Thoughts on brewing

Thoughts on brewing: in which a beer is brewed and hewed into the world, leavened and heaved followed by a sense of me-too as other beers join in and to-and-fro their way into the glass, as careful as an aunt, as fretful as an aunt, as artful as the kindest thief.

Brewing is the beginning of the end: hops that were picked at harvest are changed and juddered into a different state of being in the dry heat of kiln; dead; packed together, forced, turned out into the world; the end of the journey that barley took from the field, cut down in its prime, crushed and eviscerated, its insides transformed, the death of John Barleycorn; the vanquishing of water, in thrall to a process that expels it into the air (only to start the journey all again). And, of course, the yeast, microscopic beasts, tumbling and turning over before coming to rest in the cool limpid liquid that will eventually end up as beer. Maybe, after second thoughts, brewing is just a means to an end, an end that is always beginning.

So at 6.30 on a Thursday morning there I was at BrewDog

For how many years I have been visiting breweries I do not know. I would think that Highgate in Walsall was one of my first (Victorian gloom and low ceilings), or was it a flurry of what we called micros back in the venerable days of 1996/7? Impressed? Not really. At first, it was like the school trips to factories (I remember one to Ellesmere Port in particular, the smell of Swarfega and the strange texture of metal shavings), the noise, the smell, warm, spicy, beery, the wet floor, the trip hazard of a hose, the mystery of what malt does and how the hop has its evil way; the man in the white coat, the clip board, the age of the steam train, the cobwebbed vision, but that was then.

Things have changed and I’m at home in a certain type of brewery, whatever the size, usually one whose beer I am keen to devour (Stella left me Arctic cold last year though it was smiles all round when the brewmaster let slip that he thought the beer better dry-hopped as it used to be, a slip of the tongue he rescinded within seconds), and I have always wanted to try and see the brewery as more than a parcel of boilers and vats offering the potential to become as rich as Croesus.

So at 6.30 on a Thursday morning there I was at BrewDog.

It’s: beeps and the whirr of cogs and the deep breathing of a machine that does something or other; the lauter (or is it a mash, my notes say lauter though) tun gleams and glows, embraced in the grip of equally gleaming pipes and rods, not as squat as some I have seen, but sleek and tall, a supermodel of beer ingenuity. More sounds: the water for the mash emerging from its tank, a lapping sound, gentle, a pastoral sound at odds with the steel surrounds and the preciseness of temperature control, the latter a mathematical-like process that works with me standing still and opening sacks, the grain smashed and rolled and ready to spill its secrets into the warm water. Brewing involves waiting, is it a science, an art, a process, or an induction into a mystery? Why does this question itch away at me?

And on this early morning in BrewDog, where we wait before the pilot plant, wait for the system to start, I also think of the dignity of labour, the manhandling of sacks of grain, the graft, the industry, the collaboration between the malt and the water and briefly the senseless of an early morning start (we’d left the hotel at 6am). The water and the grain embrace, shake hands, US and Soviet soldiers meeting at Torgau in April ’45, while Nick the brewer turns the grain and the water, turns and learns and unfurls someday beer. As I stand there in the company of collaborators Matt, Brad and Jonny, I then imagine I might be in the bowels of a space ship with the hiss of steam, the hum of the engine, the clang of a tool on metal, all of which seem to occur in a strange vacuum of waiting. There seems to be a lot of waiting in brewing.

As time passes the big brewery, through a couple of doors, comes to life, the clinking parade of glass bottles in their slow serpentine crawl, down-to-earth visions of hi-viz jackets as staff check temperatures, wort flow, hop inclusion and god knows what else in this scientific theme park of a brewery. The columns of the kettles rise to the ceiling, a hi-tech, spindly version of the more rounded, variegated pillars that I recently observed in an Italian cathedral, and everywhere a labyrinthine network of pipes; how can the human mind comprehend such a maze? The canning line has an element of the fairground as cans pause on a slope for a second before rushing on their way, in a manner that suggests a big dipper. Outside we find ourselves in a forest of maturing tanks, in which an unwary traveller might get lost, more beer, a sign of BrewDog’s unyielding growth (and next door another brewery is being built).

And later on across the road, we go to a nondescript warehouse, a big garage, an unromantic looking sight, where 300 or more barrels rest with all manner of beers sleeping the sleep of the just, some ready for now while others ripe for blending. I try a snifter of Anarchist Alchemist, a 15% triple (or is that quadruple?) IPA that has been in an oak barrel since 2011: soya, salt, are you my umami, marmite, brett, farmyard, sherry, easily one of the most expressive wood-aged beers I have had for a long time.

Back at the brewery, bustling, full-pelt, the tap open, a James McAvoy lookalike with a glass of Punk, we try Born to Die, a huge, Humvee-hopped 8.5% imperial IPA, assertive, juicy, fresh, savoury and bitter, a beer to be drunk within a month or so of its inception, a complete contrast to the sleeping giants in the barrel warehouse. There are other beers, conversation, the ever-present sighs and whoops and cheers and clangs and sine waves of the brewing giant a couple of doors away and once again I can see why some choose the path that brewing and beer offers. As I have said before, beer is a part of the way one can live one’s life, a gastronomic choice, that excites me as much as food, literature, music, sport, love, fun, laughter and everything else that makes up this complex puzzle we call life.

I along with Matt, Jonny and Brad were invited to BrewDog to collude on a beer, which we hope will be ready in a couple of months; it will be a tripel-style flavoured with peach and apricot, accompanied by a gentle sourness. We have called it Peach Therapy and I am looking forward to trying it.

Three-C’Son — my Brains Saison

Three weeks ago I went over to Brains in Cardiff to brew a saison as part of their continental beer challenge, which has seen a group of writers swap laptops for lauter tuns and come up with a beer with its roots in the European mainland. I immediately decided that I wanted to do a saison, a pale golden one albeit with a  rigorous transfusion of American hops. We choose Centennial, Columbus and Citra, hence the name. On Sunday I was able to taste a couple of bottles of the beer and found it rather delicious, especially when paired with an aged, blue-veined Cheddar from Green’s of Glastonbury. It is pale and hazy in the glass, almost like a sunset seen through the filter of a disintegrating summer’s day, perhaps with the promise of something less benevolent to follow on the morrow. A sweet-sour nose, led by a snappy green apple note (plus a hint of fresh ripe peachiness); on the palate there is green apple snappiness, medium sweetness, a hint of white pepper and some fatness from the alcohol. The carbonation is sprightly with a moussec-like mouthfeel, while the finish has a initial light sweetness that is followed by an good dry finish. I loved it and am looking forward to trying it on keg at my local pub in the next couple of weeks. I like these brewing awaydays — I like the idea of suggesting various malt and hop combinations, I like the idea of trying to play with beer styles. It doesn’t make me a brewer anymore than the time I went up in a Hercules made me a pilot, but it all adds to the richness of life and given that 30 years ago you would have been hard-pressed to discover the ABV of most beers, never mind suggest that a major family brewery make a beer based on your own ideas, demonstrates how things have so changed for the better.

   

At Brains, or enjoying a brief holiday in other people’s working lives

Three Cs being added to an FV

It was Thursday morning at Brains, and I was helping to brew a saison on the brewery’s pilot brewery, which, as I tasted later on at the Great Welsh Beer Festival, has produced some gorgeous beers including Coopers Reserve, a 10% barrel aged beer that has so much depth I half expected to find the Titanic at the bottom of the glass. You can see me talk about it here.

The grist was pretty simple — lager malt and wheat, which means that it should be light in colour and hopefully slightly hazy. No spices were used but three hops — Centennial, Citra and Columbus — were added throughout the process with a handful going into the FV. With the aid of Brains’ head brewer Bill Dobson, I wanted to get the flinty, spicy, near-austere character of a saison (we used saison yeast), but also wanted to give it a bit of an aromatic kick. From what I remember I think it’s going to have over three weeks of fermenting and lagering before it goes out into the world. Oh and it’s called Three-Cs-son. If you try it I would like to know what you think.

My time as a journalist has always seen me parachute into other people’s working situations. I have been out with the oyster fishermen of Falmouth, gone up in the air on a Hercules for a piece on female RAF pilots and been backstage with a band about to go on at the Albert Hall. It is the same with brewing when you become very briefly part of a team, though I always know that I wouldn’t last two minutes in reality (I have a chemistry and general science deficit). For a moment though, on a morning like the one I had in Brains there is a sense of a different path I could have taken. But on the other hand I think it’s the fact of this holiday taken in other people’s lives that I have always enjoyed in journalism.

Philosophical musings over I went along with Bill and a couple of lads from the production team to the Great Welsh Beer Festival and enjoyed beers from Brains, Otley and clean sweepers Tiny Rebel. What did I learn? Not to drink a 10% Belgian Pale like it was cola and then run to catch my train.