Holiday Festbier

I have always stereotyped lagers–especially those that are lighter in color–as beers best suited for warm weather. Lawnmower beer. That kind of thing. As my palate has expanded, though, I’ve decided that lighter lagers aren’t just for the summer. A festbier–with its slightly more complex flavor profile–seems like a good option for cooler months. And who says it’s just for Oktoberfest?

My recipe was inspired by a festbier recipe I saw on Brulosophy, with pilsner and Vienna malts carrying the bulk of the grist alongside a splash of Munich malt. In the end, it worked out pretty well!

Holiday Festbier

  • 6 lb. Vienna malt (Weyermann)
  • 5.5 lb. Superior pilsen malt (Great Western)
  • 0.75 lb. Munich Malt (Best; 7.6 SRM)
  • 0.35 oz. Magnum hops (13.2% alpha), 60 minute boil
  • 2 oz. Saaz whole hops (3.0% alpha), 10 minute boil
  • 1 Whirlfloc tablet, 10 minute boil
  • 1 tsp. Fermax yeast nutrient, 10 minute boil
  • 2 pkg. Saflager lager yeast (W34/70)

Target Parameters

  • 60 minute infusion mash, 149°, batch sparge.
  • 1.056 o.g., 1.011 f.g., 5.9% abv, 21 IBU, 5 SRM
  • Water built from RO, for target of 35 Ca, 3 Mg, 29 Na, 41 SO4, 40 Cl, 77 HCO3, 37 RA

Procedure

  • I built up 4.25 gallons of mash water by adding 1.7 g baking soda, 1.3 g CaCl, 0.8 g gypsum, and 0.5 g epsom salts. I aimed for a mash-in temperature of 160.5°, to hit 149.1° for the mash. Immediately after mashing in the grains, I added 9.5 mL of 88% lactic acid, to adjust the pH appropriately.
  • I built up the sparge water with 4.6 gallons of RO water supplemented with 1.9 g baking soda, 1.5 g CaCl, 0.9 g gypsum, and 0.6 g epsom salts.
  • I started the batch sparge with 1 gallon of water at 180°, let it sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected first runnings. I then added the remainder of the sparge water, vorlaufed, and collected the rest of the runnings.
  • In total, I collected 7 gallons of runnings with a gravity of 1.045, for 70% efficiency.
  • I brought the kettle to a boil, adding hops and finings per the recipe. After 60 minutes, I turned off the flame and chilled down to 75° or so. After transferring to the fermenter, I chilled down to 50° in the fermentation chamber before oxygenating the wort and pitching the yeast.
  • I brewed this beer on 7 December 2019. Starting gravity was 1.053, a touch below my target (1.056), but not too awfully low.
  • I started fermentation at 52°, and raised it to 56° after two weeks (21 December 2019). I raised the beer to 60° on 23 December 2019, before crashing to 33° on 26 December 2019.
  • I kegged the beer on 28 December 2019, by semi-closed transfer into a CO2 purged keg. Final gravity was 1.009, which works out to 5.9% abv.
  • After kegging, I lagered the beer at 33°. From the start, flavor was really nice. When I sampled the beer on 12 January 2020, after two weeks of lagering, flavor was still amazing, but the beer was still fairly hazy. By February 6, the beer had only a slight haze, and could be rated as relatively clear (but not yet bright). I expect it should be up to snuff within a week or two.

Tasting

  • Appearance
    • Gold, nearly clear (only a slight haze at the time of this tasting), with a nice and persistent white head.
  • Aroma
    • Malt, malt, malt. Aroma is a slightly sweet malty quality, and I don’t pick up much for hops.
  • Flavor
    • Smooth maltiness, with the malt character being a combination of pure maltiness and a bit of breadiness. (I’m using various forms of “malt” in my descriptions, but that’s really the best descriptor for this beer!) Hop level is moderate and has a beautiful smoothness, with the balance of the beer definitely tilted towards malt.
  • Mouthfeel
    • This beer is sooooo drinkable! Medium body, moderate carbonation, just a pure thing of beauty.
  • Would I brew this again?
    • Absolutely! This is a wonderful recipe. My only mild knock-down is for the slight haze in the beer, but if I were to lager this for months as a proper festbier I think it would be fine. The malt character and hopping level are perfect. On top of all of this, it really nails the high drinkability that a good festbier should have.
  • Overall
    • 9/10

Summer Haze Brown Ale

A friend of mine who lives out east experimented with smoking his own malt–in this case, he scrounged up some sassafras root, and used it to smoke a two-row malt. It took me a bit to think about what kind of beer I wanted to make with it, because I’ve already done smoked porters, and a stout wasn’t really appealing either. Why not try a brown ale? It’s not so heavy as to be undrinkable in the summer heat, and the other malt flavors would hopefully meld well with the smoked malt. This recipe is also intended to use up many of my specialty malts, so I freshen up my stockpile with newer malts. Although they seem to keep pretty well, it probably doesn’t hurt to rotate from time to time.

IMG_20180822_065954.jpg

Summer Haze Brown Ale

  • 4.1 lbs. California select 2-row malt (Great Western Malting Co.)
  • 2.5 lbs. Vienna malt (Great Western Malting Co.)
  • 2 lbs. sassafrass smoked 2-row malt
  • 14 oz. 40° crystal malt (Great Western Malting Co.)
  • 8 oz. pale chocolate malt (Crisp Malting Co.), 225° SRM
  • 4.3 oz. chocolate malt (Briess), 350° SRM
  • 1.9 oz. Carafa III malt (Weyermann)
  • 0.6 oz. Carafa Special II malt (Weyermann)
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops (5.5% alpha), 60 minute boil
  • 1 oz. Cascade whole hops (5.5% alpha), 10 minute boil
  • 1 Whirlfloc tablet, 10 minute boil
  • 1 pkg. Safale US-05 dry yeast

Target Parameters

  • 1.052 o.g., 1.011 f.g., 5.4% abv, 26 IBU, 25 SRM
  • Infusion mash to hit target of 152°, 60 minutes, batch sparge.
  • Claremont tap water, treated with Campden tablet

Procedure

  • I mashed in with 3.5 gallons of tap water at 163°, to hit a mash temperature of 151°. After 60 minutes, I added 1.5 gallons of sparge water at 170°. This rested for 15 minutes, before the vorlauf and then collection of the first runnings.
  • Next, I added 3.5 gallons of water at 170°, before resting for 10 minutes, vorlaufing, and collecting the rest of the runnings.
  • I collected 6.5 gallons of runnings at a gravity of 1.041, for 71% efficiency.
  • Next, I brought the kettle to a boil, adding hops and Whirlfloc per the schedule.
  • After a 60 minute boil, I chilled around 80° before transferring to the fermenter. I then chilled it the rest of the way in the fermentation chamber, down to 68°.
  • I sprinkled the yeast directly into the wort, fermenting at 68°.
  • Starting gravity was 1.046–I notched back the boil intensity a bit on this one (per recent recommendations from various corners of the internet), so I’ll need to start compensating for a change in evaporation rate.
  • I brewed this batch on Wednesday, August 22, and kept it at 68° until Friday, August 31. Then, I pulled it out of the keezer (to make room), finishing up at 75° ambient temperature.

The Quest for a Real Jurassic Beer

Unexpected connections between my vocation of paleontology and my avocation of brewing pop up in the strangest places.

Recently, I decided to try my hand at a traditional Bohemian pilsner. While reading up on the style in order to develop my recipe, I ran across this interesting tidbit from a technical presentation by folks from Technische Universität München and Weyermann Malting Company [link to PDF]:

The most influencing process for the production of original Bohemian malt is the floor malting process after a 48 h steeping. This is done on traditional naturally cooled Solnhofen limestone floor tiles.

Solnhofen Limestone?!!! No way! My paleontologist brain went into overdrive when I read that statement. Using Solnhofen Limestone for floor tiles is the paleontological equivalent of using Kobe beef in a McDonald’s Happy Meal. Kinda sacrilegious, but also pretty awesome. Let me take a minute to explain this seemingly inane (yet exciting) detail.

Malted barley

Malted barley

First, the brewing side. Raw barley grains are turned into malt by a brief germination, which among other things creates enzymes in the grain that break down starches into more fermentable sugars later during the brewing process itself. Germination produces a lot of heat, which can be a fire hazard in some conditions (and isn’t great for the quality of the finished malt, either). So, the grain is cooled by a combination of physical turning as well as specially cooled floors. Traditionally, the cooling was accomplished by hand-turning on stone tiles (including those made from Solnhofen Limestone, apparently). This germination period is followed by a drying and kilning period, which halts germination and readies the malted barley for brewing. The malted grains are ground up, steeped in water, the resulting liquid is boiled with hops and then fermented with yeast–and bingo, you have beer!

Now, let’s talk about rocks. Solnhofen Limestone is from Bavaria, formed in warm-water lagoons during the Late Jurassic, around 150 million years ago. The gentle waters and fine-grained ooze created the conditions for exquisite preservation of any animals that died in or near the water. Soft-bodied organisms that are rarely fossilized, including dragonflies and giant shrimp, are fairly common finds. The most widely known fossils, though, are the rare and delicate flying vertebrates. Winged reptiles such as Pterodactylus are housed in museum collections globally. And then there is the most iconic fossil of all: Archaeopteryx.

Fossil of Archaeopteryx in Solnhofen Limestone. Specimen displayed at the Museum für Naturkunde (Berlin). Photo by H. Raab, CC-BY-SA.

Fossil of Archaeopteryx in Solnhofen Limestone. Specimen displayed at the Museum für Naturkunde (Berlin). Photo by H. Raab, CC-BY-SA.

First discovered in the 1850s, the early bird Archaeopteryx is a textbook example of a transitional fossil. It preserves features of its dinosaurian ancestors, including sharp teeth and a long bony tail, as well as the long flight feathers found in today’s modern birds. The fingerprints of evolution are all over Archaeopteryx, and it has been key for many discussions on the origin of birds and flight as well as their relationship with carnivorous dinosaurs. Although new discoveries in China, Mongolia, and elsewhere have filled in additional details, the Archaeopteryx skeletons from the Solnhofen Limestone remain historically and scientifically important.

Beyond its paleontological significance, the durable and fine-grained Solnhofen Limestone has a long industrial history–indeed, the fossils are basically “by-catch” from that activity. Over the centuries, the limestone has been used for sculpture, floor tiles, and printing (lithographic) plates. A connection to brewing was new to me!

In the interest of geeky beers, I wondered: was it possible to brew a beer with malt that had rested on the same rocks as Archaeopteryx–a real Jurassic beer? I knew that Bohemian malt had traditionally been malted on Solnhofen Limestone floor tiles. But was this still the case today? Time for some sleuthing.

I started my investigation with Weyermann Malting. They carry a wide range of European pilsner malts; being a modern company, their product is largely produced using state-of-the-art malting techniques in order to maintain consistency and quality. This most typically entails malting on slotted metal floors to allow efficient germination and air circulation at the appropriate times in the process. These procedures create high quality malts, but they don’t involve Solnhofen Limestone.

My eye was then drawn to their floor-malted Bohemian pilsner malt. It is billed as being “made in an original floor malting facility”. That sounded promising. A little more sleuthing found a 2009 article [PDF] about the malt by Sabine Weyermann (of the very same malting company) in Scandinavian Brewers’ Review. In this article, Weyermann notes that their floor-malted pilsner malt is produced under contract at Ferdinand Brewery and Malting Company–whose malt house is floored by Solnhofen tiles.

A view inside the traditional floor malting facility at Ferdinand Brewing and Malting. From Weyermann 2009.

A view inside the traditional floor malting facility at Ferdinand Brewing and Malting. From Weyermann 2009.

My journey to Solnhofen Beer was almost complete! I sent off a quick email to several individuals at Weyermann Malting Company, to confirm if their traditional pilsner malt that is sold today is still produced on Solnhofen Limestone. Not long after, I received a response from Stefan Gottschall at Weyermann, verifying the Solnhofen connection. My quest was complete.

So, you can brew a Solnhofen-themed beer! Thanks to Weyermann’s Floor-Malted Bohemian Pilsner Malt, every sip of my latest lager has a physical connection to Archaeopteryx and all of the other Jurassic critters of ancient Bavarian lagoons. This is beer at its best–an experience not just of taste, but also one imbued with 150 million years of history and a link to the fossils I love.

An Archaeopteryx-linked beer requires the appropriate glassware.

An Archaeopteryx-linked beer requires the appropriate glassware.