A Peek into The World of Beer By 1 Welcome to “A Peek into The World of Sow & Piglets Beer”! Table of Content Sow & Piglets Page 2 12 Apostles Page 3 German Purity Law Page 5 Raw Material Page 6 Brewing Page 12 Beer Degustation Page 16 Glassware Page 20 Growlers Page 25 Beer Styles Page 27 How To Pour a Beer Page 36 2 Sow & Piglets Brewery The Sow and Piglets Brewery came about from the need to renovate the BBQ area of the Port Campbell Hostel. Not someone to do things by half measure, John Moloney set about creating a ‘Boys Own Adventure’ by creating a brewery. He had always enjoyed a beer or two ...and there’s always room for another business in John’s book. Everyone knows that an adventure on your own is no fun at all, so he went about enlisting the help of an industry gurus and now-retired Associate Professor John O’Grady Thorough research was undertaken in the form of a trip to the Craft Brewer’s Conference in Philadelphia, with a stopover in San Diego to assess how to involve the local community, and the dye was set. Grain and Grape Melbourne, the importers of the Braumeister brewing equipment, assisted with the setup and layout. As the dream progressed, John did a microbrewing course at SA TAFE, just to comprehend exactly what it was the Professor and Simon were talking about. What he needed next was a handsome German brewer with plenty of passion and personality – but he ended up settling on Julian Widera , figuring that his passion and personality would have to carry the extra load ...and he is German. With the addition of a consultancy business to the brewing industry, the company has now employed Mick Robinson as the head Brewer. Mick is passionate about brewing and completed his brewing training in the UK. Mick is also an accredited trainer and as such conducts brewing courses at the brewery 3 12 Apostles When were the 12 apostles ‘found’? The Twelve Apostles were obviously discovered by the local aboriginals, but an English man, George Bass also saw the 12 Apostles in January 1798 and then named them ’The Sow and The Piglets’. Superintendent (and later to become Victoria’s first Governor) Charles La Trobe’s map dated 1846 also shows them as the Sow and Piglets, and included a lot more than 12 stacks, including lots of smaller ones. How were the 12 Apostles formed? The apostles were formed by erosion: The harsh and extreme weather conditions from the Southern Ocean gradually eroded the soft limestone to form caves in the cliffs, which then became arches, which in turn collapsed; leaving rock stacks up to 50 metres high. How long have the 12 apostles been around? The process began around 10-20 million years ago and the harsh weather conditions gradually eroded the cliffs into caves which eroded further into arches and eventually collapsed, creating the stacks seen today. How are the Twelve Apostles protected? The iconic golden cliffs and crumbling pillars of the Twelve Apostles can be found 7km east of Port Campbell. They are protected by the Twelve Apostles Marine National Park which covers 7500ha and runs along 17km of stunning coastline. 4 How many of the 12 apostles are still standing? When they were christened the 12 Apostles by Victorian tourism in the 1920s, there were only nine in the cluster. Now there’s eight. And with the rapid rate of erosion, it is forecast that this number will reduce even further. And there are actually many more spectacular limestone formations along the wild coastline. When did the Twelve Apostles collapse? The last time one of the Twelve Apostles collapsed was in July 2005. In 1990 two tourists were stranded on the outer part of London Bridge – another limestone formation off the Great Ocean Road – after one of its two arches collapsed 5 German Purity Law All Sow & Piglets beer are brewed after an old German tradition, aka the world’s oldest known food law. The Bavarian Purity Law (Das Reinheitsgebot) written in 1516 , stipulates that only four natural ingredients can be used to brew fine German Bier: water, malt, hops and yeast. It was ordered by Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria in the year 1516. The Purity law required that “nothing other than barley, hops, and water” be used to produce beer. Yeast is the fourth ingredient that is allowed, but it’s not listed in the original law because yeast’s role in the fermentation process had not yet been discovered at the time that it was written. The German purity law was initially implemented in Bavaria but was gradually adopted by other German states. Why Was It Introduced? There were two main reasons for implementing the Purity law. First, the law aims to protect beer consumers from poor standard and potentially lethal beverages. Before the advent of advanced sewage systems, water supplies were often polluted especially in overcrowded urban centres so people drank beer to keep thirst at bay. Some unscrupulous brewers took advantage of the situation so they increased the prices and added dubious toxic ingredients as preservatives or flavourings, such as hallucinogenic plants, soot, poisonous roots, wood shavings, and other ingredients. These ingredients could have lead to illness or even death for someone who drank the contaminated beer. Second, the law aims to ban the use of wheat in lager brewing because it might harm bread production, the staple food of medieval Germany. After a poor wheat harvest Germans would rather use the wheat to make beer than bread and many people starved. Even though nowadays we don’t face the same situation the law is still relevant because many breweries add seaweed, plastic or fish guts in order to clarify and stabilize their product. However, the Purity Law prevents breweries of using those and keeps the product as natural. Though this also prevents brewers from being creative with other ingredients. Therefore, we at the Sow and Piglets support a updated version, a Natural Law where natural ingredients such as herbs and fruits should be added. 6 Malt Malt is the soul of beer. Indeed, it is a required ingredient because its flavour defines the beverage as a whole. Malt is the source of fermentable sugar that leads to the production of alcohol, without it we literally would not have beer. Malt is made from cereal grain like barley, rye, wheat, rice, corn, sorghum etc. In nature, these grains absorb water and sprout into new plants. In malting, soaked grains are kilned to dry seed and stop growth just before it sprouts. The result is a very short period of growth to meet these goals: - Prepare the internal structure to the seed for brewing - Preserve the starch in each seed for brewing - Gently toast the seed during drying to develop flavour The drying or kilning process deserves special attention: it is during this stage that the distinctive flavour of malt develops. Differences in kilning temperature will not only lead to flavour variation in the finished malt but also contributes to its colour. Exploring flavours of malt is like taking a trip to a bakery. If you encounter a flavour in beer that you could imagine smelling or tasting a bakery, it probably comes from the malt. Malt flavours: - bread, bread crust, wheat bread, water cracker, biscuit, toasty, caramel, pastry, nutty, toffee, chocolate, roasty, coffee or burnt 7 Hops Hop is a new addition to beer, historically speaking. Widespread adoption of the ingredient has only occurred in the past 500 years or so. But it is now considered such an essential part of brewing that hops are required to be used in beer produced in many countries and are generally expected in all beers. Before brewers started using hops they often added a wild mixture of different herbs and spices. Hops are the small green pine-cone-shaped flowers of the female climbing hop plant Humulus lupulus plant and is part of the hemp family. Hidden inside each cone are tiny yellow pods or glands called lupulin—the source of bitterness, aroma, and flavour in beer. There are more than 100 varieties of hops grown around the world and each hop variety has its own unique flavour and aroma. Depending on when they are added in the production, hops contribute to the bitterness, flavour and/or aroma of beer Australian Hops: - Grown in Victoria and Tasmania - Galaxy hop became the hero of a number of craft brewers around the world - Tend to be much fruitier than other hops Hop Flavours: - Piney, citrusy, grapefruit, earthy, musty, spicy, sharp, bright, fresh, herbal, zippy, lemony, newly mown lawn, aromatic, floral, springlike, brilliant, spruce like, juniper-like, minty, pungent, elegant, grassy. 8 Yeast You may know that yeast, a single-celled fungi called Saccharomyces (sugar-eating), is responsible for converting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation . But did you know about the two main types of yeast used in brewing: ale yeast and lager yeast. Brewers have all sorts of technical and process-related talking points to explain the differences between ale and lager. They will talk about bottom- versus top-fermenting, mention differences in fermentation temperature, even detail the species and sub-species of yeast involved. But while all of that is useful to the brewer, it doesn’t tell the beer drinker what to expect in the flavour of the beer The reason we make a big deal about whether a beer is an ale or a lager is because they do taste different. Take a look at each yeast type to learn more about flavour distribution Ale Yeast - Ale yeast produces a class of compounds called “esters” which impart a fruity flavour to beer o Banana, apple and pear flavours are common o Peach and apricot flavours occur occasionally o Often, the drinker experiences a flavour blend that is hard to attribute to a single fruit - Some special ale yeast contributes “phenolic” flavours to beer o German Weissbier east give clove spiciness in addition to esters o Belgian ales often have a spicy yeast flavour described as being like fresh- ground black or white pepper. 9 Lager Yeast - Unlike ale, lager yeast does not impart any fruity or spicy flavour to beer - In general lager yeast contributes few of its own flavours to the beer and simply gets out of the way, showcasing the flavours of malt and hops in a beer - It is described as clean, smooth and neutral Other Fermentative Organisms Occasionally, organisms other than brewer’s yeast are used to make beer - Certain bacteria can impart tart, sour, acetic or lactic flavours - Some wild yeast such as Brettanomyces can contribute earthy, leathery or barnyard- like flavours - Historically, these flavours occurred in many beer and they are still found in some classic styles from Belgium, England and even Germany Yeast Flavours: - Fresh-baked bread, clove like, bubble-gum, yeasty, Belgiany, aromatic, tropical, subtle, fruity, clean, banana-like (and for some sour or extreme beers) earthy, musty 10 Water While pure water is odorless and flavourless, in nature, water contains many minerals picked up from stone and ground deposits. Examples include sodium chloride (salt) and calcium sulphate (gypsum). Water minerals influence brewing chemistry and affect the flavour of beer The blend of minerals in water varies from town to town and region to region. Today, brewers treat their water to achieve the mineral composition needed for the beer they want to make. Thus, the natural composition of water is of little concern to beer drinkers today. Historically, however, water composition largely determined the type of beer that could be brewed. For example, hard water with high level of calcium carbonate made hoppy, bitter beers taste unpleasant. Dark, malty beers were better suited for that type of water. 11 Adjuncts You can’t hang around the beer world for long without hearing the word “adjunct” used. An adjunct is any unmalted ingredient that contributes fermentable sugar to a beer recipe. Common adjuncts include corn, rise, sugar, honey, oats and flaked barley. Adjuncts are like malt in one respect: they contribute fermentable sugar to the beer recipe and thus increase the amount of alcohol in the finished beer. But adjuncts are different from malt with regard to flavour. Malted grains are kilned and lightly toasted to develop the flavours we associate with beer. But adjunct, like raw grains, aren’t malted and don’t get lined or toasted, therefore contributing very little flavour to the finished beer. It is similar to the difference in flavour between raw baking flour and bread crust. The usual effect of adding an adjunct is to reduce or lighten the malt flavour of the beer. While adjuncts add fermentable sugar but have little impact on flavour, other additives directly impact flavour but usually add little or no fermentable sugar. Today, brewers use special additives in beer to add flavours beyond what is available from traditional ingredients. Additives can range from spices to herbs to fruits and other flavourings. Like adjuncts, these additives are generally food products (e.g., chocolate, coffee, raisins or cherries) but can also be herbs and spices (e.g., ginger lavender or orange peel). We already know what these things taste like on their own, so it is easy to know what to expect in the finished beer. 12 Our Brewing Process In A Nutshell The object of brewing is to convert malt starches to fermentable sugar and extract the sugar with water. Milling After carefully crafting the malt bill we want to crack the grain slightly because we want to expose the sugar for next step mashing but likewise we want to keep the husk intact for our lauter process below. Mashing Mashing is the term given to the start of the brewing process, where crushed malt mixed with water to form a porridge-like mixture called mash. During the mash dissolved starch is converted to fermentable sugar by enzymatic reaction. 13 Lautering The term lautering derives from the German word abläutern – to “rinse”. Lautering is the process of separating the dissolved material (wort) from the undissolved material (spent grain/brewer’s grain). Spent grains are desired animal feed as it is high in proteins and low in sugars. Boiling Boiling makes the beer sterile which was the reason it was less contaminated and more popular than water in the Middle Ages. But the boil serves more purposes than just sterilization. The major reason is to receive the bitterness from our hops. Without bitterness, beer would be too sweet to enjoy. However, when you boil your hop to achieve the bitterness you also lose hop oils because they are volatile. The oils are responsible for the hop’s aroma. Therefore, hop can be added at the end of boil, whirlpool or after fermentation in order to extract more aroma and less bitterness. Whirlpooling Whirlpooling is a common method used to separate undissolved hop material from wort after the boil. Now the wort has around 80 C° and another hop addition can be done. 14 Transferring After brewing has been completed, the wort needs to be cooled quickly and transferred into a fermenter. One method is a heat exchanger where hot wort runs through a heat exchanger, where water or refrigerant coming along the reverse side of the plate in opposite. Pitching Once the wort cooled down the yeast needs to be added to the wort to start fermentation This is the most crucial and unforgiving step in brewing. At this stage the wort is a high sugar solution which every bacterium and yeast would love it to consume, to avoid contaminations your desired yeast strain needs the best starting conditions. Fermentation Once brewing is done. We created a delicious sugary solution, wort, to consume for our yeast. Fermentation is the anerobic metabolism of yeast. Yeast is a one cell fungi and can gain its energy through aerobic and anaerobic metabolism . Indeed, yeast is the only organism which can change between those two and it is called Pasteur-effect. The energy yield difference is eleven times higher at aerobic metabolism and therefore, yeast always prefers aerobic when there is a presence of oxygen. Just when no oxygen is left our fermentation will start completely. 15 During the fermentation temperature control is crucial . The yeast will convert the sugar in alcohol and CO2 but also creates a lot of other flavoursome compounds such as esters and higher alcohols. Top fermentation: - for Ales - higher temperature - more fruity flavour/esters Bottom fermentation - for lagers - lower temperature - cleaner taste Natural Carbonation Before all sugar is converted, we carefully monitor the present sugar content and seal the fermenter off once it is near the final gravity. This will capture the CO2 which is created by the yeast in order to carbonate our beer . This is more environmentally friendly as you let escape less CO2 into the environment and don’t have to purchase CO2 from somewhere else. Maturation After the fermentation we mature the beer. During maturation, all undesirable fermentation by-products are reduced , either by the continuing action of the yeast or by other organic chemical pathways. 16 Beer Degustation – How to Talk Like a Pro Qualitative descriptors When we speak about the flavour profile of a beer, we are speaking mainly about the taste, aroma, mouthfeel ad aftertaste. You will recall that the ingredients in beer each contribute to flavour in unique ways. Malt provides a wide range of flavours often associated with grain-based foods such as crackers and bread and contributes a residual sweetness to beer. Hops contribute to bitterness, flavour and aroma. Ale east (though not lager yeast) contributes distinct fruity flavours to beer. Water may contribute only subtle flavours to the finished beer, but its influence in brewing chemistry impacts the final product. Beer flavours often remind us of flavours we have encountered in other foods and spices. Thus, we often use common food words and names to describe the flavours found in beer. Creating a flavour profile for beer involves describing taste, aroma, mouthfeel and aftertaste. You will learn more about each of these next. When we speak about the flavour profile of a beer, we are speaking mainly about the taste, aroma, mouthfeel ad aftertaste. Only about 10 percent of what we think of as taste is actually taste. According to researchers as much as 80 % of what we call ‘taste’ actually is aroma and derives from smell . This is the reason why you don’t want to drink a beer from a bottle or can because your nose can’t breathe well, and you will miss out on all the flavour. Aroma is detected by olfactory nerves 17 in the nasal passages which can be reached by breathing through the nose or by chewing as you subtly exhale through the nose. Taste is only what we detect by taste buds or receptor cells. Those cells bind with molecules from the food or drink being consumed and send signals to our brain. There are five recognised basic tastes: saltiness, bitterness, sweetness, sourness and umami. Umami is a Japanese word, and it is described as beefy or meaty. There is new evidence for the existence of receptors for a sixth basic taste: fat. Our taste buds for salt are on the very front of your tongue, for sour on the side, for sweet in the centre and for bitter on the very back on your tongue. That’s the unfortunate reason why we must drink our beer for a beer degustation in order to receive the full taste. Unless wine tastings. � � � � Everyone has a different amount of taste buds. Our genes are responsible for the amount of our taste buds. There are some people who we call super taster. They have an incredible amount of taste buds, over 10,000! And some are considered as “non-tasters”. They have under 2,000 taste buds and won’t receive as much taste as other. And as older we become as more; we wear out our taste buds. As we age our taste buds start to disappear. This may result in duller taste sensation. Just like the aging changes in other sensations: Hearing, vision, smell, touch. The last component would be a chemical reaction called Chemesthesis . (Trigeminal nerve stimulation). Chemesthetic sensations arise when chemical compounds activate receptors associated with other senses that mediate pain, touch, and thermal perception. Spiciness for example triggers our temperature receptors. Therefore, we feel like our mouth is burning. Our brain isn’t sure what’s going on and think it’s serious. Therefore, we start to sweat. And as more spiciness as we eat our brain gets kind of used to it and don’t overreact that much anymore. Or for example menthol from mint. It triggers the temperature receptors as well. However, the ones which are responsible for coolness. Or the warm feeling by drinking alcohol. All the same chemical reaction. The comminated effects of taste, aroma and other sensations are known as “flavour”. The mouthfeel includes the physical aspects of the beer perceived by our sense of touch, such as body, carbonation level and texture. It can be thought of as the physical characteristics of the beer while it is in your mouth, stimulating your sense of touch - Examples of mouthfeel descriptors include: o body: thin, watery, full and syrupy o carbonation: flat, prickly and effervescent o Texture creamy, smooth and slick o Astringency: a dry, puckering character that results from tannins in the beer o Warmth: warming sensation produced by high-ABV beers 18 Aftertaste describes the flavours perceived after the beer is swallowed. Some components of the liquid linger on the tongue or in the mouth and this creates a different impression than when the moth is full. An aftertaste can be short, clean, long or lingering and some may be sweet and malty, some are bitter or minerally Quantitative descriptors Quantitative measures, on the other hand, are those characteristics of beer that can be expressed as numbers, on a well-recognized, standardized scale. The measures we use for beer include alcohol content, bitterness, colour and carbonation. Bitterness is a fundamental property of beer and results of certain types of hop additions. Bitterness in beer is measured using International Bitterness Units or IBUs. IBUs do not measure the hop flavour or aroma in beer, only the bitterness. For most beers, the scale ranges from 0-100 IBUs - 8-12 IBUs: American Lagers - 20-30 IBUs: Kolsch, Aussie Pale Ale and Marzen, ... - 30-50 IBUs: Pilsner, American Pale Ale, ... - Over 50 IBUs: IPAs While IBUs Provide a direct measure of bitterness, the raw IBU number doesn’t exactly translate into perceived bitterness . The amount of malt used to make beer or other factors influence how bitter a given amount of IBUs will actually taste. For instance, 35 IBUs would be overwhelmingly bitter in a Pale Mid-Strength beer but would only quality as low bitterness in a dark beer because the malty sweetness will balance the bitterness. Last but not least it will heavily depend on the individual consumer and its psychological and physiological attributes such as your amount of taste buds and your social environment. Colour is easy to describe the colours of beer with words, but brewers use colour numbers for precise classification. The measure of colour used in Australia is called EBC scale which stands for European Brewery Convention. Straw: 4-6 EBC Gold: about 8 EBC Amber: 12-18 EBC Brown: over 20 EBC Black: over 40 EBC