Over on the New Beer Sunday thread Ozzylizard posted a question aimed in my direction so thought I'd start a new thread on the subject. As I understand it traditional Brewers Pitch used to line aging barrels (usually oak) is a resin based product that also contains paraffin and light oil. Kind of a natural plastic though some modern formulas may use polymers or other such stuff. However it's made brewers pitch is odorless and colorless, it's sole purpose being to create an impermeable barrier between the beer and the wood so that absolutely no wood influence will be found in the finished product. In that case I don't see where it would make any difference which genus of oak is used (European or American) or for that matter any other variety of wood, because a barrel used in this manner is essentially a container. A concrete vat lined with pitch should do just as well because what we're talking about is really an oxidation process that for sake of convenience is called aging. Oak barrel aged beer is becoming an enhancer term for marketing purposes. If the barrel is lined it doesn't matter if it's the plainest American White Oak or the most expensive French Limousin Oak. Nor would it matter what the barrel aged previously, be it whisky, wine, brandy or rum.
From what I've seen Oak Barrel aged is the descriptor used when the barrels come from several sources. Oak aged doesn't require that barrels be used. The aging is typically done on oak chips (not unlike the process used for Beechwood aged Budweiser).
The correct response is, it depends on the beer. Yes they were used to age beer. It was called lagering. No flavors from the wood were desired. No bugs or critters from the wood were desired. Pilsner Urquell still has 4000 liter wooden lagering tanks that are used for the limited production of the unfiltered unpasteurized Pilsner Urquell, which straight from those tanks is a fantastic beer. Oak is used for a number of reasons, http://pilsnerurquell.com/us/article/selecting-perfect-wood-beer-barrel http://pilsnerurquell.com/us/article/coopers-and-wooden-barrels This is what I am reading now. I recommend it if you are interested in wooden vessels. https://www.amazon.com/Wood-Beer-Brewers-Dick-Cantwell/dp/1938469216
Pitch, depending on formula, also added flavor - sometimes desirable, sometimes not. George Ehret (once the owner of the largest brewery in the US) wrote of "...that peculiar, although exceedingly faint, flavor for which the ordinary pitch is so highly prized by both the brewer and the drinker." Wahl and Henius noted "A taste of pure pitch is permissible, under certain conditions, where, owing to the requirements of the market, a slight pitch taste is wanted in the beer" in their 1901 Handy Book. Post-Repeal, the Wahls futher noted: Pitch in the US tended to be used primarily for "trade packages" [kegs of wood, and, later, aluminum and steel] while fermenters and other aging vessels of wood and other materials were often coated with other products (varnish, shellac, enamel, Mammut, etc), often for ease of applying and maintainence since US brewers tended to use much large vessels than the ones used for Pilsner Urquell that @hopfenunmaltz notes above. As such, the beer was often not in contact with the pitch for long periods of time. At the turn of the last century US brewers actually debated if the Pilsen brewers actually added pitch to the brew kettle, the taste was so prevalent.
marquis, I have a historic IPA in my cellar, that I put some oak honeycombs into for two days, and then added some Brett C. I also have 5 gallons as a control. Should be fu. When I get around to tasting.
Here's an excerpt from the book Pale Ale by Terry Foster, in regards to Ballantine IPA: "...Some of this character, as with a good white wine, came from the oak; homebrewers under the impression that the flavor was essential to the style, have tried to reproduce it by adding oak chips to their beer. In fact, "oakiness" is not a characteristic of English IPA, although the beer was and sometimes still is aged in wood. You see, English oak is very different from its American cousin, and imparts little to no flavor to beer stored in casks made from it. Indeed, I remember a conversation with one of Britain"s few remaining brewers' coopers, in which he said that they would never use American oak, "because it would spoil the beer's flavor!"..." It definitely seems to confirm the lack of a pitch lining.
I think @jesskidden has evidence that the tanks were pitched. Having brewed some clones of that beer, meny ask how much Oak did I use. Answer is none, it must be those old school hops used.
I was referring to the English beers, but in reagrds to Ballantine Gregory Deuhs suggested that some wood character was indeed present due to imperfections in how the pitch was applied.
Martyn Cornell once wrote that oak for British beer was sourced from Russia and Poland due to the fine grain of the wood - in order to minimize flavor impact... but also mentions that brewer's pitch was used. I have no idea what dates he had in mind regarding this.
The Ballantine part was a red flag. Pattinson has plenty of sources that said those English Barrels were unlined. The IPA book by Mitch Steele and Hops and Glory by Pete Brown are good reads for some history.
Below is an extract from my post in the New Beer Sunday thread: In the IPA book by Mitch Steele he wrote several pages on barrels and how they were using in the British brewing industry of the 16th and 17th centuries. One extract: “The wood used for cask themselves was slow-growth oak from Northern Europe. It was specifically selected because of its tight grain pattern, which meant that it would contribute little, if any, flavor or tannic astringency to the beer that was aged (stored) in it. Although brewers tested American and French oak, the overwhelming choice for brewers casks was slow-growth oak from the Baltic and Poland.” Cheers!
The aging casks (not "barrels" in the terminology used in the US at the time) used by P. Ballantine & Sons for their IPA were coated with a product called "Mammut" according to a Ballantine technical director, who worked there from the late 1940s- early1970s, (although two contemporary authors misspell it "mammet" when quoting him). Pre-pro brewing industry literature described Mammut, originally a German product, as a pitch substitute, used "...in the place of pitch or varnish..." according to one legal document.. As noted in the ad, the company also made a variety of products, one that was added to pitch and used in kegs. Ballantine's wooden vessels for IPA and Burton Ale were supposedly around 140-150 bbl. in size (they also had 800 bbl. wooden and larger glass-lined tanks for other products), compared to the relatively small ~25 bbl. (27-30 hl) size used for Pilsner Urquell. As such, they could not be rolled around to coat the interior with the hot pitch the way they do in Pilsn. Every thing I've ever read suggests that in the US actual "pitch" was used for kegs, and other larger wooden vessels were coated with other substances, which could be applied easier and safer.
They must be making smaller ones now, the ones I saw in the cellar back in Sept. were 40-41 hl. This says they are making 30 hl now. Some nice videos, in the second video you can see that the one being repitched is 38 hl. No idea on the variation in size. http://www.core77.com/posts/32218/Watch-Czech-Coopers-Build-a-Gi-Normous-3000-Liter-Beer-Barrel
Yeah, I've noticed the variety of sizes used for Pilsner Urquell over the years - I've got a shot of the lager cellar from 1928 where those casks are 40-60 hl. according to the caption. Same goes for Ballantine's wooden casks and tanks which, based on different sources/photos, ranged from 100 - 800 bbl. - the smallest were originally used by Feigenspan for their IPA's which were aged for 2 years (and maintained by Ballantine after they bought their next door neighbor during WWII). "100 bbls" stamped on the cask:
