The final day's educational seminar which I attended was called "When Yeast Attack: The Story of Bell's and Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. diastaticus."
Falling under the Quality pillar, this session was led by Lauren Torres, lab manager at Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, MI. You may recall Bell's makes the yearly "Hopslam" (which I investigated in 2015 and in 2016) and also a tasty amber ale. Bell's is a pretty large brewery, producing about 310,000 US barrels of beer annually (that's about ten million gallons of beer per year.)
Now, I'm not familiar with that long Latin yeast name, but the first word, saccharomyces, is the designation for brewer's yeast - a common ingredient in beer. It's similar to Brettanomyces, a kind of wild yeast that I've talked about a few times here on the blog. But as the name of this panel suggests, Bell's experience with this diastaticus strain is less than friendly.
Lauren started off by putting a brewer's chemistry spin on the old adage: "There are two kinds of breweries...those that have had severe microbiological issues, and those who don't know it." As part of general quality control measures, most breweries (and homebrewers, etc.) have sterilization procedures and best practices to eliminate unwanted organisms in the beer, but sometimes those fail. One such failure happened at Bell's a few years back, starting when reports came in from local pubs about overcarbonated kegs, which can be a sign of overactive yeast cultures. After several of these reports, Torres and her staff investigated the Bell's dry stock, which led to the discovery of a few exploded bottles (called "bottle bombs", yikes).
This is where a bit of sleuthing comes into play. The team at Bell's had to track down three things - what the problem is, how widespread the issue was, and how to fix it. No small task, especially when the fate of beer (and lots of revenue) are at stake!
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| An example of a High Performance Liquid Chromatography machine, just one of the tools used by brewers. This machine separates chemical compounds to analyze the bitterness of beer. Photo credit: Maddie Malat / The Concordian |
Luckily, there's a variety of tools and machines that brewers can use to analyze their creations. Huge breweries like Bell's can afford to have their own dedicated sensory and quality control staff to track down problems, using chemical and microscopic analysis to precisely determine all measurable aspects of beer.
After weeks of painstaking research and beer analysis, they discovered a certain batch of beer was hit with Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. Diastaticus, a kind of superattenuating yeast. While there could be some legit uses for that strain, when you're not looking to use it, it can cause lots of unintended consequences in beer. And having this kind of contamination can really mess up one's bottling run - aside from taste issues (the most important) they found the bottles which contained that yeast exceeded both government regulations for alcohol AND manufacturer's stress tolerance for the glass bottles. Yes, the yeast was so active that it caused pressure inside the bottle to exceed the strength of the glass. Not good:
I won't get into the technical details too much, but for Bell's, it involved the purchase of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, in some cases replacing some already-extant equipment, and sending beer samples all the way to Belgium for analysis. Eventually, Torres and her team were able to enact stricter control measures and modified some of their processes to avoid such issues in the future. Keeping beer consistent across batches is hard enough, let alone across multiple facilities making thousands of gallons a year. But they found a solution, all the work of painstaking chemistry, microbiology, and sleuthing rolled into one, and just goes to show that making beer is not all about drinking!
After the lecture, I had the chance to visit the trade show, which spanned two floors of the showroom and had everything from barrels for aging, hydraulic keg lifters, bottling systems, washing systems, promotional items, brewery equipment, and a variety of accessories. Below is the table for Growlerwerks out of Portland, OR. They made very handsome copper and steel pressurized growlers, using over-the-counter Co2 cartridges as pressure. Damn these look nice!
Another hops display, this time from Canadian company Charles Faram. They had tons of international varieties; some German, some Canadian, and some of the familiar strains like Citra and Golding. I love this poster - HOPS: We're going to need a bigger beer.
On to the beer! Here's Mustang Sally's experimental saison. Mellow and soft, it's got a metallic tinge as the flavors develop. There's not a lot of bite to it, really low on yeasty / bready flavors and low on Belgian spice, too. Although I like saisons, I'd like to see more character in this beer.
Speaking of character - here's a whopper. It's pFriem Family Brewer's "Abrikoos", a barrel-aged lambic, about which I'm having a tough time finding information. I can tell one thing for sure - it's ultra sour! There's a ton of apple and apricot flavors in there, coming through puckery sour like an Atomic Warhead candy. There are long, lingering, astringent flavors that last long after the beer goes down the hatch, with an interesting needling sourness. This isn't listed on pFriem's website, so maybe it's a special seasonal?
Looking for a bit of a lighter beer, I grabbed a sample of Cigar City's "Jai Alai", a 7.50% ABV IPA from Tampa. I had a couple of Cigar City beers in my day, including their great "Cubano Style" espresso ale, so I'm a big fan. This beer is surprisingly hoppy, in a brassy way - not lush as one might expect. Those citrus bitter flavors linger for quite some time on the finish. A nice IPA, and I'm a big fan of the brassy notes, so definitely one to keep an eye out for.
And now, for something completely different - Wormtown Brewery's "Spies like Us" a Russian Imperial Stout - interesting aroma, kinda...herbal. A little light, still has the expected stout flavors (nuts, chocolate) and hard to distinguish it from any other stout. Good flavors but not particularly outstanding.
Finally, the star of the day - a beer and cheese tasting with Deschutes Brewing Co. and Cypress Grove Creamery (the makers of one of the best goat cheeses in the world, Humboldt Fog.) There were four beers paired with four cheeses, and after the main presentation, they opened up the bars to us for unlimited small pours!
A few of the notables: the "Smoked Gose" - a clean and slightly tart gose, clear-gold in color, which builds upon a base of wheat and lemon rind and presents a slightly salted, strong hickory smoke flavor (like Snitz Creek's "Seltzer's Smokehaus #7"). This one was paired with Truffle Tremor, a bloomy-rind soft goat cheese made with truffles. The pairing was exquisite and the flavorful cheese acted as a nice companion to the flavorful (and slightly astringent) beer. I know I can get the cheese again, but I would love to get more of this gose; this was really refreshing and delicious!
The "Abyss" is an 11.10% ABV barrel-aged imperial stout which is dark and super sweet, very heavy and perhaps not my first choice with cheese. Paired with the legendary Humboldt Fog, this beer is a heavy stout which I felt overpowered the cheese. But, there was some nice carbonation in there which helped cut through the fat in the cheese.
Finally there was the definitely-Belgian "Pinot Suave", a Belgian-style ale aged in French Pinot Noir barrels with grape must added. Reddish-brown in the glass, the main flavors are caramel notes mixed in with the Belgian spice and berry flavors. Textures is quite soft and silky, and it countered (and complimented!) well with its pairing, the Midnight Moon - an aged, nutty, and sharp cheese.
As the tasting wrapped up, and people filtered out, I stuck around to mingle and chat with some of the folks. Besides grabbing another dozen or so mini-pours of beer (mostly the Smoked Gose and the Pinot Suave; they also had the "Black Butte" there too) I got chatting with a Cypress Grove rep who bestowed upon me the swag bags to end all swag bags...about seven pounds of awesome cheese! They didn't want to take it back to the hotel with them so they just ask me if I wanted it. Who could say no? All the beer you can drink AND all the leftover cheese? I will have you know I carted this all around the city that day so I could bring it home. Also - little-know fact - my first attempt at blogging was back in 2009 / 2010 when I did a short-lived cheese blog, which remarkably is still up and can be found here: http://chateaugourmande.blogspot.com/. Both Truffle Tremor and Humboldt Fog make an appearance.
Later that night, I headed over to Brasserie Beck where Alexis Briol - the boss behind Brouwerij St. Feuillien - had set up camp. Aside from enjoying some fine Belgian beer (Beck had four St. Feuillien beers on draft that night) I got a chance to meet Mr. Briol and "talk shop" over a plate of Beck's famous charcuterie. Clockwise from top - Dean Myer's favorite, the St. Feiullien "Saison", a 6.50% ABV saison with notes of light fruit, banana, and Belgian yeast. Tasty and fresh, I didn't notice any "settling" which can be common for these kinds of beers. Still tasty though, went well with the head cheese.
Bottom left is the St. Feuillien "Blonde", a 7.50% ABV strong ale with lots of tangy, carbonated honey flavors. Easy-drinking, light, but full-flavored - just how I like blonde ales.
Finally the "Brune Reserve", an 8.50% Flemish oud brouin (more on this later). Dark red in the glass, it throws a lot of little bubbles up to the top. Aromas of apple cider are strong. Flavor-wise, it's a bit tart with some apple skin notes up front, ending with an oxidized sherry finish. A great example of a Flemish sour, and one I'd have often if I was able. A fine conclusion to a whirlwind four days of the Craft Brewer's Conference!
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