Goose Island Bourbon County beers to be pasteurized in 2016

You can bet there will be. You can't have it both ways these days though on large runs that require many hundreds; if not thousands of barrels to have happen, because breweries seldom receive freshly drained barrels that are wet and hot to the taste when you sample from them any more. That's why these infections are happening more frequently.

 

Chicago Tribune's Josh Noel writes:

Really? Flash pasteurization is now considered an "ingredient "?
Thanks for that bit of Foodbabian bit of misinformed nonsense.

 

Why would anyone be outraged? It seems like a logical solution to a huge problem that cost them millions, and a ton of bad press. The Brewer is on framiliar ground as well, plus more stringent over seeing of the entire process. Sounds good to me.

 

@Peter_Wolfe discussed the fact that Deschutes utilized flash pasteurization for their barrel aged beers in a past thread:

“This approach that Deschutes took is honestly the smartest one they could have, if, as a brewery, you want complete control over what goes out. They still had live yeast in the bottle (but only one kind) to slow aging and provide a fresh taste, but the barrel flavors and mixed culture micro were frozen in time, so to speak.”

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/quality-control-ba-beers.405606/#post-4721326

It would appear that Goose Island came to the same conclusion that flash pasteurization is a smart approach for their barrel aged beers as well.

I also took note from the article:

“Goose Island has also implemented new standards for quality control that Jankoski described as “more sensitive and specialized media (and) advanced detection and more sampling points.”

“It covers all barrel-aged brands and bleeds over into our other brands, simply because it gives a more thorough picture of our beer quality,” he said. “It’s quite advanced and very thorough.”

The brewery has also “set very strict limits on where our barrels come from and how long we will allow from the time of whiskey extraction to when they arrive here for filling,” Jankoski said in a blog post posted Thursday.”

The above are all very prudent measures to improve QC/QA at the brewery.

If Goose Island were still an independent brewery they may have taken all of these steps but I am personally of the opinion that improvements of QC/QA at the Goose Island Brewery are ‘influenced’ by the fact they are owned by AB InBev. This specific topic represents one of the pluses of a craft brewery being owned by AB InBev.

Cheers!

 

Im very disappointed as I am one that prefers bottle conditioned beers. This wont stop me from buying the one bottle I do every year.

 

No idea if GI will do it, of course, but it is possible to flash-pasteurize beer and then during bottling pitch a pure yeast culture to bottle-condition it . Supposedly, that process is done with some Belgian beers and German hefeweizens, as well some New Glarus and New Belgian beers.

 

But keep in mind that if Goose Island wasn't owned by AB InBev, their production of Bourbon County might be on a totally different scale* than what it is now, so it's tough to make the comparison.

*Not that I know any of the details of this. I'm just being speculative.

 

My only concern with Barleywine stems to when it was put in barrels. Did the make that decision after confirming that regular definitely had infection issues. If so, it hasn't been in any sort of barrel for very long.

 

Did Deschutes' beers change when they went this route? I usually don't let stuff sit for too long so I won't be affected by it. But those 5-10 year vertical guys may find this new stuff just doesn't change or age in a correct manner anymore.

This kind of makes GI bourbon beers more of a 'drink now beer' than one that actually changes for the better in the long term. Then again if people want a beer that tastes very similar to what they had 9 months prior and there be no fear of infection, this news sounds awesome. For the purist, it's tough

 

Deschutes Abyss is flash pasteurized, and I believe some of the Smokestack releases are as well (I think even a little conditioning after pasteurization as was talked about a little above). All still fantastic. I still much prefer bottle conditioning, but would rather GI go down this road instead of having another fiasco like this last release.

 

Peter Wolfe addressed this topic as I posted above:

“This approach that Deschutes took is honestly the smartest one they could have, if, as a brewery, you want complete control over what goes out. They still had live yeast in the bottle (but only one kind) to slow aging and provide a fresh taste, but the barrel flavors and mixed culture micro were frozen in time, so to speak.”

So, given that they added just a single strain of yeast back at bottling time means that the Deschutes barrel aged beers would not evolve over time like it would before (when they were multiple strains of yeast in the bottle). That was the compromise they made in order to ensure they would not experience infection issues.

Cheers!

 

@jesskidden , Do you have any insight regarding Anchor's Old Foghorn and Christmas/Our Special Ale (two flash pasteurized beers that people are fond of aging)? A flash pasteurized beer will obviously still change with age, but I always found this practice a little odd. Maybe I'm failing to see the obvious.

 

Good catch. You should probably contact the reporter though his email in the story and let him know so the article can be updated and some folks won't be misled.

 

I guess what I meant to say was, did average consumers find a difference? It's one thing for science to state such and such. And it's another if the real world effects were different/better/no different. I guess we won't know how big of a compromise this is until many years down the line and an expected bottle of 5yr aged beer may or may not age to people's expectations.

 

Some folks in the US bottle condition as well, e.g., Sierra Nevada with their Pale Ale and some of the others from their line up.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...0318_1_bottle-jolly-pumpkin-artisan-ales-beer

 

I am not a brewing scientist, just a homebrewer, but I can tell you with certitude that a beer that has only a single strain of yeast will evolve in the bottle differently from a bottle which contains multiple strains (i.e., a mixed culture).

Cheers!

 

I think it's safe to assume those beers are a result Maytag's early history brewing on the antique and substandard equipment he acquired when he bought Anchor and his subsequent research of the contemporary industry information in 1960s and 1970s.

For example, in the noteworthy interview by Lew Bryson, Maytag said of Anchor Steam Beer in his early days of ownership:

Earlier he summed it up by saying that Anchor's philosophy was:

"We have profound respect for tradition and authenticity with a wild enthusiasm for modern production methods: purity of materials and cleanliness. "​

In the early "pre-craft" '70s, flash-pasteurization was cutting edge - Maytag did some of his early research at Lone Star Brewing Co., which was an early adopter of the process in the US.

Maytag has often mentioned his respect for Louis Pasteur, such as in this Stanford Alumni mag article where he states:
"Pasteur has always been my hero."

But Sierra Nevada does not first flash-pasteurize their bottle-conditioned beer, which is the specific topic being discussed.

 

Well if that's the only specific topic being discussed then why bother to bring up bottle conditioning as well.