So I've been on a bit of a stout bent lately and something has been driving me crazy... What I call the "Danish Influence" ...I want it. What is Mikkeller/Evil Twin/ Amager doing to make their stouts? That texture! That saturation of flavor! The layers! More importantly how in the hell do you make a 13% taste like a 6% beer!?! Higher Mash temp? Adjuncts? Special B? Carafa? Decoction mashing? Or is it some combo of all? It seems it's spreading (Prairie, Perrenial, Hoppin Frog all have a few things in common...The Danish Influence. All have stouts on the same level, all have colaborated with one of the above Danish breweries... They're learning something that I want in my stouts. What's your opinion? What's the deal?
I think lower attenuation, carbonate to balance the acidity of the roast, favoring sodium/chloride, lower bitterness than the "standard" breed of American RIS. Debittered-black malt likely plays a role in some as well, given the really dark color without much sharpness. I did a take on the concept years ago, the recipe is ridiculous, but it turned out to be a really nice beer.
Michael, have you ever tried cold steeping of the dark specialty malts? If so, what was your process and personal experience in doing this? Cheers! Jack
I did for a dark saison. It was a great batch, but the roast character doesn't read "stout." It might if you upped the dark grains above the standard amounts. I've actually wanted to play with cold steeping, pasteurizing, and dosing into the fermented beer to give a cleaner/fresh roast flavor. Haven't gotten around to it yet, but likely in combination with mash additions. I doubt many breweries are going to those lengths with large-scale production batches though.
I have yet to conduct a cold steep of dark grains. From my readings it does require that you utilize more grains to obtain a relatively similar 'effect'. I have read doubling the amount, tripling the amount, etc. You have a good point on whether commercial brewers would utilize a cold steep process for their beers. One of the beauties of being a homebrewer is that we actually have more flexibility in our homebrew brewhouse. Cheers!
You guys might have thought of this already, but how much you want to bet the Danes use lager yeast instead of ale yeast. It's worth consideration, if you're looking for something clean and malty with no big distractions from yeast character.
