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Lambic Digest #0837
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Subject: Lambic Digest #837 (April 27, 1996)
Lambic Digest #837 Sat 27 April 1996
Forum on Lambic Beers (and other Belgian beer styles)
Mike Sharp, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Re: New Glarus Brewing Co. (Chuck Gollay)
New Glarus Brewing (brewmaster Mitch)
*archives* / Alcoholic malto-fruitopian confections (Todd Gierman)
How to Kill (Jim Liddil)
No phenolics in Lambic!? (John Isenhour)
Belgian Red, Titanic ("Andrew R. Ruggles")
Pasteurizing Wild Beers (Edward E Harstead)
New Glarus (STROUDS)
one last bit on Brett in Orval (STROUDS)
Cuvee Rene (Jeremy Bergsman)
New Glarus (WI) Brewing Company (Robert Paolino)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 96 07:01 CDT
From: Chuck Gollay <brudaddy at pop.wwa.com>
Subject: Re: New Glarus Brewing Co.
A
>
>Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 17:16:37 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Scott Bickham <bickham at dave.nrl.navy.mil>
>Subject: New Glarus Brewing Co.?
>
>I was doing some web browsing today (during my lunch hour, of
>course ;-) and ran into the following on the Breworld page:
>
> Brewing Industry International Awards
> 22 April 1996
>
>Theresults the most prestigious brewing competition held within the industry
>world-wide, held at Burton on Trent in Febraury were announced at an Awards
>ceremony at the Royal Hall on the first night of the 6th Brewing Technology
>Conference.
>
>The Competition is organised into nine Championships.......
> .
>International Speciality Beers Competition - Bottles
> and Cans
>
> The Bell-Vue Brewery, Belgium Belle-Vue Frambose (sic) Bronze Medal
> The Hoegaarden Brewery,
> Belgium Hoegaarden White Silver Medal
> New Glarus Brewing Co, USA Belgian Red Gold Medal CHAMPION
>
>...
>
>The other categories had some top notch beers in them, but has anyone
>heard of the New Glarus Brewing Company?
>
Yes!! They are an excellent microbrewery located near Madison, WI, which is
about two hours northwest of Chicago. They distribute their products only
in Southern Wisconsin, and have a variety of award winning beers, ranging
from their very light Edel Pils to their intensely rich Uff-da Bock (a BTI
Gold Medal winner itself), and several others in addition to the Belgian
Red. This particular beer is a beautiful garnet red, with cherry flavor
added from cherries grown in Door County, WI. It is a wonderfully full
flavored fruit beer, not in the lambic style at all, but they must use a
Belgian yeast strain to produce its unique aroma and flavor.
New Glarus holds the distinction of being the fastest brewery ever built,
with only a four month lag time from inception to completion. Dan and
Debbie Carey are the owners, with Dan doing the brewing and Debbie handling
the administrative end. If you can get your hands on any of their beers, I
strongly recommend them.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 08:22:42 -0500 (CDT)
From: gellym at aviion.persoft.com (brewmaster Mitch)
Subject: New Glarus Brewing
Scott Bickham notes
>
> The Bell-Vue Brewery, Belgium Belle-Vue Frambose (sic) Bronze Medal
> The Hoegaarden Brewery,
> Belgium Hoegaarden White Silver Medal
> New Glarus Brewing Co, USA Belgian Red Gold Medal CHAMPION
>
> The other categories had some top notch beers in them, but has anyone
> heard of the New Glarus Brewing Company?
New Glarus Brewing is located in New Glarus, Wisconsin, about 30 miles outside
of Madison and about 15 miles from where I live. It is been in business for
about three years. They were originally a german style lager brewery, and two
years ago started brewing their Belgian Red. I know a number of our Chicago
area friends have been getting some of this beer as well.
Belgian red is an ale fermented with (I believe) a typical ale yeast and has
had a 'souring bacteria' added to it, according to Dan Carey, the brewmaster.
Like most brewers, he keeps details pretty quiet. It has a ton of Door County
Montmorency cherries added to it. It is overwhelmingly cherry. I believe it
is built on a brown ale base.
Young Belgian red is fairly sweet (The very first batch two years ago was like
cherry soda), but after about a year in the bottle begins to get sour, but not
too much. There is no Brett that I can detect, even in the two year old bottles
I have drunk.
Dan and his wife Deb spent a number of years in Germany and Belgium, and
really enjoy the Belgian ales. Many of us in the Madison Homebrewers have
been trying to get him to brew a good sour beer. While the hard-core sour
heads reading this might not like the beer, it is quite good for what it is.
Mitch
- --
-- Mitchell B. Gelly -- owner & brewmaster of the ManOwaR nanoBrewery --
software QA specialist - UNIX|VMS|AOS systems administrator - Usenet admin
BJCP certified beer judge - brewer of lambics, meads, and other cool things
-- gellym at aviion.persoft.com -- Existential Void Where Prohibited --
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 10:19:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: Todd Gierman <tmgierma at acpub.duke.edu>
Subject: *archives* / Alcoholic malto-fruitopian confections
> Subject: Phenolic Dekkera (formerly Brett)?
>
> Todd writes:
> >young beer it is very good. Frequently what we get here is bad in that
> >the phenolics can be very objectionable, so much that you really have to
>
> and:
> >beers that seem pretty stable in spite of Brett in the bottle. They tend
> >to have Brett character that is not overly phenolic. I think that they
>
> Yikes! This is the *first* time I've ever heard phenolic character being
> attributed to Dekkera (Brett). I've never tasted or smelled anything
> phenolic in any of the Lambics/Lambieks I have had (and I've probably
> had nearly a hundred glasses over the years, probably 15 or 20 varieties,
> including a 5-year-old Drie Fonteinen Gueuze and a 17-year-old Cantillon
> Gueuze).
>
> Comments?
>
Sift through the archived LDs and you'll see what you've been *missing*, or
just forgotten about. Many wild yeasts contain an enzyme that can
convert polyphenols (tannins) from one form to another. The converted
compounds can be perceived as clove-like, smokey or medicinal. Surely,
Dan McConnell must have discussed some of these compounds in his Spirit
of Belgium Brett talk. Dekkera and Brett are two different
classifications of what are for our purposes the same yeast. Dekkera is
a "sexual anamorph" that can be found hanging out in the seedier
districts of Brussels :-)
Scott asks about New Glarus Red. Can't offer much on the Brewery (speak
up, Cheese Heads). But several of us agreed during a tasting that it was
an inoffensive confectionary delight. We sipped as a review of the New
Glarus Red in All About Beer was read aloud. As the reviewer extolled
the virtues of the beers balanced acidity, we scratched our heads.
Nothing sour about what we were drinking. We attributed the discrepency
to batch to batch or year to year variations, rather than aging, as the
beer was clearly filtered. No doubt this beer probably markets very
well. Kinney intimates that soured fruit beers could be far more
pervasive with a little more marketing effort. Not too sour though. How
do Boone's Farm Apple/Strawberry adultered spirits compare to a nice
graves? Which outsells the other in the average market? I am not
equating Cottonwood's products (or anyone else's) with mass marketed
wines, just overstating the obvious: there's mass appeal in them thar
fermenters. Shall we revive the "blandification" vs. approachability
argument concerning pasturized lambics?
Hey, I really liked Kinney's Black Belgian when I tried it and thought
the New Glarus Red was enjoyable. We're lucky to have this kind of
variety emerging from what has been a fairly homogeneous market.
Todd
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 8:01:29 -0700 (MST)
From: Jim Liddil <JLIDDIL at AZCC.Arizona.EDU>
Subject: How to Kill
Al wrote:
> Todd writes:
> >young beer it is very good. Frequently what we get here is bad in that
> >the phenolics can be very objectionable, so much that you really have to
>
> and:
> >beers that seem pretty stable in spite of Brett in the bottle. They tend
> >to have Brett character that is not overly phenolic. I think that they
>
> Yikes! This is the *first* time I've ever heard phenolic character being
> attributed to Dekkera (Brett). I've never tasted or smelled anything
> phenolic in any of the Lambics/Lambieks I have had (and I've probably
> had nearly a hundred glasses over the years, probably 15 or 20 varieties,
> including a 5-year-old Drie Fonteinen Gueuze and a 17-year-old Cantillon
> Gueuze).
>
> Comments?
Me comment? Actually the wine literature routinely describes brettanomyces
(formerly something else now dekkera) infections with terms that that describe
the off flavors as smokey and phenolic. These flavors are believed to be the
from the tetrahydropyridines and volative phenols these yeast produce. I guess
you just haven't had enough lambic yet. :-)
> This is the big question in my mind these days. Ever since the GABF, I've
> been hounded by people who want to know what it would take to put these
> kinds of beers out on the commercial market. Pasteurization seems to be
> the only avenue.
Either pasterize or sterile filter (0.2 micron) what is the big deal?
I have no idea what it would take to pasteurize a beer,
> though, much less one with a healthy culture of pedio in it.
The same type Anchor or Celis uses.
>
> But pedio is a hardy little critter if there ever was one. From experience
> I can say he laughs at boiling water and snickers at clorox. Peracetic has
> been an effective controlling measure for us.
Contrary to your view pedio is not that hard to kill. The problem is you are
trying to get rid of it in an environment that is dirt and full of nooks and
crannies. You do not have the luxury to take apart ALL your equipment and
scrub it all down using a nylon pad and something like Roccal (a quat) and then
rinse and let it air dry in an area free of bacteria and yeasts. Boiling water
will kill pedio if used correctly.
You want bad. Get some Bacillus stearothermophilis and Bacillus subtilis
globigi (ATCC 12980 and 9372 repsectively). These are tough bugs. A
combination of these can survive 5 minutes at 121 (sataturated steam) and it
takes a full 19 minutes to kill them all. These organisms are used to qc/qa an
autoclave. Want some? :-)
My point being that all these wild yeast and bacteria are not in and of
themselves hard to kill. The problem is that a brewery is a dirty environment
and sanitizers are inhibited by all the extra proteins, etc. You must clean
and then sanitize.
Jim
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 10:13:23 -0500 (CDT)
From: isenhour at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (John Isenhour)
Subject: No phenolics in Lambic!?
Al writes:
> I've never tasted or smelled anything
> phenolic in any of the Lambics/Lambieks I have had (and I've probably
> had nearly a hundred glasses over the years, probably 15 or 20 varieties,
> including a 5-year-old Drie Fonteinen Gueuze and a 17-year-old Cantillon
> Gueuze).
>
> Comments?
Sounds like you drink a lot of lambic!
What about wheat/grain phenolics, wood barrel phenolics (in homebrewed
stuff at least), and cherry pit phenolics. Wild yeast and bacteria are
pretty famous for phenolics. I'd be suprized that they wouldnt be in
spontainious fermentations. I think that tannins and antocyanigens
contribute to most lambics. Wasnt it Guinard who said that total phenols
in lambics run in the upper 500mg/L. I think I get a lot of phenolics out
of the lambics that I sit and think about while I'm drinking them. Some
people are perceptually unable to pick up phenolic effects. You once
marked down one of my early gueuze styles because of phenolics, I always
wondered about that - any phenolics from that batch probably came from The
Sharp Cultures:) distributed at the Milwaukee NHC, or cherry pits so
something familiar should have caused it.
-john
- --
John Isenhour "unix is not your mother"
Brewmaster/National Judge
Library & Information Science isenhour at uiuc.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 09:52:11 +0000
From: "Andrew R. Ruggles" <rugg0002 at gold.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Belgian Red, Titanic
> Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 17:16:37 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Scott Bickham <bickham at dave.nrl.navy.mil>
> Subject: New Glarus Brewing Co.?
> New Glarus Brewing Co, USA Belgian Red Gold Medal CHAMPION
> The other categories had some top notch beers in them, but has anyone
> heard of the New Glarus Brewing Company?
>
> Scott
I wrote a review of the Belgian Red about a year or two ago here on the LD.
The New Glarus Brewing Co. is located in New Glarus, WI -- approximately 45
minutes SouthWest of Madison, WI. The town is small and plays to it's
Swiss Heritage. As with any town in America's Dairyland, cheese is a big
part of the economy.
I vaguely remember my comments summing up the B.R. as a very nice beer, but
not very Belgian like. I suggested they drop the "Belgian" part of their
name. Of course, then Bob Paolino (sorry if I hacked the sp?, Bob) of the
Madison Liver Transplant Association charmed in to fight off evil reviews of
buddies who brew in New Glarus.
I still maintain my assessment of the beer as being a nice brown ale with
good cherry flavor, but I'm sure the yeast is not of Belgian origin, and
all those lovely yeast aromas and phenolics that we strive for is not
present.
The product itself comes in a nice green glass 750ml bottle with a real cork
and is hand dipped in red sealing wax about 2 inches down the neck. The label
reads:
"...This beer is brewed with whole Montmorency Cherries, Wisconsin farmed
wheat and Belgian roasted barleys, balanced by Willamette hops we aged in
our brewery one full year.
Over a pound of Door County [Wisconsin] Cherries in every bottle makes this
beer uniquely "Wisconsin"... Expect this beer to be ruby red, with a medium
body that is highly carbonated and intense with cherry flavor and bouquet..."
As for other matters, I have to come to the defense of a much maligned
importer here in the Twin Cities, Lanny Hof of All Saints Importers. We
know him as the guy who brings in the Chapeau line of De Troch Lambics.
Hopefully, he will try to get the unfiltered and unsweetened version back.
Titanic [terrible name -- and the marketing spiel on the label doesn't help]
is brewed and bottled by Brasserie Le Cheval Blanc, inc. in Montreal.
Basically, it is a Chimay Red clone. It is a fine example of it, with all
the complexity in aroma and flavor of the original. The Chimay clones I
have tried to make as well as samples of others attempt, have always been
too fusely, and have never had the complexity of the original.
Titanic is imported by All Saint's Brands, inc.
At $3.50/22oz bottle at most places, and on sale for $2.70, this is the
kind of commercial Belgian clones that we have all been waiting for...
Cheers,
Andrew
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 11:06:24 +0500
From: bohack at harpo.wh.att.com (Edward E Harstead)
Subject: Pasteurizing Wild Beers
In response to:
>From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR at conrad.appstate.edu>
>Norm writes:
>> My question is, how does one stabilize such a blended beer so that it
>> doesn't continue to ferment out dry. The obvious answer is
>> pasteurization. Anybody out there know anything about how Lindeman's
>> achieves this flavor profile or have other ideas about stabilizing
>> a sour beer? Any comments about what is blended in? Given their extensive
>> experience with sweetened framboise and kriek, I suspect C R is pasteurized
>> as well. Anyone out there developed a process to pasteurize beer
>> at the homebrew level?
>
>This is the big question in my mind these days. Ever since the GABF, I've
>been hounded by people who want to know what it would take to put these
>kinds of beers out on the commercial market. Pasteurization seems to be
>the only avenue.
Can someone help me here? Why is pasteurization necessary for
commercialization? Virtually all the good ales in Belgium have
bottle sediment which presumably means that they are bottle
conditioned (i.e. not pasteurized). They all seem to do very well
with age, so shelf life is not a problem. What is this American
obsession with pasteurization? Very very few of the American
microbrews are bottle conditioned, and my theory is that this is
why they do not satisfy like a Belgian beer (or English real ale)
in taste/complexity. Is it just that American brewers worry that beer
drinkers would be turned off by the slime at the bottom of the
bottle? Am I missing something here?
Ed Harstead
e.e.harstead at att.com
tel: 201 386-4837
fax: 201 386-3083
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 12:22:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: STROUDS at cliffy.polaroid.com
Subject: New Glarus
>From <http://www.beerweb.com/toptenbrew.shtml>
"New Glarus Brewing Company, New Glarus, Wisconsin. New Glarus owners Dan and
Deborah Carey produce and [sic] exceptional range of seasonal and specialty
beers, including EDEL-PILS Wisconsin lager, an apple beer, and a cherry ale
called Belgian Red, which was our 1995 World Champion Fruit Beer. Made with
over a pound of cherries to the bottle, it offers complex focused fruit."
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 12:10:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: STROUDS at cliffy.polaroid.com
Subject: one last bit on Brett in Orval
Leafing through Jackson's Beer Companion last night, I noticed (page 136) that
he states that Orval is pitched in the _secondary_ with a symbiosis of '4 or 5'
yeasts. He also implies that the same mixed culture is used at bottling.
This is somewhat contrary to his earlier writings, I think, but is certainly in
line with the Paul Edwards' postings as well as some of the conjecture in this
forum over the last couple of weeks. Belgian half-truths, indeed!
Steve
PS - On another Trappist Ale note, Beer Companion states that Chimay is
fermented with a 'multistrain' yeast?? This is contrary to what I have read in
the past, unless Chimay is tinkering with their fermentation process.
Comments?
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 08:52:00 -0800
From: Jeremy Bergsman <jeremybb at leland.stanford.edu>
Subject: Cuvee Rene
People have been discussing phenol and residual sweetness.
I just had my first bottle of Cuvee Rene last night. I must say I was
disappointed after all the raves I've read here lately. Maybe seeing
caseloads go out the door at a recent homebrew competition got me overly
excited. Here are my comments apropos of recent discussions:
It was very sour but not acetic at all. In fact it seemed to me
there there was a citric/lemony character in addition to the lactic.
The "wild" flavors were there, they were nice, but they were very
reserved. Very faint esters faded after a few minutes, never to be
smelled again.
Interestingly, I did get a faint phenol. I'm not saying it was brett
of course. It's surprising to me that these beers aren't much more
phenolic since in my experience that is the second most common flavor
to result from "poor" sanitation (after sour).
I was looking for residual sweetness after that post but it seemed quite dry;
the intense sourness would make detecting sweetness difficult. The late in-
the-mouth taste and the aftertaste had some caramel and toastiness! In
rationalizing this I did consider the lenghty boil and noted that this is more
golden/yellow than many gueuzes.
In general it was like Boon diluted with brewpub "blond ale."
- ---------------
I have only received two comments about the lambic web page so far. Both
were mainly typo/incompleteness remarks. I expected a big hullabaloo.
Does anyone have any suggestions or criticisms? Does anyone care?
The URL is:
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~jeremybb/lambic/lambic.html
- --
Jeremy Bergsman
jeremybb at leland.stanford.edu
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~jeremybb
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 20:44:29 -0500 (CDT)
From: Robert Paolino <rpaolino at execpc.com>
Subject: New Glarus (WI) Brewing Company
Scott Bickham <bickham at dave.nrl.navy.mil> wrote
> Brewing Industry International Awards
> 22 April 1996
[snip]
> International Speciality Beers Competition - Bottles
> and Cans
^^^ ^^^^
To quote Al out of context :-), "yikes!" (hope that wasn't copyrighted)
> New Glarus Brewing Co, USA Belgian Red Gold Medal CHAMPION
..
>The other categories had some top notch beers in them, but has anyone
>heard of the New Glarus Brewing Company?
Yes, I have.
(Oh, right, I suppose _you_ would like to know also) New Glarus is a
village southwest of Madison, and the brewery has been selling beer since
the beginning of 1994. The "Belgian Red" was introduced as a winter
holiday beer, and is sold in 750ml bottles, crown capped and covered with
red wax. It's got lots o' Montmorency cherries and is said to have a
Belgian culture of some kind, but brewmaster Dan Carey won't discuss it.
When young, it is very sweet, and sometimes not especially beerlike
(imho), although I do enjoy it on occasion.
Indeed, it is very well made; whether one happens to enjoy sweet fruit
beers is a separate issue. It's unlikely that many people reading this
would consider it very "Belgian-like," but remember that the category is
"specialty"
Bottles from last year have begun to sour a bit and I'm holding on to
several.
I should also note that this beer has been very popular among beer geeks,
"Belgian" character or not. Last year, I had several requests from judges
in Illinois (where the beer is not available) to bring it with me when I
travelled to the Flatlands to judge (which was fairly often), with some
people asking for full cases.
New Glarus started with the intention of being a lager brewery with a Pils
as the flagship beer, but their first seasonal (a bock) was so popular that
they very quickly decided to make it year around. Dan Carey has also done
some ales and has provided the Madison area with a wonderful selection of
first-rate beers, in addition to the other great beers we have in the area.
Other styles have been: solstice wheat, draught-only pale ale, apple ale
(cider with enough malt not to need a wine licence), maibock, Oktoberfest,
"snowshoe" ale, "coffee" stout....
Dan Carey previously brewed for Kessler and A-B, but got tired of the A-B
corporate culture (and, surely, the "beer") and his wife Deb bought him a
brewery as an anniversary present ;-) along with a move to Wisconsin.
But if you want to try the beers, you're gonna have to come to Southern
Wisconsin.
Now it is definitely time for me to go out and...
Now go have a beer,
Bob Paolino
Madison rpaolino at earth.execpc.com
You may now go back to your regularly-scheduled beer
------------------------------
End of Lambic Digest
************************
-------
