An incredibly boring beer

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Eric
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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by Eric » Sat Aug 12, 2017 11:40 pm

Sadfield wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 10:47 pm



Eric, I too have brewed similar, with similar results, and have drank more turbid examples that have had not suffered for it in taste or aroma.
My wife fries eggs looking better than I can. This morning I made breakfast. I apologised to her for my eggs. She ate them, but had they been by her for me, she would have been very disappointed and maybe fed them to the birds and made them again. I won't be telling her she's lost the plot.
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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by keith1664 » Sun Aug 13, 2017 12:12 am

Excuse my ramblings but I've been out drinking with a mate tonight, I've drunk 5 commercial beers, 4 clear and one cloudy (we finished the night at a BrewDog). I'm afraid the cloudy beer was the one I enjoyed the most. I'm now sitting here drinking a pint of home brewed weisse, it's maybe 2 months old and coming to the end of the keg, it's now dropped clear but I preferred it young and cloudy.
Personally I'll take a beer that tastes good over one that looks good and to be honest It's probably only the last hundred years since the dominance of pale beer and the use of glass drinking vessels that we've been so hung up on the subject.
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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by MTW » Sun Aug 13, 2017 12:26 am

Eric wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 11:40 pm
Sadfield wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 10:47 pm



Eric, I too have brewed similar, with similar results, and have drank more turbid examples that have had not suffered for it in taste or aroma.
My wife fries eggs looking better than I can. This morning I made breakfast. I apologised to her for my eggs. She ate them, but had they been by her for me, she would have been very disappointed and maybe fed them to the birds and made them again. I won't be telling her she's lost the plot.
OT Quick egg frying tip Eric, just to beat the wife's. Non stick pan, touch of oil, add egg, medium heat for a minute or two, then turn right down to minimum. Put a splash of water in the pan and immediately cover with a lid to steam the top slightly. Perfect.

Back on topic, or at least the dominant thread, I'm with Sadfield on most of this. Some merit throughout other comments, but overall, there are good and bad exponents in all areas. I would say that no one, in anything you could call craft, is rushing to recreate Watneys by using kegs. I learnt so much from having kegs, including how it must have been the quality of beer going into them that was the problem in the 70s, rather than the vessels themselves.
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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by Jim » Sun Aug 13, 2017 7:53 am

Eric wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 9:35 pm
Sadfield wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:24 pm
The concept of beer clarity and it's relationship to quality intrigues me. The notion that an addition of animal byproducts to achieve or maintain clarity is considered traditional and skilled, yet adding more hops to the FV in order to achieve a certain flavour profile with the payoff of colloidal haze is viewed as bad brewing, is a strange one.
............I've a beer on at present using Polish hops samples from Faram's to 62 IBU. Only 10g of bittering hops for 90 minutes in 23 litres, then 7 equally spaced hop additions each five minutes in the last half hour of the boil, far too much as can found when drinking. It has the slightest of haze, ask Jim if you doubt my word, he was here last week and tried it. Had it been any more bitter it would likely have only served to numb the bitterness sensors on the back of your tongue. Why harm your most precious determinator of beer?....
That was the barrel in the middle of the bench right? Yes, too much for my taste. Though others seemed to like it.
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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by IPA » Sun Aug 13, 2017 8:07 am

Sadfield wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 6:25 pm
IPA wrote:Also the the present craze for over hopped cloudy beer is because many brewers cannot produce bright naturally conditioned beer that reflect all of the the ingredients in the mash not just the hops and that includes most of the new wave "Craft Brewers".
The usual ill-informed rubbish. You just don't understand the style and processes involved. Many traditional brewers cannot brew bright beer either, and rely on animal based fining agents. There are good brewers and bad brewers regardless of style or heritage. I find it a rather immature
point of view to disregard any ability of "craft brewers" purely because they produce something not to your taste.

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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by Eric » Sun Aug 13, 2017 8:49 am

Jim wrote:
Sun Aug 13, 2017 7:53 am
Eric wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 9:35 pm
Sadfield wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 8:24 pm
The concept of beer clarity and it's relationship to quality intrigues me. The notion that an addition of animal byproducts to achieve or maintain clarity is considered traditional and skilled, yet adding more hops to the FV in order to achieve a certain flavour profile with the payoff of colloidal haze is viewed as bad brewing, is a strange one.
............I've a beer on at present using Polish hops samples from Faram's to 62 IBU. Only 10g of bittering hops for 90 minutes in 23 litres, then 7 equally spaced hop additions each five minutes in the last half hour of the boil, far too much as can found when drinking. It has the slightest of haze, ask Jim if you doubt my word, he was here last week and tried it. Had it been any more bitter it would likely have only served to numb the bitterness sensors on the back of your tongue. Why harm your most precious determinator of beer?....
That was the barrel in the middle of the bench right? Yes, too much for my taste. Though others seemed to like it.
Sorry Jim no, it was the one on the right of those three in the 30 litre/6 gallon Hambleton Bard cask with the red drum tap. That in the middle was a version of Bitter and Twisted and far left the attempted Lorrimer's Scotch. I should label them.
However, that's what you did say Jim.
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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by Jim » Sun Aug 13, 2017 8:57 am

Eric wrote:
Sun Aug 13, 2017 8:49 am
Jim wrote:
Sun Aug 13, 2017 7:53 am
Eric wrote:
Sat Aug 12, 2017 9:35 pm
............I've a beer on at present using Polish hops samples from Faram's to 62 IBU. Only 10g of bittering hops for 90 minutes in 23 litres, then 7 equally spaced hop additions each five minutes in the last half hour of the boil, far too much as can found when drinking. It has the slightest of haze, ask Jim if you doubt my word, he was here last week and tried it. Had it been any more bitter it would likely have only served to numb the bitterness sensors on the back of your tongue. Why harm your most precious determinator of beer?....
That was the barrel in the middle of the bench right? Yes, too much for my taste. Though others seemed to like it.
Sorry Jim no, it was the one on the right of those three in the 30 litre/6 gallon Hambleton Bard cask with the red drum tap. That in the middle was a version of Bitter and Twisted and far left the attempted Lorrimer's Scotch. I should label them.
However, that's what you did say Jim.
Yes, my memory is a little hazy even if the beer wasn't. :wink:

The Bitter and Twisted was my favourite, with the Lorrimer's a close second. :=P
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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by orlando » Sun Aug 13, 2017 9:06 am

keith1664 wrote:
Sun Aug 13, 2017 12:12 am
Excuse my ramblings but I've been out drinking with a mate tonight, I've drunk 5 commercial beers, 4 clear and one cloudy (we finished the night at a BrewDog). I'm afraid the cloudy beer was the one I enjoyed the most. I'm now sitting here drinking a pint of home brewed weisse, it's maybe 2 months old and coming to the end of the keg, it's now dropped clear but I preferred it young and cloudy.
Personally I'll take a beer that tastes good over one that looks good and to be honest It's probably only the last hundred years since the dominance of pale beer and the use of glass drinking vessels that we've been so hung up on the subject.

The open question, or unanswered if you will, is is it not possible for the cloudy beer to be clear and taste the same? I'm guessing you are saying it's not. That the cloudiness is a necessary condition for that beer to taste the way it does. Your Weisse beer at the end of the night being a case in point. I guess the difference is the "new cloudy" are beers in a style category that traditionally have been clear. You would need a mass blind tasting of a beer made to traditional standards against the "new cloudy" to really say one way or another. Like you I and I suspect all of us, I just want the best tasting beer there is, I would like that to include the aesthetic of a clear one too, maybe that isn't possible if your experience tonight is critical to the debate.
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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by Sadfield » Sun Aug 13, 2017 10:42 am

In short, no. When you fine or filter yeast out of beer it can take hop flavour and aroma components with it.

In the case of heavily dry hopped beers there is an arguement that turbidity can be beneficial as certain polyphenols such as flavanoids have antioxidant properties that aid hop aroma and flavour stability.


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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by MTW » Sun Aug 13, 2017 11:18 am

I've never(yet) had a hoppy clear beer as fragrant and fruity tasting as the hoppiest cloudy ones, from any level of brewer, from anywhere in the world. If someone manages to create one, then fair enough; maybe it's chemically possible. When I see one that is, then I guess I will be in a position to decide if I prefer it to its cloudy counterpart. Until then, I would be mulling over the merits of a beer that may not exist.
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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by orlando » Sun Aug 13, 2017 12:05 pm

The logical extension of the "cloudy" argument is that all beer could benefit from being cloudy. I can't see beers that have always been produced to be bright doing that experiment but maybe the cloudy beer producers could produce a clear version to try the sensory experients I advocated above. But do they have the skills. :wink:
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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by MTW » Sun Aug 13, 2017 1:27 pm

orlando wrote:
Sun Aug 13, 2017 12:05 pm
The logical extension of the "cloudy" argument is that all beer could benefit from being cloudy.
Maybe that's true! I recall from my Twitter that the Rook & Gaskill in York did a blind (but not visually blind) fined vs unfined challenge in 2015, with six beers from different breweries, each served fined and un-fined. I know fining is only one of the issues in the discussion, and none of this meets the level of enquiry some folk are after, but followers of this thread will find some interest in the results, however unscientific it all was:

The press release

The 'results' and report, in the local CAMRA publication. See p22 onwards.
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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by McMullan » Sun Aug 13, 2017 1:53 pm

According to Stoke's Law (as verified by Keith's observations last night), all beers go bright; yeast flocculate and suspended particles sediment, eventually. Adding clarifying agents simply accelerates the process. Advocating turbid beers is about promoting a quick turnover, either because it makes good business sense or it satisfies the impatient. I think some beer drinkers perceive improved sensory experiences drinking green beers, depending on what it is they're looking for, but we're all hard-wired to have our own tastes. Yeast, suspended solids and a too many hop compounds don't do it for me. I think bright beers look better and taste better. That's me and the majority of beer drinkers, I reckon :mrgreen:

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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by IPA » Sun Aug 13, 2017 4:43 pm

As I have said before it's simply a question of whether you want to savour the complex range of tastes and aromas in a properly brewed beer or are content with just the one you get in hop soup. You might just as well squeeze a pint out of your neighbours tom cat.
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Re: An incredibly boring beer

Post by IPA » Sun Aug 13, 2017 4:44 pm

As I have said before it's simply a question of whether you want to savour the complex range of tastes and aromas in a properly brewed beer or are content with just the one you get in hop soup. You might just as well squeeze a pint out of your neighbours tom cat.
"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on." Dean Martin

1. Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, thoroughly used, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming... "f*ck, what a trip

It's better to lose time with friends than to lose friends with time (Portuguese proverb)

Alone we travel faster
Together we travel further
( In an admonishing email from our golf club)

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