Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Episode 3
With your host
Jon Griffin
The beer drinking professor
http://askthebeerguy.com/ 2 Theres nothing like a cold beer. In this episode we talk about: What I am drinking NFL and beer! Freakin Bucket list beers Worlds strongest beer? New York state of mind Did Jesus drink beer? Hops Your questions answered
Podcast Episode
Welcome to another edition of Ask The Beer Guy. This is your host Jon Griffin, The Beer Drinking Professor. Welcome to episode three of Ask the Beer Guys podcast and I want to welcome you this week. Were going to talk about hops for our beer geek session. Were going to talk a little NFL football and some beer news related to that. Some questions we have answered, one on hops and also on the distribution of beer. Were going to talk about New York and talk about what the Governors doing to help the beer industry in New York and also help the taxpayers Im assuming. I have got some interesting news from the Freakin Frog, some unbelievable beer thats going to be on tap for Halloween night only. Ive got a news article on the strongest beer in the world and why it really isnt. Remember marketers lie and Ill tell you why and, did Jesus drink beer especially or was he just a wine guy? All that and maybe a little more is coming up on this episode number three.
What I am drinking
Im going to talk about my usual, what Im drinking and it happens to be my number three Desert Island Beer which is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. People think, Man why did you pick that beer? If you knew my number one and two which Ill reveal in the next couple of weeks, its really going to seem a little out of place but Sierra Nevada Pale Ale to me is just a classic of a great drinking American style pale ale thats just hoppy and bitter enough to keep my interest but not so bitter that it wipes my palate out and not malty enough that its not a great beer for the summer time.
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Remember, Im living in Las Vegas so I love the balance of it even though its balanced to the hoppy side. American Pale Ale. If youve never had one, say youre e not in America, these pale ales are basically Americanized versions of the British style using American ingredients. Its usually a little bit hoppier, a little less malt body but theres definitely malt there it shouldnt be just a bunch of hop water. Thats the reason I love Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Im sure many people love it too. Its one of the top micro breweries in the country and you can buy it almost everywhere now. When I first started drinking it, it was really only available in California along with a lot of their beers and they slowly spread out. I remember I was in Boston and it was the first time I actually saw Sierra Nevada east of the Colorado River and I had to get my Swedish friend who was living there at the time to try it. He actually loved it even though it was a lot different than the typical lager most people were drinking back in the early 90s. Thats what Im drinking it, I love it. The quality is great and if you like a great refreshing all around beer especially in the summer time, try Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
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If you happen to be in Las Vegas and I know a few of my readers are, or if you are coming in the next week or so, I want to let you know about the Freakin Frog. Most of you know about it if youre beer geek but its a beer bar in Las Vegas owned by my friend Adam Carmer, who also teaches at UNLV. Hes probably got the largest beer selection certainly in Nevada if not on the West Coast. Last count was over 900 beers I believe. Hes got the whiskey attic upstairs, which is the largest whisky collection youre going to find anywhere and what I want to mention is, hes got some interesting beers coming up and one of them is Gonzo. On Halloween night theyre going to get rid of a beer from Flying Dog, the Colorado Brewery, Flying Dogs Gonzo Imperial Porter. Thats the last keg anybody knows about and its a 9.2% porter that scored a 99 on Ratebeer.com and that was a long time ago. This is a classic and it was brewed in honor of Hunter Thompson. This has been aged since its release in 2005 so that makes it a whopping seven-year-old beer but dont worry. Dont let the beer commercials fool you. Fresh beer isnt always good beer. Sometimes, these big old imperial porters, imperial stouts are a hundred times better five, six, seven, eight, nine years from now. If you happen to be in Las Vegas on Halloween, stop by the Freakin Frog, which is across from UNLV on Wednesday and theyre going to have that Porter until its run out. I dont know the cost; they didnt tell me. One other thing that the Freakin Frog does is they have cask beer tastings and the next ones going to be on October 30th, so the day before Halloween.Its going to be Cask Number Six Old Engine Oil Reserve, which if anybody knows is a brewery from England and its actually from Clackmannanshire in the UK. This isnt just the regular stout; this is a reserve version of it. Its jet black; its a bucket list brew for any beer lover. This is the only cask there is of this in the world because none of it was put in a cask except for this one for the Freakin Frog. There is very limited seating. Go to freakinfrog.com and you can get the information there or you can call 702 217 6794. Its first come and they pour until the cask is done. It is $45 a person but they usually have food. I will be there so you can meet me if you want. They also have a new fresh menu that you can check out as well.
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What these guys do is they actually cold distill. Theyre calling it cold fermenting or freeze fermenting but in reality what theyre doing is distilling because distilling can either be hot or cold and youre either boiling the water off to produce alcohol or youre freezing the water to produce alcohol because water freezes before alcohol does. They bring the beer down to freezing, take all the water ice off and then it leaves a concentrated beer. In my mind thats not a true beer. Its really liquor because its distilled. In fact you cant even legally sell that if you make it in the United States because the U.S. considers freezing a form of distillation. Whenever you concentrate alcohol thats what it is. Its probably a great beer. I wouldnt mind trying it and 330 milliliter bottles is what they sell it in. They are basically saying its a hoppy but slightly sweet, which I could imagine because of all the malt that comes out, and theyre saying to serve it in Brandy size measures. If you want to check it out they have a Facebook page and theyre called the Brewmeister Brewery and they also create some traditional pale ales and darks and other things like that. If you happen to be in a place where you can buy that then try it out and please let me know. Just remember, its really a distilled drink; its not a fermented beer.
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This is all really kind of funny to me that Governor Cuomo all of a sudden decided that beer, wine and alcohol are going to be the big things. What they decided to do is put a million dollar tourism ad promoting New York wine. Theyre going to use PR firms to target New York City restaurants to sell and promote New York products. Theyre going to work with top chefs in the Food Network who happen to be based in New York, to promote products. Its funny also that his girlfriend is Sandra Lee (a Food Network star), is not part of the plans, She is Governor Cuomos girlfriend, but theyre going to promote everything, including beer. There are 75 wineries and breweries opposed to the proposed drilling offshore and Cuomo also did a similar summit on Greek Yogurt this summer and that resulted in easing some of the environmental protection restrictions on dairy farms that the wineries and breweries are talking about because of fracking and some other things. Many of the breweries and wineries are against the proposed drilling and I guess Cuomos trying to appease them by saying, Look, were e going to help promote your businesses but youve got to help us out here.
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Bowley says, Our culture clearly has difficulties handling alcohol as one can see from our drunk driving accident rates but its not because our laws are not strict enough since in cultures where drinking laws are much more lenient and wine and beer a part of daily life from a young age, there are often fewer difficulties. He makes the same argument that I make. In Europe at least historically, there used to be a lot less hang-up about how old you were when you drank and it was not a big deal to go get beer or wine or any other alcohol so people tend not to abuse it. Not that there arent people abusing it but the incidence is a lot less especially in the Westernized parts of Europe. Certainly in the communist part theres a lot of alcoholism. In Russia, Poland and those places, the former Eastern Block but thats for other reasons. Bowley also goes on and says, Furthermore, the idea that religious people should abstain from all alcoholic beverages is a fairly modern one in history and peculiarly Christian and its certainly not the case in the ancient world of Israel or other Mediterranean cultures or among most early Christians. The wise use of these beverages and the wise use of all creation in the ancient world and today is the lesson that sages both ancient and modern teach. Hes basically saying beer is a biblical drink so keep drinking and Im going to talk about beer history in a couple of weeks here and I will get into the ancient beer culture and how there is a lot of new archeological evidence that beer actually did save the world in many ways and if it wasnt for beer we probably wouldnt be living in our agrarian society. Wed still be nomads so, drink up!
Hops
For our beer geek lesson this week were going to talk about hops. Theyre also known by the Latin name Humulus Lupulus and they were named by the Romans Lupus due to the growing among the reeds like a wolf among sheep. You will hear a lot of people talk about being hopheads, they love hops, and most of them kind of know what the main reasons for hops are. Theyre mainly for bittering those people who like extremely bitter beer. There are also some aroma components and theres of course flavor. When people talk about being a hoppy beer, generally theyre talking about the bittering because you can have a beer thats not very bitter, thats got a lot of hop aroma and most people would just call that a great hop aroma but they wouldnt necessarily call it a beer for hopheads. Most people know hops for the bittering component although aroma is certainly a big part of it especially in American beers, which use whats called dry hopping.
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Dry hopping is basically when the beer is already fermented; they transfer it to another tank and they throw in some hops to give it some aroma, a lot more aroma. Theyve found now and Ive talked about it before, but theyve found that there is a little bit of flavor and a little bit of bittering also given off because theres alcohol soluble components. They used to think it was only good for aroma, which it still is mainly. If you see dry hop beer youre not going to necessarily have a bitter beer but youre certainly going to have a beer with a lot of hop aroma. One of the traditional reasons to use hops was to take a very sweet beer and counteract that. If you think about cereal like Grape Nuts or some kind of barley cereal without any hops its sweet. Thats why people like it at as a cereal to eat in the morning, hot or whatever. Wort, which is unfermented beer, needs something to counteract the sweetness. The beer would be almost undrinkable. It would taste kind of like malta which is a non-alcoholic beer thats sold for kids all around Latin America. Hops are the bitter component and they can add many specific characters to a beer. Before hops were used many brewers used whatever bitter herbs or flowers were around and traditionally that was called Gruit. Dandelion, burdock root, marigold and heather were often used; heather of course was used in Scotland. Hops also add a preservative aspect to the beer, which is one of the reasons hops were first used in beer because it was found to have antibacterial function. Of course they didnt know it was antibacterial at the time but they knew that the beer lasted longer with hops and the bitterness was a great by-product of that and since then hops have been in and out of favor. The Germans were the ones who really brought hops to the mainstream. The one thing to know if you are brewer or a beer lover or even home brewers, that there are many different varieties of hops but theres three main types of hops that we can discuss. The first ones we are going to call the noble hops and those are generally used for aroma and theyre valued for their aromatic properties. They generally have floral or spicy components to them and you will hear names like Saaz, Hallertauer Tetnang or Spalt. Notice they are all German except for the saaz, which is a Czechoslovakian hop. Theres other hops that are really prized for bittering and those would be like Brewers Gold and Nugget or Galena. Others are sort of in between, versatile hops. Youll see names like Perle which are German hops and Centennial which is an American Hop and Northern Brewer. These are kind of used in bittering, aroma, and flavor. Another thing to know is that British Hops, if you are trying to make an authentic British beer you want to use British Hops because they have a certain earthy, mushroomy, dirt type of flavor and aroma. We talked about the Noble Hops, theyre going to be floral thats mainly
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German style beers and if youre doing Saaz hop thatll be a little spicier. If youre doing American style ales of course you can use any hop in American beer thats part of the characteristic but if you want that real Northwest flavor and aroma and bittering, you want to use a Northwest Hop. These are going to have more citrusy pine maybe some forest, depending on the properties. It is kind of important what hops you pick. Is it the most important thing in a beer? For some styles it may be but generally yeast is probably the most important thing along with your fermentation temperature. If you put the wrong hop in a beer and its only used for bittering, its probably not going to be noticed. If it is a big American IPA and you dont put in any bittering or aroma hops at least American ones that have that citrusy character, people are going to think its more like a British style of an American IPA. Thats the main thing you need to know about hops.
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pesticides but a living product like a plant is going to be different every batch and every crop. Most of the time when you see hops, they take a whole bunch from the farm and they average it out so remember if something says 10 percent alpha acids, that doesnt mean every single piece is 10 percent , thats the average of that bunch. In case I didnt mention it, which I think I forgot, alpha acids are how you measure the bitterness in hops. I hope that answers your hop question and Ill go on to your next one which is, How long does it take to make a beer from the moment production starts until it is shipped to a store? Well, again Brian Im going to say it depends. If you are a brewpub certainly it can be anywhere from two to three weeks which would be probably a little fast but there are certainly Hefeweizen and some fast fermenting British ales that you could do that quick. On an average probably four to six weeks I would say for a brewpub. If you are doing lagers its going to be six weeks to two months maybe depending how long you actually lager. If youre talking about actually to a store or a bar then youre talking about the three tier system again at least in the States so you have got to make it, then send it to a distributer and then the distributer actually has to ship it to the end user location, the retail spot. I would say on average in a fast time it would be about two months for ale and three to four months minimum for a lager. If theyre coming from Europe its going to take a lot longer obviously depending on if youre in New York or California. They mostly go by boat and that takes time. I know my friend who imports German beer into California takes about a month and a half to two months from the time it leaves the dock at the brewery until it hits his warehouse through customs and all that on top of the two to three months of lagering that goes on in the German brewery so were already at five months. Then it goes to the distributor, which is probably another week or two maybe even longer if hes going across country with it. Then from the distributor its got to go to the retail location so now were talking an imported German lager probably anywhere from four to six months minimum before it sees the shelf. British beer would be a little less long because theyre ales but it seems to me that a lot of the English beers dont survive the journey on a ship as well. I find them to be a little bit lifeless even ones that are in brown bottles. Cans tend to hold up better which is a reason why if Im buying English beers I tend to want to get it in a can if I cant get it on tap somewhere because remember a can is nothing but a small keg. There is very little air and no light can get in it, its a great way to do beer. Unfortunately I dont see any time in the near future that home brewers are going to be able to do that. There are beers that take much longer though. There are certain barley wines that age a year before theyre bottled and certainly some Belgian beers take from one to three
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years before theyre bottled or shipped or anything else. In general, take one month or so for brew pub ale, a couple of months for a normal ale to a store and it can be anywhere from two to six months for lagers depending where theyre from. I hope that helps answer your questions.
Show notes
http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2012/10/26/chris-cooley-beer-redskinscontract/1660117/ http://www.donsidepiper.co.uk/news/local-headlines/brewery-makes-world-s-strongest-beer1-2564271 http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-10-25/gov-says-ny-will-boost-beer-wine-liquor-sales http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20121027/FEAT04/310270015/Wise-use-beer-biblicallesson
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