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Lambic Digest #0632
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Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 00:30:12 -0600
From: lambic-request at lance.colostate.edu (subscription requests only - do not post here)
To: lambic at lance.colostate.edu
Subject: Lambic Digest #632 (June 23, 1995)
Lambic Digest #632 Fri 23 June 1995
Forum on Lambic Beers (and other Belgian beer styles)
Mike Sharp, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
SWEETEND LAMBICS (Evan Kraus)
Perception of sourness when judging (bickham)
Peter Crombecq's benelux biergids (Ton van Opstal)
Lambic Judging, Sweetening etc. (Jim Liddil)
Re: What is this film on top? (Steve Dempsey)
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Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 06:19:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: ejk at bselab.bls.com (Evan Kraus)
Subject: SWEETEND LAMBICS
Some food for thought.
While visiting the BellVue Lambic Brewery on the outskirts of Brussels
I asked my host why the sweetened lambics where so prevelent.
His reply was "They are our best seller" seems most people
prefer sweetened lambics. At BellVue they where also bottling
unfiltered unsweetened Gueze when I was there and it was excelent but
it seemed that they were having trouble selling it so I am not sure
weather they are still producing it. It is certainly a shame to
ruin some perfectly good lambic.
At a local bar I oredered a Hansens Kriek and it was served with a
metal crusher of sorts that I was told was used to crush the cubed sugar
located on the table in your lambic.
Simply drop several cubes in the glass then push the instrument to the
bottom and sweeten to taste.
Evan
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 10:25:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: bickham at msc.cornell.edu
Subject: Perception of sourness when judging
I agree with those whose beers have received low scores with comments
that indicated that the judge was unfamiliar with the style. Let's
face it - it's a tough style to brew, judge and to get good commercial
examples of. I've even had one judge whose opinion I respect give my
pKriek a score of 26 in one competition because he thought it was more
like a gueuze with fruit, and two weeks later score it a 33 while
faulting it for insufficient sourness. My benchmark for this beer is
the score of 40 it received at the World Cup of Beer and an average
score of 38 from 5 National or Master judges at other competitions
and tastings.
However while sourness is good, one problem I've noticed is a difficulty
in recognizing the type of acid that produces it. For example, the
pKriek that won the lambic category at this years AHA competition was
quite good, but it had an intense acetic acid flavor with relatively
little lactic acid for balance. Although some older Belgian lambics do
have a strong acetic character, IMO the better ones generally have more
of a lactic character due to the action of pediococcus in the bottle.
So to me it seems that the most assertive lambic being made by homebrewers
have an acid imbalance, and the recent analysis of Mike Sharp's beer seem
to confirm that. Of course I could be wrong, but it's good to contribute
to a nonpolitical discussion for a change.
Scott
- --
========================================================================
Scott Bickham
bickham at msc.cornell.edu
=========================================================================
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 95 16:36:01 +0200
From: etmtvop at crosby.etm.ericsson.se (Ton van Opstal)
Subject: Peter Crombecq's benelux biergids
This is the third time I'm sending this message to the Digest. What do I do
wrong??
The news:
Peter Crombecq, chairman of the OBP and one of the best beer connaisseurs
in Belgium, has placed the contents of his latest book on WWW.
A lot of information is now available concerning beer tastes of Belgium and
Dutch beers. More info will be added in the future.
Go have a look, it's impressive and looks great!
http://www.dma.be/p/bier/bier.htm#topvanpagina
Have fun!
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 7:59:11 -0700 (MST)
From: Jim Liddil <JLIDDIL at AZCC.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: Lambic Judging, Sweetening etc.
Scott wrote:
% Ironically, it was judged as a cranberry lambic in the first round and
% had scores of 42 and 43.
Obviously the judges were ignorant of the style.
Al wrote:
% Lactose will be eaten, but my guess would be that saccharine would not.
% However, saccharine is quite bitter in larger amounts -- this may be covered-
% up by coffee, but in a delicate geuze it may be too bitter. What about
% aspartame (Nutrasweet)? Well, I personally, am allergic to it and would
% *expect* to be warned before judging it. Isn't there a "sorbitol" sweetener
% or something like that?
I did an experiment last night. I have a raspberry plambic that is intensely
sour. I poured 100 ml into two glasses. I dissolved some sugar in one to a
point where it got a subtle sweetness and it was amzing how it brought out the
fruit. The second one I added saccharin to. Unfortunately it is very easy to
overdue because of the intense sweetness sacharin has. So I pour another glass
and dissolved the saccharin in a tablespoon of water and then added it
dropwise. This worked very well. I bet Hansens uses saccharin :-o Any way I
did not notice any bitterness from the saccharin used at low levels. I can't
imagine putting a whole packet of saccharin in even sour lambic (lambik,
lambiek or what ever :-) ) it would be way to sweet and thne the bitterness of
saccharin may come through.
Sorbitol may be metabolized by brett, I will have to check. Anyway for those of
you who want to do your own thing give it a try. Besides after listening to
Clive Le Pensee I'm not sure what is traditional :-)
%
% Well, whatever way you do sweeten your lambik, I'm not going to score it high
% if it is a sweetened lambik. It's just not a traditional flavour.
But apparently the flavor of lambic has changed in the last 25-50 years so what
is traditional. What do we use as a standard?
Martin wrote:
% I along another person have noticed that our pLambics are developing a
% thin white film on the surface. I noticed this film in a previous
% batch. The film will then become slightly thicker and "lumpy" which
% looks like a textured ceiling. Both of our lambics our about 3 months
% old. In addition there is a slight acetic or vinegary smell. My
% pLambic is in a cask and the other person's in a carboy.
My plambics always develop a yeast crust that over time gets ridges that look
like the surface of the brain. This is the oxidative yeasts I assume. The
layer is quite tough and does not seem to break until a year or so and then
only if disturbed.
The acetic smell is likely from the brett and/or some acetobacter.
Mark wrote:
% From: beernut at xmission.com (Mark B. Alston)
% Subject: First Lambic
%
% (Question, Someone previously mentioned that they thought it was weird that JXG called for crystal malt in his recipes. This person was concerned about the flavor that crystal would add. However, it seems to me that the crystal malt is used more to
% add dextrins for later fermentations rather than for adding flavor. Is this a correct conclusion?)
Could be but there should be plenty of dextrins from the wheat.
% I pitched all yeasts together due to the postings in the digest (and my own
gut
% feelings) that much of the character might come about during the reproductive
stages. This also seems to be the method most accurately approximating belgian
% practice. Is this still a valid assumption. Furthermore, I read some posts
that Brett may produce acetic acid when in the presence of O2. I love
Cantillion Gueuze and am trying to get that note of acetic acid. So pitching
the brett with the sacc would
% seem to increase the acidic character of the ferment. Has anyone explored
this?
Well I have had not problems getting good acid character. I have used small
and large innoculums and various schedules. Good brett character seems to be
the hard thing. None at the AHA 2nd round had it. Just let it go for a year.
%
% I split the batch because I could find no conclusions on the best way of fermenting
% lambics (plastic or glass) and decided that this split batch could help answer that
% question (for me at least).
Well at least you will have two dat points. But we are still in fronteir land.
%
% I am still unclear about racking. Many people seem to rack into a secondary
and then pitch with the brett and pedio; however, since I pitched all at once
I believe that if I racked I would leave many of the desired yeasties in the
trub on the bottom. I
% carried over practically no hot break but have a fair amount of cold break.
DON'T RACK! The yeast and bacteria will eventually use all this stuff as
nutreints. You want autolysis to occur to feed the brett and pedio.
% Finally, whats the story with oak chips. Should I add toasted or untoasted
or neither. Moreover, how much are people using and when should I add them?
Oak is used in the form of a cask. Oak is semipermeable and allows slow
diffusion of oxygen. The cask used are very old and add no real flavor of
their own IMNHO. Buy a cask :-)
%
% This is the most exciting brew I have done since I started brewing. I got
so twitterpated when the cultures showed up that it affected my dreams. Has
anyone else had the one where you are wandering around the local brewery
carrying your vial of peddio a
% nd someone there really pisses you off so you open the vial and spread the
peddio all over the place? It isn't just me is it?
You are sick :-) Now just wait a year and in the meantime get some more going.
% P.S. any pLambic brewers out here in SLC, UT? I would love to hear from you.
Contact the Mormon Church :-)
Jim
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 09:28:11 -0700
From: Steve Dempsey <steved at ptdcs2.intel.com>
Subject: Re: What is this film on top?
In Lambic Digest #631 Martin Wilde said:
>Subject: What is this film on top?
>
>
>I along another person have noticed that our pLambics are developing a
>thin white film on the surface. I noticed this film in a previous
>batch. The film will then become slightly thicker and "lumpy" which
>looks like a textured ceiling.
In my limited experience, a thin white dry film that
starts out looking like dust or powder and later develops
into a more coarse texture is brettanomyces. I've seen
this in a beer where I pitched only ale yeast and
brett.
A thin film that looks more slimy on the surface and grows
thicker, more below the surface than above, I believe is
the "ropy" appearance from pedio. I've seen this in a beer
pitched with multiple critters, where the rope appeared for
several weeks and eventually broke up and settled.
I guess there's one advantage to carboys vs. casks:
you can see better what's happening inside.
====================================================
Steve T. Dempsey Intel Corporation
<steved at ptdcs2.intel.com> 5200 Elam Young Pkwy
+1 503 642 0602 Hillsboro, OR 97124-6497
PTD CAD / Pole E2 MS: AL4-57
====================================================
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End of Lambic Digest
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