Yeast for thought
- Thread starter Oswaldo Costa
- Start date
scottreiner
scott reiner
Many beers are now made in the US with the addition of brett.
Yes, Oswaldo, the "rhetoric" is in the way a bit.
I would really have liked to have known, for instance, whether we could have our roses and eat them too? That is, can we have strains that produce yummy flavors and few bad ones, or do we have to take our good with our bad?
Or, do we have to make a mutual cultural agreement on what tastes good and what doesn't (this negotiation goes on here a lot of the time). 4-EP doesn't remind me so much of five-spice flavors, but hey, I had an andouillette for lunch yesterday so who am I to nitpick cultural norms?
I would really have liked to have known, for instance, whether we could have our roses and eat them too? That is, can we have strains that produce yummy flavors and few bad ones, or do we have to take our good with our bad?
Or, do we have to make a mutual cultural agreement on what tastes good and what doesn't (this negotiation goes on here a lot of the time). 4-EP doesn't remind me so much of five-spice flavors, but hey, I had an andouillette for lunch yesterday so who am I to nitpick cultural norms?
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
Yes, now we have good bretts v. bad bretts to parse, plus endless punning possibilities.
Good article, and very interesting to see that this research is being done at UC Davis.
The flavors spit out by yeasts during fermentation play a huge role in the final taste, and generally are under appreciated. Not by the group here, but over all I would say.
Orval to me is the classic beer where brett plays a big role in the flavor. One of my favorites.
Although maybe not as good today as it used to be.
Thanks, Oswaldo.
The flavors spit out by yeasts during fermentation play a huge role in the final taste, and generally are under appreciated. Not by the group here, but over all I would say.
Orval to me is the classic beer where brett plays a big role in the flavor. One of my favorites.
Although maybe not as good today as it used to be.
Thanks, Oswaldo.
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
Complexity, complexity, complexity.
Ken Schramm
Ken Schramm
For me, that crown goes to Cantillon, and I'm also fond of Hanssens.
They're all chock full of Pediococcus damnosus, too. My impression is that Hanssens has more brett and less pedio in the mix than Orval or Cantillon.
Saina Nieminen
Saina Nieminen
Orval is great but perhaps it has become a bit "easy" in recent years. But there's still a good dose of brett in there - as there is in traditional Lambic. De Cam and Cantillon are the best I've so far had.
Ken Schramm
Ken Schramm
Pedio damnosus is similar to a lactobacillus (I know these species get reclassified occasionally), and it produces sharp lactic acid flavors that are more pronounced on the palate than the "horse blanket" character of brett. Pedio cervisiae supposedly produces less diacetyl than Pedio damnosus. Obviously there are lots of different Brett characteristics (I'm fond of lambics that present like an empty barn loft on a humid, late fall day), but I have always thought Brett expresses itself in a way that is a combination of aromatic impacts with complex flavor components. Pedio is just cranky on the tongue, in a curmudgeonly (and potentially buttery) sort of way. Or more colloquially, Brett is like Coad or the Professor with attitudes, and Pedio is more like fb or Dressner (was).
I just grabbed an Orval to make sure that I was not speaking strictly from palate memory that might be inaccurate. I went through a case that I bought at the monastery in '95. I still think that while there is Brett in there, the prominent characteristic is a defined lactic bite that blends with the hops to produce the spank on the finish. The acidity does seem less pronounced than it was then, and the beer also seems maltier and a few degrees darker.
I just grabbed an Orval to make sure that I was not speaking strictly from palate memory that might be inaccurate. I went through a case that I bought at the monastery in '95. I still think that while there is Brett in there, the prominent characteristic is a defined lactic bite that blends with the hops to produce the spank on the finish. The acidity does seem less pronounced than it was then, and the beer also seems maltier and a few degrees darker.
Ken Schramm
Ken Schramm
One of my good friends is Dr. Dan McConnell. He ran YeastLab in the 90's. He made "brew naked" pale ales, in which two-row pale malt (only) was infusion mashed and hopped with a single hop variety, and fermented with a yeast starter grown up from a slant. It was a great way to get a handle on a yeast strain's fermentation kinetics and finished beer flavor profile. One variable in each category, nothing to hide behind. Great learning vehicles, those. If you plated them out, they also revealed a lot about your sanitation skills. We'd use Cascades for American styles, or East Kent Goldings for British ales. I still find a well made naked pale to be one of my favorite beers.
Saina Nieminen
Saina Nieminen
Have they ever? I just asked the Finnish importer and he was pretty certain they never have.
Ken Schramm
Ken Schramm
I didn't recall the dry hopping in Orval. I checked Michael Jackson's "The Great Beers of Belgium" (1991) and "The Classic Beers of Belgium" by Christian Deglas and Guy Derdelinckx. Jackson's description of the beer and processes is much more complete. German and English hops are employed. He confirms that there is a dry hopping, rare among Belgians, and even rarer among Trappists. He also mentions that Kent Goldings are in there.
Jackson reports that there is a single cell strain on the first stage of the fermentation, and that the second pitch contains "a symbiosis of four or five cultures" plus priming sugar before bottling. There is a two month conditioning at the brewery. Jackson: "This triple fermentation no doubt contributes to both the acidity and the complexity of Orval." The secular brewer, Roger Schoonjans, stated that he prefers his at about a year. The beer gets "drier and more acidic" when given that much conditioning, which leads me to believe that something more than Brett is afoot here. Brett dries, but does not produce acidity like Pedios or Lactos. Also interesting is that Schoonjans commented that their customers expect variation in the beer: "People do not want our beer to taste exactly the same every time. They want the gout d'Orval, for sure, but they want to be able to chat about it: 'I think this one one is a little more hoppy... yesterday's was rounder...' In that respect, they treat it like wine."
Very apropos of this discussion.
Damn, I miss Michael Jackson.
When I was there, I had a discussion with the one monk who was at the retail sales bench (the only one who gets to speak). He was pissed because the EU had required them to put a "best before" date on the bottles. They had stretched it to five years, but he still thought that was BS. "We have bottles in the cellar that are 20 years old, and they are delicious." I wanted one. I settled for a kilo of the Trappist cheese, which was excellent. We went across the lawn for an omelette at the restaurant.
KDS
BTW, Hieronymus was a technical editor for my book.
Jackson reports that there is a single cell strain on the first stage of the fermentation, and that the second pitch contains "a symbiosis of four or five cultures" plus priming sugar before bottling. There is a two month conditioning at the brewery. Jackson: "This triple fermentation no doubt contributes to both the acidity and the complexity of Orval." The secular brewer, Roger Schoonjans, stated that he prefers his at about a year. The beer gets "drier and more acidic" when given that much conditioning, which leads me to believe that something more than Brett is afoot here. Brett dries, but does not produce acidity like Pedios or Lactos. Also interesting is that Schoonjans commented that their customers expect variation in the beer: "People do not want our beer to taste exactly the same every time. They want the gout d'Orval, for sure, but they want to be able to chat about it: 'I think this one one is a little more hoppy... yesterday's was rounder...' In that respect, they treat it like wine."
Very apropos of this discussion.
Damn, I miss Michael Jackson.
When I was there, I had a discussion with the one monk who was at the retail sales bench (the only one who gets to speak). He was pissed because the EU had required them to put a "best before" date on the bottles. They had stretched it to five years, but he still thought that was BS. "We have bottles in the cellar that are 20 years old, and they are delicious." I wanted one. I settled for a kilo of the Trappist cheese, which was excellent. We went across the lawn for an omelette at the restaurant.
KDS
BTW, Hieronymus was a technical editor for my book.
From the entry for "Orval Brewery" in the 2012 Oxford Companion to Beer:
". . . a unique taste profile due mainly to the yeast strains used, the dry-hopping with fresh Hallertau, Styrian Golding, and French Strisselspalt hops."
The entry also mentions that brett is a component in the yeast cocktail used to bottle-condition the beers.
Entry written by Keith Villa, who, I just discovered, is the creator of Blue Moon. Interesting.
". . . a unique taste profile due mainly to the yeast strains used, the dry-hopping with fresh Hallertau, Styrian Golding, and French Strisselspalt hops."
The entry also mentions that brett is a component in the yeast cocktail used to bottle-condition the beers.
Entry written by Keith Villa, who, I just discovered, is the creator of Blue Moon. Interesting.
Tom Glasgow
Thomas W Glasgow
Creator seems like puffery for what is essentially a version of a Belgian white. While Pierre Celis didn't create the category, he did revive Hoegaarden from obscurity. I suspect that Villa's creation is the establishment of Coor's as a craft brewer.