The Imported-Beer Hoax

The source I listed above doesn't actually specify whether it was a well or not. You raise an excellent point. Flavor-wise, I've played with 350-500, and the panelists seemed to prefer 500.

 

Jack, the Trent River has mineral content, but the higher mineral source is the Mercia Mudstone that underlays the sand and gravel the river and the Treant and Mercy canal. The deep wells will get more minerals, except some shallow wells will be high on the margins of the valley where the sand and gravel are not deep.

Look at Martin's historic water talk from the Philly NHC for more data and depictions of the valley geology.

@Peter_Wolfe 500 ppm will get into the Marston's Pedigree "Burton Snatch" range, you can smell the sulfate.

 

Jeff, that is discussed in his Zymurgy article which I just re-read a few minutes ago before I made the above post.

Cheers!

 

I found the presentation quicker.

I posted as it is the Trent River, Burton on Trent is the town. 638 ppm is from a well or an average.

If the SO4 goes too high, >800 ppm as listed for some of the wells, it has a laxative effect.

 

My experience was different. I had the opportunity to experience a side by side tasting of Bremen brewed Becks and the St. Louis brewed counterpart.
They were nearly identical.

 

Jeff, Martin Brungard addressed the issue of some of the wells (e.g., deep wells) having too much mineralization and how the brewers dealt with it; in short dilution.

“Given the high mineralization of the deep aquifer, it is apparent that dilution would be required to produce quality beers. The historic and current results from the deep aquifer can show very high sodium, sulfate, or chloride. Current brewing practice confirms that brewing with ion concentrations that high would adversely affect the resulting beer. Dilution was necessary and easily achieved with river water. Analytical testing was not readily available to those historic brewers; however their palate should have been sufficient in guiding their dilution needs.”

There seems to be a thought among some homebrewers to just replicate published water source mineral profiles at certain geographic locations but this misses the point that brewers could and would take steps to ‘manage’ their local water to produce quality beer. IMO, Martin Brungard is wise to illustrate this fact in his numerous water articles in Zymurgy (Burton upon Trent, Dublin, Bavaria, London).

Cheers to Martin Brungard!

 

Your observations make sense to me particularly in light of the information posted by @Peter_Wolfe in a past thread:

“Beck's is still managed by the Bremen folks. It is being brewed in St Louis also, but the Bremen folks handle the taste approvals, etc. (we ship them samples from St Louis continually). It uses their yeast, obviously, and a special lower protein German style malt we make specifically for Beck's to match their malt profile.”

Cheers!

 

I live by the River Trent and believe me you wouldn't consider it as a source of brewing water!

Becks has made much of the fact that it is brewed with English malt.