beers of conviction

Harder to spell? Amyloglucosidase or Reinheitsgebot?

One of the secrets to brewing the reigning beer of the moment, Brut IPA, isn’t really a secret. Many brewers give full credit to the enzyme amyloglucosidase, which plays a significant role in producing bone dry beers. Its not unusual to read that craft brewers have been using the enzyme “for a while” in “big” beers like imperial stout.

But just for the record, the enzyme was first used by breweries that don’t fit the definition of craft to make light beers. And only a few years ago the people who work at breweries that do fit the definition mostly talked among themselves about using enzymes. Jack McAuliffe and Fritz Maytag might have something to do with that.

When Frank Prial of the New York Times visited McAuliffe at New Albion Brewing in 1979 he wrote:

Jack McAuliffe boasts that his beer is a completely natural product. “We use malt, hops, water and yeast,” he said. “There are no enzymes, which the big breweries use to speed up the process of mashing and aging; there are no broad-spectrum antibiotics, which they use to stop bacteria from growing, and there are no heading agents to create an artificial head. The proteins which are filtered out of most beers are what make the head. We don’t filter.”

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in 2015 that marked the 50th anniversary of when he bought controlling interest in Anchor Brewing Company, Maytag said, “I wanted to be holier than the Pope.”

Mind you, there was no beer in the world more traditional than ours. Pure water, good yeast, malted barley, hops. Period. No additives, no chemicals, no nothing. That was a theme we felt strong about. To make old-fashioned beer in a pure, simple way.”

Times change.

Monday beer links: What if the King hadn’t been dethroned?

BEER AND WINE LINKS, MUSING 07.16.18

Farewell To The King
A decade after Anheuser-Busch’s sale, beer still pours from St. Louis brewery but much has changed.
Beer in America changed, July 13, 2008, when Anheuser-Busch agreed to a takeover from InBev. Before getting to the “what ifs” there is this new story, one published when the deal was finalized, and one that tracks how the story played out on the front pages.

At the time, columnist Bill McClellan asked, “If the brewery is sold, how will we know who we are?”

I remember interviewing a man who had just been fired from some dead-end job. I asked about his background. “My parents were both bottlers at the brewery,” he said. I said something to the effect that those were pretty good jobs. He nodded. “But I wasn’t raised to think I was better than anybody else,” he said.

If you’re not from St. Louis — or haven’t spent years here — that might seem like a strange thing to say. Why would the child of blue-collar workers even think of saying such a thing? But if you’re from here, you understand. Brewery jobs have always been special.

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Ales Through the Ages II

Sorry, this event has been canceled.

Some of the world’s brightest beer scholars and I will be returning to Colonial Williamsburg for another round of Ales Through the Ages. The last one was terrific (read Martyn Cornell’s recap) and the next one is Oct. 19-21.

My brochure arrived yesterday.

Ales Through the Ages, Colonial Williamsburg
Here’s the speaker lineup (there are also receptions and speakers roundtables Saturday and and Sunday):

FRIDAY, October 19
5:15 p.m. – Keynote presentation. Pete Brown.

SATURDAY, October 20
9 a.m. – From Caelia to Celctic Brews & Brigid to Benedict: Beer Beyond Roman Rule. Travis Rupp.
9:45 a.m. – The Sexual Habits of Hops: How They Changed Beer, and Changed It Again. Stan Hieronymus.
(Pardon the whining, but I also followed Travis last year. This is a lousy position. He is an engaging speaker who actually knows what he is talking about.)
11 a.m. – British Fungus: Brettanomyces in British Brewing. Ron Pattinson.

2 p.m. – Messing About with Old Ale & Beer. Marc Meltonville.
2:45 p.m. – Pale Ale Before IPA: The Birth of a Legend. Martyn Cornell.
4 p.m. – Speakers Roundtable.

SUNDAY, October 21
9 a.m. – Gruit: Back to the Future of Brewing? Butch Heilshorn.
9:45 a.m. – Molasses Beer, Hops and the Enslaved: Brewing in 18th Century Virginia. Frank Clark and Lee Graves.
11 a.m. – Albany Ale: 400 Years of Brewing in New York’s Hudson Valley. Craig Gravina.
2 p.m. – The Nobel Failure: How Vermont’s Period of Prohibition Shape the Present Culture and Landscape. Adam Krakowski.
3:15 p.m. – Speakers Roundtable.

Monday’s fermentation links: ‘It’s just beer news’

BEER AND WINE LINKS 04.16.18

I’m pretty sure Alan McLeod was lamenting the use of the term “deep dive” in his commentary on recent beer news last week. Fact is when I see the words “deep dive” I expect what follows to go deep less often than not. The good news is that several of today’s links are to stories that dig decently deep. I might also add that I’m in the midst of three separate dives myself (also known as a bid idea), so posting here will remain random indefinitely.

Has American Craft Beer Taken Over the World?
Lew Bryson asks important questions, including these, “Is the success of American craft keeping other countries from developing their own palate? Is this some kind of beer imperialism?” I also was in Chile to judge Copa Cervezas de América, although I arrived too late for that trip to the coast. Later in the week John Roberts of Max Lager’s Brewery and I made it to Cerveceria SpoH. It is located in a leather-making district, where the air is pleasantly thick with the aroma of tannins. Spoh is hops spelled backwards (because somebody trademarked the word “hops” in Chile) and, sure enough, the brewery is best known for Animal IPA. But we also tasted beers that made it clear brewer Max Ivanovic is good at subtle.

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Lager diversity: Beyond pilsner and ‘lite’

The drumbeat supporting lager as the new new thing seems to be getting louder, but I’m pretty certain I heard such chatter before anybody suggested Juicy or Hazy IPA would become a defined style. And certainly before glitter beer began to glitter. Patience seems necessary. Nonetheless there is evidence of change almost hourly on my Twitter feed. For example (click on “talking about this” to read the conversations that followed):

But what comes after pilsners and light/lite beers? Burial Beer’s Ambient Terrain series looks encouraging. And there will be plenty of ideas to repurpose on display at the Urban Chestnut Brewing LagerFest in St. Louis.

Urban Chestnut Brewing Company LagerFest logo

Recipes for most of the beers that will be on offer came from Ron Pattinson’s wish list.

Firestone Walker Brewing, which you will recall makes a very popular pilsner (Pivo) and recently began shipping an all-malt lager (Firestone Lager) that is basically a helles, picked 1896 Munich Lagerbier. The only malt in the grist is Munich.

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