place/local/ingredients/sensory

Quality of bitterness: as easy as ABC?

Agreeing on a definition for “quality of bitterness” is almost as hard as agreeing on a definition of “craft beer.” But understanding quality of bitterness is essential, and a reason why I like the way Polish homebrewers tweaked their scoresheet for their competitions, awarding six points for bitterness.

The International Bitterness Unit formula was established in the 1960s at a time the composition of hop cones was different than today. And because isomerized alpha acids are primarily responsible for the bitterness in beer, “many brewers consider iso-a-acids to be the only relevant bitter compounds in beer.” Scientists in Germany believe otherwise, maintaining that the majority of what they call “auxiliary bitter compounds” are desirable from a sensory perspective. Sensory panels reported that the harmonious aspect of bitterness increased with the quantity of ABC.1

Basically, “auxiliary bitter compounds” encompass all bitter compounds in hop resins which are transferred into beer and which are not iso-alpha acids. Few of the 8,000-plus brewers in the United States have the equipment needed to measure ABC.

If a brewer does not have that equipment what should they do? A few rules of thumb:

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The Session: Quarantine edition

Being There

I like to watch.

Daria and I spent much of July 3, 1995, at Seaside Heights, N.J., on the beach and on the boardwalk. On the way back to Daria’s mom’s house we stopped at Antones in Cranford. It was (was being the operative term, because it was sold in 2008 and converted into an Irish theme pub) a tavern with a wide range of beer and frequented by people who lived and worked nearby.

The regulars played NTN (trivia) and we once saw a couple in a booth picking out wedding invitations. On this pre-holiday Monday these regulars filled almost every stool at the horseshoe bar. They were watching the 6 o’clock news and the weatherman was warning viewers of the danger of sunburn under clear Fourth of July skies.

“What’s UV-9?” one drinker asked.

“It means I have to wear my sunglasses in here tomorrow,” another answered.

Three years ago, I spent a couple of hours in Riley’s Pub, a St. Louis neighborhood establishment, taking notes for a gathering of The Session hosted by Boak & Bailey, scribbling down observations, speaking nary a word other than to order beer.

It’s what I do. I miss it.

The SessionWe said goodbye to The Session a year ago December, but Alistair Reece has summoned us for a special Quarantine Edition. He poses several questions, including “what has become your new drinking normal?”

Normal, what a concept. We live in Atlanta, Georgia — Georgia undoubtedly being the seven letters your eyes focus on. Things are not going to end well for many people in this state. That doesn’t mean everybody has to act stupidly. Most restaurants and brewery taprooms in Atlanta chose not to reopen at this time. Monday Night Brewing shared the results of a poll that indicated that three quarters of beer drinkers would not consider heading to a taproom before June.

Shadows on a wallFor Daria and I, the old normal on a Friday was to eat and drink at a locally owned restaurant, quite possibly a brewpub or taproom. The last time we did that eight weeks ago we had dinner and beer at Best End Brewing, then stopped at nearby ASW Distillery for an after dinner drink.

The windows there look out on the fire pits at Monday Night Garage, one of two brewery taprooms flanking the distillery. We watched people come and go, some with children who dashed happily about outdoors. We saw animated conversations, although we couldn’t hear what was being said (eavesdropping makes observing better). It was a good normal.

This Friday, as we have every Friday since, we’ll continue to eat local and drink local. I will walk to Fox Bros. Bar-B-Q to pick up dinner and on to Wrecking Bar Brewpub, which recently canned a pilsner made with hops from the Seitz Farm in Germany. We’ll dine on our back deck, listen to music (as well as the occasional train rumbling by, though MARTA is running less often now) and watch the shadows track across the bricks on a neighbor’s house.

The new normal is also a good normal, but I’m ready for another normal. One that looks more like the old normal.

First comes the e-nose, then the beer algorithm

Researchers in Australia have developed an “electronic nose” they say will help craft breweries monitor beer quality. Seems like it would work for other breweries as well.

This e-nose is a small circuit board that measures gases emitted from beer. It uses machine learning (magic words which we’ll get back to soon) to determine if a beer has unwanted aromas. The gases include carbon dioxide, ethanol, methane, hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and benzene.

The electronic nose has also been used by the researchers in conjunction with biometric indicators such as heart rate, body temperature, brainwaves and facial expressions to gather more information from consumers while tasting a product.

Basically, it is good at warning brewers there’s something about a beer that consumers won’t like. That’s a positive. However, directing consumers to a beer they will like or providing an idea of what it will smell and taste like is a different challenge. Aroma, and therefore flavor, remains something of a black box.

Kevin Verstrepen and Miguel Roncoroni at the laboratory at the University of Leuven’s Institute for Beer Research and VIB Center for Microbiology head up a project intended to match compounds that can be measured with sensory preferences. One result is a book, Belgian Beer: Tested and Tasted.

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Dispatches from the brewing local front

WHAT THE L?

Fullsteam Brewery in North Carolina has made a small change in the signage it uses at beer festivals.

A line that previously read “AUTUMN LAGER festbier, 6% ABV, 99% local” now reads “AUTUMN LAGER festbier, 6% ABV, 99% L.”

Fullsteam founder Sean Lilly Wilson explained why in the brewery’s newsletter.

The goal is two-fold: first, to intentionally have people ask “What is “L?”” That question provides an opportunity for dialogue. It allows us to share what we mean by local and why we believe it matters.

Secondly, the effort is to ultimately normalize it. Why waste time on IBUs when it’s a meaningless measurement of perceived bitterness? Why bother with SRM (a color metric) when you generally know a pils is going to be light and a porter dark?

L matters to us and to a growing number of breweries. L to us means Southern-sourced (overwhelmingly North Carolina) from independent farmers, foragers, maltsters, and tree growers.

Ultimately, we want customers to care more about origin and how buying local can strengthen the state’s agricultural sector. For us and a number of L-centric breweries, that matters more than specious statistics and formulas.

Truly local beer is a metric worth measuring. But in a No Laws When You’re Drinking Claws era, we have to find new ways to make it matter.”

Fullsteam has spent more than a half million dollars on local ingredients — local being Southern states, mostly North Carolina — since opening in 2010. “I hope to ramp that up each year, to where that $500k isn’t over nine years, but every year!” Wilson wrote via email.

The ingredients and where they come from:
Malted corn: From Riverbend Malt House in Asheville and Epiphany Craft Malt in Durham.
Malted barley: Foundation, Ruby and Vienna from Epiphany.
Malted triticale: From Epiphany.
Hops: Aramis from France and Saaz from Germany.
Yeast: House lager yeast (not of North Carolina origin).

LOCAL CONNECTIONS

Via Josh Chapman at Black Narrows Brewing Co.

ASSUMING YOU LIVE IN NORTHERN BOTSWANA

HOMINY