Orange Bubbly?

While not forgotten generally, yeast seems to often get overlooked when it comes to how it can influence and contribute to aroma. Fundamentally, it's what's driving the whole show with these adult beverages.
 
I doubt yeast alone could explain this.
En tirage sparklers don't typically taste like beer, yet orange wine (and especially orange with a bead) does.
At least from in my experience.

Could be some element of phenol-yeast interaction, I guess.
 
originally posted by scottreiner:
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
I use the wine as a litmus test at the restaurant. It is often given gratis to chefs from out of town, visiting wine folk, etc.

that's the first time i had it. thanks again!

Huh. I find it surprising that I gave the Donati to you, since as I recall, you started the evening by saying "We'll leave the wine selections up to you, but we don't want anything from Louis/Dressner, Jenny & Francois, Savio Soares, Kermit Lynch, Neal Rosenthal, and maybe a few others besides, because we know those wines already" which left me with, like, not so many options.
 
Joel,

Can you tell us more about the beer that reminded you of orange wine? There may be something there that's a clue.

Cheers,

Kevin
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
Orange Bubbly?
Does it exist?

I had a microbrew the other night that lit my limbic system up (not lambic)...it felt/smelt/tasted like an orange wine in fruitful aromatics and biting tannic bitters, but it had bubbles. That got me to thinking.

Try the Movia Puro Rose. I think that would qualify as orange sparkling wine.
 
interesting that you mention the movia, John. i've had it and seems to me it could fit the orange bubbly bill. fwiw, i don't recall it tasting at all beer like tho.

Kevin, the beer in question is from Oregon's Rogue Ale brewery.....it's called Brutal Bitter, and here are the stats from their website:

Style: Bitter

An Imperial bitter with exotic traditional floor malts, citrusy, hoppy flavor, stupendous hop aroma.

6 Ingredients:
Malts: 100% Floor-malted Maris Otter, Cara Vienna, Cara Wheat.
Hops: Crystal.
Yeast & Water: Rogue's Pacman Yeast & Free Range Coastal Water.
Specs:
15 PLATO
59 IBU
76.1 AA
14.2 Lovibond


Levi...I wonder what aspects of the Donati remind people more of beer than wine? Turns out a local seller has the '05 of this...so I can try it.

Bruce...I think the phenol+yeast combo may be closest.....but now that you are in Hokkaido, you can have Phred from Ezo Beer send you a 6 pack of the BB and see for yourself whether or not my silly idea holds water...wine...or...beer.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:


An Imperial bitter with exotic traditional floor malts, citrusy, hoppy flavor, stupendous hop aroma.

6 Ingredients:
Malts: 100% Floor-malted Maris Otter, Cara Vienna, Cara Wheat.
Hops: Crystal.
Yeast & Water: Rogue's Pacman Yeast & Free Range Coastal Water.
Specs:
15 PLATO
59 IBU
76.1 AA
14.2 Lovibond

Interesting, as luck would have it, the beer you're talking about is widely available in the USA. The hop variety they use in this beer (Crystal) is one of the American crosses of a Hallertau, a German hop variety, crossed with Cascade and some other American hop varieties. It retains alot of the German "noble" hop character with a hint of what I'd call rindy oranginess. Which is especially funny to me considering your orange wine association. I don't really consider the role of this yeast to be very flavor contributing, in the case of Rogue's "pacman" yeast, it is a very neutral hop-emphasizing strain of american (clean, neutral) yeast. I think that this beer is filtered and would not have been bottle-conditioned, again minimizing "yeasty" flavors even beyond those formed during fermentation. Perhaps the bitterness here is reminiscent of the pale/tannic component of the extended skin contact wine. Which by my embarassing admission I still haven't had. (I had the opportunity at Frasca in Boulder earlier this summer, but not the means...)

Have any other beers triggered this connection for you? I'm curious if it is bitterness related or if only hops of a certain variety trigger it.

Hope that helps. Clear as mud, right?

Cheers,

Kevin
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
interesting that you mention the movia, John. i've had it and seems to me it could fit the orange bubbly bill. fwiw, i don't recall it tasting at all beer like tho.

No it did not taste like beer but it seemed like the very definition of Orange Bubbly and the color was more orange than pink as I recall which also made me thing of it. As far as sparkling wine that might be considered orange that tastes like beer, perhaps the sparkling Mauzac from Plageoles. it tasted like a cross between wine, Basque cider and Belgium beer. BTW, most of those Belgian beers and Belgian-style beers are using champagne yeast so it not a surprise that one would find similarities. No?
 
originally posted by john McCarthy:
BTW, most of those Belgian beers and Belgian-style beers are using champagne yeast so it not a surprise that one would find similarities. No?

I hadn't realized this. I thought most of the Belgians were using isolates from their own facilities or other local breweries. Then again, I know very little about Belgian beer production.
 
originally posted by scottreiner:
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
Donati... '05 of this...so I can try it.

i would love to hear how the 05 is tasting now. please post a tasting note.

i'm considering it a mission now...stay tuned

as for the Movia Puro Rose....i just found out from a friend that it's 100% pinot noir, so it doesn't qualify in a material sense to be called "orange". Un-disgorged it certainly has an orange-rose tint, but properly disgorged apparently it is pretty white...and anyway, it ain't.

Bruce...me neither (not knowing Belgian beer much)...except that I know that Orval is purposely brett beer.....and I like it for that. They've perfected the art. Is "champagne yeast" just one type, though?
 
My vague recollections are that:

1) Most Belgian beer is not brewed with Champagne yeast

2) What the homebrewer calls Champagne yeast has very little, if anything, to do with Champagne

I stand ready to be corrected.
 
When I mentioned Belgian beer, yeast and Champagne it was only with respect to aroma. I was noticing some distinct aromatic similarities, and for lack of any other explanation I figured it was yeast related.
As to specific strains and all that, I don't know, but I think there can be some yeast driven aromas that are
somewhat common. FWIW.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:

as for the Movia Puro Rose....i just found out from a friend that it's 100% pinot noir, so it doesn't qualify in a material sense to be called "orange". Un-disgorged it certainly has an orange-rose tint, but properly disgorged apparently it is pretty white...and anyway, it ain't.

I've only had the Movia Puro Ros once, so by web standards I'm an expert: The bottle we had was cleanly disgorged and there was no cloudiness to the wine. It was distinctly onion skin (and a dark onion skin at that) in color. Definitely an orange-tinted ros, but as you note it's not an orange wine.

I believe that Movia also make a white Puro - maybe that's the one that "is pretty white"?
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
originally posted by scottreiner:
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
Donati... '05 of this...so I can try it.

i would love to hear how the 05 is tasting now. please post a tasting note.

i'm considering it a mission now...stay tuned

as for the Movia Puro Rose....i just found out from a friend that it's 100% pinot noir, so it doesn't qualify in a material sense to be called "orange". Un-disgorged it certainly has an orange-rose tint, but properly disgorged apparently it is pretty white...and anyway, it ain't.

Bruce...me neither (not knowing Belgian beer much)...except that I know that Orval is purposely brett beer.....and I like it for that. They've perfected the art. Is "champagne yeast" just one type, though?

Orval's primary fermentation is done with with a nice, mellow ordinary Saccharomyces strain. (more info Here) Then there is a secondary pitching of a mix of things including various Brettanomyces strains. I'm personally a huge fan of Orval.

Arjun, you are correct in that most Belgian style beers are fermented solely with normal Belgian ale strains and not "Champagne" yeast, whatever that might be. These ("champagne") strains are neutral and alcohol tolerant, but in my experience aren't very interesting, especially compared to many estery Belgian strains, which can lend a rich, spicy character to beers. I think they're frequently used by homebrewers who have attenuation problems when making particularly strong beers.

As for what strains the LVMH boys are pitching in their Champagne Wine Product, I have no idea.

Cheers,

Kevin
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
Is "champagne yeast" just one type, though?

The term is pretty vague, but no matter how you slice it, I wouldn't think so, no.
Whether the meaning is "commercially available yeast originally isolated in the Champagne region of France" or "commercially available yeast typically recommended as suitable for sparkling wine production", there are many that fit the bill.
 
originally posted by Kevin Roberts:
originally posted by Joel Stewart:


An Imperial bitter with exotic traditional floor malts, citrusy, hoppy flavor, stupendous hop aroma.

6 Ingredients:
Malts: 100% Floor-malted Maris Otter, Cara Vienna, Cara Wheat.
Hops: Crystal.
Yeast & Water: Rogue's Pacman Yeast & Free Range Coastal Water.
Specs:
15 PLATO
59 IBU
76.1 AA
14.2 Lovibond

Interesting, as luck would have it, the beer you're talking about is widely available in the USA. The hop variety they use in this beer (Crystal) is one of the American crosses of a Hallertau, a German hop variety, crossed with Cascade and some other American hop varieties. It retains alot of the German "noble" hop character with a hint of what I'd call rindy oranginess. Which is especially funny to me considering your orange wine association. I don't really consider the role of this yeast to be very flavor contributing, in the case of Rogue's "pacman" yeast, it is a very neutral hop-emphasizing strain of american (clean, neutral) yeast. I think that this beer is filtered and would not have been bottle-conditioned, again minimizing "yeasty" flavors even beyond those formed during fermentation. Perhaps the bitterness here is reminiscent of the pale/tannic component of the extended skin contact wine. Which by my embarassing admission I still haven't had. (I had the opportunity at Frasca in Boulder earlier this summer, but not the means...)

Have any other beers triggered this connection for you? I'm curious if it is bitterness related or if only hops of a certain variety trigger it.

Hope that helps. Clear as mud, right?

Cheers,

Kevin

Kevin, I'm not sure that Brutal Bitter is filtered....it's not bottle conditioned as far as I know, but it is slightly cloudy in the glass. This point may be neither here nor there.

In answer to your question about other beers...I find there is a citrusy, bitterness to many of the Northwest IPA beers which I think could come close to fitting the bill here too. Many of those use, among others, Cascade hops.

So I think your hoppy hunch may be correct. And, while it may be the yeast and cloudiness that makes folks think of beer when they are tasting a Donati, it may very well be the hops in certain NW style IPA micros that reminds me of some orange wines I've had lately. Now, all I have to do is try the Donati and see if those yeasts remind me of these hops.....or find another connection altogether. Or just let it be one of those mysteries in life.
 
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
It is maybe the greatest value in the kingdom of Orange.

Levi, is there anything not to try in the Donati lineup? The '05 secco (as mentioned) is available here, but several others, from '04-'06 are available as well.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
It is maybe the greatest value in the kingdom of Orange.

Levi, is there anything not to try in the Donati lineup? The '05 secco (as mentioned) is available here, but several others, from '04-'06 are available as well.

I purchased the Donati Trebbiano Frizzante Secco '06 in Tokyo awhile back and was disappointed with how it showed, relative to how much I like the Malvasia Frizzante Secco '06. I haven't had an '04. I haven't had the Dolce Malvasia Frizzante rendition. The Lambrusco is the best of my experience. Really wonderful.
 
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