Introduction to German Beer

There's a newer, smaller brewery in the Chicago area (more or less) that's making a great Helles -- Roaring Table. Based on the maltiness, I don't think they're decocting, but I actually find their Helles better than Dovetail's.

Were you able to try Dovetail on tap? I'd really like to assess theirs that way based on all the positive reviews I've seen.

 

As others have said I would start easy with lager and pilsners. German beers will not hit you with an IPA, porter, or stout. There is authenticity in German beers, but I've found most of it lies within the subtleties of the lager, helles, or pilsner. I would start and learn to appreciate those. After that, move on to the Vienna, Dunkel, and Bock style. Those are excellent. The fruity American IPA style doesn't exist in Germany.

 

Introduction to German Beer Codes thread.

Their new tap room will be about three miles from me.

Lohring shares that the draft options will feature the drinkable yet flavorful session beer Notch has made its signature, brewed onsite on the new seven-barrel brewing system complete with open fermentation, full decoction-mashing and horizontal lagering tanks for extended beer conditioning. “Like the Salem brewery set-up, Brighton’s biergarten will be very much in the German spirit of the idea, not just a name on an outdoor space to drink beer,” Lohring says with reverence to German and Czech traditions.

 

Wait, Dovetail or Notch?

The way you replied to Ron it makes it look like you're getting a Dovetail tap room.

 

if they can do that it makes me think that most breweries just don’t try hard to get fresh beer to consumers.

 

I apologize if this has been posted already. Here is the decoder ring for Weihnstephaner is here:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/weihenstephaner-date-code-question.445327/

I’d start with their Hefeweizen.

 

Funnily enough, I mostly visited large breweries in Germany and yes, they were all CCV, closed fermenters. We did open fermentation at Doemen's and I personally wasn't a fan of the ester profile. At my brewery, we frequently ferment in shallow fermenters (lagering tanks actually that we use as primary fermentation vessels) and I use spunding valves to mimic the effect of taller vessels to reduce esters. It is not a perfect system, but it does work. The aspect of open vs. closed doesn't matter as much as the hydrostatic pressure. Typically, an open fermenter will have wider dimensions than a closed fermenter and I believe that the ratio matters more than whether the fermenter is open or closed. A closed fermenter with a blowoff arm that allows pressure to escape without buildup, in my experience, has the same effect as an open fermenter with the same dimensions.

 

At the brewery in Chicago.

 

Sounds great. Where is that exactly?

 

The beers from the small Franconian breweries I visited were mostly excellent. Long lagering probably rounded off any rough edges.

 

Sure it does.

 

Further confirms I need to try this vom Fass.

 

Comb the NBW thread @defunksta, @Snowcrash000 shares and discusses beers like that from time to time as well as other styles we associate as just being here, big stouts, etc

 

Weedy,

Previously in this thread I quoted Bill Manley (formerly of Sierra Nevada) where he discussed the aspect of yeast stress:

“Open fermentation causes less stress on yeast than a closed tank does. Shallower and wider tanks, as opposed to taller narrower tanks reduces hydrostatic pressure which lets the yeast develop better with less stress. The less stressed yeast is, the better the harvested cells are for re-pitching. We do Kellerweis in open fermentation for this reason. The yeast ferments well with less stress so we can re-pitch and keep the big ester and phenol profile.”

What are your thoughts on the specifics of the situation of yeast stress during fermentation (and lagering)? Does the yeast stress aspect have any organoleptic impacts? Or is it a situation of completing a successful primary fermentation (e.g., reach intended FG value in x days with no perceptible off-flavors from fermentation)? Or is just a case of its ‘better’ for the situation of re-pitching?

I appreciate any further thoughts/insights you have on this topic.

Cheers!

 

Many small breweries in Germany open ferment, due to the traditional equipment they have, or the type of beer they are brewing. Some have a mix, such as Ayinger, with many CCV then 3 round open fermenters for the Hefeweißen.

I've played around on Google maps several times to locate breweries in satellite view. The large industrial brewers almost always have a large external tank farm visible. A notable exception is Augustiner Munich, which has none visible. It would be hard to say what is under the roof of the brewery. Augustiner is also secretive about their process, so one can't say what they are doing.

 

Did you tour Augustiner Munich? See my post above.

If anyone does an image search, the Augustiner Salzburg Shows up with open fermenters, so make sure which you are looking at.

 

Jeff, it would be interesting to know if those breweries would choose to switch to closed fermentation if capital was not an issue.

Cheers!

 

Sounds like really sloppy and lazy brewing. There are a myriad of ways to make sure this doesn't happen and, while packaging directly from the fermenter (aka unitank) can be done successfully, it very often is not. In the vast majority of beers, a cell count much above 300,000 cells/ml (what would be visible) is a major detriment to shelf stability. By the time packaging day comes around, there should be absolutely no need to dump anything prior to actual packaging. That should have been taken care of through filtration, centrifugation, and/or finings days before.

 

Geometry plays a great role in ester formation. Generally speaking, the higher the surface:volume of the fermenter, the greater the ester formation. For this reason, as reported in Brew Like a Monk, Rochefort, when updating to CCVTs, decided to only fill them half way. I also spoke at length with Ivan when at Brasserie de la Senne, and I have never seen such squat conical bottomed tanks as his.

And what Bill was speaking to was ale brewing and more specifically weizen beer production. There are several breweries that I know of in Belgium and Germany utilizing open fermentation that have not gotten fresh pitches of ale yeast in over a generation. This is due to the fact that they are harvesting yeast during high krausen. This means that the yeast is 100% viable with high vitality (if it were not, it would not krausen), the yeast is acting in a strain appropriate manner, the yeast has not been exposed to much alcohol or its osmotic pressures, and it has never been exposed to hydrostatic pressure from being allowed to drop out of solution.

Lager brewing is an altogether different animal, and I should admit that I have never worked with open fermenters, nor am I some kind of renowned expert on traditional lager brewing, but I have a pretty deep understanding of what is going on after a lot of touring around Franconia and the Oberpfaltz.

In traditional open lager fermentation, yeast is harvested as it would be in ale fermentations, but is only allowed to ferment to about 60% attentuation or so at which point it is transfered to a lagering tank, where it is spunded to create natural carbonation and a side effect of that is a more rapid and complete reduction of sulfur compounds, which btw, made absolutely no sense to me when I first heard it, but after attempting it myself at the end of fermentation in CCVTs, sure enough, sulfur reduced faster. Would love to hear from an organic chemist more about this phenomenon... Back to production methods. Any dead yeeast and yeast that had fallen out of solution prematurely, and any trub that made it past the float tank of course would be left behind. Once VDKs are completely reduced, the beer would be brought down to lagering temperatures, usually rather slowly (a degree centigrade/day is not unheard of) to avoid shocking the yeast and assure that they kept on with maturation. At this point, time, processing and such is all brewery dependent. Some, such as the zoigl brewers, will serve the beer directly from the lagering tank, rather young. Others will centrifuge, filter, pasteurize, or a combination of all of the above.