Session #45: The taste of wheat

The SessionBeerTaster.ca is hosting the 45th gathering of The Session, and the topic is #45: Wheat Beers. Not sure how the turnout will be, given little gathering in Boulder this weekend, but head on over to BeerTaster.ca for the wrapup.

I could write a book about wheat beers. Wait, I already have. Making it all the more difficult to pick one beer to write about, or even a type from a particular region.

So instead, a little about wheat itself, what it contributes to wheat beers, what it tastes like. But don’t expect a definitive answer. As German brewing literature indicates, wheat by itself has little influence on esters and other fermentation by-products. It’s yeast quickly changes that.

I asked the question many times over in researching BWW and never walked away with anything definitive. Bob Hansen, manager of technical services at Briess Malt & Ingredients Company, had a pretty good answer, saying, “Wheaty, earthy. It is different, but you’d be surprised how non-different it is. You can use wheat to make a pilsner.”

Steven Pauwels at Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City said he likes the character unmalted wheat adds. “It brings a crispness that’s hard to describe. A little drier, makes a beer more drinkable,” he said.

Darron Welch, brewmaster at Pelican Pub & Brewery in Pacific City, Oregon, views wheat as a facilitator. “I think it has a bready flavor,” he said. “Because it is foam positive it changes how yeast brings other flavors into play.”

And Jean-Francois Gravel of Dieu du Ciel! in Montreal, who provided a recipe for wit beer, added: “To me, wheat has a very delicate bready flavor with some acidity or refreshing tartness. I think the barley has more pronounced grain flavor and a sweeter perception. If you eat raw wheat and malted wheat you will see the difference of texture right away because the malted wheat is more crumbly and easy to crush. But the flavor difference between the unmalted and malted wheat is very subtle. The malted wheat will have a bit more . . . malty flavor.”

Did I mention I’m brewing a wheat wine on Sunday? Not sure what session that might be ready for.

These are people I want to drink beer with

Officially, this is a parody of the “I Am A Craft Brewer” first released 18 months ago. But it also stands on its own. Give it a look, and a laugh, and read on if you want.

Make no mistake. These are not random people off the street. Some of them work for Rifftrax (“We don’t make movies . . . We make them funny!), so they had a creative leg up. Because the video was posted on Conor Lastowka’s You Tube channel, I asked him for a few details, provided by email:

“I live in San Diego. I’m a writer for rifftrax.com and a homebrewer/beer fan. Sometimes they show our movies at the Stone Brewery during the summer, so that’s where we saw the original video, and we were talking about some way to get RiffTrax involved in San Diego Beer Week (editor’s note: that begins tomorrow), and we decided to make a parody of their video. It’s me, my wife, two co-workers and some friends who appear in it.”

Could these guys probably create something centered around a mainstream lager that would make me laugh out loud? I wouldn’t be surprised.

Would they be motivated to?

Rhetorical question.

 

How Wikio ranks the US beer blogs

Guess I’ll have to try harder.

Wikio ranks Appellation Beer No. 2 among US beer blogs in its November listings. This is only the second month for the US rankings, and just like last month Beervana is No. 1. I know this because the folks at Wikio sent me a sneak preview, which I’m sure you’d rather look at than my commentary. Seems pretty interesting just days before the first Beer Bloggers Conference. (Commentary will follow.)

1 Beervana
2 Appellation Beer: Beer From a Good Home
3 Brewpublic
4 Brookston Beer Bulletin
5 Seen Through a Glass
6 A Good Beer Blog
7 The New School
8 Drink With The Wench
9 The Session Beer Project™
10 Beer in Baltimore
11 Bay Area Beer Runner
12 Beeronomics
13 Brouwer’s Cafe
14 BetterBeerBlog
15 Jack Curtin’s LIQUID DIET
16 KC Beer Blog
17 Show-Me Beer
18 Washington Beer Blog
19 Thirsty Pilgrim
20 It’s Pub Night

Beer

Ranking made by Wikio

Jeff Alworth of Beervana offered a good look at the methodology last month when he showed up in the top spot. Take the time to read it, and consider his caveat: “no one reads beer blogs.” Obviously he means “hardly anybody” because he, like I, appreciates that you are reading us.

Pete Brown has been recapping the UK rankings for more than a year. This has led to interesting conversations across the way, given that if there’s anything beer bloggers like writing about more than beer it’s beer blogging.

I particularly appreciate that Martyn Cornell of Zythophile (No. 5 this month in the UK, with a bullet) asked one set of good questions, then still more.

But to return to the US rankings and the upcoming Beer Bloggers Conference. I don’t know if these ratings will be discussed, but I do know there are seminars on things like SEO that you can see here (that’s “search engine optimization”). All this will surely make the Wikio rankings dynamic and interesting to watch . . .

. . . if you consider navel gazing a sport.

About those reports of more Westvleteren beer

News last week that Abbey Saint Sixtus, the Trappist monastery at Westvleteren in Belgium, might boost production of its much-cherished beer and sell it through supermarket channels led to the consumption of considerable bandwidth on beer discussion boards.

Perhaps some of the questions not addressed by that story were answered in the various threads, but not in the few I had time to read. And I didn’t see a mention of the report from Danny Van Tricht in September that the abbey had installed new lagering tanks. Gee, doesn’t that make you wonder just how much more beer Saint Sixtus might brew?

I don’t have a definitive answer, but an email response from Brother Joris — the monk in charge of brewing at Saint Sixtus — would indicate “not much” and even that won’t be on a permanent basis.

He explained, “I am not allowed to give away more details on the matter, as it should be a surprise.”

He wrote that the reports the brewery would sell beer away from the monastery are not correct, adding, “We remain faithful to our sales policy and we have no intention of opening a second channel for the distribution of our beers in the way suggested by the media.” He indicated the monastery is considering a one-time special project (that would not last for long) to raise additional funds for construction work on the cloister.. “This will however not come down to ‘Westvleteren being for sale in the racks of a supermarket,'” he wrote.

He further explained that the new tanks make the production schedule more flexible, so that brewing needn’t be delayed because beer in the lagering tanks isn’t ready for bottling. This makes it possible to produce a fixed quantity each year (currently that might vary between 4,200 and 4,750 hectoliters a year — comparable to about 3,600 to 4,000 U.S. barrels).

Digression No. 1: Stephen Beaumont has asked what will become of Westvelteren’s cult status should they become easier to buy. The notion — not Mr. B’s, should there be any confusion — that the Saint Sixtus beers might be “dumbed down” is laughable. By adding lagering tanks the monks assure that beer will not be hurried out the door. When I visited the brewery in 2004, Brother Joris explained that the 8 usually lagers four weeks but that the 12 might take two months to ten weeks, “when you get a difficult one.”

If the monks at Saint Sixtus wanted to ramp up production they already could have. The thoroughly modern brewhouse installed in 1989 could crank out a lot more wort, and the squares for primary fermentation sit idle more days than they are used. Plenty of breweries around the world have shortened lagering or aging times to meet growing demand.

Digression No. 2: In cruising through discussion boards I saw it suggested, and I’m paraphrasing, that “the monks should brew more beer to raise more money for the poor.” How come nobody finishes that sentence with what they are really thinking? “. . . and make it easier for me to buy their beer.”

In fact, larger monastery breweries, notably Westmalles and Chimay, help support other monasteries, multiple charities and local economies. Chimay, with 150 employees in its brewery and cheese making facility, is one of the largest employers in one of Belgium’s poorest regions. Westvleteren sells its beer in wooden crates (pictured at the top) manufactured in a “shielded workplace” for those not able to work in a mainstream environment.

But that’s not why they brew. Monks — Benedictine, Cistercian and Trappist — live by the rule of Saint Benedict, written about A.D. 530. Among other things, it calls on monks to be self-sufficient through their own labor.

Brother Joris puts it quite well: “We live on brewing, but we do it so we can continue with our real business, which is being monks.”

 

Yep, Olde (or Old) English has always sucked

That Olde English 800 3.2 tops the list of the world’s worst beers at Rate Beer got a little press this past week, but that Olde English 800 sucks hardly ranks as news. Even if it does have its own Facebook page.

Back in 1978 James Robertson gave Old English (note the difference in spelling) 800, the version brewed at Ortlieb in Philadelphia, a hefty 12 in The Great American Beer Book. Not the worst (Fischer Pils received a 4, and there were many in single digits), but poor by any measure. And these numbers were earned in carefully conducted blind tastings (multiple tasters, highest and lowest scores tossed out, various adjustments made).

I wouldn’t have bothered were it not for the opportunity to pass along this drinking note: “One of the beers more like a ‘pop’ wine, strong aromatic flavor that is overdone. Too sweet for a beer drinker. Nor can I think of any food that would go with it.” (Not even a food pairing could save it, Alan.)

Nonetheless MillerCoors has seen fit to keep it alive, and to even brew it to a variety of strengths. You can have my invitation to that blind tasting.