Does cane sugar impart flavor in beer?

They might have been sizeable, but did they have steam engines? Industrial doesn’t just mean big, it means machinery driven by a power source beyond what men or horses could supply.

 

One way to characterize large scale brewing is the size of large wooden vats used for fermenters. Below is from Wikipedia:

“In the early nineteenth century the Meux Brewery was one of the two largest in London, along with Whitbread.[2] In 1809 Sir Henry Meux purchased the Horse Shoe Brewery, at the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street.[3] Meux's father, Sir Richard Meux, had previously co-owned the Griffin Brewery in Liquor-Pond Street (now Clerkenwell Road), in which he had constructed the largest vat in London, capable of holding 20,000 imperial barrels.[4][a]

Henry Meux emulated his father's large vat,[4] and constructed a wooden vessel 22 feet (6.7 m) tall and capable of holding 18,000 imperial barrels. Eighty long tons (eighty-one metric tons) of iron hoops were used to strengthen the vat.[5][6] Meux brewed only porter, a dark beer that was first brewed in London and was the most popular alcoholic drink in the capital.[7][8] Meux & Co brewed 102,493 imperial barrels in the twelve months up to July 1812.[9][c] Porter was left in the large vessels to mature for several months, or up to a year for the best quality versions.[8]”

So, in the early 1800’s there were a number of English breweries with very big fermenters. There was an unfortunate accident at the Meau Brewery in 1814 which is referred to as the London Beer Flood:

“The London Beer Flood was an accident at Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery, London, on 17 October 1814. It took place when one of the 22-foot-tall (6.7 m) wooden vats of fermenting porter burst. The pressure of the escaping liquid dislodged the valve of another vessel and destroyed several large barrels: between 128,000 and 323,000 imperial gallons (580,000–1,470,000 l; 154,000–388,000 US gal) of beer were released in total.

The resulting wave of porter destroyed the back wall of the brewery and swept into an area of slum dwellings known as the St Giles rookery. Eight people were killed, five of them mourners at the wake being held by an Irish family for a two-year-old boy. The coroner's inquest returned a verdict that the eight had lost their lives "casually, accidentally and by misfortune".[1] The brewery was nearly bankrupted by the event; it avoided collapse after a rebate from HM Excise on the lost beer. The brewing industry gradually stopped using large wooden vats after the accident.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Beer_Flood

Cheers!

 

UK breweries mostly use invert sugar which adds a ton of flavour. The signature flavour of Dark Mild comes from No. 3 invert sugar.

 

Ironic that the beer flood destroyed an area depicted in Hogarth's Gin Lane and not Beer Street.

 

I will post what to me seems the obvious question. Does the use of simple sugar impart a flavor in and of itself, it does not alter other things that have an impact? By what I have read in the thread, there are many ways to use simple sugar. Also there are some sugars used that do have a flavor beyond sweetness, and those would contribute some sort of flavor, I would think. Seems to me that some of the usages described would alter the overall character of the beer possibly resulting in a different flavor profile without actually contributing flavor from the sugar itself.

That makes a ton more sense in my head...

 

Unfortunately many brewers see dark mild and try to emulate it using roasted grains.But the result is a Porter ,not a Mild.

 

Mighty Oak Brewing Co. (Essex, England) uses roasted malt to brew their Dark Mild Ale:

In the book The Secrets of Master Brewers by Jeff Alworth he discusses Mild Ale and on page 31 is a recipe for a Mild Ale by John Boyce of Mighty Oak Brewing Co. located in Essex, England. Below are the fermentables of that 5 gallon recipe:

"6 pounds Maris Otter pale malt (89%)

0.4 pound UK 60L crystal malt

0.3 pound UK black malt"

Cheers!

 

A mild using Beckers Invert #3 is on my list to brew. Will look at @patto1ro 's blog and homebrewbook for a likely candidate recipe.

 

To answer that question completely, the AMOUNT of sugar to malt ratio makes a huge difference.
Too much non-malt sugars and not enough malt will give you a "malt liquor" taste behind. That's why they are so cheap and mostly taste badly.
Otherwise if they used all malt they would have a Bock, not Malt Liquor.

 

I had a lowenbrau dark malt liquor in the 90s once. 40 oz bottle from a liquor store in Barstow. It was soooo good I went back for another. What had been an awful day (motorcycle in a sand storm) turned into one of my fondest beer memories

 

I've heard (and experienced, years ago) that old malt extract imparts a cider character. Simple table sugar contributes nothing but a booted ABV, and thinner body (YMMV dependent on usage rates / individuals palates.).

 

Yes, as I said, many brewers are not aware of the fact that Mild is an Ale and Porter is a Beer. These names are now used interchangeably but they are two historically separate industries.
Mighty Oak is a lovely pint but is a Porter masquerading as a Mild. Just being dark and low ABV does not make a mild.
In fact Mild was pale until about WW1 which is why draught Pale Ale was called Bitter to distinguish it from lookalike Mild in a pub.

 

No, cane sugar doesn't taste the same as invert.

 

Thanks for this. I'm trying to brew an English Dark Mild as we speak. I really need to read a lot more on English beer history.

 

Jesse, if you are sporting you could make your own invert sugar:

https://www.northernbrewer.com/blogs/beer-recipes-ingredients/how-to-make-invert-sugar

Otherwise you could purchase:

https://www.homebrewing.org/Beckers-Inverted-Brewing-Sugars-Invert-3--3-lbs_p_10336.html

Cheers!

 

This is great Jack, thanks. The Dark Mild is fermenting as we speak. But perhaps I'll use this (and I'll certainly make my own) if I tackle a Landlord clone. Do you think the invert sugar could play a role in such a clone?

 

I personally do not use sugars of any kind when brewing Bitter Ales. But the beauty of homebrewing is that we all can do whatever we want when brewing our beers.

For your consideration below is a clone recipe for Landlord by Gordon Strong. You will see that he doesn't use sugars in his recipe.

Cheers!

https://byo.com/recipe/timothy-taylor-brewery-landlord-clone/

 

Thanks!