Belgian monks resurrect 220-year-old beer

I wonder which yeast strain they selected for this reconstructed beer?

Cheers!

 

"Only some elements from the recipe books are being used by the monks. “I don’t think people now would like the taste of the beer made back then,” Stautemas said."

"The lack of artificial additives, use of wooden barrels and exploitation of particular local soil – or terroir – is being emulated."

So, it uses wooden barrels and that's it as far as the historical aspect is concerned?

 

This is so unlike Abbey brewing tradition that it must be from The Onion.

The monks know full well what they are doing, and they are not brewing a 13th century beer. And nobody wants a 13th century beer. The research is probably pretty cool however. And the story does generate press, which is so unlike Abbey brewing tradition.

I am a bit puzzled how this came to be.

 

Patrik, hopefully more details will become available in subsequent reporting?

There is a 99.9999% chance they are not using the same barley malt as was used 200+ years ago. The hop varieties may be the same (but grown in differing areas)? I already inquired about the yeast strain above.

My guess is that they may be replicating brewing techniques/processes from the old documentation? I do not think they are replicating the ingredients as discussed above.

Maybe the 'highlight' here is simply a good story?

Cheers!

 

How cool is this, man I would love to have a glass. Cheers to them!!

 

Here is some new information:

"At the abbey event where the new brewery was announced, Grimbergen unveiled a new limited-edition Grimbergen Triple D'Abbaye, which is an example of the types of brews that will be offered at the new microbrewery. The new limited-edition beer has been aged in whiskey barrels for five months, a technique similar to those used to brew Belgians beer back in the 1500s."

One of the best things when learning about history is learning something new that changes one's understanding of it. This appears to be one of those moments.

 

Basically what Crusader said, "At the launch event at the abbey, Grimbergen unveiled a limited-edition 10.8% ABV Grimbergen Triple d’Abbaye which it said is an example of the type of beer that will be brewed at the microbrewery, once it has been constructed. The beer was aged in whiskey barrels for five months according to a similar technique that was used to brew beers in the 1500s." https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2019/05/grimbergen-abbey-monks-to-brew-beer-from-medieval-recipe/

Sounds like its just going to be a Barrel Aged Tripel and not much else.

 

I sure do.

But I'd probably only want one.

And I might not finish it, like, if it's gross or something.

 

"Similar" ? Yeah, kinda doubt the underlined were standard beer aging vessels in the 1500s...

 

Seems likely that spirit barrels wouldve been used often though. In Belgium maybe that was typically brandy, cognac, or schnapps?

 

Would there have been particular strains back then or would the monks have relied on cultivated wild yeasts?

 

From the brewmaster in the article

I, for one , would love a 10% ABV pumpernickel

 

I guess we can look back at The Bavarian Reinheitsgebot of 1516 which states the only ingredients used for the brewing of beer must be barley, hops and water. Note, yeast was not included in this and this is because yeast was not yet discovered.
So I'm assuming these were all wild ales back then until yeast was actually discovered?
Though, I doubt they ever really cleaned brewing equipment thoroughly back then so I feel as if everything was a bit 'wild'

 

You've also got the universal use of wooden vessels that never could be cleaned really, I suspect that the process of discarding barrels that produced bad product while reusing barrels that put out the finest liquid did a great deal to select premium beer yeast strains

 

Just wait until we learn they are ex Bourbon barrels and we get a story about trans-Atlantic trade in ex Bourbon casks in the 1500s. This changes everything!

 

Wait. What?

Yeast was not discovered until Pasteur used a microscope and detailed its existence in the late 1850s..
But yeast was not invented in the late 1850s. It was always there.

I think we confuse the term wild with any fermentation that has not occurred with a named yeast.
Brewers were using domesticated yeast for many centuries. The Abbey monks, the Bavarian brewers, the farmhouse brewers, all of them were domesticating their yeast. That's how many of today's strains came about in fact. Doesn't make it wild.

Beer that is fermented by something other than yeast could be called wild, and even then if the bug is desirable, expected and encouraged, it's not really wild at all.

Not exactly.
Brewers knew not to clean the parts of the brewhouse that were inoculated with the favorable yeast. They did clean kettles and lots of things. They did not put the equipment that contacted cooled wort in boiling water though. For example the stir paddle was how the yeast went from batch to batch.

Cheers

 

Whiskey barrels, however dubious the claim of their usage, would by their nature not have any yeast, bug, bacteria or anything capable of fermentation until after emptied and stored. At which point the whiskey it contained is irrelevant. Whiskey, having a significant concentration of alcohol, is a very fine sterilizing agent. Nothing lives in whiskey* or anything in direct contact with whiskey. So the beer would not be getting it's fermentation by means of the whiskey barrel.

*Half true. For a time some of us have lived in Whiskey. Not proud.

Cheers

 

While the oak is still wet with the spirits that's probably the case, but that assumes the barrels are still "fresh" when refilled with the beer. If there were no way whiskey barrels could be "infected" it wouldn't be fairly common for breweries with barrel aging programs to have to discard unpasturized infected beer. (e.g., 2015 BCBS variants, etc.)

 

Oak has been a standard fermenting and aging vessel for hundreds of years. The Irish were distilling Whiskey in Ireland by the early 1400s. So it's actually possible that used Whiskey barrels could have been available for aging beer.

Edit: Transport by sailing vessel, etc. was fairly active in that period. For example Gutenberg invented his printing press in about 1440. That press came into England in about 1476 and came by boat from Belgium (because the English were at war with the French at that time) so the early typesetters used by the English were also brought to England from Belgium.