Brian's Beer Blog

Brew Dog vs the Nanny State

2008-05-15T17:22:00.007-06:00

According to this article in todays Scotsman, Brew Dog Craft Brewery faces a threat of a boycott action by advertising watchdog the Portman group. I'm not going to re-write the article here, you can read the article yourself as its not very long. I just have three points I want to make about this issue:

1. I think that some people live in fear that other people will make bad decisions. Its a control issue for them. Its a beer label. Certainly, no label on any product should boast something that isn't true (eg, if you buy our beer women will want have sex with you). The debate gets into implied product effects in marketing, though. Luckily the nanny state is there to protect the most weak-minded of us, who would be convinced by aggressive marketing tactics. Personally, I find it an insult to my intelligence that the Portman group thinks Brew Dog's marketing slogans are too aggressive for my obviously weak mind.

2. Brew Dog makes some DAMN good beers... I'm a professional in the industry, and I've tasted a hell of a lot of 'average' beers. These guys aren't selling beer because of their marketing, they're selling it because they have an artistic talent that makes their beer far better than most beers. Big breweries rely heavily on their marketing, as associating their brand with different footy clubs seems to be the only way to tell the difference between the brands in the 'uninteresting yellow fizz' market.

3. That being said, the big guys and the little guys still ought to play by the same rules for marketing. Of course, the Portman group has only suggested that Brew Dogs marketing might violate their rules. And all they can do is initiate a boycott, apparently. But I think people would still buy the beer.

I say Brew Dog keeps marketing the same way they've always done, keep doing a damn fine job making their beers, and I'll keep drinking them (when I can find them, that is). If they get more pressure from this Portman group, thats some pretty good publicity and scores high with the 'stickin it to the man' type people.

Anyway, you ought to read Brew Dog's response on their website, its pretty funny and unprofessional. Its a nice change from the PR crap we're used to. These guys know how to sell beer to me... I'll seek out a pint tomorrow.

Cheers!

Low bit rave

2008-05-14T17:39:00.002-06:00

Ok I know I'm way behind in posts... I have a beer festival to review, and some metaphysics to comment on, but I just have to take this brief moment to post an album my friend Mike Verdone made called "Low Bit Rave" that is pretty cool. Just listening to the first few tracks myself... its my kind of music!

I demand you enjoy it.

Or at least download it.

Cheers!

The next step

2008-05-03T14:58:00.002-06:00

I've done a lot of reading of beer and beer related books over the last several years. One thing I've never really touched on, however, was beer and food. I know that there are some great beer-food pairings, and some great recipes, but I've never really read too much about the subject.

So I figure its time to rectify that. I just received "The Brewmaster's Table" by Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver, as well as "He said beer, she said wine" by Sam Calagione (of Dogfish head fame) and Marnie Old. Obviously I haven't read them yet, but I can say what I expect. The former is a lot thicker than I expected and its very in-depth on the beer styles, pairings, and history. The second is an interesting presentation of the debate between beer and wine for food pairings, with Sam defending beer and Marnie defending wine. So from that I ought to learn a little more about wine pairings, as well as some good talking points for debating wine snobs on the merits of beer with food.

In fact, I think I'll read some of these right now.

Cheers

Who is the next big beer writer?

2008-05-02T17:58:00.003-06:00

Michael Jackson is unfortunately dead. Roger Protz is getting on in years. Who is the next beer writer for the people?

My vote goes towards Robert Millichamp. Rob is a classmate of mine in my brewing program here at Heriot-Watt university, and he knows his beer reviewing. He is religious about taking notes on every single beer he tries. EVERY beer. I like to think that I rate beer, but he takes it to the next level.

Rob has his own blog of late, too, where you can read some of his comments on beer and brewing. I like to read what he has to say, I think he has an articulate nature that many people lack.

Rob published a post on the types of beer drinkers in the UK, read it here, its quite interesting in my humble opinion. Read his other posts from that link.

Where have I been?

2008-04-24T04:54:00.003-06:00

Perhaps you have noticed that I haven't updated this blog in a few weeks. Well there is a good explanation for that. I was away traveling for two weeks with my girlfriend in continental Europe. Then when I returned I had class and two papers due, whilst my girlfriend and parents were in town too. As such, I have had very little expendable time.

On a beer note we visited the Tennent's canning line in Glasgow yesterday. I brought my camera on the bus but then wussed out at the last second on bringing it in. Why? I have no idea, I just did. But the canning line is pretty cool. 2000 cans per minute, I can't believe how fast the machine can run. Unfortunately there were having all kinds of technical problems that day and the machines kept crashing. But it was cool to see anyway. Last week we saw a glass bottle factory (also pretty cool). Next week we head to Belhaven brewery. OH, and one day we get to go to a BOX FACTORY!!

I'll have more time for updating and such in a week or so, perhaps I'll even write something about beer for once...

Cheers

Quick to sell out?

2008-03-26T09:43:00.004-06:00

In a very recent post of mine, I bled my heart out about how I want to continue work in a small craft brewery after finishing my MSc in brewing, and that working at a large brewery would not suit me very well.

I just sent off a resume to a huge brewery (Labatt) and a regional brewery (Big Rock). So was that too quick to sell out? Ha. I did some thinking though that led to these actions...

First, when I get back I'm attempting to stay in Edmonton, Alberta to be with my girlfriend. I can't exactaly be picky with the job I want right out of brewing school now can I? Maybe after 5 years of experience I can be pickey.

Second, I need a job when I get back, as I'll have no money. If I can't get a brewing job then I'll have to suck it up and find something else. I ought to be starting somewhere Oct 1, as I won't be able to afford to wait around for the "perfect job" for too long.

Labatt's Edmonton brewery is the very definition of huge industrial brewery. If I did get a job there, however, I'm sure I would gain a lot of valuable knowledge on how big breweries work of course. I can always do homebrewing on my own time to satisfy my creative needs.

Big Rock's Calgary brewery is actually a good size. Its not too big, not too small. I think I would learn a great deal working at a place like this, and I do like Big Rock beers. Only problem is that its in Calgary... and my girlfriend will be in Edmonton. Its only a 3 hr drive to Edmonton... but still, I'd like to live with her.

Anyway, my priority goes 1) craft beer job in Edmonton, 2) industrial beer job in Edmonton, 3) craft/regional brew job in Calgary, 4) non-brewing job in Edmonton, 5) unemployed alcoholic bum.

Unless I can get some sort of craft brewery consultation thing going on where I can travel around out of Edmonton, that is.

Ok, well thats what going on with me these days. I'm also writing a big literature review. Fun.

Cheers!

Importance of a Full Wort Boil

2008-03-21T18:44:00.004-06:00

Wort boiling is a critical control point in brewing. In the past before taking this brewing course I wasn't fully aware of how important it really is. So much so, that I'll write an entire blog post about it. I’m concentrating on evaporation and protein removal for the most part, as I think these are the least understood part of the process.

First, what is a full boil? It seems to be accepted that a boil of at least 60 minutes is required for the following actions to sufficiently occur. I know some brewers only do 45 minute boils and I would recommend against this, as it can affect flavour in the final beer as I will describe in detail. As well, the wort must actually be fully boiling a "rolling boil" with two-phase nucleate boiling where steam bubbles pass through the wort.
A summary of the achievements of wort boiling:

Requirement: Dependant Conditions
Wort sterilization: Time & Temperature
Isomerisation of hops: Time & Temperature
Protein denaturation & enzyme inactivation: Time & Temperature
Protein coagulation: Turbulence, boil vigour & time
Formation of colour & flavour components: Time & Temperature
Removal of unwanted volatiles: Time, Temperature & Evaporation
Formation of reducing agents: Time & Temperature
Wort concentration by evaporation: Time, Temperature & Evaporation
Adapted from reference J. Andrews, Brewer Distiller Int. 2008 (ref 2)

Evaporation
A lot of brewers measure the amount of boil by the amount of evaporation that has occurred. This is a fairly easy metric, as one just needs to measure the volume of the kettle before and after the boil. However, evaporating water into steam is very energetically expensive. We cannot, however, drive off unwanted volatile components without a certain amount of evaporation. What we want to evaporate is volatile off-flavour components such as DMS and aldehydes.

Dimethyl sulphide (DMS), an off flavour component that forms during the boil from S-methylmethionine (SMM), is quite volatile at wort boiling temperatures. Given enough time, say 60 minutes of boiling, DMS should be formed and driven off enough to bring it below the detectable flavour threshold. During boiling we're basically distilling the DMS out, as it is more volatile than water. However, you must evaporate some water in order to do this. The amount of water needed to evaporate is dependent on the concentration of DMS that you need to get rid of. The more DMS in the wort, the more water you need to evaporate. There is a minimum amount of water that you need to get rid of certain concentration of DMS, regardless of what type of wort boiling system you are using [ref 1].

In the “perfect boiling system”, the boil would run at the optimal liquid-vapour equilibrium to have as little water evaporated possible for the maximal volatile removal. This would save energy. Boiling systems do not run at this optimal point, of course… but imagine the energy savings over a year if you could reduce your evaporation by a few percentage points? It would be very significant [see ref 2 for a good read on this].

Luckily, most malts stored properly and mashed with proper procedures don't create too much DMS to require extra boil lengths. The potential for DMS formation occurs in the malting process, and is generally higher for lager malts. Breweries these days are operating on evaporation rates of 4-8%, which should be enough to drive off 'normal' amounts of DMS. If you have problems with DMS in the brewery, you might need a slightly longer boil (careful, though - microbial infection can lead to DMS problems downstream too).

Wort concentration – what of this then? It would seem that if it were possible to boil wort with less evaporation, you could save a lot of money. You could re-calculate your mash recipe to have less-dilute wort being passed to the kettle. But don’t mistake what I’m saying here as an excuse to turn down your steam jacket and let the wort simmer. To get extremely low evaporation rates with good volatile removal plus hot break formation, you need a more expensive boiling system or even a wort stripping system. For your little kettle, you need as vigorous a boil as possible, and I’ll tell you why…

Hot-break Formation
One of the most important reactions that occurs in the wort boil is the formation of "hot break". Hot break is the coagulation of proteins, formation of protein-polyphenol complexes, and reaction with hop compounds to create larger particles that will sediment out in the whirlpool at the end of the boil. These reactions occur at higher rates at higher temperatures and more agitation. This is why your wort boil must be full and rolling... the more vigorous and turbulent the boil, the more of these compounds form over time. This process maximizes around two hours.

Protein/nitrogenous compounds are required for fermentation, but there must be a balance. Too few and the fermentation will become stuck, too many and several changes in flavour will be noted. In particular, in the presence of excessive protein content can lead to higher levels of esters and higher (fusel) alcohols. This occurs when the yeast metabolizes the excess amino acids to form higher alcohols (eg propanol, butanol), which then can be further converted to various esters (eg ethyl acetate, isoamyl acetate). Higher alcohols give the beer a slight warming feeling (and seem to give me a bit of a headache), and esters are known for their fruity/floral contributions to beer. This can be good if this is what you want in the beer style you are making, but if your Czech pilsner tastes like a fruity English ale you might want to check your boil vigour.

As well, removal of protein-polyphenol complexes is important for colloidal stability over time (known as chill haze). Improperly stabilized beer can find reduced shelf-life as it can go cloudy when stored cold due to these complexes. Most of this should happen while the beer is in cold conditioning. While some will form in hot-break, the key here is that we are removing lots of protein from the equation. Less protein means less possibility to complex with polyphenols in the chilled beer.

Stability, Colour, Flavour
In a full boil, any microbe interested in living in beer will be killed. Several organisms can actually survive the mashing process, so the wort must be sterilized before fermentation.

Usually when mashing the temperature is raised at the end of the mash to 75-78 C in order to make the wort less viscous and stop the amylase enzymes from working. However, some enzymes are not fully denatured until the boil. As well, the many chemical reactions that occur during the boil will lower the pH. Maillard reaction products form between the wort sugars and amino acids when heated in the boil. These reactions contribute to flavours as well as darken the wort slightly.

Hop Isomerisation
A lot of attention is given to the isomerisation of hop alpha-acids in wort, and you can find much better information than my little blurb here.

Alpha-acid oils in hops need to be heated to isomerise, which causes them to be soluble in wort and creates the bitter flavour we love in beer. In a ‘typical’ boil, one cannot expect to get much more than 35% by weight iso-alpha-acid extraction from even pellet hops over 90 minutes. Often, this can be less depending on wort concentration, pH, and wort boiling temperature (ambient air pressure can change wort boiling temp quite significantly, eg due to altitude).

You will note that this is a time/temperature reaction… there seems to me to be a prevailing idea in the homebrewing community that as soon as you stop the boil the hop isomerisation stops. Not so… these will continue as long as the wort is hot, however at a lower reaction rate depending on the resting temp.

Hops also contain a great deal of volatile flavour and aroma compounds. The longer the hops are boiled for, of course, the more of these components are boiled off. Thus, adding the hops at the end of the boil will result in more of these volatiles being present. Remember, of course, that just because the wort may not be currently boiling does not mean volatiles are not being driven off. If the wort is hot, the volatiles will still be vaporizing slowly.

---References & Further Reading---
[1] Sommer, K. & Hertel, M. Engineering fundamentals of the wort boiling process. 31st Congress of the EBC, Venice.

[2] Andrews, J. Evaporating the Myths. Brewer & Distiller International (vol 4, #3, March 2008)

Bamforth, C.W. Wort composition and beer quality. In: Brewing Yeast Fermentation Performance. Ed: K. Smart. Blackwell Science, 2003.

Barnes, Z.C. Brewing Process Control, In: Handbook of Brewing, 2nd Ed. Eds: FG Priest & GG Stewart. Taylor & Francis, 2006.

O’Rourke, T. The funcation of wort boiling. The Brewer International, Feb 2002.

Scotch fermented over peat, eh...

2008-03-19T10:02:00.004-06:00

One of the things that a geek of any discipline loves to sometimes do is get annoyed when they read something that is completely wrong, and then complain about the ignorance to fact on their low-readership blog to make themselves feel smart (or to waste time when they should be doing real work)...
All of that is true of this post I am writing. The geek topic? Distilling. The thing I read that caused me to divert my productivity? An articles that appeared in The Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin entitled Heres what sets Irish Whiskeys apart.

In particular, this statement by local pub manager and whiskey expert David Drake, quoted from the article:

"Scotch whiskys are fermented over peat fires in open-top casks, which enables the peat smoke to permeate the liquid," says Drake. "Irish whiskeys, most of which are blends, are always distilled in closed containers. This keeps out the flavor of smoke, and a triple-distillation process adds greater smoothness and refinement to Irish whiskeys."

Its unclear weather maybe he was misquoted or if hes just misinformed, but the statement just doesn't make any sense. Lets review the distilling process to see why that is:

1) Malted barley is produced from barley (obviously). Traditionally, in Scotland anyway, the malted barley is dried by heating the air with fires of burning peat moss. The malt retains the highly flavour-active compounds from the burning peat, which will eventually carry through to the final spirit after distillation. In modern production, small amounts of malt are peated in this way, but a lot of malt is dried with gas furnaces.

2) The malted barley is ground up and mixed with hot water in whats called a mash. Just like in brewing, the purpose of the mash is to use the natural enzymatic power of the malt to break down starch to fermentable sugar for yeast to convert to alcohol.

3) Wort produced from the mash is cooled and yeast added, and the fermentation begins. Yeast convert the sugar to alcohol. This is done in large vats (and there are no fired burning under them).

4) After the fermentation, the 'wash' (as it is now called after fermentation) is distilled in pot or column stills depending on what type of product is being produced (malt Scotch is done in double pot stills).

Ok, now back to the problem with the statement. The first problem is that he claims during scotch fermentation peat fires burning under casks add the peaty flavours. That's just not true, you don't burn a fire under a fermentation, that's ridiculous. So, that means that perhaps the author wrote fermentation when he should have written distillation. So the claim in that case would then be that Scotch whisky is distilled using burning peat fires for heat. Unfortunately most distilleries use steam jackets/coils to heat their stills. So no smoke during distillation. Even if the heat was supplied by peat fires to the stills, there would be no permeation into the liquid, as all stills are in fact closed.

So perhaps I'm being a little picky, and I'm unsure if the expert is wrong or if the article author just wrote it wrong... but in any case the only thing I really want to point out is where the peat character comes from in peaty Scotches:
It comes from the malt production, which happens before fermentation, before distillation, and before aging in oak. Not in distillation, not in fermentation, and not in aging.

There were some other false statements in the article, but nothing I'm going to bother writing about... I should probably get back to work...

Cheers!

Why I want to work in the craft beer industry

2008-03-17T08:51:00.003-06:00

Theres always a little debate going on with me and my fellow classmates here in the MSc program here sometimes. On one side, I hear a lot of advice telling me that I should try to get a job with a large brewery like Labatt back home. On the other side, I hear a lot of advice telling me I should stick to my desires to work for a small craft brewery or in the small craft industry in some way. I think I have this worked out myself, and here are my thoughts:

Goliath
Working for a large brewery has some certain advantages. Mostly financial, as they would be able to afford to pay me a pretty good salary plus benefits. Second, they usually have pretty good training programs so I would learn a lot. Third, theres usually a bit of security and upward mobility possible. But this all comes at a cost... I wouldn't be able to take pride in the product I produce. Not just because I don't generally enjoy macro-style lagers, but also because I'd be playing such a small part in the overall production. In addition, I've worked for larger companies in the past and I was never really all that happy with how I felt working at such places -- not because they treated people badly at all, just because there was this impending air of everything being somebody else's job.

vs David
Working for the small craft brewery works for me, then, almost just because they are not big. If there is a problem I can talk directly to the boss. My boss wouldn't have a boss with a boss with another boss who reports to the CEO. I don't want to be a small cog in a big system. I want to take pride in the product I literally make myself. I don't just want to "do my job" then go home, collect my pay cheque, and wait for somebody else to make all the big decisions. I want to have the opportunity to makes things better. I want to be brewing one day, filtering the next, and helping sales another day. I don't want to look at a computer screen all day analysing extract efficiency.

Some pegs just don't fit...
I think it takes a certain personality to work for a small company in general. You have to be somebody who can work as a very flexible part of a team. Somebody who really believes in the product being produced. Somebody who believes that getting a decent pay cheque isn't enough to be satisfied with your job. Somebody who wants to feel special by being part of something unique. Somebody who likes the excitement of the risk involved. That kind of thing isn't for everybody, and that's fine. But I think its for me.

So, where am I going to work?
I've started browsing around for possible jobs. My only real problem is that I want to stay in Edmonton, Alberta to be with my girlfriend (plus I still own a condo there). That does tend to limit my possibilities quite a bit, but there are three craft breweries (one I used to work at), one defunct craft brewery with equipment getting dusty, and a brew pub. I'm not back until almost 6 months from now, which is a long time for a small brewery to wait for me. Hopefully somebody needs me around October though!

And if I don't get a job?
I've been considering other possible career options too... If I can sell myself as a brewery consultant to small breweries that would be great, as I could live in Edmonton but travel around to clients. There are lots of very small craft breweries and start ups that don't have the proper technical knowledge to efficiently produce and distribute beer (or even create decent tasting beer in some cases). There is a big difference from making beer on your stove at home and making it for profit even in a small brewery. While I only have a year and a half experience working at a craft brewery, my MSc in Brewing should go quite a long way in convincing people that I know what I'm talking about. This is an industry, however, that puts a lot of weight in solid experience it seems (and for good reason, honestly). So I'm a little cautious as I wouldn't want to over sell myself.

Opening a brewery?
So, if anybody just happens to be opening a brewery and needs an experienced, educated, technical brewer to help start it up, give me an email ;)
Hell, I might even be able to drum up some investment capital...

Cheers!

Comments on "Guinness Holiday"

2008-03-17T07:39:00.005-06:00

For the past few years now it seems Guinness has been trying to make St. Patty's Day a national holiday in the USA (and I remember it in Canada too). I've never really agreed with this idea. The main reason? Its just a well-crafted marketing campaign. They get to look like the heroes fighting for your right to party... and people buy more Guinness. Really, its in their best interest that the holiday doesn't pass, as then they can do the same campaign next year.

What if St. Patty's day was a US or Canadian holiday? Maybe it could be "Sponsored by Guinness", the first corporate sponsored holiday. There are costs to holidays, too... we have to pay government employees extra for coming into work, businesses may have to pay time +1/2 to their staff, plus all the time/money wasted debating the subject in the various governments.

The other thing to consider is what St. Patty's day has become in North America... it seems to me that its just a big drink-as-much-as-possible festival. Now I obviously like drinking my beer, but I don't agree with ridiculous over-consumption. A holiday on St. Patty's day, lets face it, would bring the worst out of people.

Cheers

Fighting the good fight

2008-03-12T12:05:00.003-06:00

I've just read a good story from the LA Times about the poor folks in Alabama fighting for change to horribly restrictive liquor laws surrounding beer. Basically, the fearful scripture-interpreting Southern Baptists have been able to keep liquor laws in that state quite restrictive -- no homebrew, no beers above 6% abv. Looks like things are changing slowly, however. Give it a read and be thankful that you live somewhere that allows freedom of choice (unless you live somewhere more restrictive, that is...)

Cheers

Official Beer?

2008-03-11T04:34:00.003-06:00

It seems, according to this article, that someone wants to make Budweiser the official beer of Missouri.

The reasoning? Well, "We've got a state dinosaur, a state frog, a state reptile, a state flower, a state nut, but no one has given a thought to a company that's been in Missouri for many, many years and is bringing prosperity to our state and manufacturing a product in our state that many people enjoy". The result would be, hopefully, that more people would be inclined to visit the state.

Ok... but why does anything need an "official" anything at all? What does officiality do? Well we see it at the olympics... companies pay dearly for the right to market themselves as the official whatever. But a state? Having an official animal (while I think is silly anyway) is different than having an official multi-billion dollar corporation's product. Does having an official state frog written on paper, voted into law, make people want to go to Missouri? "Honey, where should we go for vacation... hmm... OH look at this, Missouri has a state frog! Lets go see it!" I'd argue that it doesn't. So why should having an official beer do the same?

What about other businesses in the state that have been around for a long time and bring prosperity? Oh, and 77% of Missourians are Christian... perhaps that could be the official religion?

I think the idea is a good example of what 'lawmakers' do to try and make themselves look useful when they don't want to tackle bigger problems. Like when you're supposed to be studying for an exam and you find any menial task to avoid it... perhaps by writing a blog post on something that you wouldn't normally care about...
...on that note, I guess I have to get back to studying.

Cheers!

Lo.key's new album

2008-03-04T09:24:00.001-07:00

Leif has put out a new album. I haven't listened to it yet, but you ought to go here and download it and enjoy it.

Inside Scottish Distilling

2008-02-29T01:00:00.004-07:00

This term in "beer school" we're learning all about distilling. And since my university is in Scotland, most of what we learn is about Scotch whisky. I've knows a bit about whisky for some time now, but only what I've been told from other people. Some of it was right, some of it wrong. The amount I've learned in the last few weeks has been quite phenomenal. Most of it was what you'd expect... distilleries, oak casks, maturation, etc. Whisky is a product that has a long history and is surrounded by some romanticism... but certainly its an industry that has also had to grow and adapt to make a profitable business. So the unfortunate part about learning the depths of the distilling industry is you also have some of that romanticism shattered. I would say, however, that a lot in the Scotch industry is still done quite traditionally... more so than other industries.

Anyway, I digress, as the real point of this story is to tell you about some places we're recently visited on class trips. We've visited a couple of distilleries of course. But thats not what I want to talk about. Distilleries are interesting, but they are usually open to the public. I'm going to talk about some locations that few people get to see: a copper smiths where they make the stills, a cooperage where they make the oak barrels, and a huge warehouse where they age the whisky. All three are out near Alloa, NW of Edinburgh on the edge of the highlands.

First, a little background story. All three locations are owned by Diageo, a company that produces many premium alcoholic beverage brands. As far as Scotch goes, they own 28 distilleries in Scotland (about 1/3). Talisker, Carol Ila, Glenkinchie, Lagavulin, and many other single malts are all part of their family. Most Scotch, however, is blended into brands such as J&B and Johnnie Walker (which they also own).

Diageo is quite supportive of the brewing & distilling program here, and have been very kind to give us tours of many of their sites. Diageo is quite well vertically integrated, owning all three places we visited. The first place was a copper smiths where we were quite privileged to see just how copper stills are made.

Copper smiths: two new stills! (Click any photo for a larger version!)

A still is, basically, a big boil kettle that evaporates alcohol then condenses the alcohol-rich vapour. Most Scottish malt distilleries use two stills... the first to strip the wash (beer at about 7-8% abv) of its alcohol and flavour compounds. This creates the low wines (a liquid of about 25% abv), which is then distilled in the second still to approximately 70% abv. Most stills are made of copper, which reacts with sulphur to remove it from the product. The result of this is that the stills need to be replaced every 10 years or so. The Abercrombie Copper smiths do just this for all of Diageo's distilleries.

Putting together shell-and-tube condensers that will one day cool new spirit from vapour to liquid.

The construction of a still starts with the welding of copper plates together, followed sometimes by a machine hammering to get the basic shape. The final shape is all pounded in by hand, which is still the best way to do it as it turns out. Needless to say, the shop we visited was quite noisy! At the shop they were producing 14 new stills for a new distillery that will come online next year. Stills are designed to a very specific shape... a small change in design can change the final spirit character. They have to work to exacting specifications. It was very interesting to see where stills are born, it certainly looked like a lot of work.

Foreground: the bottom of a new still in production.

Oak barrels are another key to the whisky industry. By law, all Scotch has to be produced in Scotland and aged for at least three years in barrels less than 700 L in volume. Oak barrels come second-hand from two sources: the American whisky industry (bourbon), and Europe (wine/sherry/etc). A cooper is a highly skilled tradesman that can build these barrels, which consist of staves (thick wood strips) bent into shape and held together with metal rings. The nature of the wood and the compression between the staves results in a liquid-tight seal (although alcohol and water can evaporate through the cask over time).

1) Bunched staves as they arrive from overseas. 2) A cooper placing the staves back together to create the appropriate sized barrel.

The oak barrels are broken down into the staves, packed on a shipping skid, and shipped over to Scotland. The coopers here put them back together. In traditional cooperages this is all done by hand, but the location we visited was machine assisted (its still a really hard job though!). Casks are charred with a flame on the inside to release wood flavour compounds (and create a layer of carbon that will absorb undesirable compounds from the whisky).

1) The cooper tightens the staves with a machine to place the upper hoop on. 2) casks are steamed to expand the wood, and charred for flavouring.

Inside a charred barrel.

Once the barrels are put back together, newly charred ones are sent off for "sherrying". Now I'll tell you, this is where one of the romantic 'myths' about Scotch that I had heard was refuted right in front of my eyes. The story goes that oak cask with sherry from Spain are shipped to Scotland, where the sherry is removed and bottled for consumption, and the barrels are used for Scotch maturation. Not so. They have a big tank of sherry... they fill the newly charred casks with sherry... they let it age for three months... then they empty the sherry back into the sherry tank (through a filter). They can use the same sherry batch for about 8 or 9 years. Yes, that is what they do.
Unfortunately, they don't allow you to take photos in any area that has ethanol floating around in the air, so you'll have to take my word for it (and lets face it, it makes more sense than shipping these casks all over the place).

1) A machine to help place the lid in the cask. 2) A machine to push down the metal rings that keeps the wood tight together.

The purpose of adding the sherry to the cask is a little bit different that I had thought, too. The main purpose of the sherry is to remove some character from a newly charred cask. Otherwise, the character of the wood would overpower the distillery character of the whisky over the maturation time. Apparently it doesn't add colour, that comes from the char and the wood.

Finished casks!

Moving on, the third place we were privileged to see was the Blackgrange warehouse. Blackgrange houses about 3.5 million casks of whisky. In duty owed in taxes alone, its about 10 billion pounds sterling. Needless to say... its HUGE. They have very strict regulations too... you can't bring anything that could possibly contain liquid on site, you can't bring matches or lighters, nor cell phones, nor cameras. They are quite paranoid about any accident.

Anyway, there are three key parts to this operation. First, tanker trucks from carrying new make spirit from the distilleries arrive and their contents are pumped to vats. The new make spirit is diluted to usually 63% for aging to get the ideal flavour reactions with the oak wood. New make is horrid stuff, I wouldn't drink it. This is one reason you age for at least three years! The new make is then pumped into casks, sealed with a bung, and carted off to be placed in a massive warehouse. Every cask is bar coded... they know where every cask in that place is!

After aging, casks are brought out from storage and disgorged (emptied). This is done along a troph... simply take out the bung, stick an air tube in the hole (for faster emptying), and turn it upside down. This isn't a terribly sanitary operation, but nothing going to grow in a strong alcohol solution anyway! The whisky is pumped into a big tank, mixed with air for an hour or so, then pumped into tanker trucks. The trucks head off to the packaging facility, where the whisky is filtered, diluted to sales strength (usually 40-45% abv) and bottled!

I think I've rambled on about this enough for now; its hard to convey the enlightenment I've gained in the last few weeks into a small amount of space. If you want to see more photos you can check out my flickr set at http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianwestcott/sets/72157603996924944/

Cheers!

Why do all new records sound the same?

2008-02-27T16:22:00.003-07:00

I've been learning a lot about audio engineering this week, and was fascinated to discover that something I thought about modern music was essentially true: that a lot of it does, indeed, all sound the same.
This article can explain it a lot better than I can, and you should read it.

What it all comes down to is the 'loudness war', which is another interesting topic that you should read about. Basically, pretty much everything you're going to hear on the radio and on most popular CDs is as LOUD as possible. This leads to a reduced dynamic range (which is the difference between the loudest and quietest parts of a song) as well as distortion in the sound.

Anyway, read the links for yourself, as they are far more informative that I could ever be. And stop listening to the shitty loud commercial radio stations in your local city. But thats a different topic...

Coming soon: We've just visited a cooperage (place where they make oak barrels for the scotch whisky industry), a coppersmiths (where they make the stills) and the Blackgrange fucking huge whisky warehouse (where Diageo stores all the scotch for aging)... so expect a write up on all of that soon.
Cheers!

I music too

2008-02-21T16:30:00.004-07:00

So in addition to going to beer school, when I'm not studying (which is often, sadly) I sometimes make some mixes in Ableton Live.... here is one such mix. Its not really for 'dancing' or whatever, its really just stuff that I thought sounded good mixed together. Sofar the response has been quite positive. Here is the link to the mp3 (1 hr long):
Click here for the mix

And, if you're interested, here is the tracklist.

I also have another mix from a long time ago that is entirely made of Amon Tobin samples... click here for it.

Anyway, thats all for now.
Cheers

Three Sheets to the Wind

2008-02-19T16:17:00.003-07:00

When I was in Cambridge for the cask ale festival last month I took a day to wander the city (photos here). During that wander, I happened upon a book store. Within that book store, a colorful book with a pint of beer on the front caught my eye. The title was instantly interesting to me, "Three Sheets to the Wind: One man's quest for the meaning of beer". Wow, sounds like just the book for me, right? Who wrote this?! "Pete Brown", eh? ... that name sounds familiar... where have I heard it before... hmmm...

OH YEAH... he was of course the guy who wrote "A man walks into a pub: a sociable history of beer", a book which I enjoyed a little too much (perhaps because reading it made me want to drink beer more than usual, or perhaps because it solidified my beer-nerdedness foundation even more). So I'm sold on this new book for sure.

I'll spare you a "full" book review for now, since I'm only 15/19ths done, aside from a quick synopsis: Pete travels the world's beer-drinkingest countries to examine the socio-cultural aspects of beer (the word 'socio-cultural' implies something boring, but this is arguably the most interesting socio-cultural thing that has ever existed). Pete's writing style is relaxed and informal, just like he was telling you a story while at the pub. Lots of humor (sometimes subtle, my favorite kind) and some excellent interesting observations of drinking culture around the world. There is a general theme that I love, which was presented in his last book as well... further confirmation that there are people out there that think about beer the way I do, as more than just an alcohol delivery method. A beverage that can (and should) taste good, that can bring people together for a chat, that can help remove the walls we put up around ourselves, that can help celebrate the wins... and mourn the losses. This book shows how people around the world do just this.

So unless the last 4/19ths of the book are shite, I will be recommending this to beer nerds everywhere (although I think its quite applicable to anybody in the general population too -- I'm certain to force my girlfriend to read it to understand what I think beer.. ."is").
Oh, and it turns out Pete Brown has a blog here.

And just because I can, here is a recent photo for no reason whatsoever:

Cheers!

Pilot Brewery at Heriot-Watt University / ICBD

2008-02-11T16:54:00.000-07:00

So its about time I posted some photos of the pilot brewery here at school. Its basically a 200 L system custom made just for the school for training purposes. These photos and more can be viewed by clicking on them or as part of this set.

The brewhouse. In front is a mash filter, a common device in larger breweries. There is also a lauder tun, which is a bit more traditional. In the middle to the back is the mash mixer / boil kettle, and a cereal cooker beside it to the left.

Mash mixer / boil kettle. The boil kettle is fitter with an external calandria, which I think is pretty much the best available wort boiling method if you can afford it.

In the front are some cold conditioning tanks, flanked by the fermenters. Everything is glycol jacketed and the fermenters have heaters too.

Nice small plate heat exchanger.

A taken-apart sheet filter. The beer produced here isn't usually meant to be sterile. It doesn't have to last more than a few weeks usually, so nothing fancy is needed.

A wall of bottles from around the world, mostly from former brewing students I believe... can you spot the Alley Kat Barley Wine bottle? Thats the brewery I used to work at in Edmonton.

Fucking old bottles... the Bass bottle says it was brewed in 1869!!

There is also a pilot distillery. This is the spirit still, with a bubble cap distillation column attached to it.

Well, thats it for this update. Enjoy the photos.
Cheers

Ely Photos

2008-02-07T17:13:00.000-07:00

Just a link to my set of photos on flickr from Ely, near Cambridge, in England.

Here are a couple:

(Touchdown!!)

Vertical Stitch of cathedral.

Brewing to Style

2008-02-07T17:03:00.000-07:00

Just a short thought about brewing beer to a style (say, from the BJCP guide). Basically: don't bother with it once you're marginally proficient at creating recipes. Make "beer". Be creative and don't limit yourself to whatever guidelines exist from style guides, see what comes out.

Unless, of course, you are trying to re-create a beer you like... but why are you doing that? You can buy that beer... make a new one that is your own!

Perhaps I'm just feeling out of the box tonight with no real outlet for it... either way...
Cheers.

Dark Island & Cambridge Photos

2008-02-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

I was pleased to learn this week that the campus student pub will be serving bottles of Dark Island from Orkney. I'll actually be able to go there and have a decent beer now.

I've fallen quite ill in the last few days, which has limited my ability to post reasonable blog postings, finish my assignments, and generally be useful. So I'll be short today and just post some photos from my Cambridge trip:

More Ruralish Scotland Photos

2008-01-30T14:08:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty backed up with publishing photos, so I do a few per day these days. Sunday two weeks ago I want on a hike in the area around Heriot-Watt, here are a few more photos from that hike...

I've been playing around with de-saturating photos these days, I like the effect it creates I think. Its like a compromise between B&W and colour.

More about Cambridge tomorrow I hope!
Cheers

Cambrige Winter Cask Ale Festival

2008-01-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

It was a little daunting walking into the packed room, as there was almost no room to move between the crowd. I have to admit I'm not too fond of crowds, so I was getting a little ansy. But my resolve held, and I forced my way toward the bar. For I was here at my very first CAMRA cask ale festival in the UK, and nothing was going to stop me at this point. I waited about 5 minutes to be served, at which point I randomly selected a half of Bartram's Marld.
Long story short: I had a great time. However, I wasn't terribly impressed by most of the beers I had... Now before I get murdered, let me qualify the second claim, after which I will make the short story long.

I said that I wasn't impressed by most of the beers that I had. Thats not to mean that there were no good beers there, its just that bad luck and bad timing resulted in me not getting to drink them. We arrived around 16:45 on the very last day of the festival, and at this point a lot of casks were empty. I assume that word spread about the best beers and those ran out quickly. One point against me for timing.

Second point against me... while we had a beer menu, it really was like shooting for fish while ordering a half of beer. I'd hear about a good one, or read something on the menu that I liked, but by the time I got a chance to order it was already out. So I'd end up ordering whatever was still on. Sometimes that didn't work out so well. Not that I really had any BAD beers, I just didn't have anything that really stuck out as awesome.

I do recall later in the night having one that did stick out as quite nice, that being Rhymney Dark from Merthyr Tydfil, Mid Glamorgan. Like I said, it was later in the night. But I had just finished an unfortunate bout of a couple of halves of heavier beers, and this at 4% abv was quite a nice change. Not only that, it was a nice easy to drink dark beer (I stop short of saying it was a stout or a porter, it was just a nice dark beer). I wish I was able to try a full pint, but alas, when I went to buy the round they were out. I instead ordered a full pint of some 7% dark beer that I can't recall nor find on my beer menu, but it was acceptable, even if it did reduce my sobriety quite a bit.

The first beer of the night was pretty decent as well: Bartrams Marld from Ipswitch, Suffolk. While I didn't take specific notes on this beer either, I recall it being a solid English bitter. Quite a bit of hop flavour if I recall correctly... and I do know at the end I was a little put off actually by some flavour unfortunately. I had trouble placing it, it didn't last into the aftertaste (which gave my mouth that lovely hoppy taste I love). I really liked it at first, I don't know what happened at the end there.

Now I know I'm being quite a horrible beer reporter by not taking notes on each beer I drink. Fact is I was concentrating on socialization for the night, really. I was there to have fun, and like I said, nothing really stuck out as unique and better than any beer in recent memory (I'm sure I'll get a few comments to the effect of "what the bloody hell are you talking about, there was X and Y and Z you wanker!" but lets not forget that I didn't try (or have the chance to try) most of the beer there).

I had headed down from Edinburgh to Cambridge with my friend and co-brewing-student Simon, not only to drink beer, but to also visit my friends Melissa and Jon as well as see the beautiful city again. We arrived at the beer festival at quarter to five or so. After a couple of beers we mozied downstairs to see the sights. The fun of the evening really started up when my small female companion, Melissa, managed to squeeze her way into a small table. I came over and joined for awhile, happy to have a place to rest for awhile. Its at this point that we met Valerie, Mike, Bruce, and Kevin. Valerie was also from Canada visiting Mike but moving on soon. Mike was a postdoc doing... something I unfortunately forget. Bruce was a pig farmer and sausage maker from somewhere near wales. And Kevin was ... seemingly a decent bloke I never got much chance to talk to, other than try his good dry cider he had found. All around, a great fun crowd to add to ours.

The night carried on as nights do with new friends; the beer flowing, the conversation changing from the mundane slowly toward the ridiculous. The cameras come out and an outrageous amount of digital film is 'wasted'. I have many other cool photos beyond what I've publicly displayed on my flickr set, but I tend not to publish photos of people I know without their permission. The whole night really reminded me of how things worked when I backpacked around Europe in 2003... there are friends everywhere, you just need to meet them and drink a few beers. Beer as the great socializer.
Eventually my memories of the night become hazy, which makes it hard to relay the information of what happened...

I think we left the event around 8:30 pm or so, with most of the beer being gone by this point besides beers > 7.5%. As much as I'd like to try them, I don't think I could handle much more at that point.

My friend and I had a pint at a pub on the way back, after which I intended to write my girlfriend back in Canada a nice long love e-letter like I often do while in that state, but after laying down I realized that getting up was not an option.

In the end, it was a hell of a time. In the next installment: my 7 hr walk around Cambridge and the photos I took while doing that.

(Yep, thats me!)
In the end, I fell like ass the next day, but not too bad.

Cheers!

What if two clones fell in love?

2008-01-29T13:26:00.001-07:00

Wouldn't that take homosexuality to a new level?

Cambridge Travels 1

2008-01-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

So this weekend I took a wee jaunt down to Cambridge to visit with some friends, see the beautiful city (again) and hit up the CAMRA Winter Ales festival. I was disappointed by almost nothing... the weather was excellent both days, I didn't spend too much money, I took lots of photos (423 to be exact), and tried some interesting beers. Unfortunately we were there on the last day, and by about 8 pm pretty much all the beer was gone except the 8-11% stuff (and I really couldn't have too much more (don't worry though, mother, I was a good boy as always (yes, my mother reads my blog))).

I'll do a write-up on [what I remember of] the beer festival in a day or two, as I have about 30 min to get about an hour worth of chores done since I just got home. And why am I home so late you ask, interested as always for an answer? Well, let me regale you with a tale of woe I've only heard about in British rail system lore...

I took Monday off school to spend all day Sunday exploring Cambridge taking photos. I think I got some pretty good ones, by the way, which I shall eventually publish on flickr. So Monday morning I booked a set of trains leaving at 10:33, arriving in Edinburgh at 15:30 or so. First problem: in Peterbrough apparently there was something wrong with the reservation system, so all seat reservations were canceled. Luckily the train was only about 1/2 full so the annoyance was minor. I ended up sitting by an interesting gentleman traveling home from Melbourne to Edinburgh. I regret not catching his name before the events that occur soon.

Carrying on, just past Newcastle the train stops. Not uncommon, I suppose. I read my book (new book from Pete Brown, who writes about beer and I really like his style, I'll write a review one day... but I digress) for awhile and realized that about 20 minutes had passed while we were stopped and people were getting fussy. The conductor by this point announces that there are problems with the overhead wires up ahead, and they have no clue about what this will mean for our future overland transportation. 30 min... 40 min... after 45 minutes they announce that we are returning to Newcastle station... we'll be put on buses that will take us to a station further on, where we will catch a train to Edinburgh.

I forget the name of the town we took the bus to, but it was a bit of a zoo with a train of people getting onto buses. After a one hour bus ride, I ponder if I should just head into the local to get a pint and a bite to eat, since I believed this whole powerline outage was going to completely mess up the entire north-south train system and we might be there awhile. I was right, however I did not go to the pub. We stood at the station for about an hour (oh, its about 17:50 now, by the way)... a high speed northbound train passed through the station at some point... a little demoralizing, to say the least. Eventually a train comes, and we arrive in Edinburgh at around 6:30, almost 3 hours late. Well, at least rush hour is over...

In anycase, it turns out that if we were on the express train before us, it would have been fine. If we were on the express train after us, we would have been late (actually, as far as I can tell the train we boarded was the train after ours) but we wouldn't have had to get off and bus it. I figure they started busing us then the wire problem was fixed, so we just got caught in "emergency broken response".
To add insult to people traveling to Aberdeen, though, they canceled the service past Edinburgh. Ha.

Apparently there was a bloke trying to travel all the way to the Shetland islands today and certainly he missed his ferry. I hope the National Express put that guy up in a hotel!

Anyway... ok I wrote too much about the train, so now I should end this excerpt of my weekend travels. More tomorrow... in theory.

Cheers!