Souring a Beer with Acid Malt - Ithaca Brute Style

It is hard not to get embedded in a rut when you really get into brewing sour beers. The investments of time and effort are so big that it discourages major risk taking (just take a look at all of the lambic brewers who essentially brew only one beer!). While I'm confident enough to adjust the grain bill, or add interesting new ingredients, my basic method hasn't changed much since I stared to be happy with the results a few years ago. As I hinted at in my Great Souring Experiment post, I’d like to try mimicking the methods that several respected craft breweries are using. I doubt all of these batches will be as good as my default, but maybe I will find a way to make sour beers that is faster, more reliable, or produces a unique flavor.

My first attempt at a new method was to use the one that head brewer Jeff O'Neil developed while at Ithaca Beer Company to produce the pale sour Brute. He has since moved on to Peekskill Brewing, which sounds like it will allow more freedom for him to experiment. The basic idea of the method is to use a significant proportion of acid malt in the mash, a hot saccharification rest, and a clean primary fermentation with only Brett pitched into secondary. The combination of mashing at both a low pH and high temperature creates a largely unfermentable (to brewer's yeast) wort. Brute starts with a hot primary fermentation with their house English ale yeast and then crash cools when it reaches about 50% apparent attenuation. Oak spirals and Brett Drie are then added and allowed to age for close to a year.

I started the mash for my inspired by batch at 159 F and allowed it to convert before adding the acid malt. Ithaca does not wait to add the acid malt, but I was a bit worried about getting really terrible starch to sugar conversion. I initially added 1.5 lbs of the tangy sourdough-flavored acid malt from Weyermann. When this didn’t result in a pH as low as I expected I added another 1.5 lbs. Now at 20% acid malt, the mash made it down to a pH of 4.5. As pH is a logarithmic scale, the final pH of Brute ~3.7 would require more than six times as much acid to reach. On their website Weyermann suggests 8% acid malt to sour a quick Berliner weisse, but I don't see how this would work when 20% in this beer gave no noticeable acidity.

I'm interested to see how far the Brett will be able to lower the pH on its own, it is also possible that Brute had other microbes, which had not been pitched, at work in the dedicated tank. Jeff has also said that he felt that seasonal temperature swings were a big part of what made Brute work, so I'll be letting this batch sit outside of my temperature controlled basement "fermentation" room next summer... maybe.

I failed to take many pictures during the brew day, but the American University journalism project were around throughout the day snapping photos of ever step of the process.

Acid Malt Soured Saison

Recipe Specifics
--------------------
Batch Size (Gal): 5.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 15.00
Anticipated OG: 1.069
Anticipated SRM: 4.1
Anticipated IBU: 10.1
Brewhouse Efficiency: 67 %
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain
-------
66.7% - 10.00 lbs. German Pilsener
20.0% - 3.00 lbs. Weyermann Sauer(acid) Malt
13.3% - 2.00 lbs. Wheat Malt

Hops
-------
0.50 oz. Hallertauer Tradition (Pellet, 6.00% AA) @ 60 min.

Yeast
-------
WYeast 3726 Farmhouse Ale

Water Profile
----------------
Profile: Washington DC

Mash Schedule
-----------------
Sacch Rest 45 min @ 159 F
Acid Malt Sacch 30 min @ 159 F

Notes
-------
Brewed 12/04/11 with my neighbor Josh and the American University journalism crew

Mashed 45 minutes before adding the 1.5 lbs of Weyermann acid malt, waited 15 minutes, and pH was still at 5.5, added 1.5 lbs more which took it down to 4.5. Not quite as sour as I wanted, but it should be interesting.

Double batch sparge. Ended up with a bit more gravity than I wanted. Pitched yeast cake from one carboy of the first refill of the apple brandy solera. Shook to aerate.

Fermentation was going strong after 12 hours at 64 ambient. After 24 hours total I added 1 gallon of distilled water to lower the gravity.

After 48 hours placed it in a pot on the radiator to get it up to ~82 F.

12/10/11 Racked to secondary, down to 1.015. Not much acidity, I may have to pitch more microbes that I was intending.

1/13/12 Added ECY Brett Blend #1 via dregs from my Brett'd Rye Saison.

Home Smoked Roggenbier Tasting

Rye is a weird grain. It has a flavor that some people call "spicy" but I've never thought it made a beer taste like it had been spiced (unless you also add caraway, like our Kvass). To me rye malt adds more of a rustic earthy grain flavor that is hard to articulate. On previous batches I'd stuck between 15-25% (in Denny's RIPA, and Brett'd Saison), but brewing with my friend Scott we went all the way up to 45% in our Cherry Wood Smoked Roggenbier. Brewing a collaborative recipe is a good way to try something out of your comfort zone, something you would not brew if the choice was entirely up to you. Sometimes it yields a beer you love (as it has on several previous batches with Scott), while other times it gives you a data point for future experiments.

Rauch Roggenbier

Appearance – Ruddy brown, with the rye adding a thick almost muddy haze despite several weeks of cold conditioning. Head pours a finger thick, but deflates rather quickly. Looks similar to a dunkle, but I would like it to be a bit lighter on the haze.

Smell – Some ctrusy hops, sweet cigarette smoke, sulfury yeast. Nice complex aroma, the smoke is lighter and melds better with the yeast and hops than other smoked malts I have used. It is a nice level of smoke for complexity, but some people might want more.

Taste – Firm bitterness, lingering smoke, maltiness, a bit muddled. The rye adds an indistinct earthy malt character that gets in the way of the other flavors. I think I would back down on the rye to 25% if I brewed it again (swapping in some wheat malt probably).

Mouthfeel – Creamier and almost syrupy compared to what I expect in a beer like this (the rye's beta glucans are to credit/blame). Solid carbonation, I'm sure purists would want it spritzy, but in a higher bitterness example like this I think too much carbonation would be grating.

Drinkability & Notes – Solid beer, but it just doesn't have the balance I want. Baking down on the rye, and upping the smoke slightly would be the way to go if I brewed it again. One of the problems with home-smoked malt is that inconsistency compared to commercially smoked versions, but the soft cherry wood smoke was the right choice by Scott for this beer.

As a side-note, this is my 500th post... yikes.

New Orleans, Better Beer Than You'd Think

There are a handful of American cities that are regarded as hubs for good beer: I'd put Portland, San Diego, and Philadelphia all in that first tier. These days there are plenty of other places that have a few cool breweries, or a bunch of good bars, but there are still a lot of cities that are not known for their beer scene at all. New Orleans was one of those cities in my mind, sure they have Abita (brewers of a number of most mediocre beers) nearby, but I think of it as a town whose drinking scene is centered around college students slamming florescent colored hurricanes and hand grenades. I was expecting great food, so if I wasn't able to get a decent beer I'd survive (see our trip to Spain).

Before Audrey and I flew down for the extra-long weekend over New Years, I did a bit of research. There were a few more places than I expected in the BeerAdvocate database, and got some good suggestions from replies on Facebook and Twitter. However it is always hard to tell just how good places are when there isn't a huge amount of competition.

We stayed near the French Quarter and Frenchmen Street at a small-cool-eclectic-odd bed and breakfast. The first day we walked around to get a feel for the neighborhood. The next day we took the St. Charles St. streetcar through the Garden District to Casamento's (delicious oyster loaf and stew, but painfully inattentive service).

After lunch we walked to NOLA Brewing, a smallish production brewery that opened a few years ago. We arrived in time for the weekly Friday tour. It turned out the tour consisted of drinking free beer and standing around the brewery. We only stuck around long enough to try one beer each before the line stretched out the door and around the corner, and we decided to move on. However, over our six days in town I got to try most of their beers with the Irish Channel Stout (more bitter and roasted than expected) being the winner.

From NOLA we headed to what I had been told was the best bottle shop in town, Stein's Market and Deli. Not a big place, but it was funny to see Cantillon and Fantôme in abundance, breweries that have become rare on the East Coast (and at prices I don't remember seeing in a couple years - $12.50 for Fantôme Saison?!). Other then a few local beers, they didn't carry much I can't find in DC besides a few Southern breweries like Sweetwater, St. Arnold, and Lazy Magnolia. Before we left we also grabbed a couple knishes and a pickle to snack on as we continued our walk.

With a few bottles in tow we continued east to The Avenue Pub, where we sat in their back courtyard. Another relatively new operation, it has a beer list that could stand up against many of the great beer bars in beer-cities. I had a glass of 3 Fonteinen Zwet.be (a funky porter) and Audrey had a glass of BFM Bon Chien (both were in good shape, although I was hoping for more sourness in the 3F). They had a number of local beers as well, but we figured we could find those at other bars or restaurants.

In general I was impressed that most places we went into had at least a couple local beers from places like Bayou Teche, Tin Roof, NOLA, and Abita. In particular we enjoyed d.b.a (live music and 30 taps), Green Goddess (brûléed, apple stuffed, French toast, and a smoked beer from Bayou Teche), Boucherie (best corned beef sandwich of my life, and a glass of Du Ciel Route Des Épices), and Cochon (braised pork cheeks, house cured meats and a Tin Roof Voodoo Bengal S.P.A). I think the single best thing we had to eat on the trip were the barbecued shrimp at Mr. B's Bistro, particularly the sauce which tasted like reduced shrimp stock, butter, and spices (the Abita Winter I had with it was the best beer I've had from them). I can't remember a single bad thing we ate on the entire trip, even the beignets at Cafe du Monde were excellent despite it being a tourist trap.

Taking a break from eating (not to mention museums, a swamp tour, and shopping) we headed to the Old New Orleans Rum distillery for a tour (luckily the $10 includes both a tour-guide and samples). The tour started out with a cocktail (a not-too-sweet tea with Cajun spiced rum), and then proceeded into the history of the distillery (founded in 1995) and of rum production in general. The molasses is mixed with water and then open-fermented in a large vat by a few pounds of yeast (the taste of the wash was a bit sour, but otherwise inoffensive - sanitation isn't that important when you are going to distill). Once fermentation is complete the distillation begins in a pot still and then proceeds to a column still (repossessed from a French perfume maker). The bulk of their rum is sold unaged, but some is aged in used bourbon barrels for three years (some of the barrels are subsequently sold to a brewery that uses them to age their smoked porter). At the end of the tour we got small samples of all four of their products (including the 10 year aged version, barrels of which survived hurricane Katrina up in the rafters, above the eight feet of flooding they experienced - see the color change in the wood above the fan?).

On our last night we met up with Sal, a homebrewer from across lake Pontchartrain who had emailed me a couple of time for advice. He suggested El Gato Negro for some fresh squeezed margaritas, which were excellent (I went with the pineapple-cilantro, Audrey had the satsuma). We talked about the beer scene and the local culture in general and swapped a couple homebrews. Sadly, I haven't had a chance to open either of the beers he gave me yet since I have been fighting off a cold for the last week. For the flight back I grabbed a muffaletta sandwich at Central Grocery (we'd tried to go around lunch on a previous day, but baulked at the line). Best dinner on a plane I've ever had.

Good beer, great food, fun trip. Not sure where we'll be headed next, but I need a trip to Belgium at some point (maybe a reward once the book is finally done...).

Favorite "Newish" American Hop?

Citra - 81%
Apollo - 4%
Calypso - 3%
El Dorado - 3%
Bravo - 2%
Legacy - 1%
Comet - 0% (3 votes)
Serebrianka - 0% (3 votes)
Sonnet Golding - 0% (1 vote)

Not a big surprise that Citra won by a landslide given it's the easiest to buy (and the most commonly used in commercial beers), but it was nice to see every hop get at least one vote. I’ve used Citra in a handful of beers and have been really pleased with the big bright orangy flavor it contributes. I am planning to dry hop the sour tripel (which never soured much) with a few ounces of it before bottling to give it some additional aromatic character.

I have not had a chance to brew with any of the other newly released varieties, but on an impulse I included one pound of Comet in an order I placed from Hopsdirect a couple months ago. My plan is to brew a beer with them to judge their contribution, and give away the rest if their flavor isn’t for me (not much of a loss for $9). I always like to use a hop by itself the first time to get a true sense of their bitterness/aroma, before trying to pair it with other varieties in subsequent batches.

In general it is great to see new varieties coming to market, especially ones that were selected for their interesting flavor rather than stratospheric alpha acid percentage (James Spencer had a great article in the October issue of BYO Magazine on the current wave of Aroma Hop Breeding). Just trying a new ingredient is part of what gets me excited about homebrewing, finding a new unique flavor, something that will surprise people is always a worthwhile goal for a batch. It will be interesting to see which varieties prove popular enough to continue being grown, and which fail to sell. I’m also wondering if any of the new varieties will reduce demand enough to kill production of any of the old standby varieties that are no longer seen as “exciting” to brew with.

If you have tried and enjoyed one of the less popular hops on the list, then please post a comment and let the rest of us know what the flavor was like, what sort of beer it would work in, and what other hops it might match well with.

American Farmhouse Currant Dark Saison

I like the idea of seasonal beers that are always similar, but never the same. For the last four falls a few friends and I have brewed dark funky saisons with dried fruit. Each year we keep the basic concept the same, but change the ingredients and methods to suit the dried fruit we select.

After previously using raisins, dates, and figs we decided that currants were the next logical choice. Dried currants have a flavor similar to raisins, but it is slightly more acidic with winey complexities. While there are "cassis" lambics flavored with fresh (or juiced) currants, I think the best example of their use is dried in Russian River's Consecration. Recently I went to a tasting at a friend's house where we opened five bottlings, and while each one was interesting in its own way the 001 had the perfect balance of acidity, Cabernet Sauvignon, tobacco, and dark fruit (too bad it was my last bottle).

For the malt bill of this year's dark saison we used a base of Vienna to give it more bready/toasty flavors than previous batches. Rather than getting all of the dark color from dehusked roasted malts in the mash, I made a cold extraction with roasted barley first processed in coffee grinder. I mixed a half pound with 20 ounces of water, although I probably would use a quart the next time. After sitting overnight at room temperature I strained it through a tea strainer (my initial attempt with a paper coffee filter quickly became clogged). We added the resulting 10 ounces of syrupy jet-black extract to the kettle at the start of the boil.

Fermentation was a mix of saison strains and Bretts. This was my first time using White Labs WLP670 American Farmhouse which includes a mutated version of Brett bruxellensis from The Lost Abbey. I missed the initial release last summer, but Brandon (who writes the excellent sour beer blog Embrace the Funk) was kind enough to send me a slurry he had saved (the strain will be available again as a year round release for 2012). Alex and I also pitched Wyeast Brett bruxellensis and Farmhouse Ale to complete the fermentation team. For once we did not add bacteria, so while this beer will be funky it will not have the sourness that the previous batches did.

For the first three dark saisons in this series we pureed the dried fruit and added it to the end of the boil, but this time Alex and I decided to wait until secondary to preserve more of its flavor. As these currants were coated in oil (from the feel of them) I gave them a quick rinse in Star-San followed by filtered water to remove the head destroying lipids.

For oak a fellow homebrewer (Tom, who also hooked me up with a bottle of Surly Five) sent me a few slices of an oak stave that had been in a red wine for some time. Even the smallest one, at 1.75 oz, was a bit more than I usually add, but since it had already had a good deal of its character extracted and had relatively low surface area I decided to risk over-oaking. I am also planning on adding some citrus zest when the beer is closer to bottling, but that will depend on the flavor.


We are starting to run out of dried fruits to use in dark saisons, so if anyone has a suggestion please post a comment. I think maybe even prunes would be a good choice...?

Dark Saison IV
Recipe Specifics
----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 10.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 25.00
Anticipated OG: 1.067
Anticipated SRM: 29.3
Anticipated IBU: 22.4
Brewhouse Efficiency: 77 %
Wort Boil Time: 80 Minutes

Grain
-------
92.0% 23.00 lbs. Vienna Malt
2.0% 0.50 lbs. American Chocolate Malt
2.0% 0.50 lbs. Carafa Special II
2.0% 0.50 lbs. Special B Malt
2.0% 0.50 lbs. Roasted Barley

Hops
-------
0.75 oz. Warrior (Pellet, 16.00% AA) @ 75 min.

Yeast
-----
WYeast 3726 Farmhouse Ale
White Labs 670 American Farmhouse
Wyeast 5112 Brettanomyces bruxellensis

Water Profile
----------------
Profile: Washington DC

Mash Schedule
-----------------
Sacch Rest - 60 min @ 159 F

Notes
-----
Brewed 12/17/11 with Alex.

Used spring water for the mash and sparge.

One week earlier had made a cold extraction with the roasted barley and one pint of water. Filtered after 18 hours at room temperature, rinsed with a few more ounces, and saved in the fridge. Added to the start of the boil.

Chilled to 70 F. Aerated with ~45 seconds of pure O2. Pitched my five gallons with 375 ml of loose slurry from the acid malt saison, 75 ml of dense slurry from WLP670 American Farmhouse, and half a package of Wyeast Brett B.

Good fermentation by the next morning at 64 F ambient in a large bucket fermentor. Never produced much krausen. Left the lid on lightly to mimic the low pressure of open fermentation.

12/27/11 Racked to secondary with 27 oz of dried currants (first rinsed with Star-San and then filtered water) and a long chunk of oak from a wine stave (1.75 oz).

Courage RIS Clone Tasting 2011

Over the Christmas weekend I had time for my annual tasting of the Courage Russian Imperial Stout clone that James and I brewed four and a half years ago. The timing couldn't have been better since a few days prior I got my first taste of the (newly re-resurrected) original which is now being brewed by Wells and Young. The commercial version did not have any Brett funk that mine does, but it did have a firm charcoal roasted bitterness from the heavy-handed use of black patent. It was interesting to taste a beer at such a young age that is built for aging (the bottle we had was brewed this summer).

It seems like so few of the American brewed Imperial Stouts are designed for graceful aging. The high level of sweetness in many examples (about 1.060 in the case of 3 Floyds Dark Lord) requires massive hopping to counter. The problem is that as the bitterness fades the beer loses that balance and ends up sugary sweet. Alternatively, some versions have gotten so strong that they need to age for a couple years before approaching drinkable. The bottle of The Bruery's 19% ABV Black Tuesday I had at the same tasting was so boozy that I couldn't taste anything else. Does anyone really want an aged beer that has alcohol of sugar as the primary flavor? I am not advocating 7% ABV Imperial stouts that finish at 1.005, but you are not going to get beer drinkers coming back to beers that are undrinkable in excess of 2 oz.

I'm hoping to pick up a few bottles of the Courage to store away for a few years to see if this newest incarnation has the agability of its predecessors. I may also have to rebrew my recipe without the Brett to see how close it is.

Courage RIS Clone

Appearance – Dark, dark, brown body. The dense tan foam floats well for a few minutes before falling, leaving only a thin wispy covering.

Smell – Has more of basement Brett funk than I remember in previous years, plenty of Bretty wet hay. Nice coffee roast character as well as dark fruit (prunes?). Still not showing its age negatively, although it is interesting that the funk seems to be increasing despite the lack of live Brett.

Taste – The flavor has less funk than the nose, with more cocoa and coffee. There is some vanillin oak as well. The bitterness (hop and roast) is mostly gone, leaving even a 1.020 beer sweetish, but the alcohol is still enough to balance.

Mouthfeel – More carbonation than I like in a big dark beer, but it is stable (at this point I don't think it will change). The body is moderate for an RIS, it is amazing how thick some of the American versions of the style are.

Drinkability & Notes – As always this beer is a nice Christmas treat when I visit my parents for the holidays. Almost halfway to my goal of hanging onto at least a few bottles for ten years, hopefully the beer continues to evolve and improve.