which of the first seven characteristics to categorize them under—yet.
Say you are considering 30 or 40 other classic styles of beer. Under which category would you place them? And why would I want to go through this exercise anyway? It helps me better understand what and why I am brewing. Brewing as a craft involves these kinds of thought processes. It inspires a thirst. If I didn’t think about these kinds of things, I’d be pumping out “just” beer. I’m not into that kind of brewing.
The downside of thinking about the essence of brewing is that it can get downright confusing. I especially get confused after relaxing and enjoying one of my own homebrews, homebrews conceived and concocted from creative cauldrons of kettles and mind. On November 26, 1973, I brewed my first honey lager, a beer brew
ed with 40 percent honey. My friends thought it normal that I waved real monkey hair over the inoculated wort; but the weird thing was using honey in a beer. No doubt honey had been used in beer way before I ever thought of it, but the fact is I had never heard of such a thing. Thus was born Rocky Raccoon’s Honey Lager, and as “Rocky met his match and said, ‘Doc it’s only a scratch,’” we “proceeded to lie on the table.”
Yes, it was strange; so were my fruit beers, pale ales and lagers with pounds of fresh fruit added. They were considered “weird” beers, fun, tasty, but not seriously considered by any professionals, unless they were microbrewers.
Michael Jackson, at our 1986 American Homebrewers Conference, thought I’d really gone nuts when I introduced my commemorative conference beer. It was called Blitzweizen Honey Steam Barley Wine Lager. My intention was and still is not to make fun of beer traditions, but to peer over the edge and goose the creative possibilities. I have to admit there was no one basis upon which I brewed this beer. It was, rather, a celebration of all styles.
Little does Michael know that he is in part responsible for one of my beer style “gooses,” pushing the stylistic envelope. It was at one of the Philadelphia Book and the Cook festivities, where I was handed an absolutely delicious locally brewed imperial stout. With that in hand I was invited to attend Michael’s beer tasting being held in the adjoining hall. I quietly entered in the middle of his presentation, happening to sit among a few homebrewers. I still had quite a bit of tasty imperial stout in hand. Michael was halfway through his beer-tasting session and pouring Celis White, a light Belgian-style wheat beer spiced with coriander and Curação orange peel.
I looked all about me, pondering the Egyptian mummies and fantastic architecture of the hall. Then, as the ancient spirits swirled around the room, I had an impulse to create and go beyond what everyone in the room was tasting. Before I knew what I had done I was staring at a creation of half Celis White and half imperial stout. I sipped, smiled and shared it with the homebrewers sitting next to me. I think they agreed, but whether or not they did was irrelevant—I thought it had GREAT potential as a new beer. It was a new idea and, as I realize now, its basis was simply special ingredients, with the combination of Belgian traditions. The notion immediately became part of my inventive brewing plans.
Later, in May 1995, I traveled and tasted my way through Belgium. I fortified the knowledge I already had about Belgian ales and specialty beers. I brought the spirit of Belgian beer back to my homebrewery, and in June of 1995, Felicitous Belgian Stout was born. It was a beer I had never tasted before, except in my mind. There was no such style in Belgium.
Why do I call it Belgian stout? I brewed it with my new appreciation and knowledge of Belgian brewing traditions. If there were ever to be Belgian stout, what would it be? I considered the question seriously. It would be strong. Goldings-type hops would be used. A warm ferment would comfort the yeast. And the flavor and aroma of noble Saaz and Hallertauer would subtly finesse an already complex beer.
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FELICITOUS STOUT
So what is it like? Felicitous Belgian Stout is a 6½ to 7 percent (I’ll be pushing the higher end next time I brew this) alcohol by volume, very dark stout without the sharpness of roasted malt. The roasted malts and barley are mellowed and lightened by the overriding symphonic combination of coriander and orange peel. The floral and earthy character of Saaz and Hersbucker Hallertauer hops lay a foundation of beer quality upon which the sparkle of spice rides. The Vienna and crystal malt help produce an overall malty character without being excessively full bodied. Fully fermentable honey boosts the alcohol while contributing unique fermented character to the beer, much as candi sugar would had it been used. This recipe can be found in About the Recipes.
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If I’d had candi sugar on the day I had chosen to impulsively brew Felicitous Belgian Stout, I would have used it, as the Belgians so often do. Instead, honey would have to do on this inaugural occasion. Many Belgian types of ale possess the flavor and aromatic character of crushed coriander seed and Curação orange peel.
Banana aroma and flavor are also part of the character of many Belgian ales, especially the stronger types. The banana is a byproduct of certain strains of yeast usually fermented at 70 to 80 degrees F. While I can appreciate these banana esters in certain ales, I chose not to design the stout with this in mind, but you may do so with your choice of yeast. Wheat could have been used in the formulation, really authenticating the original half-and-half mixture of imperial stout and Celis White I had conceived in Philadelphia, but then again I took homebrewed liberty in deciding not to formulate with wheat (but then again, you may, if you wish).
CHAPTER 2
Brewery in a Goat Shed and The King Wants a Beer
THE 1980S were a busy time for me and for microbreweries. I put all my energies toward building up the American Homebrewers Association, the Association of Brewers (now called the Brewers Association) and the Great American Beer Festival. At the same time, many landmark breweries were getting their start. These were adventurous times when doctors, airline pilots, computer programmers, lawyers, teachers, social workers, salespeople and many other professionals were giving up their jobs, risking it all to pursue their passion for beer. Theirs was a belief that Americans deserved the opportunity for choice, flavor and diversity. The idea of great full-flavored lager and ale had captured a grassroots following. All of the microbrewed beer brewed in the 1980s didn’t amount to even a drop in the bucket—it was more like a wisp of vapor in proportion to the 6.2 billion gallons of light lager beer enjoyed by Americans each year. But everyone involved felt the excitement of being a pioneer on the frontier of a movement that was sure to win over the beer enthusiast who savored the flavor of real beer. Here are a few stories from that time.
Brewery in a Goat Shed
Boulder Brewing Company
FOR THE FEW INDIVIDUALS who were lucky enough to have visited the original Boulder Brewing Company, the brewery will always be remembered as having been started in a farmhouse goat shed in Hygiene, Colorado. Opened in 1980, the Boulder Brewing Company, now called the Boulder Beer Company, is the oldest surviving craft microbrewery in America.
The love of beer and homebrewing provided the inspiration—microbrewing at its essence. Founders Stick Ware, David Hummer and Al Nelson decided that after their 14th single-barrel test batch of bottle-conditioned homebrew they were ready to explore the legal aspects of going professional. It wasn’t easy in those days to start a small brewery. Malt was available only in quantities measured by train car loads, hops were sold in bales weighing hundreds of pounds and fresh yeast cultures could be had only at great expense or through long overseas journeys from German and English brewing institutions. Getting a brewery license was an extreme challenge, as the government agencies in charge of regulating brewing laws were more experienced in dealing with million-barrel-size breweries. The hurdles to opening the Boulder Brewing Company in 1980 were unquestionably daunting but were overcome with microbrewing persistence and the assistance of the only other “local” brewery, the Coors Brewing Company (providing them with pale malt).
That three guys, homebrewing test batches, managed to acquire the necessary equipment, ingredients and permits to go professional is yet another fantastic tribute to the passion for microbrewing and beer. Their passion is, in my opinion, the only reason they succeeded.
Otto Zavatone (with hat) at the “Goat Shed” Brewery with Michael Jackson (right), Fred Eckhardt (center, right) and Al Andrews (left)
English-accented Boulder Pale Ale, Porter and Stout were their initial styles of ale, introduced by original head brewer Otto Zavatone. Otto once jokingly described how he got the job of head brewer at the “goat-shed” brewery: “They told me I could be the brewmaster, except I had to build the brewery first!”
The beer was truly handcrafted in every way, filled with a gravity-fed bottling system and capped using a manual “homebrew” bottle capper.
All the beers were refermented in the bottle, establishing natural carbonation. After moving to their current facility in the late 1980s Boulder’s hand-bottling system was abandoned. Today’s Boulder beers are of extraordinary quality, and their range of ales and lagers offer a variety of flavors for the beer impassioned. I’m particularly fond of their hoppy Hazed and Infused, a lupulinhead’s daydream.
But there was something charmed about their goat-shed ales of the mid 1980s. Otto Zavatone and his successor, Tom Burns, managed to extract unique, full-bodied, full-flavored ales from their small 1,200-square-foot brewery.
I have ever since been drawn to very small breweries, with batch sizes of five barrels or less. There is something unique about beers from breweries of this size. Perhaps it’s because of the scientific dynamics involved when brewing in small volumes. I often find myself tasting a new beer not knowing its origins and marveling at characteristics reminiscent of the earliest small microbreweries, only to discover that the beer was brewed in batches of five barrels or less. I’m content to believe that these qualities reflect the original passion of a brewer who started out small, with all the dreams of success dancing in their mind as they tended to every aspect of the beer’s production.