CHAPTER 3
The Five Elements: Malt, Hops, Yeast, Water, and Time
Professional brewers and homebrewers alike have spent innumerable hours in cross-table discussion on the subject of which ingredients produce the best and most proper flavors in a particular style of beer. The purist will claim that, in order to create an appropriate flavor profile for a particular style, you must obtain the raw materials from the region in which that style originated. Another might counter with established examples that break the rule, such as a traditional Scotch ale made with a Belgian yeast, a quintessential German Pilsener made with New Zealand hops, or an award-winning barley wine made with American malt. The discussion goes on and on. There can be no conclusive answer. There is no doubt that certain raw materials yield distinct flavors and aromas. The question is, what flavors do you want to design into your beer and what raw materials and processes should you use to achieve those flavors?
The Malt Bill
Barley wines feature malt character. Even the hoppier barley wines will have big broad malt shoulders from which many other flavors will hang. To make a beer of such fortitude it is necessary to use two to four times the normal amount of malt per gallon of beer. With that much grain going into a brew there is no way around the fact that you are going to get plenty of malt flavor. The type of malts you choose (the specialty malts as well as the pale malt) will have a dramatic effect on the final flavor of your beer. We have found that for barley wines, the behemoths of the beer world, a less complex grain bill is often better.
Pale Malt
Pale malt is the backbone of any beer, and this is especially true of barley wines. Pale malt is the main source of fermentables, and fermentables are what making a barley wine is all about. The sheer quantity of pale malt in a barley wine causes it to stand out as the major contributor to the flavor profile, thus the choice of pale malt will greatly influence the flavor of the final product. The pale malt that you use should be highly modified, thereby converting easily and generating the most fermentable sugars possible. English or American two-row malt works best. American and continental six-row malts should be avoided.
English pale ale malt is the best choice for this style of beer. It is highly modified and low in protein and has a more complex flavor than American malts, which are generally malted to macrobrewery specifications. This complexity of flavor is due in part to a more prevalent tradition of hand-craftsmanship (i.e., floor malting) among the maltsters of the British Isles. British malt flavor is rounder and has greater depth of character with an almost bready or biscuity flavor. Marris Otter pale malt is the best of the best in this arena, much favored and sought after by independent British brewers and brewers of traditional cask ales.
This is not to say that you cannot brew a good barley wine with American malt—you most certainly can. Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot is an obvious example. That said, it should be noted that American pale malt will be lighter, less complex, crisper, and “cleaner” in flavor. Beers brewed with American barley, that is grown and malted to Anheuser-Busch’s and Miller’s specifications, will naturally have a different flavor than that of beers brewed with malt designed and produced to make more flavorful beers. Therefore you must decide what kind of malt flavors you want in your barley wine and then choose a pale malt accordingly.
Specialty Malts
When deciding on specialty malts always remember to keep it simple. Too much, or too many types, of specialty malt will cloud the flavors of your beer and make them muddled and indistinct. A more even hand is required in the use of these malts in the brewing of big and aged beers. Keep in mind that the extended boil and conditioning times associated with the brewing of barley wines will magnify the effects of a proportion of specialty malt which in a smaller beer seems just the thing. Too much specialty malt can also leave too many complex or unfermentable sugars in the finished product. This can make the beer cloyingly sweet, as well as unstable over time.
Extended boiling times will increase the malty sweetness found in the beer through caramelization of the sugars. In Scotch Ale, Gregory Noonan reports that caramelized wort sugars give a beer a more malty flavor than the use of crystal malts, and that these caramelized sugars are a major component of a Scotch ale’s rich caramel flavor (Noonan 1993). Scotch ales are also generally associated with high terminal gravities and residual sweetness, qualities that in a barley wine are difficult to avoid even under the most judicious of circumstances. Carmelization of the wort during boiling also produces an increase in color through nonenzymatic browning reaction. The longer you boil, the more caramelization of sugars and the greater the formation of melanoidins, or color components, and thus the darker your beer will become. It has been estimated that as a result of these reactions you can get as much as 25% of the total color of an all pale malt beer during a ninety-minute boil. For these reasons we suggest that no more than 15% of your total grain bill be colored or specialty malts.
Our research shows that most professional breweries go very easy on the specialty malts in brewing their barley wines. They go even easier on the dark malts, if they use them at all. A little bit will go a long way. The use of dark malt should be kept below 2% of the total grain bill.
When choosing specialty malts, go with just one or two carefully selected styles. Crystal malt, used sparingly, adds color, sweetness, and body to your beer. It will give it an orange to reddish glow. Munich and dextrin malts will give your beer some nice malt flavors and add a small amount of additional color. In moderation, these malts can work well with less complex (i.e., American) pale malt, giving the beer a nice grain flavor. In general, keep in mind that notes and subtle accents of malt difference can give drinkers and critics much to talk about in the appreciation of your barley wine; an overly commanding specialty malt presence may make them want to put it on their pancakes.
Adjuncts
Some brewers will add sugar or malt extract to the kettle to achieve higher gravities. We recommend keeping this practice to a minimum. If using malt extract, keep it to 40% or less of your total fermentables. In homebrewing keep it to 60% or less. That way it will have little or no effect on the flavor of the beer. If you use non-malt sugars like corn, cane, beet, or rice, we recommend keeping them to 15% or less of your total fermentables. These sugars will provide fermentables without adding much of their own flavor. At these percentage levels, the use of adjunct sugars and extracts should not have a significant impact on the overall taste of your beer. Some of the non-malt sugars do have interesting flavors that can work well in beer, as evidenced by their long-standing use in British brewing. Just remember to use them sparingly and with a certain purpose in mind, such as increasing gravity or providing an interesting additional flavor. Do not let them thin or overpower your beer.
Hops
We remember reading somewhere that you cannot put too much hops into a barley wine—words almost certainly written by someone from the U.S. West Coast where the word hops is almost synonymous with beer. But after tasting some of our early efforts at homebrewed barley wine, we feel sure that whoever wrote that statement was incorrect. Just the same, you can add an enormous amount of hops and still make a well-balanced and enjoyable beer. The international bitterness units (IBU) in barley wines usually run in the range of 50 to 90, and there are some commercially available examples that even exceed 100. These latter examples have high terminal gravities and residual sweetness, which helps balance all that hop bitterness.
Like many other areas of brewing, there are two distinct camps concerning the use of hops in barley wines—hop flavor and bitterness versus malt flavor and sweetness, crisp hoppiness versus malty sweetness, West Coast versus East Coast. Whichever camp you fall into, the challenge is to make a balanced beer, achieving the bitterness that will be appropriate for the style of barley wine you want to create. And as with malt, the hop that you choose will have a dramatic effect on the flavor profile of your beer. This holds true for the bittering hops as well as the flavor and aroma hops.
When choosing hops, in addition to looking at flavor and hopping rates, there are a couple of other things to be aware of. First, a high-gravity brew will have lower efficiency of hop utilization than a lower-gravity brew. Also, the components that produce hop aroma and flavor are the first things to go as a beer ages. Iso-alpha-acid, the bittering component, also decreases with age. As far as overall flavor is concerned, we have observed that highly hopped beers tend to age better than less hopped beers for the first two to four years. After this time the less hopped beers, perhaps initially balanced to be less dependent on hop character, seem to fare better as the highly hopped beers begin to swing out of balance.
Boiling Hops
Research (our own and that of other brewers and scientists) shows that boiled hops not only provide bitterness but also contribute significantly to hop flavor. The degree and type of flavor contribution is variety specific. Some hops, such as Chinook, will contribute a very strong and discernible flavor while the effects of other varieties will not be nearly as pronounced. Another important variable is that some hop varieties produce a harsher bitterness than others. It has been suggested that this harsher bitterness is related to a higher cohumulone level in the hops. Hops with high alpha acid contents often (but not always) have a high level of cohumulone. Despite this, we prefer using higher alpha acid hops for bittering when brewing a barley wine, something in the range of 8 to 16%. And although high alpha hops may contribute slightly to harsh bitterness, they have the very real advantage of reducing wort losses in the kettle due to hop absorption. A brewer would use only half as many Galena hops (14% alpha acid) as compared to Northern Brewer hops (7% alpha acid) to achieve the same bittering in a beer. Less hops used means less wort absorbed by the hops and thus left behind in the brew kettle at the end of the boil. Using a high alpha acid hop will also allow you to avoid some of the vegetable flavor you may pick up from boiling an enormous hop mass of low alpha acid hops. Another benefit to lessening the amount of hop material is that it will reduce the likelihood of clogging your heat exchanger. One of the varieties that breaks the general rule of high alpha acid hops is Magnum. It is in the 15 to 16% alpha acid range, yet has a very low cohumulone level and a soft bitterness.
Finishing Hops
Your choice of finishing hops will depend on the style of barley wine you want to make. Are you trying to brew a traditional English barley wine or one of those newfangled American jobs? Do you want a beer that has American, British, or perhaps German hop flavors? Do you want loads of hop flavor up front or should it be part of the subtle background character? There are no hard and fast rules. If you are planning on the traditional route, you need to use British hops like East Kent Golding, Fuggle, Challenger, or Northdown. If you prefer an American flavor, you might try Liberty, Centennial, Columbus, Chinook, or Cascade. Some people look at the beta acid levels to give them an idea of how much flavor component that particular hop variety will give.
Yeast
If malt is the backbone of a barley wine, then yeast is its soul. Many say, in fact, that the choice of yeast and all it brings to the flavor of the finished beer is the most important choice a brewer makes in the formulation of a recipe. For those of you who desire a less philosophical definition, Gregory Noonan, in New Brewing Lager Beer, writes: “Yeast are a nonphotosynthetic, relatively sophisticated, living, unicellular fungi, considerably larger than bacteria. Brewer’s yeast are of the genus Saccharomyces” (Noonan 1996). Whatever the malt and hop components, yeast is responsible for the majority of the “beer” flavor that we taste. Changing the yeast strain can completely alter a beer whose raw materials were otherwise unchanged.
Yeast Flavor
The first thing to consider when selecting a yeast strain is its flavor and ester production profile. If you like several of a brewery’s beers, then their yeast strain (or one like it from Wyeast or other yeast suppliers) will be what you want to look at first. There are some commercial examples of barley wine made with bottom-fermenting yeast, but we feel that barley wines really should use a top-fermenting yeast. An ale yeast is much more likely to give you those heady and powerful flavors and aromas you are looking for. Even restricting your selection to ale yeast, you are still left with literally hundreds of choices.
Flavor and ester production are functions of fermentation temperature as well as yeast strain. Fermentation temperatures should be kept in the range of 66 to 72 °F (19 to 22 °C). This will help keep ester production down to a reasonable level while ensuring its character becomes part of the beer.
Again, if you enjoy other beers made from a particular yeast strain, then that yeast will probably work well for you in a barley wine, at least from a flavor perspective. Other variables also need to be considered when choosing a yeast strain, including alcohol tolerance, attenuation, and flocculation.
Alcohol Tolerance
Can the yeast you have chosen tolerate alcohol? Many yeasts can ferment beers of low- to mid-range alcohol content beautifully, but when called upon to ferment a big beer, run out of energy and quit with the job half-finished, leaving you with a high terminal gravity. This will not only make the beer too sweet, it also will leave unfermented simple sugars in the beer, thus creating an environment in which bacteria can easily bloom. This is an important consideration during extended aging periods.
In order to successfully process a barley wine wort, the chosen yeast strain will have to be able to take the beer to at least 8% ABV. Most ale yeast will be able to handle 8 to 9% ABV. Some yeast strains will go up to 12 to 14% ABV. The Pike Brewing Company’s yeast has fermented beers to 12.5% ABV and might have gone higher had there been any more simple sugar to consume. So, if you plan on making a truly Herculean brew, you may have to call your local yeast supplier to find an appropriately ambitious yeast strain, or borrow some from a friend.
It should be mentioned that some brewers use more than one strain of yeast to ferment their beer—one for flavor that will do the early part of fermentation and then another strain (added later) to take over and finish up the fermentation. The first yeast pitched (added to the cool wort) is generally an ale yeast. It is allowed to ferment normally, and when it begins to flag, a second more alcohol-tolerant yeast is pitched, taking the beer into the homestretch of attenuation. Some home and professional brewers use champagne yeast for this second pitching because of its alcohol tolerance. Other brewers will pitch a more alcohol-tolerant ale yeast or a lager yeast to continue attenuation even during cold conditioning. We prefer to stay with a beer yeast—an ale yeast in particular—because a champagne yeast often creates non-beer flavors. Its attenuative properties also come at a price because champagne yeast (as well as lager yeast) can digest more of the complex sugars that might best be left in the finished beer for flavor and mouthfeel.
Attenuation
Attenuation is a measure of the amount of sugar in the wort that has been converted by the yeast to ethanol and carbon dioxide. Some yeast strains can only utilize the simple sugars found in wort, the single- and double-chain sugars glucose, fructose, sucrose, and maltose. These yeast are called low attenuators or unattenuative yeast. Other strains can metabolize three-chain sugars like maltotriose and other trisaccharides. These strains are categorized as medium to highly attenuative yeast strains. Still others, called super-attenuative strains, can break down and use four-chain sugars like maltotetraose.
The yeast strain you use should have a relatively high level of attenuation so that it metabolizes all the one- and two-chain sugars and most (or all) of the three-chain sugars. This will make a beer that is less likely to be overly sweet as well as leaving less “available” sugars in the beer that bacteria may consume in later storage. A good rule of thumb is that your final gravity should be 20 to 28% of your original gravity. Be certain that the yeast you choose is both a good attenuator as well as alcohol tolerant, since it won’t matter how attenuative the yeast is if higher levels of alcohol shut down metabolic functions and cause it to leave the fermentation unfinished.
Flocculation
Flocculation is a yeast’s ability to clump together and fall (or rise) out of solution. When making barley wine, you don’t want a yeast to drop out of solution before it has finished its job of fermentation. Many, but not all, of the yeast strains available to you will be strong flocculators, as this is a common characteristic of brewer’s yeast. When using a yeast strain that flocculates well, it may become necessary to mechanically keep the yeast in suspension by “rousing” or stirring it. (This will be discussed in greater depth in chapter 4.) Generally, the more attenuative yeast strains are less flocculant.
With all this in mind our preference leans heavily toward a good strong British ale yeast (though our experience includes excellent results with American varieties). Maybe something borrowed from one of those nice London breweries.
Oxygen
Although not strictly an ingredient in beer, oxygen must be present in the cooled wort in order to bring about a vigorous and complete fermentation. This is an extremely important point and one often overlooked or underserved by many brewers. Contrary to concerns of over-oxygenation, the fact is you cannot put too much air, or oxygen, into the wort. At ale fermentation temperatures wort simply cannot hold enough dissolved oxygen to be a problem. On the other hand, should you fail to introduce enough oxygen at the outset, the yeast will have difficulty starting fermentation and will almost certainly not complete it. This will leave you with an unattenuated, sickly sweet beer. In addition, this will make the beer more susceptible to bacterial infection.
When we brew a barley wine, we aerate during the entire knockout (cooling) process, being careful to avoid foaming the wort out of the fermenter. We shoot for 10 to 14 ppm of oxygen in the wort as it enters the fermenter. This can be obtained by diffusing 1.5 liters per minute for the length of your knockout.
If you are using air (as opposed to oxygen) at ale fermentation temperatures, it will be more difficult to achieve these concentrations, since air is mostly nitrogen. We suggest that you diffuse air in at 3.0 liter per minute. Air should be sterile-filtered before being injected into the fermenter. For the best results, try to get the oxygen or air into solution in-line, on the way to the fermenter. That will give the gas the maximum amount of contact time and hence a better chance to dissolve into the liquid. In-line aeration can be increased by using a sintered metal “stone” (similar to those used for carbonating beer). This will produce a larger number of very fine bubbles, which in turn creates a greater amount of surface area and thus better absorption of gas into the wort.
Water
Although in barley wines water makes up, technically speaking, a smaller percentage of the beer’s total composition than it does in other beers, it is still by far the largest proportional ingredient. Water plays a very important role in every aspect of the brewing process. The water you use for brewing and the minerals it contains will have a significant impact on the final flavor of your beer. If your water is potable (if it tastes good) you can brew with it. Just because your water is not the same as a specific classic brewing town or region does not mean that you won’t be able to create a great beer. From a historical perspective, there really is no one classic region for barley wine brewing, or at least none more specific than England in general. High-gravity beers were (and still are) successfully brewed all over England in areas having very different water chemistry. The mineral contents in these various areas run the gamut—from London, where the water is relatively soft, to Bass in Burton-upon-Trent, which is known for its hard water.
All the general rules concerning water that apply to other beers apply to barley wine brewing as well, with the foremost guideline being to know what is in your water. You can obtain a full water analysis from your local water department at little or no cost. If your water comes from a private well, send it out to a local laboratory for analysis. Once you know what’s in your water, you will have a better idea of how to treat it. High levels of iron, bicarbonate, particulates, or organic material should be avoided. The latter two may easily be removed by filtration. Bicarbonate of over 50 ppm can be removed by pre-boiling your brewing water; iron should be less than 1 ppm.
For more information on water as it relates to beer, consult the reading list on page 187. These books cover the subject in great detail.
We think, if we are not mistaken, that we have now fulfilled our obligation to talk about water.
Aging
Time is the fifth ingredient in barley wines. This is true in all phases of barley wine production, beginning with an invariably extended brew day. Fermentation almost always takes longer with a high-gravity brew because two or more weeks may be needed for the beer to reach its terminal gravity. The beer may begin with an impressive surge only to reduce to a slow but steady pace in the second or third day. If this happens, don’t panic. As we will discuss in the beginning of chapter 4, there are things you can do to help with fermentation. Once the initial fermentation is concluded, the warm (58 to 70 °F, 14 to 21 °C), or diacetyl, rest needs to take place. This rest, which tends to be longer for these larger beers, may take one to two weeks, and will allow the yeast the proper amount of time to reduce diacetyl and other metabolic by-products of fermentation. This is an important step in producing all beers, including lagers; but it is especially important for high-gravity beers, where there are greater amounts of diacetyl created during fermentation. Without this rest, the beer may have a pronounced “butterscotch” flavor or other taste defects.
After this rest, it is time to chill the beer. The most common cold-aging temperatures range from 34 to 40 °F (1 to 4 °C), but aging can also effectively be done at traditional cellar temperatures (50 to 55 °F, 10 to 13 °C). Some Anglophile ale producers may claim that so traditional a British beer style should be conditioned no colder than the norm of cellar conditions in its homeland. In the past, lacking the needed technology, cellar temperatures were as cool as they could practically get them. We feel cellaring temperature is a matter of choice. A benefit of cold-aging is that it precipitates out proteins that can cause haze. Haze can have a deleterious effect on the visual aspect of the beer as well as a significantly negative impact on the flavor of the finished beer. Colder temperatures will cause more of these proteins to bind together and precipitate out of suspension. Thus the colder (and longer) the aging period, the less of these undesirable elements will remain in the beer, and the cleaner and brighter the beer will both look and taste. It’s difficult to justify the slavish attention to tradition when the benefits of improving upon it are (so to speak) so clear. Most brewers agree that high-gravity beers, like barley wines and old ales, require substantial additional aging. We like to give a barley wine a minimum of ninety days of cold storage prior to going into packaging.
Packaged Beer
Now the beer is ready to be packaged. After packaging, the beer will need to be aged for a minimum of seven to ninety more days. Providing proper care is taken in the course of filling the appropriate containers, the beer can improve in this post-packaging aging period for many years. This aging allows the flavors to meld and mellow. Hop bitterness will lose some of its edge, and hop aroma will fade. The changes can be many and varied. We have found that most barley wines improve with one to two years of post-packaging aging. Some will age well for six to eight years. A few can even go beyond ten years before negative effects are detected. There are even those that claim longevity of their barley wines into the next generation. As a rough rule of thumb, the higher the starting gravity, the more gracefully a barley wine will age.
As discussed, the hop component of an aged beer will break down first. The more highly hoppy barley wines tend to be better with one to three years of age. The less hoppy counterparts tend to age slower, doing better over the long haul. The temperature that a bottle (or keg) of beer is stored at is also important for the aging process. John Hansell (publisher of the Malt Advocate) recommends aging packaged beer at cellar temperatures (50 to 60 °F, 10 to 16 °C). He has found that beers aged within this temperature range fare better than those aged at cooler or warmer temperatures. Aging at cellar temperature allows beer to continue to work and mature without accelerating decay. The beer will often be drier, fruitier, and softer while still retaining some hop notes. Our research confirms Hansell’s findings. As with wines, more age is not always better. One must hope to catch a vintage bottle when it is at its peak. The trick is in proper storage and anticipation.
Barley wine does improve with age, so make sure to vintage date bottles and kegs. And remember to set a few bottles/cases/kegs aside for yourself. Over the coming years, you’ll be able to go to the reserve stock, pull out the special vintage bottles, and share a taste with selected friends or visiting brewers.
Wood
Should beer be aged on wood in modern times? For centuries, beer was made and aged in wood vats and casks. There were few other materials of which brewing vessels of any size could be constructed. Indeed, wood contributes flavors of its own. It harbors both the flavors of earlier packaged (and conditioned beverages) and resident microflora, particularly lactic acid bacterias (like Lactobacillus) and wild yeast (like Brettanomyces). All of these flavors, which are all but unknown in the modern brewery, have venerable antecedents.
There is endless debate as to how much “wood” flavor the beers of old would have had. Today, outside of Belgium, there are very few breweries using raw wood for beer storage of any length of time. Marstons in Burton and Firestone in California use raw wood for fermentation vessels, but the beer does not remain in them long. The wooden serving casks that you see in use today are nearly all lined with pitch, paraffin, or plastic, each of which removes any chance of flavor contribution from the wood.
There is a good reason these casks are lined—there is no way to completely sanitize wood. Unlined wood harbors bacteria and wild yeast that will dramatically change the beer. There is virtually no way to control or predict exactly what flavor will be produced. All but a few brave or eccentric breweries have abandoned the practice. The Gale’s Brewery in Horndean near Portsmouth, England, still conditions its Prize Old Ale in wood—a fact which imparts a quality that is possibly closest to an old British beer than anything else available commercially today. It is truly a beer produced without apology or fear.
Eliminating the issue of wild flora and fauna within wood, the question still remains, should beer be aged in wood? We have used, with success, French limousin oak chips to add flavor to some of our higher-gravity beers. The use of wood chips is common in home and professional winemaking, having mainly to do with the economy of chips over costly imported barrels. Oak can give beer (or wine) a richness, a smooth vanilla tone, and a subtle woodiness. We found that only French oak was mild enough to use without overpowering, and even then it needed to be used sparingly—1/2 to 1 ounce per U.S. barrel.
A relatively new development in the world of beer aging is maturing in wood from other industries. This has been done in the Scotch industry for many years. Some American brewers now age their bigger beers in used whiskey, port, and other types of barrels. The few we have tasted (many are still aging) have been very exciting. The contact with these barrels subtly changes the beer and imbues it with some wonderful flavors. Greg Hall at the Goose Island Brewery in Chicago aged some of their imperial stout in Jim Beam barrels and it was awesome. The Pike Brewery has done similar experiments with very favorable results. The stout flavors seem to meld and blend very well with the leftover whiskey flavors soaked into the wood of the barrel. We are hopeful that more of this type of experimentation will continue.