Jason Foster

Check out more of Jason Foster’s beer news and views at onbeer.org

So we come to the last of my series on beer packaging. And I can’t think of a better way to top off the lessons with a discussion about cask ales. These days casks are special. But long ago they were just the way beer was served. Those last sentences require two explanations.

First, what is a cask ale? In short, it is a beer that is conditioned in the serving vessel. In other words, instead of force carbonating the beer and putting it into bottles, cans or kegs, the brewer puts still beer into the vessel with some sugar or fermentable substitute, seals it and lets it carbonate naturally (CO2 is a byproduct of yeast fermentation). Normally we consider that the vessel is a keg, which makes sense. But to be perfectly accurate, bottled conditioned beer (which includes most homebrew) would fit the definition. It certainly fits the definition of “real ale”, as coined by good beer advocates the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). However, we generally don’t classify a naturally cask ale as in the bottle.

This gets us to the second explanation. Historically, and I am talking the 17th and 18th century here, brewers had no way to push CO2 into a ready beer. The only way to carbonate was to time the transfer such that the residual sugars (or added sugar) created the bubbles. And at the time the only available vessel was a wood cask, which was temperamental and not well sealed. That meant the beer needed to be served fresh, as oxidation and other quality control issues would quickly set in.

Once modern chemistry hit and brewers could inject ready-made CO2 into their beer, the practice quickly died away. Which brings us back to the present. In the past 40 years, craft brewers, egged on by CAMRA, have re-introduced the tradition of cask beer, but with a twist. These days wood is rarely used, as stainless steel is far more reliable and sanitary. Also, cask beer(they are traditionally ales, but there is no reason you can’t do a cask lager) are usually considered special and so are spiked in some fashion – dry hopping in the keg, additional spices or just a bigger beer.

Casks are still fairly rare in Canada, although some cities such as Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal have made it a regular part of the scene. Western Canada has been particularly slow to pick up on the trend. Wild Rose in Calgary does a monthly cask, as does Bushwakker brewpub in Regina. Edmonton has recently started a monthly cask event at the Sugar Bowl, and now has two each month, thanks to the Next Act.

There are two ways to do casks. The more common is to create a one-off event, where a single keg of the beer is tapped and is served until it runs out, usually an hour or two later. These become exciting, well-populated events that build a sense of adventure and novelty into the local beer scene. More mature beer cities have pubs that offer a cask beer on a regular or ongoing basis – making it part of their normal tap line. This is less exciting, but more rewarding. My analysis is that a city with a regular cask tap line possesses a mature beer culture. Western Canada is most certainly not there yet.

But I have not yet reached the main point of this column. The reason I raise the topic of cask beer is that the process of casking (is that a word?) alters the flavour and aroma of the beer. I say this because I have experienced it first hand. I have conducted side-by-side tastings of a beer served in its usual state (on tap or in bottle) and served as a cask. I have done this in more than one city and with a few different beer.

And I can confidently say this. For whatever reason cask conditioning changes the beer. It is softer, more rounded and often fruitier than its non-cask version. The carbonation is usually lower and offers a smaller bead. Some flavours, such as malt, fruit and caramel sweetness present bigger, while sharper flavours, like coffee and dark roast, are subdued. Hop bitterness comes across as more rounded and less puckering. Part of this is a byproduct of the lower and more natural carbonation. Certain characteristics like hops are enhanced by a sharp carbonation.

Cask ales are a joy to sample because they offer a unique spin on a beer that might be rote for you. And in many ways it feels to me like this is the beer unbridled, how it is meant to taste if let loose. So the next time you hear about a cask event near you, make sure you drop by and have a pint. And if you can, order a pint of the regular version of the same beer and notice the difference. You won’t be disappointed.

Jason Foster

Check out more of Jason Foster’s beer news and views at onbeer.org

By now most beer people know that drinking straight from the bottle/can is not cool, and not just because it looks bad. Drinking from the bottle dampens the aroma, and therefore the flavour, of the beer. If you want to NOT taste your beer, drink it from the bottle. Among those who have figured that out, there is a vague sense that the type of glass you use matters - not sure why, but it seems true.

And it is - which is the purpose of this column. I want to talk about the effect glassware has on one’s perception of a beer. The discussion will be divided into two parts. The first part looks at the impact of glassware, and the second will examine specific designs and their effect on beer. So it is true that the glass matters. We should start with the basics. The glass needs to be clean and properly rinsed - as dirt particles and residual soap can dampen head retention and negatively affect flavour. But that is the easy stuff. Next, get that glass out of the damned freezer. As I mentioned earlier, frosted glasses only serve to deaden a beer’s flavour and aroma. So don’t do it.

The shape of the glass makes a difference, however subtle, in how we perceive the beer. Certain shapes concentrate aromas, some accent colour and clarity, others encourage a big head. The best way to illustrate my point is with a case study.

American craft brewer Boston Beer Company, makers of Samuel Adams came out a couple of years ago with what they claim is the perfect beer glass. It is oddly shaped, narrow at the bottom with a bulge and a distinct rim. They claim it is scientifically designed to create the perfect beer presentation. You can see the glass, and its scientific qualities such as the “turbulator”, at http://www.samueladams.com/enjoy-our-beer/tasting-eval/function-over-form.aspx. I was skeptical, so I decided to do a test. I poured two Sam Adams Boston Lagers - one into a regular glass, the other into their special glass and tasted side-by-side. The details of my findings can be found at http://www.onbeer.org/2010/05/testing-the-sam-adams-glass. But in short, I did find the glass enhanced the aroma and changed carbonation effects. The effects were subtle, and potentially indistinguishable if not side-by-side. However I think it proves the point that glass design affects beer perception, even if only mildly.

So let’s move on to specific designs. The classic sleeve glass is a tapered straight-edged glass. It is the epitome of function. Any beer can be served in this and not be ill-treated. So it can always be your fallback. But what if you have a special beer and want a glass that fits it exquisitely?

The Nonic glass is the classic pint glass with the ridge near the top that is perfect for English and other ales, in particular reds and browns, as it balances the various elements. And believe it or not the ridge helps concentrate aroma.

If you have a bright pilsner or other pale lager, you need a tall, slender Pilsner glass. This design accents the appearance of the beer, highlighting its clarity and bright yellow yumminess. It is also good for any delicate beer that needs visual presentation. Then there is the good, old-fashioned handled mug, sometimes called a stein. This is used for its function, but it does have a couple of advantages. First, the handle keeps your hand off the side, meaning the beer maintains its temperature.  Second, it is easy to drink from, which we should not under-estimate. Don’t put a challenging beer in this glass - keep it to basic lagers and straightforward ales.

Then there is the Weizen glass, the first of the style specific glasses. It is tall with a rounded, tapered side that gently opens up near the top. This is the perfect design for sustaining head - which is a defining feature of Weizens. Related is the Tulip glass, stemmed and shaped like a tulip. This is a great glass for darker, richer beer (such as Scotch Ale), as it intensifies malty aromas and accents head.

Then there are the Belgian glasses. Belgian breweries will tell you their beer tastes best in their specific glass. This is hooey. Most Belgian glasses are highly similar- a stemmed chalice shape to accent aroma and gentle sipping. All possess the same basic features - stemmed with a big bowl that sometimes narrows at the top, often with majestic etchings. They are remarkably well designed for their job. They draw out aromas and stabilize the head, plus they instill enough reverence in the drinker to have them sip slowly. But, trust me, your Westmalle will taste just as good in an Orval glass.

Finally, we have the Snifter, which is the reserve of barley wines, old ales and imperial stouts. That is because these beer are meant to be savoured like cognac. The snifter concentrates aromas and creates a safe space for swirling to bring out hard-to-find aromatics.

Don’t be too hung up on the need for a separate glass for every beer. Beer is versatile and will mix and match quite well. Meaning whatever glass you have available will not disappoint you. My point is that you should consider having a few different shapes of glass around and think about which will best feature the beer you are about to pour. You won’t be disappointed.

Jason Foster

Check out more of Jason Foster’s beer news and views at onbeer.org

This month I want to begin a series looking at packaging and how beer is served. Most of us accept beer as it comes, just so long as it is good. If our favourite beer comes only in cans, so be it. When at the pub draught might be more economical, but bottles are still very popular. We have beer in all sorts of ways and most of the time we don’t give it much thought.

However I have been spending quite a bit of energy lately thinking about how serving method affects beer flavour and aroma. There is a lot to think about – packaging, glassware, temperature (as I discussed last month), carbonation, aging and so on. It is a complex area. So I want to start at the basics. Keg vs. bottle vs. can. How do these three fundamental vessels affect our beer experience?

Let’s start with bulk vs. individual packaging (keg vs. bottle/can). There has been research into this, believe it or not (better a government grant for this than how to develop a more effective bomb). Kegged beer tastes different than the exact same beer in the bottle. Kegged beer comes across as more smooth with a softer carbonation. Some flavours are accented by kegging, while others are diminished. Kegged beer appear more malty and less sharp than their bottled versions. However bottles can mature in distinct ways that draw out certain desirable characteristics. How do I know this? I have been making a point of trying the same beer on tap and in the bottle to test the hypothesis. It pans out. I regularly taste noticeable differences between a draught beer and its bottled equivalent.

But what about bottles vs. cans. Here the research is far sparser. Theoretically bottles and cans should produce the same flavour effects. But do they? There are two debates raging about cans – taste and environmental sustainability. I will only address the first in this column, leaving the second for another day. Each side in the debate has its points. Can proponents argue that cans offer the best protection against light-induced spoilage (skunking), preserving the beer’s intended flavour longer. This can be confirmed, as skunking can occur, slowly, even in brown bottles. But these effects would be undetectable in fresh, properly handled beer.

Bottle proponents suggest that glass is more inert than aluminum. Cans, they argue can impart a metallic taste to beer. However, there is one problem with this argument. Cans today are all plastic lined, preventing metal contact with the beer. But hold up, can fans, recent revelations about food-grade plastic reveal that leaching can occur – as demonstrated by the controversy around PBA. Canning plastic does not contain PBA, but other polymer residuals can leach into the cans. Can this affect flavour? I am not sure. The rate of leaching is quite small, and so I imagine that it could well be below threshold values, but I have seen no research on this.

Bottle purists, such as Boston Beer Company’s Jim Koch, argue the beer can be exposed to aluminum from the lip and the pull tab. Can the momentary contact with metal as the beer pours out affect flavour? I don’t know, but Mr. Koch thinks so.

So where are we? Still in the murky greyness, it seems.

Unlike keg vs. bottle, it is more difficult to do a functional side-by-side test. Most craft brewers choose one or the other method. Yes, the big boys package their beer in both, but to be honest I don’t think there is enough flavour in that beer to allow for a valid experiment. It might be useful for testing off-flavours like plastic leaching, but I simply haven’t been motivated enough to fork over for two packs of macro-beer. In terms of Canadian craft beer, I can only think of Yukon Brewing and Cannery who package in both.

A couple years ago, I did a side-by-side taste test using Yukon Gold. I cannot attest whether they came from the same batch, were handled in similar fashion, etc., but with those caveats I tasted a difference. It was subtle, but noticeable. I found the canned version a little sharper and tinnier. I can’t call it a metallic character, as that would overstate, but the bottled version seemed smoother to me. Not as conclusive an experiment as I would have liked (and I really should replicate sometime soon), but interesting.

Without question you can make great beer in cans – just try some Yukon beer or Red Racer IPA as evidence. That is not in question. But do cans and bottles have different effects like kegs do? I think the answer is “a little” – not enough that even the most discerning of us will notice on an average day, and likely will need to focus pretty damned hard to pick it out.

But the discussion does confirm my initial thought –how you package your beer can affect how it tastes. Maybe you don’t need to lay awake at night worrying about it, but it is good to know.

Jason Foster

Check out more of Jason Foster’s beer news and views at onbeer.org

I hate it when I order a beer at a pub and they reach into their freezer to pull out a frozen mug into which to splash my request. It is not the worst crime in the world – I myself went through a phase of freezing my beer glasses back in University – but it increasingly irks me. The reason is today’s lesson.

Drinking beer ice cold – as Kokanee and Coors and whoever else suggests you do – means not tasting your beer. That might be fine for some bland Amero-lager which doesn’t offer much taste in the first place, but for most beer it basically wastes your money. If you don’t want to taste your alcoholic beverage, stick to vodka.

Drinking beer that is close to the freezing point will numb your taste buds and inhibit your olfactory system (sense of smell), thus leading to tasteless beer. Beer is served this way because most consumers appreciate their beer cold, especially in the summer, and since most North American lagers offer little flavour in the first place, not much is lost.

However, I generally order flavourful beer, regardless of style. I don’t want my sensory experience dampened by excess cold. Which leads to a natural question. What is the appropriate serving temperature for beer?

The short answer is “not at freezing” but otherwise “it depends”. Appropriate serving temperature depends on which style of beer you are serving. I can tell you that the most basic division is lager vs. ale. Lagers are meant to be drank cooler – between 5 and 7 celsius (which is warmer than the average refrigerator). Ales you want at cellar temperature, around 12 - 15 degrees. However each style has its own ideal temperature point.

Why the difference in ideal temperature? It comes down to this: you want to accent the best features of the beer. Lagers, due to their lower fermentation temperature, are intended to be cleaner and crisper with not a lot of side flavours. A colder temperature dampens any esters present while accenting the beer’s crispness without losing key qualities like malt and bitterness.

Ales naturally have more complex aroma and flavour profiles, with more fruity and earthy esters. This is due to the higher fermentation temperature. Serving such a beer cold will make it lifeless and uni-dimensional. By letting it rise to cellar temperature we let the aromas and flavours come out fully. Some beer, such as barley wines, old ales and imperial stouts can be served even warmer than cellar temperature. This is because they all are rich, full-bodied beer and any cooling will detract from their inherent complexity.

The frozen mug is a bad idea because it exacerbates the cold temperature problem already present in bars. Most pubs store their beer too cold to begin with. Throw in a zero degree mug and the beer doesn’t stand a chance. Liquor store beer coolers are also iffy in terms of temperature, but that is less concerning since you shouldn’t be popping a bottle open in your car. Frankly most of us serve beer too cold. Long gone are the days of root cellars and these days fridges need to be 2-3 degrees to ensure volatile food such as milk stays good. I support that (not being a fan of curdled milk), but it is too cold for beer.

It may seem like we have hit a wall. Everywhere we turn the beer is too cold. But do not despair, there are some easy tips to addressing beer temperature. At home is the easiest. Anticipate your beer drinking needs and take the beer out before you plan on opening it. If it is an ale, leave it out for 15-20 minutes before opening to ensure appropriate warmth. Lagers only take a few minutes. It helps if your glasses are already room temperature as the pouring action down the side of the glass will warm the beer noticeably.

It is harder at the pub. You have no control over the tap line nor the cooler temperature. My strategy, if I can, is to not touch the beer for a few minutes, followed by slow sipping accompanied by cupping my hands around the glass to warm it up. It is not ideal, but no beer is a fate far worse than cold beer.

Other cultures understand serving temperature better than we do. I remember being in a beer café in Brussels a couple years back. I ordered a 3-year old Orval and after a few minutes the waiter returned empty handed and with a pained look on his expression. Apologetically he informed me some one accidentally left it in the cooler, meaning it was far too cold to respectably serve it. He was visibly mortified at the prospect of serving beer too cold. On that day I had plenty of time, so I instructed him to pull it out and let it warm and promptly ordered a different beer to bide my time with (which is SUCH a sacrifice in Belgium). But his commitment to proper serving left an impression with me.

We are a long way away from that here in Canada. However, I am hopeful that some day before I die some Canadian server will apologize for a beer too cold to serve. A beer guy has to dream, does

Jason Foster

Check out more of Jason Foster’s beer news and views at onbeer.org

Lately the beer world has been debating the concept of beer styles. How useful are they? How reflective are they of traditional brewing techniques? What do you do with a beer that doesn’t fit a style?

To most beer drinkers style is irrelevant. They gravitate toward types of beer they like, and avoid stuff they don’t. However beer geeks like myself pay close attention to style guidelines and measure beer against how well they match against those Platonic ideals.

Allow me to explain. A couple of beer groups have taken a great deal of effort to identify and classify the traditional types of beer. About 80 different styles have been identified. If you are curious about them, check out the most recognized guidelines at www.bjcp.org/docs/2008_stylebook.pdf. It will give you a good sense of how styles are defined and described. Guys like me take these categorizations quite seriously. However, most brewers are not so religious.

In the commercial beer world, there are no restrictions on what a brewery calls their beer. That is why we see such monstrosities as Alexander Keith’s India Pale Ale which is nothing more than a North American lager. More reasonably, craft brewers often tailor their names to match public appetite rather than formal style requirements. For example there is a heck of a lot of pale ales out there, when many are more likely Bitters, Blonde Ales and Kolsches. If you have made a Dunkel or a Schwarzbier, you are more likely to call it the more recognizable “dark lager”.

And then there are those wonderful creations that defy stylization. Yukon Gold is my favourite example. A well made beer, but I defy ANYONE to accurately pin it to a style. Many brewers ferment up a beer that suits their fancy rather than a style guideline. Good for them.

Also, many beer historians have pointed out that brewers have always done their own thing and suggest that our tendency to classify “historical styles” is nothing more than modern romanticism.

I believe the role of styles is misunderstood. Styles are a combination of road map and shorthand. To explain, allow me to take the discussion back a notch.

How does one pick the best beer? You could simply pick the one you like the most, but that is simply about personal preference. You could do a poll of what a large group of people like most, but that only compounds the personal preference problem. You could judge it based on which is most deftly brewed. But then you have to figure out what defines “well brewed”. Even if you succeed in doing that, you have to find a way to distinguish between the roasty blackness of a Stout and the subtle graininess of a Munich Helles. How do you compare such divergent beer? Well, in short, you don’t.

This is where styles come in. Styles allow us to compare apples to apples by establishing some common expectations. This is the road map. A stout needs to have certain qualities - inky black colour, thick tan head, some degree of roastiness and a moderately heavy body. If it is light copper with rich bready malt and a wispy white head it might still be a good beer, but it ain’t no stout. Style guidelines allow us to measure a beer against something, and by extension compare two similar beer using some kind of quasi-objective criteria.

Styles are also shorthand.  If someone tells me they brewed a Wee Heavy, I immediately know to expect big caramel sweetness, a full body and some smokiness. It can even help when a beer does not meet a style. A couple of years ago I made an Oktoberfest with extra bitterness, which threw the beer out of style, but by saying “Oktoberfest with extra hops” everyone who drank it know exactly for what I was aiming.

Where styles become problematic is when used as a straightjacket - forcing every beer to rigidly conform or be damned with bad scores. In a competition that might be fair as judges need some kind of objective measurement tool. But a poor competition score does not equal bad beer. I can’t tell you how many beer I have judged that miss the style guidelines but are delicious, well-made beer. A good judge knows how to tell the difference (and inform the brewer thusly).

I also disagree that styles are not historic. Yes, the styles we know today are not as they were then or are modern creations but styles do reflect certain regional tendencies in history. British brewers DID brew differently than German brewers and the style guidelines reflect that. Each region adapted to its particular climate, available ingredients and tastes.

Styles are useful tools, and beer aficionados need them in our work. But like any other tool, they can be mishandled and create a mess. It is a poor craftsperson who blames his tools. If the US Brewers Association wants to make a mockery of styles by artificially creating 133 “styles” they can. Just don’t blame the concept of well-grounded style guidelines. I personally have no intentions of ever letting go of my Style Guide book.

Jason Foster

Check out more of Jason Foster’s beer news and views at onbeer.org

Over the past few months I have been working through the various ingredients in beer and discussing their impact on flavour, aroma and colour. So far I have said little about what might be the single most important factor on a beer’s profile: yeast. Sure, I have mentioned it in passing when discussing other things, like ale vs. lager or wheat beer. But I haven’t really explored the importance of this microscopic life form.

Yeast is a single-cell organism in the biological kingdom Fungi. I could also tell you it is eukaryotic, but that would be pushing my knowledge of biology just a little too far (that is what Wikipedia is for). What I do know is this: there are 1,500 known species of yeast. Lucky for us that only a couple are used for brewing, so we can ignore the rest.

The two main species used for brewing are Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces pastorianus (formerly known as Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis) – the former is ale yeast the latter lager. We chose them – or more accurately they chose our beer – because they produce flavourful and desirable byproducts making beer yummy rather than disgusting. There are a couple of other species used for special beer, such as Lambic, but we won’t go into that now.

The reason we need yeast is that it consumes sugar to produce alcohol, carbon dioxide and other byproducts, which is why it is so perfectly suited to turning boring barley into the elixir of the gods. There is lots to say about the biology of yeast, most of which is likely not needed to understand it impact on beer. It might be useful to know that yeast undergoes three phases in its life cycle. When it is first added to the unfermented beer, it goes through a lag phase where it is rousing itself from its slumber and taking in nutrients to achieve the reproductive orgy about to begin. Once it has built up its reserves, the yeast begins reproducing itself in the growth or respiration phase. Here the yeast multiplies rapidly and begins converting sugar into alcohol. Some say these are two phases of growth and fermentation but they happen simultaneously and so are best described as a single phase. This is when we start to get beer.

But yeast is a remarkable creature. After it has consumed all the available sugar, instead of dying (like we would without beer), it undergoes changes that allow it to become dormant. In this phase it begins to drop out of the beer and settle at the bottom of the vessel, to await a new influx of sugar so it may jump up again to make more beer. Rather obviously this is the flocculation or sedimentation phase.

Enough biology for now. The key point I want to get across is that there are hundreds of strains of beer yeast, much like breeds of dogs. Each one produces its own mixture of flavours, aromas and other characteristics, and a wise brewer chooses carefully which strain to put in their beer-to-be to reach the desired profile. For example, German wheat beer uses a very unique strain that produces banana and clove esters. Put that yeast into an English Pale Ale and you create a disturbing mess of conflicting flavours.

I cannot overstate the huge difference yeast strain makes on beer. A fan of those those funky, spicy Belgian strong ales? Well thank the yeast. Maybe you prefer the English style of ales, with fuller body and fruity character? That is the yeast too. Clean, hoppy American ales your thing? Then be sure to use yeast that accents bitterness and downplays malt sweetness.

Yeast also affects how dry or full a beer will be. Some yeast achieve higher attenuation than others – in other words do a better job of cleaning up their plate – making the beer drier and lighter in body. Others drop out of solution more easily (flocculation), making the beer clearer and cleaner.

Picking yeast is likely the single most important decision a brewer makes. Today brewers benefit from an industry that isolates strains and carefully identifies the characteristics it will impart, and so they can simply pick and choose from a selection of dozens of yeasts. Historically it was a different matter.

Beer styles and yeast co-evolved. Brewers re-use yeast by scavenging sediment for the next batch. Over time their brewing conditions would favour one strain over others leading to a distinct profile in their beer. Over (yeast) generations, that dominant yeast would become increasingly isolated, allowing it to shape the beer relatively unhindered by competing strains. Microbiology made that process of isolation much simpler, but brewers were doing it for hundreds of years before the invention of the microscope.

So the next time you are tippling your favourite beer, be sure to pause and give a thanks to the small creature that worked its butt off to produce that beverage for you, for without it you would be drinking barley juice.

Jason Foster

Check out more of Jason Foster’s beer news and views at onbeer.org

Now that I have spent a couple of months easing you outside the barley beer blinkers, showing that other grains work well in beer, I now want to blow your mind and tell you that you don’t need barley at all to make beer. Good news for people who have Celiac disease or are otherwise gluten intolerant, who still possess the right to drink good beer (that’s in the Charter of Rights somewhere, right?)

Most of you have heard of gluten-free beer, but you may not know much about it. What is it made of? How do they get rid of the gluten? That is why I am here. Step one. What is gluten? It is a protein – more accurately an amalgam of two proteins (gliadin and glutenin) – found in some grass-like grains, most famously barley, wheat and rye. Gluten is the stuff that allows bread dough to rise without collapsing on its self and makes bread all chewy and yummy.

Gluten is an important nutrient for the human body. However for approximately one percent of the population, they have an auto-immune reaction to it. Again, for the sake of accuracy, the offending protein is actually gliadin, but since the two hang out together all the time they both take the rap. Reactions are quite varied, but never pleasant. So, it is a good thing to avoid all gluten if you have celiac disease. Until recently that meant living without beer – a harsh fate.

So what do they use? Well, obviously, grains that don’t have gluten – rice, sorghum, millet, buckwheat, teff, corn (oats don’t have gluten either, but often are contaminated with other grains processed at the same plant). As we learned last time, these grains, too, can be malted, mashed and used in beer. And, as we also learned, they will infuse their own special characteristics to the beer, making it taste quite different than barley beer. Hops, water, yeast and other adjuncts like honey or fruit are all good to go as well.

Let me state right here that making gluten-free beer is not easy. Barley took over the brewing world 1000 years ago because it is so damned well suited for it: its husk provides a natural filter bed, it contains more fermentable starches than other grains, it is high yielding and its flavour is soft and pleasant. Take that away and you have some extra work to do.

I will spare you the beer geek details about how to malt these grains and the steps you need to successfully prepare them for beer. Just trust me when I say that gluten-free brewers have to work extra hard. Plus these non-traditional grains are far more expensive than barley (and you need to use more to make up for the reduced sugar levels), so don’t go looking for buck-a-beer on the gluten-free shelf.

I hasten to add that there is a big difference between gluten-free beer and low-gluten beer. Some companies have tried to blur the line between the two, which is an unethical, potentially dangerous practice. A particularly bad seed on this front is Sapporo, who has publicly proclaimed that their beer is gluten-free because it contains a high proportion of corn. It. Is. Not.

All big macro lagers, like Sapporo because they use corn to lighten the body and their costs, will have less gluten than an all-barley craft brew. That is just logical. But that may not help a celiac, some of whom react to gluten at levels lower than 10 ppm. Any barley-based beer is going to have higher than that.
My survey of available gluten-free beer suggests that the most popular grains are sorghum, rice, a smaller amount of buckwheat, and some back up from corn. Thankfully there are few, diverse gluten-free breweries available in Alberta. In all there are nine beer, and there is more diversity than you might expect or fear. Yes, most – like Frio and Estrelle Damm Daura – are simply trying to duplicate the light-flavoured lagers that appeal to the majority of the market. A few try to do something different. Bard’s goes for a blonde ale taste, and the Green’s line is inspired by Belgian brewing methods.

I have sampled a few. When drinking them I think it is important to push out of your mind the barley-based equivalent, for the unusual grains will, as I have said, create their own flavours. They are not fabulous beer on the whole, but if it is your only option I can imagine you look upon them more favourably.

The gluten-free beer business is in its infancy. I trust that in time the beer will get better and gluten intolerant beer fans will end up with craft-brewed quality beer. Let’s hope so. Now I need to go lobby my MP for a beer amendment to the Charter.

Jason Foster

Check out more of Jason Foster’s beer news and views at onbeer.org

Last month I extolled the virtues of wheat as a companion ingredient to the staple barley. What I didn’t tell you then was that virtually any grain can be used for beer, at least in some proportion. Well, not quite – so don’t rip up your lawn and toss it in the mash tun. More biologically accurate is that you can brew with members of the Poaceae family of grasses, which includes barley, wheat, oats, rye, corn, rice, buckwheat, sorghum, millet, triticale and quinoa. (Yes, I know that you can brew with other non-grain additives that have mashable starches, such as potatoes, squashes and yams, but ignore that footnote for now.)

Barley was chosen historically for its hardiness, high starch and sugar content and pleasant flavour. But, just as with wheat, you don’t have to let historical convenience stop you. Most brewers haven’t. You will commonly find beer made with oats or rye and, of course, the big corporate brewers use corn and rice to lighten both the body and the hit on their wallets. More rarely you will find beer made with other grains, such as buckwheat, triticale or sorghum. In most cases these grains are a small proportion of the grist – 5-15%. Their purpose is to add a special quality to the beer but still allow barley to dominate the flavour.

In fact, there are some styles, both historic and modern, that explicitly call for the addition of one of these grains. The German style Roggenbier (roggen is German for rye) must have rye malt in it. And you can’t make an oatmeal stout without oats, can you? Small-scale African brewers still make a beer with the ancient grain “teff”, which I am told makes a sharp, quenching beer and is usually drank while still in mid-fermentation. It is important to understand that the addition of oats or rye or teff is not a marketing ploy, but an active attempt on the part of the brewer to alter the experience you will get from drinking their beer.

Let’s walk through a couple of the more common alternative grains found in beer. Obviously corn is the most ubiquitous, as it is used in most macro-lagers. There can be completely legitimate purposes for using corn (more accurately “maize”) – I use it occasionally myself in my homebrewing. Corn ferments out almost entirely, leaving very few traces of itself. Consequently it is perfect for lightening the body of a beer without compromising alcohol. In a cream ale or an English ordinary bitter, corn can make the beer appear more subtle and nuanced. I am pretty sure Fuller’s uses corn in its organic Honey Dew ale to great effect.

Rice is more rare, famously used in Budweiser. It, too, ferments out completely but offers a touch of sharp flavour in its remains. This gives Bud a taste ever so slightly different than other adjunct-laden beer. Some recent arrivals from Japanese microbreweries use rice very differently. By varying which rice they use – white, red, brown – they can create stronger rice impressions that allow rice to become a full partner in the beer. Hitachino Nest, in particular, has some interesting variations of rice beer.

Rye is most commonly compared to wheat in its impact on beer, it has become particularly popular in recent years. Maybe it is appropriate in Canada given that generally our whiskey is made from rye. I find rye has some wheat characteristics, but offers its own profile. It, too, adds an earthy sharpness to a beer. But I also believe it to be spicier and more assertive than wheat. I find it can be quite angular in its presentation, with some pepper and arugula tones. In general rye adds complexity and depth to a beer. I understand why you want to avoid fruit with rye, and maybe instead go for peppercorn, as Dieu Du Ciel does with Route des Epices.

The final common grain is my favourite – oats. Oats are head killers, due to their residual oils, but I love how they soften a beer and create a silkiness to the body not achievable any other way. They work well in stouts as they counter the astringent dark malts to create a multi-dimensional profile for the beer. In lighter beers they add a soft background to make the beer more quaffable. Oats are quite versatile and can be added, in small quantities, to almost any style without wrecking it. St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout is probably the best example of how to use oats as a compliment to other flavours.

I have known brewers to use other grains like sorghum, millet and the like in their beer. I tried triticale a couple of times as a replacement for wheat. Each brings its own unique properties to the beer, which can only enhance the drinker’s experience of the beer.

Note I have, for the moment, left out the whole world of gluten-free beer, which makes full use of these alternative grains. That is the topic for next time.

Jason Foster

Check out more of Jason Foster’s beer news and views at onbeer.org

Everyone knows that the most important ingredient in beer is barley. Sure, brewers might throw some oats or rye into the mash to add a unique flavour or mouthfeel. Or they might toss in some flaked corn or rice to lighten the body (and, if they are a big corporate brewer, to lower the cost). These are all valid additions to beer, but none change the fact that the bulk of their grain bill will consist of malted barley. None of those other grasses can anchor a beer.

But there is one grain that can muscle barley to the side and dominate the ingredient list in a beer. Wheat. Yes, in certain styles wheat might get co-billing on the marquee or even majority attention. As it is summertime, the perfect season for wheat beer, I want to look a little closer at barley’s little sister in this lesson.

Wheat has been with us for thousands of years (along with barley). Earliest evidence of its domestication goes back 9000 years ago in what is now Turkey, although most experts think it was intentionally cultivated long before that. And whenever humans cultivate grain, alcoholic refreshment made from that grain is surely not far behind.

Wheat has always been a part of brewing traditions, going back to the Sumerians. So it is only natural that it continues to be a significant ingredient today.  In fact the oldest brewer operating today is a wheat brewery. Weihenstephan, a former German monastery, has been around since 1040. Sadly, Weihenstephan is not available in Alberta.

Wheat contains much higher proportions of protein than barley, which create complications for mashing and for achieving a clear beer. Also wheat is huskless also presenting malting and mashing concerns. The husks in barley create a natural filter bed, while wheat can get gummed up, messing with the brew day. It is this problematic no-husk quality that likely led brewers to gravitate to barley over time. No beer is 100% wheat, for all the reasons stated above. To be classified as a “wheat beer” it must contain at least 30% wheat and preferably more than 50%. You can get as high as 70% if you want.

Enough pesky science. What does wheat do for a beer? I argue it does three things. First, it alters the flavour, giving a sharper, more earthy sweetness It adds a refreshing edge to a beer, lightening the sweetness and body. Second it assists head retention, allowing for rocky, longstanding heads that give a beer an impressive look. Third, it resists clarification. All that extra protein in wheat hangs around post-fermentation and can create significant cloudiness in beer, if not aggressively filtered. This doesn’t necessarily change the flavour of the beer, although I think it does contribute to the sharper impression a wheat beer leaves.

You will note I didn’t talk about fruitiness, clove, spiciness or any of the other flavours often associated with wheat beer. That is because that is not the wheat talking, but the strains of yeast used to produce wheat beer. If we remember that beer styles evolved and shifted over time, then it makes sense why particular yeasts or other brewing practices have become associated with wheat. Over time brewers learned that some things complimented wheat, others did not.

For example, the light body wheat imparts is well-suited for fruit additions and for gentle spiciness. Big bitterness however, is likely to clash, creating too much harshness.  Consequently wheat beer are always lightly hopped.

There are five broad styles that rely heavily on wheat. First is what most Canadians would associate with wheat beer - American Wheat. Here we see wheat most clearly. The yeast is ordinary, only the malt bill changes.  Grasshopper might be the most well known of this style. Although a more flavourful version is Wild Rose’s Velvet Fog. Often we find American wheats spiked with fruit to create a refreshing summer drink.

Throw a special yeast in that beer however and you get the classic German Weizen. Special yeast produces banana and clove qualities that turn the beer into something unique. Weizen is actually a family of styles, varying by colour, strength and serving appearance, but sharing that fruity, spicy character.

As usual the Belgians go their own route, using unmalted wheat to produce Witbier. They also add orange, coriander and other spices to produce a more citrusy, delicate wheat beer. Hoegaarden is the original Witbier, but you must try Unibroue’s Blanche de Chambly or St. Bernardus’ Wit as more assertive examples.

The last two are officially wheat beer, but grain takes a back seat. Berliner Weisse is low alcohol, sour and, sadly, not available in western Canada. Lambics are also made with a significant portion of wheat. However, after all its spontaneous fermentation, oak aging and inoculation with wild yeasts and bacteria, this intensely tart, complex beer is less about wheat and more about process. Cantillon is the best example possible.

Wheat is perfect for summer because it increases the quenching factor in beer, plus most are light bodied and fresh. So this summer order a wheat ale and tip your glass to barley’s little sister - finally getting the credit she deserves.

Jason Foster

Check out more of Jason Foster’s beer news and views at onbeer.org

So in the last few “Beer 101″ I looked at beer freshness, staleness and how to determine its age, all for the purpose of helping you determine when your beer is at its best. This month I want to finish this particular unit by looking at special beer meant for storing over many years.

Twenty years ago a western Canadian was unlikely to find any beer appropriate for cellaring. However, times change and today your favourite beer store (and we know which one that is) stocks dozens of beer appropriate for storing until a special occasion. These are beer that will not only survive, but get better with age. And, no, it is not O’keefe’s Extra Old Stock (can you even buy that stuff anymore??) .

What makes a beer age-able? Two features. First, is alcohol content. Most cellared beers have an alcohol content above 7-8%. The alcohol acts as a preservative by killing any invading life forms, and allowing the beer’s natural components (like residual sugar) to persist over a longer period of time.

I should quickly mention that there are a few exceptions to this rule. Lambics and Bieres de Garde, which are spontaneously fermented and taste quite tart and sour, can also last decades, despite being only 4-5% alcohol. They are the exception. Their high acidic environment is just as lethal to unwanted organisms as alcohol, and so they can age for years. The perfect example is the new line available at Sherbrooke from Cantillon in Belgium. While expensive, they provide the best example of lambic I have tasted.

But I digress. The second necessary quality is complexity. The beer needs to be brewed with an eye for a multi-dimensional richness - with a number of malt varieties, interesting hops and other flavours. The key here is that you need a lot going on in the beer if it is going to survive the aging period.

Because what happens during aging (just like wine) is the flavours blend, mellow and shift. Hops become less assertive, malts take on different qualities and new flavours introduce themselves. If a beer is one-dimensional (even if well-made), there is little to alchemize and the beer will not improve. So, you need to start with a bold beer, one that has the fortitude to stick its chest out at Father Time and declare “do your best!”

It can be a magical process. Malts that at first seem too overpowering in their diversity blend and mellow, forming a symbiotic sweetness. Hops that early on rip the skin off the roof of your mouth become less aggressive and submit to a supporting role. Even the dreaded oxidation (when beer reacts with oxygen to create off-flavours) works. Instead of turning into some insipid liquid cardboard, like most beer would, in an aging beer oxidation creates sherry and dark fruit notes which add complexity and a wine character.

So what are the main styles that can be aged? It is important to divide them into two categories - medium-term aging and long-term aging. Medium-term aging beers are Dopplebocks, Strong Scotch Ales, Baltic Porters and Imperial IPAs. These are all beers with higher alcohol content which allows them to survive for a year or maybe two. But each carries a characteristic that does it in eventually. For example, Imperial IPAs depend on a big hop aroma and bitterness. That fades with time. Dopplebocks are rich and sweet, but do not have sufficient bitterness to prevent a breakdown of the malt quality.

Long-term beer are Old Ales, Barley Wines, Russian Imperial Stouts (RIS), and Belgian Dubbels, Tripels and Quadrupels (and their relatives). Each is age-able over the long term for different reasons. Old Ales and Barley Wines have a malt complexity that grows old with wine-like grace. RIS’s are just so honking big that it takes time for all their flavours to come to compromise. And Belgian beers have their funky, spicy yeast qualities which keep working on the beer over time. How long is long? Well let’s talk about 10 to 50 years.

What are some good examples of cellar beer? I personally keep a few bottles of every Olde Deuteronomy from Alley Kat for aging (for three reasons: it is local, it is relatively inexpensive for a barley wine and it is a great example of the style), but also collect Thomas Hardy’s Ale, Fuller’s Vintage Ale, anything big from St. Bernardus or Westmalle, or the many quality seasonal offerings, like Wild Rose Barley Wine, Half Pints Burley Wine and Brooklyn’s Local series (One and Two). Plus there are a number of worthy RIS’s and other Belgians you could put aside if so inclined.

So finally, how best to store cellared beers. Keep them upright in a location where they are not exposed to light. Cellar temperatures are best (10-15 degrees Celsius), which means pick the coolest corner of your basement. The best strategy is to buy a few bottles, so you can sample them over time. Plus, if you have bottles from multiple years (many cellar beers put the date on their label) you could do a vertical tasting to see how the beer progresses over time.

I warn you of one risk in aging beer. You may never want to open that 20-year-old Thomas Hardy’s Ale, believing that a better occasion might come along in a few years. I have certainly befallen such a fate. This is the risk you take.