Current State of the Brewnion

Hey everybody, we hope you all had a great week. First off a huge thank you to everyone who came and enjoyed the show on Sunday and have been supporting and helping us all this time. Its you guys who make the show.

We want to remind everyone too that there is more to come in the future. For those who missed the premiere and who just can't get enough of the pilot, we will have it online within the next week or two. Keep an eye out for future screenings as well!

We will also continue to update our websites with beer related articles and other media as well to help foster this burgeoning community. Soon our website will be fully operational as well, acting as a source for all Beer Quest goodness.

And finally we will continue to pursue our mission of finding Beer Quest a home on cable television. If you would like to help us with this mission the most important thing you can do is to spread the word for us on the streets and make people aware of Beer Quest, and the amazing craft beer community it wishes to explore.

Until next time have a great weekend, be safe and drink well!

Cheers!

Part 3 of the Beerducation Crash Course: Yeasty Beasty

Greetings everyone! Thank you for being so patient in waiting for this latest segment in your continuing Beerducation. Today we bring you yeast, the mighty little microbes that convert all that sugar into alcohol. They are the amazing alchemists that make beer, beer.

Yeast is a microscopic fungus that has been one of humanity’s best little helpers for thousands of years, helping us ferment beverages and make bread for millennia. For beer there are primarily two strains of yeast used and choosing the proper type is a huge factor in determining what kind of beer you will come out with, but more on that later. Depending on the type of yeast you use, you can come up with a variety of flavors and aromas such as banana, clove, plums, prunes, clove, and vanilla; even tartness and sourness.

To briefly recap some of our previous lessons, once the sugars are extracted from the grain, making wort, the liquid is boiled and hops are added at this time. Once the boil is finished (after 60 to 90 minutes usually) the wort is then crash cooled as quickly as possible. Once the wort reaches the target temperature you want to ferment the beer at the yeast is added and the fermentation vessel is sealed with an airlock. As the yeast consumes the sugars and produces the alcohol it will also produce plenty of carbon dioxide, which will need to escape.

How do you determine your fermentation temperature you ask? Well that factors in when choosing your yeast. The two main ones are the warm fermenting ale yeast, and the cool fermenting lager yeast.

Ale yeast is by far the oldest, dating back to when dinosaurs ruled the earth (http://www.fossilfuelsbrewingco.com/)! Aside from our reptilian cousins, humanity has also been using this yeast for centuries. Ale yeast usually ferments at temperatures within the 65-75 degree range at a faster rate. The result is a less “clean” beer with more prominent fruity flavors (known as esters) that give ales an added complexity. Common ale styles are the Pale Ale, the Heffeweizen (wheat beer), and Stouts.

Lager yeast is the new kid on the block at roughly several hundred years old. It is believed to have been originally developed somewhere in Germany through the practice of storing and aging beer in caves. The word lager means “to store” in German. Lager yeast is usually fermented in the 45-55 degree range in a slower, less tumultuous process. After the initial fermentation the beer is stored at near freezing temperatures for an additional period (the actual lagering). This process integrates sulfur compounds that come from lager yeasts, giving lagers their crisp, clean taste. Common examples of this are the Pilsner, Oktoberfest and the mighty Dopplebock.

Right now I’m going to clear up a common myth about ales and lagers; that ales are darker beers with higher alcohol and lagers are always lighter beers with lower alcohol. This is completely and utterly false. Ales can be made as light as any lager and low in ABV with the English Bitters as an example, being pale straw and in the 3-4% ABV range, and lagers can be be dark and mighty, with Baltic Porters being as dark as any stout with up to 10% alcohol.

There is one other variety that I haven’t touched upon and that is yeast from wild, or open fermentation. Used in parts of Belgium to produce Lambic beers, the process calls for native yeast spores to inhabit open vats of wort for fermentation. Once fermentation is completed, it is aged in wooden barrels and often mixed with other beers. The result is a wild and unique sour beer, although some styles are mixed with fruits to sweeten them. While I recommend everyone to try a lambic at some point, I’d be careful about trying open fermentation yourself. While the wild yeast in Belgium may be world class, you’re probably not going to get the same results in Brooklyn.

Thanks for tuning in for your continuing Beerducation, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it (which, in case you’re wondering, I did very much enjoy it). Keep an eye out for the next segment where we’ll begin delving into some beer styles and also a recap of our next adventure in home brewing, where we will be making an American Amber Ale and a French Saison. Until then enjoy the nice weather, stay safe, be healthy, and enjoy some great beer!

Beer Quest Sneak Peek!

Hi Fellow Questers!

There is a Beer Quest Sneak Peek Video up on YouTube in HD! Steve introduces you to his world and the adventures he will encounter along the way! Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyJuVQMSpVM

Also if you are on Facebook, the Beer Quest event is now online. You can find out more information by going onto Facebook and signing up for our Fan Page "Beer Quest!"

We hope to see all of you at the Premiere on Sunday, September, 20th as there will be two screenings at 4 & 8 PM. Along with the screenings there will be 40 rare kegs, a raffle, fresh produce, and live music. We will also be celebrating Jon LaPearl's birthday!

We hope to see you all there! Keep checking back for more information!

- Beer Quest Team

State of the Brewnion

Greetings Beer Quest fans! It’s been awhile since we’ve posted here as we’ve been wrapped up in preparing for the premiere coming up in September (don’t worry The Beerducation segment will continue). We wanted to give you all a little reminder of said premiere and update you on the state of the show.

As has been mentioned before the rootin’ tootin’, epic and magical premiere episode of Beer Quest! will be screened on September 20th, 2009 at Studio Square in Long Island City, Queens, NY. This will be in conjunction with the closing ceremonies for New York Craft Beer Week and will also include food, live music and TONS AND TONS of great beer. The show will be screening at 4 pm and 8 pm so you’ll have two opportunities to catch it as well.

This premiere also coincides with co-producer Jonathan LaPearl’s birthday so make sure you come or else he’ll cry!

Other stuff you can look forward to soon includes our official website on way at www.beerquest.tv, more on the Continuing Beerducation, and a short video shedding a little more light on the show. Also we will home brewing again soon and we’ll be sure to let you know how the day goes!

In the meantime, stay safe, live well and enjoy some great beer for us!

Part 2 of the Beerducation Crash Course: Hops

Greetings everyone! We hope you had a great weekend are excited about this latest installment in your continuing Beerducation. Today we will be covering our next ingredient, the spicy, floral and vital hop.

Back in times of yore before refrigerators and beer cozies, preservation was rather difficult when it came to food and beverages and beer was no exception. For years brewmasters of old (and we assume wizards too), experimented with a variety of ingredients to try and solve this problem. After much trial, error, and more trial and touch more of error the mighty hop came to their rescue!

The hop, a close relative of cannabis sativa (we here at Beer Quest have no idea what that is), not only behaved as a natural preservative, but also infused the beer with many other pleasing qualities, such as herbal, floral and spicy flavors and aromas and a crisp bitterness (measured in IBUs, a.k.a., International Bittering Units) to balance out the sweetness from the malt. Grown around the world, the varieties of hops are countless, though most fall within the categories Continental, British and American.

Continental (or European hops) often have spicy, earthy characteristics and a staple in European beer styles. A notable example is the Pilsner with distinct Saaz hops. British hops often come across in floral and herbal aromas and Fuggles and East Kent Goldings are behind many of the flavors in ESBs and Brit Pale Ales. American hops are often piney and citrusy (grapefruit is common) and many an American craft brewer loves to hop up big IPAs and Barleywines with Cascade, Centennial and other American hop varieties.

When it comes to the actual brewing process the hops are added in after the mashing while the wort is boiling in a process known as a hop schedule. Most beers boil for an hour and during this hour the hops are added at different times which is a huge factor in what the hops will contribute to the beer. If they’re added at the beginning of the boil the oils break down they add more bitterness to the beer. Those added towards the end of the boil are not in long enough to completely break down and add strong aromas to the beer. And those added around the middle will give strong flavors. Some beers, particularly those big hoppy IPAs, will have hops added during fermentation to enhance aroma in a process known as dry hopping.

Now that you’ve learned some of the basics take a moment to thank this wonderful plant that has made it possible for your beer to stay fresh and crisp. That’s something I know I’ll drink to. Stay tuned for our next class of your continuing Beerducation in which we will cover the wonderful alchemical little organism that makes wort into beer: yeast! In the meantime, enjoy these late summer days and see you around.

Part 1 of the Beerducation Crash Course: Malted Barley

Part of Beer Quest’s mission is to bring awareness to a wider public of good beer and beer knowledge. Part of this is educating all our friends on the science, artistry and people behind great beer. To begin this beerducation crash course, let’s get into the ingredients. We will cover the four primary ingredients of beer, being malt, hops, yeast and water in a series of ongoing segments, beginning with malt.

The malt is the base of the beer and its source of the sugar that the yeast consumes and converts into alcohol. It also can provide a myriad of flavors and add to body and head retention (i.e. long lasting foam). The malt comes from barley grain which is mostly cultivated for it use in producing beer and liquor, though it is also used for animal feed and occasionally other examples of human consumption. But today (and for me, most days) it’s just all about the beer.

To prepare the malt the barley grain it is first steeped in water. The purpose of this is to initiate germination, the sprouting of the embryonic plant in the kernels which are used for beer. This prepares the starches and enzymes but the process needs to be stopped before they fully germinate and sprout. To put a halt on the process the malt is dried by kilning, or baking it, at different temperatures. The length of the steeping process and kilning temperature determines the characteristics of the malt. For example, a pilsner malt that is lightly roasted will impart biscuit flavors while a heavily kilned chocolate malt will produce bacon-like flavors.

Nah, I’m messing with you. Chocolate malt will produce chocolate flavors.

The malt is the first ingredient, along with water, used in the brewing process. The malt grain is steeped again in waters of various temperatures to reactivate the enzymes and convert its starches into sugars. It is mostly kept around 154 degrees Fahrenheit at this time, but slightly varying the temperature will also impart different results. This is called mashing and the use of different temperatures during the mashing process is called a mash schedule. The final product of this is the wort, a syrupy liquid consisting of the extracted sugars. Eventually, with a couple more steps and a few more ingredients, it will become…beer!

The malt is responsible for the sweet, grainy and toasted flavors of a beer. In long, it can provide a whole myriad of flavors that can include bready, biscuit, chocolaty, toffeeish, espresso or coffee-like, caramel and more. The fermentable sugars come from the malt as well and a beer made with more base malt will produce a beer with a higher ABV (with the proper yeast, of course). One thing to keep in mind though is that some malts are included not to produce fermentable sugar, but impart other qualities such as flavor, thicker body, improved head retention and color. Crystal malts for example impart darker colors and additional body and head retention, but lack in fermentable sugar. Malt also gives beer its color, with a darker malt producing darker colors, as well as different flavors. The Standard Reference Method, or SRM, is a numbered system to define the color of a beer with a higher number representing a darker beer. Various extracts are available on the market for home brewing.

Well I hope you enjoyed that and maybe even learned something new. Keep an eye out for the next part in our series on beerducation on those flowery, fruity heroic natural preservatives, Hops!

The Great White House Beer Summit: What Beer Would You Choose?

It’s old news that to resolve the heated debate revolving around the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Gates by Officer James Crowley in Cambridge, MA President Obama has invited both parties to the White House to sit down and work things out over a few cold refreshing beers. Kieran and I heartily endorse this move as many of our heated arguments over curtain patterns and who the best Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle is have been resolved over a few cold ones down at the bar.

Now the Great White House Beer Summit has caused a new debate though over the beer selection. Based on the preferences of the meeting parties, the selection; Blue Moon, Red Stripe and Bud Light, has American brewers up in arms as none are made by American owned companies. Yes, the beers are all part of large conglomerate companies, being London-based SAB-Miller (Blue Moon), London-based Diageo PLC (Red Stripe), the massive Belgian-Brazilian company InBev (Anheuser-Busch).

Numerous breweries have been lobbying the White House to serve their beers to the summit. Local D.C. brewpub Capitol City Brewing Company has offered their Equality Ale in the spirit of the event. Sam Adams/Boston Brewing Company owner and founder Jim Koch has even offered to brew a special beer for the occasion, made with, "a blend of ingredients from all over the world. Which is certainly what's represented there with the three participants," he said. "I would blend those ingredients together artfully and harmoniously, because that's really what we all hope for."

Of course, who are we to judge since these are the selected beers of Gates and Crowley? Though I refuse to accept Bud Light is nothing but political. That said, our beer summit selection would be much different, with perhaps some Collaboration Not Litigation Ale from Avery, a little Gonzo Imperial Porter to invoke the spirit of the late great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, and of course some Sixpoint "Hop Obama" Ale (even though you can no longer get, somehow we magically would).

If it were your selection for the Beer Summit, what would you choose?




Sources:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124891169018991961.html#mod=rss_Page_One
http://www.11alive.com/rss/rss_story.aspx?storyid=133171