Question about Steam Beer

Nope, there are lots of beer out there brewed with 2-row barley. Very few of the US craft breweries brew with 6-row barley since they have a prejudice that it is inferior. In there minds 6-row equates to BMC (AAL) type beers.

Even the big guys brew with 2-row. For example, Anheuser-Busch:

"There are two basic types of malting barley. One produces two rows of kernels on each stalk, and the other yields six rows on each stalk. The flavor of the two varieties differs. Two-row barley malt produces a smoother, sweeter-tasting beer, and six-row barley produces a crisper, snappier flavor. The combination is adjusted by brewmasters to produce the right balance for Anheuser-Busch beers."

Cheers!

 

I thought I would provide some more reading material about American barley varieties with a booklet from 1909, co-authored by Robert Wahl, called "Chemical studies of American barleys and malts".

 

Thanks, that cleared it up for me! As an aside, is there any breweries brewing a California Common with six row? Seems to me that would be the one that would mimic the turn of the century Steam Beer.

 

I am not aware of any commercial breweries making a 6-row California Common (can't be called Steam Beer since Anchor has that name trademarked) beer. I have doubts that anybody would do this since craft breweries generally speaking do not like to brew with 6-row malt.

Cheers!

 

In the Bergen article:

"Compared with Midwestern six-rows, it (California Bay Barley) had 40% larger berries, lower protein content (in 7-12 % range), slightly higher husk content, and was considered similar to two-row barley in character in the finished beer."

It would appear that for the case of brewing with English two-row malt and California six-row "Bay Barley" malt that adjuncts would not be required from a chill haze perspective.

Cheers!

 

“I wonder what happened to this California Bay and Utah winter six-row barley?”

I don’t have specific information on these particular barley varieties but over the years barley varieties become ‘obsolete’ and replaced by newer varieties based upon a number of considerations. In the book Malt: A Practical Guide from Field to Brewhouse by John Mallet this is discussed in Chapter 8 Barley Anatomy and Agriculture. In particular there is a section entitled Variety Development.

An extract:

“Since the 1950s, crops have dramatically increased in productivity. Known collectively as the “Green Revolution” these efforts have established measures of disease resistance to devastating pathogens through intensive, selective crossbreeding programs. The yield per acre has risen,…”

There is also a section in Chapter 9 entitled Variety Development and Acceptance.

In all probability the barley varieties of today will be ‘obsolete’ in a few decades replaced my new verities that were developed by breeding programs supported by the USDA and AMBA (American Malting Barley Association).

Cheers!

 

The 1915 Pacific Rural Press article states:

“About ten years ago or more Dr. Robert Wahl of Chicago, a leading American brewing expert, began a systematic investigation of American brewing barleys and pursued it faithfully. He secured samples from different parts of the country including one from California marked "Bay Brewing" which he seemed to at first accept as the name of a variety, whereas it was only a trade name, with a geographical basis, as claimed above.”

I noted in the 1909 pamphlet entitled "Chemical studies of American barleys and malts" that “Bay Brewing” was discussed as being a barley variety. According to the Pacific Rural Press article this is not the case; “Bay Brewing” is a six-row barley that is grown in the San Francisco bay area.

Cheers!

 

I am clueless on this topic.

Perhaps you could direct a query to AMBA on this.

Cheers!

Edit: Even if you were to locate seeds of the ‘mysterious’ variety, you would have to plant them in Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties to grow “Bay Brewing” barley. Between the outrageous land prices in those counties and the present day water restrictions in California this would likely be the most expensive barley ever grown. Even the British brewers would not pay those exorbitant prices!

 

What no Napa County barley?

 

Nope. There is no bay there!!

Cheers!

 

It's funny, sometimes one sees comparisons between steam beer and Kentucky common, and there's a debate if Kentucky common had some sourness.

 

6-row is actually on the decline, and is on the way out in the US. Briess Malting recently stopped malting 6-row.

 

If it did it was from dodgey cooperage. Brewing logs from 2 Kentucky common brewers in Louisville showed that the mash was just a standard mash, and was not sour mashed. It was a myth that it had a sour mash, because it was neat the Bourbon distillers. The corolarry myth is that Scottish strong ales used peat smoked malt because the Scotch distillers do.

 

Yeah. The Wikipedia page for the beer seems to contradict itself throughout on this. I've seen different present day brewers claim each version as true. I think the brewers might be defining the style according to the beer they want to brew, be it sour or not. It's hard to argue with your logic.

BJCP thinks it's all related to this quote from the 1906 edition of the American Handy-Book of the Brewing, Malting and Auxiliary Trades:

It was that quote that made me think of Kentucky common in relation to this thread... with @Hodgson and @jesskidden bringing to light the descriptions of bygone steam beer: sharp, wild, gamy, tang.

 

Arnold & Robert Wahls' (the latter co-author of the Handy-Book, of course) Beer - From the Experts View [1937] continued to compare Kentucky Common with Steam Beer, saying the main difference was top vs. bottom fermenting yeast, respectively, and goes on to say that the KC yeast was developed from lager beer yeast* by high temperature fermentation. The yeast then developed "...a percentage of lactic acid organisms which cause the final brew to be somewhat tart to the taste..." (pg 153).

So, "somewhat tart" but not from a sour mash, instead from the evolutionary changes in the particular yeast.

* Writing that KC is "top fermented" even thought the yeast was originally a lager yeast might seem confusing given today's conventional strict belief that a yeast is either top/bottom (or "ale/lager"), note that the Wahl's wrote that: