All For The Sake of Science (and Beer)

Believe me, I will take no pleasure in the following experiment.

Much is talked about the folly of bottling beer in clear bottles. I have touched on this topic briefly here and here in the past. One hears talk of 'lightstruck' beer and of beer being 'skunked' but to be really honest, I'm not sure what a 'skuked' beer tastes like - I haven't run over any skunks lately round these parts.

When beer is exposed to ultraviolet light (or to a lesser degree, any light), hop derived compounds called isohumulones combine with sulphur containing protiens to produce 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol - a chemical almost identical to that which a skunk exudes when threatened or maybe just annoyed. It stinks, or so I'm told.

Brown bottles offer some protection against this process, green very little and clear bottles none. This is why very few quality beers come in clear bottles. Clear bottles are the work of marketing departments rather than brewers.

Now, I have had many bottles of Corona that have tasted what I would describe as musty. While imparting a much lacking flavour, it wasn't pleasant. But was that the taste of lightstruck beer? Or were they just gone stale?

An experiment had to be done. Some weeks ago, I traipsed down to The Abbots Ale House in Cork to purchase beer in clear bottles. Being an emporium of quality world brews, The Abbot's didn't leave me with much choice in clear-bottles beer. It was a strange exercise to be buying beer that I didn't particularly want for the purpose of wilfully destroying half of it. I bought two bottles of Carlton Cold - an Australian lager. Clean, Crisp it says. And Specially Brewed Keeping It Fresher For Longer. Mmmmm we'll see.

I placed one bottle in a dark cupboard ant the other in the window - for a few weeks! Surely, if a beer is going to be skunky, this has to be it.

The Results:

Both beers look the same in the bottle - no colour change.
Here goes.....Window beer first.

Damn!!! It tastes alright to my palate. A rather unremarkable lager with no unpleasant tastes present. I'm thinking that I do detect a slightly whiffey smell on the nose but am not convinced that it's not my imagination.

Now the well kept beer:

Horray, it's not my imagination - this beer doesn't have that smell. It has no smell whatsoever!

Conclusion:

Stupid experiment!
Here I am in the middle of the day with two bottles of lager open in front of me, one of which has a very faint sulphur like smell. And I mean faint. I'm at a bigger loss the explain that strong musty taste I've experienced in Corona and I'm not convinced that I really know what a 'skunked' beer tastes like.

Maybe Carlton's claim of 'Specially Brewed Keeping It Fresher For Longer' has something to do with this? Could they, like Miller, use a chemically modified form of hops' alpha acids which does not produce 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol when struck by light but, apparently, can still produce rotten egg odours? That's the explanation I'm going for.

Can I be bothered trying this experiment again with another beer? Who knows?

I never thought that I'd be disappointed to find that my beer tastes alright!

Now, what to do with two half drunk bottles of Carlton Cold?
Slug traps?
Fruit fly traps?
Or drink them?

Only I will know.

My last drink was; Do I really have to say? It's 4.6%abv in a 37.5cl bottle.

Pride of Galway

I know that I complain... a lot. But if people were always content then there'd be no need for revolutions and no one is going to convince me that Ireland isn't in need of a beer revolution. I'm obviously not alone.

If every body was happy drinking mass produced, tasteless lager and industrial, nitrogenated, bland stout then we wouldn't have microbreweries and beer specialist pubs. We do have the above, just not enough of them.

Enough complaining. Today I want to celebrate. I want to celebrate the beer that is Galway Hooker Irish Pale Ale.

I've always liked Galway hookers - the sailing boats. They are traditional, big, elegant, swift and take dedication and skill to maintain and sail. Not withstanding all the fun to be had with double entendres (and Galway Hooker brewery use this to the max!), it is an aptly named beer.

Galway Hooker has been around since the summer of 2006. I have tried it many times and have always liked it. It is hoppy, crisply bitter, well balanced and full flavoured. However, recently I had a pint of it in The Bierhaus, Cork and just had to have another. Whether they've honed the recipe or it was a particularly fresh keg (not that it's had freshness issues in the past) or I've just acquired a stronger fondness for the beer, I don't know but those couple of pints put Galway Hooker high on my beer list.

This is a draught beer that while full flavoured enough to appeal to beer heads, it is accessible enough to be in ever bar in Ireland. It is pale in colour, it has carbonation and is not too high in alcohol (4.4%abv). Irish people have conservative tastes in beer but this is a clever beer. Sure, it's too hoppy for some people but it's not a dark, strong, flat warm scary beer either. And it's Irish made and owned.

So where is it? Well, Galway have taken to their own. No less than 19 pubs in Galway have G.H. taps. Now, that's great to see. I just hope the punters are as supportive as the Galway publicans. Dublin has a fair 6 taps and Cork, Tipperary, Leitrim, Sligo and Limerick have one each (shame on Cork and Limerick). A full list of pubs is here.

Yes, it's great that Galway and Dublin are supporting their efforts but it must cost G.H. to be traipsing about the country to deliver to six locations, bearing in mind that with the best will in the world from the publicans, it is still a minority beer. But these guys seem to believe in the organic growth in the popularity of their beer. It's a long haul but if the decisions were left to the accountants, we'd have no G.H. outside of Galway and Dublin. This company is clearly run by people with a belief in and a passion for their beer. Let's hope that the future will see sustainable growth for the beer across the country and show that passion can make profit.

I'm not alone in my love for G.H. The McKennas, in their Bridgestone Irish Food Guide, have sung its praises, bluntly calling it the best new Irish drink. The Irish Craft Brewer site love this beer and have written about it here and here and voted it Best Beer 2007 at the Fransciscan Well Bierfest and more reviews can be viewed here.

At a time when we import more and more of our beer (by necessity, unfortunately if we want quality), Galway Hooker is Irish brewed. It is brewed without the use of chemical additives in a sustainable way. It is essentially hand made. This is a modern craft beer for a modern Ireland. It has funky marketing and can't miss counter taps. It is a quality product from a young, fun company. We should support it.

Ask your bar for Galway Hooker.
And keep asking - I will.
A simple search will find them online.

My last drink was; Glass Rustenburg, Stellenbosch, John x Merriman, 2005, 14.5%anv

Hoppy Days

I think it might be time for another 'pure' beer post. A few things have brought the topic of hops to my mind today.

1. The recent arrival of Schneider Hopfenweiss
2. My recent visit to England and the purchase of an IPA
3. My ongoing love of Hommelbier

For those in the know, read on and criticise my unscientific, inexpert post and for those who want to know a little bit more about what goes into beer, I hope this helps.

I did a recent post on ale and yeast here which may be of interest too.

Nowadays, virtually all beer contains hops. It gives beer it's bitterness and aroma, makes the beer more stable and has preserving qualities. Prior to the 1400's, when the Belgians exported hopped beer to England, British beer was unhopped. It is unclear, exactly, when hops were first used in beer but they were grown in Bohemia and Bavaria as early as the 8th century where beer was also brewed.

Hops share a common parent with cannabis and is grown on high trellises. It is the hop cone or blossom that is used for it's oils and acids in beer making, while the shoots can be eaten and are much considered a seasonal delicacy in Belgium.

Today's brewer has so many choices to make when it comes to using hops that there is an almost infinite number of permutations available.

Firstly the brewer must choose the hop variety; from flowery Saaz from Bohemia - famously used for it's aromatic qualities in Pilsener-style lagers to the varieties more known for their bittering attributes such as Goulding from East Kent right through to the spicy, very aromatic US cultivated Cascade. The choice is almost endless with each variety having different characteristics, depending on where it is grown - much like gape varieties and, like the winemaker, the brewer can use several different hop varieties or limit their palette to just one.

Having chosen their variety(s) of hops, the brewer must decide whether to use simply dried hop cones, hop cones compacted into pellets or a jam-like hop extract. Different brewers have their own ideas about which work best.

When it comes to adding hops to the beer, the brewer has huge choice. All beer brews are boiled for one to one and a half hours and hops are added into into the beer during this boiling stage. Hops added at the start of the boil impart bitterness, while hops added towards the end of the boil impart aroma to the beer. Hops can be added several different times during the boil and different varieties are often used at different stages.

Sometimes the hot brew is pored over further hops as it is strained to give even more aroma and following fermentation, the beer may be matured in vats with more hops added - this technique is known as dry hopping.

To come back to what has brought hops to mind, Schneider Hopfenweiss is a dry hopped, strong weissbier which is a collaboration between Brooklyn Brewery in the US (known for their very hoppy Brooklyn Lager) and Schneider of Munich (world famous for their weissbier). The resultant 8.2% abv, pale, cloudy beer has a creaminess balanced by an assertive hop aroma and bitterness - a wonderful, powerful special edition beer.

IPA or India Pale Ale was a style of beer developed to survive the three month journey by ship to India for the troops in the 18th century. As it's name suggests, it was a pale ale but with a higher than usual alcohol content (up to 7.5%abv) and brewed with more hops than typically used in pale ales of the day. IPAs are strong, pale and bitter with big hop aromas.

American brewers have a fondness this style and have developed what is known as American IPA. These beers can be pale to quite dark (despite the name), almost always strong in alcohol with huge amounts of American hops. If you want to know what hops taste like, then an American IPA like Sierra Nevada, SnakeDog or Hercules will tell you straight away.

Britain, on the other hand, seems to have lost sight of what an IPA is. I've had IPAs in England that were neither pale, strong or hoppy that left me at a loss as to why they were called IPAs at all. Although, my recent visit did throw up Marston's Old Empire IPA. This was pale, 5.7%abv hoppy ale. So, while it did fulfil the conditions of it's name, it was a rather uninspiring beer, not bottle conditioned and presented in a clear bottle (not good for keeping beer in) with the rather odd label of "Official Beer of England" (what does that mean). I'm sure there are great English IPAs out there - I just haven't had them yet!

I have had a very good Swedish IPA called Nils Oscar India Ale 5.3%abv.

One couldn't talk about beer and hops without mentioning Popperings Hommelbier.
This is a 7.5% abv, golden ale from the hop growing region, Watou in Belgium. It is yeasty, hoppy in both flavour and aroma and strong. It is bottle conditioned and presents very fruity yeast and hop flavours. Just in case you didn't know what was inside the bottle, the label depicts a hop plantation and has hop cones decorating the label.This full-on beer is one of my favourites.

The next time you taste a beer, think of the humble hop and try to detect it's bitterness and grassy, citrus aroma (not an easy task with a mass produced, bland, yellow lager).

My last drink was; Leffe Vielle Cuvée, 8.2%abv, 33cl