Cream Ale

"Do you have any cream ales on tap?"

I often get this question while pouring pints. "Cream Ale" is a very confusingly named style of beer. It does NOT technically refer to beers such as Boddingtons Pub Ale and Tetley's English Ale. These beers are both in the style of English bitter. They usually served through a high-pressure nitrogen gas line with a de-gassing tap (the same odd tap extension that can be seen on Guinness taps). This gives the beers a creamy head and a flat body that lacks the bubbly carbonation of most beers (it is often replicated with canned beers containing a nitrogen "widget"). It's only logical that most people would term these light-colored, creamy beers as "cream ales". As such, I usually simply ask if they are inquiring about "beers similar to Boddingtons".

Actual "cream ale" beers are quite different. This style of beer was created by ale brewers to mimic the characteristics of popular light lager styles of beer (more on ales vs lagers here). These beers are also light in color, however are often strongly carbonated and lack the creamy flatness of nitro-tap bitters. These ales are very thirst-quenching and often have bodies that are lightened through the use of adjuncts such as corn. One of the most beloved examples of the style is New Glarus' "Spotted Cow", a beer only distributed in Wisconsin that is becoming very popular in the region. For a better idea of what a cream ale is, I turn to the BJCP style guidelines which define it better than I ever could:


6. LIGHT HYBRID BEER
6A. Cream Ale
Aroma: Faint malt notes. A sweet, corn-like aroma and low levels of
DMS are commonly found. Hop aroma low to none. Any variety of
hops may be used, but neither hops nor malt dominate. Faint esters
may be present in some examples, but are not required. No diacetyl.
Appearance: Pale straw to moderate gold color, although usually on
the pale side. Low to medium head with medium to high carbonation.
Head retention may be no better than fair due to adjunct use. Brilliant,
sparkling clarity.
Flavor: Low to medium-low hop bitterness. Low to moderate
maltiness and sweetness, varying with gravity and attenuation. Usually
well attenuated. Neither malt nor hops prevail in the taste. A low to
moderate corny flavor from corn adjuncts is commonly found, as is
some DMS. Finish can vary from somewhat dry to faintly sweet from
the corn, malt, and sugar. Faint fruity esters are optional. No diacetyl.
Mouthfeel: Generally light and crisp, although body can reach
medium. Smooth mouthfeel with medium to high attenuation; higher
attenuation levels can lend a “thirst quenching” finish. High
carbonation. Higher gravity examples may exhibit a slight alcohol
warmth.
Overall Impression: A clean, well-attenuated, flavorful American
lawnmower beer.
History: An ale version of the American lager style. Produced by ale
brewers to compete with lager brewers in the Northeast and Mid-
Atlantic States. Originally known as sparkling or present use ales,
lager strains were (and sometimes still are) used by some brewers, but
were not historically mixed with ale strains. Many examples are
kräusened to achieve carbonation. Cold conditioning isn’t traditional,
although modern brewers sometimes use it.
Comments: Classic American (i.e. pre-prohibition) Cream Ales were
slightly stronger, hoppier (including some dry hopping) and more bitter
(25-30+ IBUs). These versions should be entered in the
specialty/experimental category.
Ingredients: American ingredients most commonly used. A grain bill
of six-row malt, or a combination of six-row and North American tworow,
is common. Adjuncts can include up to 20% flaked maize in the
mash, and up to 20% glucose or other sugars in the boil. Soft water
preferred. Any variety of hops can be used for bittering and finishing.
Vital Statistics: OG: 1.042 – 1.055 (1.050–1.053
is most common)
IBUs: 15 – 20 (rarely to 25) FG: 1.006 – 1.012
SRM: 2.5 – 5 ABV: 4.2– 5.6%
Commercial Examples: Genesee Cream Ale, Little Kings Cream Ale
(Hudepohl), Sleeman Cream Ale, Liebotschaner Cream Ale (Lion
Brewery), Dave’s Original Cream Ale (Molson), New Glarus Spotted
Cow Farmhouse Ale, Wisconsin Brewing Whitetail Cream Ale

Homebrewing: you can do it!

>>Introduction

Part 1: Knowing your Equipment

Part 2: Understanding your Ingredients

Part 3: Are you ready for this?

Part 4: Brewing your first Batch

If I can do it, you can.

I am often asked how I learned to homebrew (I learned from a book authored by the great Charlie Papazian). People are bewildered by the fact that you can actually brew your beer. I'm here to give the power back to the people. Brewing can be as or difficult as you want, you chose your own level of involvement. I have only been homebrewing for two years, but have had great fun and success with it. I knew very, very little about beer when I first started.

Every week I will discuss another step in the process of brewing your first beer. Before you get started, there are some things you should know:

• Is it hard? -- Brewing your first beer is incredibly easy. If you can boil water, you can brew. In many ways brewing is even easier than cooking. I didn't know how to cook anything when I made my first beer.
• What if my beer "sucks"? -- Simply put, it won't. It's very hard to make a "bad" beer as long as you follow the instructions! You will be surprised by how good your first beer is, I guarantee it.
• Is it expensive? -- It will take about $150-$200 to start brewing. After this initial investment, your beer will cost you $30-$50 for every 5 gallons (about 48 bottles).
• How much time will it take? -- Brewing an average 5 gallon batch of beer will take a total of 5-10 hours. Most of your time will be spent waiting...
• Patience is a virtue! After you start your first batch you will have to wait about 3 weeks to bottle it. After it's bottled you will have to wait another 1-2 weeks for the beer to condition and carbonate.

Next week: Equipment

What is Light Beer?

While tending taps I often get asked "What is your best light beer?". I always find this be an odd question. "Light" means something different to everyone. Light taste? Low calories? Low alcohol? I will usually recommend something slightly different and more flavorful such as a Munich Helles or German/Bohemian Pilsner style beer. Occasionally I will recommend a Belgian white ale such as Hoegaarden.

In America "light" (or Miller's trademarked "lite") beer usually refers to a pale-colored lager with less calories and alcohol than its non-light version. For example "Budweiser" is 5%abv and contains 145 calories. Its light brother "Bud Light" is 4.2% abv and contains 110 calories. Curiously, in the state of Oklahoma both Budweiser and Bud Light are ~4.0% abv (or 3.2% alcohol by weight).

Two ways of thinking about "light" beer:

Color: Sometimes people use light as a descriptor for color. It should be noted that color does not necessarily say anything about alcohol content. The jet-black Guinness Draught contains only 4.2% abv (the same as Coors Light) while the golden-colored Chimay Tripel clocks in at almost twice the alcohol at 8.0% abv. For more on color and beer, take a look here.

Calories/Carbs: Alcohol is more calorically dense than carbohydrates or protein with 7 calories per gram (compared to 4/gram in carbs/protein). Only fat is more energy-dense with 9 calories per gram, and there is no fat in beer! Naturally, cutting alcohol content will cut calories. If you are looking for a calorie-light beer you should look for beers lower in alcohol, regardless of color.


Light-colored beers with high calories: Belgian Golden Ales (Duvel), Belgian Tripels (Chimay White)
Light-colored beers with low calories: Pale-American lagers (Bud Light, Miller Lite, Coors Light), Bitters (Coniston Bluebird Bitter, Boddington's Pub Ale)
Dark-colored beers with low calories: Irish Dry Stouts (Guinness, Murphy's)
Dark-colored beer with high calories: Belgian Quadrupels (Konigshoeven Quadrupel, Westvleteren 12), Russian Imperial Stouts (Great Divide Yeti, Avery Czar)

Steak and Ale Pie

Growing up I would occasionally eat a dish my parents called "pasty". It was a rather plain, but hearty dish. My grandma would bake them every time she came down from Wisconsin to visit the family. She'd make a large batch and freeze some so we could heat them up later. I was never a huge fan of the dish as I child, but as Grandma came over less and less I started to miss them.

Two summers ago I visited Europe for a couple weeks. We touched down in Glasgow and the first meal I had on Scottish soil was a "steak and ale pie" in Sterling. It was very similar to the pasty I grew up on and really hit the spot in the cold weather.

Last week I was brewing a Bohemian pilsner on the roof of my apartment. It took almost twice as long as usual due to the frigid 13F Oklahoma weather. My hoses were freezing, my propane burner was stalling, and my hands were comatose. Somewhere in the baltic madness of it all, I thought about how comforting a meat pie of some sort would be. So this weekend (just in time for the weather to dramatically warm up) I decided to try my hand at making one. I put my recipe together from numerous sources on the internet, along with some personal touches:

Ingredients
meat:

• 1.5 lbs beef stew meat
  

vegetables:

• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups peeled and cubed red potatoes (any potatoes will work)
  
• 1 1/2 cups quartered fresh mushrooms
• 2 onions, diced
  
• 2 turnips
• 8 oz carrots, chopped (I used a 16 oz bag of frozen carrots and peas)
  
• 8 oz peas
  
• 1 leek, chopped

spices and other:

• 2 bottles of my winter porter (suggested substitute beers: any bitter, brown ale, porter, or stout. Common examples include Boddington's, Newcastle, Fuller's London Porter, and Guinness respectively)
• powder mix for flaky pie crust
  
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• salt and pepper to taste

hardware:

• LARGE sauce pan (or a large skillet)
• 9-inch pie plate

Directions:

1. Place the beef stew meat, onion, garlic, and ale in large saucepan/skillet. Simmer over low heat until the meat is browned, about 25 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 400F.
3. Season the beef with garlic, thyme, parsley, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Mix in the potatoes, mushrooms, turnips, carrots, and peas. Cover and simmer over medium heat until potatoes are just tender enough to pierce with a fork, ~15 minutes. Mix in the flour and stir.
   
4. Mix the crust according to the directions on the box (follow the directions for a "double pie"). Fit one pie crust into the bottom and up the sides of a 9 inch pie plate. Spoon the hot beef mixture into the crust and top with the remaining pie crust. Cut slits in the top crust to vent steam and crimp the edges to seal them together (also: to make them look pretty).
   
5. Bake in preheated oven until the crust is golden brown and gravy is bubbling for about 25-40 minutes.

I am very pleased with how the pie came out! I may use dough that's ready to go rather than a powder mix, as I'm not a very talented baker (as the pictures of my crust brilliantly display). If you don't enjoy the flavor of turnips and leeks, you should probably omit those. They are frequently used in English/Welsh/Scottish cuisine but are not incredibly common ingredients in the states. The recipe yielded a lot more filling than I suspected. I ended up with enough to make two pies. I filled a pie with half the filling and sealed the remnants for use in a future pie.

The pie was paired with the same beer I cooked it with, and I recommend you do the same. Let the beer warm up just a tad so you can better appreciate the flavors in the ale, and what they add to the pie.

Utopias Killer?

Not Quite.


Beer megacorp Carlsberg just announced a 10.5% abv barley wine. The beer is priced at nearly $400 USD per ~12.9 ounce bottle, dethroning Sam Adams Utopias as the most expensive beer in production. It is designed to compete with premium wine and champagne. The brewmaster claims given the amount of barley and time taken to make the beer, it is "cheap".

A couple points here:

• At 10.5% it is not even half as potent as Utopias
• The claims of the beer being "cheap", are laughable. The ingredients in Utopias cost at LEAST 2.5 times as much as the ingredients in this beer (since it uses nearly that much more fermentable sugars, many of them coming from maple syrup which is very expensive to brew with) and it will only set you back a "paltry" $150.
  
• This is an attempt to make beer more sophisticated, but it just comes off as cheap and silly to me. A product aimed squarely at people that want to say "I purchased a FABULOUS bottle of beer last night for $400, it's quite rare"
  

Source: Bloomberg

Homemade Beer Bread

Lately I have heard a lot of talk about "beer bread" mixes you can buy in the store. All you do is add a bottle of beer, mix, and bake. I received a mix for Christmas and the bread turned out pretty good. "How easy is it to make from scratch?", I thought.

The answer is: incredibly. I stumbled upon an amazing blog, written by a farm girl in MO. She gives a template for a beer bread recipe that goes like this:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tablespoon baking powder (crucial ingredient)
• 12 oz beer of your choice

All you need to do is mix together the ingredients, spread in a bread loaf pan(grease first if you do not have a non-stick pan), bake at 375F for 45 minutes and you're done! You can make many variations of this recipe by adding various herbs, spices, and cheeses. Here is the recipe I concocted with help from the farm girl:

• 3 cups un-bleached organic all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon organic brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon clover honey
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 12 oz home brewed juniper porter
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp rosemary
• 1 tsp thyme
• 2 tsp minced garlic

The bread turned out very good! Much better than the pre-made mixed I used the other week. I took it to a hombrew club meeting and there was none left by the end! An added benefit of making this bread is that your house/apartment/domicile will smell amazing!

Measuring alcohol in beer?

One of the most frequent questions I receive as a home-brewer is "so, how do you know how much alcohol is in it?" The method used to calculate the % alcohol by volume is deceptively simple and low tech.

An overview of how it works:

1. Measure the amount of sugar dissolved in the wort before it begins fermenting. (A)
   
2. Measure the amount of sugar remaining in the solution when the beer has completed fermentation. (B)
   
3. Remove the decimal points and take the difference of these two measurements (A - B = C). Divide C by the constant 7.36 to get the alcohol by volume.
   C/7.36 = % alcohol by volume.

That's really all there is to it. The measurements in steps one and two are the "specific gravity" of the liquid. Specific gravity is a ratio of the density of one substance to the density of water. Substances with gravity greater than 1.000 are denser than water while substances with a gravity less than 1.000 are less dense than water.

The measurements are taken with a device called a "hydrometer". A sample of beer is taken in a small tube (similar to a graduated cylinder). The hydrometer is a glass tube with a bulb on the bottom. The device is calibrated to measure gravity in part due to a chunk of lead inside the bottom of the glass bulb. The hydrometer is allowed to float in the beer. When the hydrometer stabilizes, graduations on the glass tube indicate the gravity readings which vary depending on how high or low the hydrometer comes to rest in the liquid.

The measurement in step 1(A) is often called the "Original Gravity"(OG) or "Initial Gravity". For most beer this can be as low as 1.035 (Berliner Weisse beer) or as high as 1.120+ (in the case of barley wines).

The measurement in step 2(B) is termed the "Final Gravity"(FG). For most beer this can be as low as 1.000 (some sour ales) or higher than 1.030 (barley wines, scotch ales, imperial stouts, etc.)

There are various methods for calculating alcohol based on the two measurements, and none are 100% correct. I chose this method because it's the easiest to estimate off hand. The beer becomes less dense as it ferments. The sugars are processed by yeast into carbon dioxide and alcohol. The CO2 gas bubbles out of the fermenter while the alcohol (which is less-dense than water) remains. The more sugar that remains in the beer (the higher the FG), the sweeter and thicker it will taste. The lower the FG, the drier and thinner the beer will taste.




A couple weeks ago I brewed a Russian Imperial Stout. I measured the OG to be 1.106. The beer has now finished fermenting, at left you can see the hydrometer floating in the fermented beer. The FG looks to be about 1.033.
Using (OG - FG)/7.36 we get:
(1106-1033)/7.36
(73)/7.36
~9.9% abv