Dry Beer?

Reactions to and impressions of commercial and home made beers and beverages. Travelling and experiencing beers from around the world.

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BobbyK
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Dry Beer?

Post by BobbyK »

When I was a pup many years ago, there were zillions of independent breweries in the N.E. and some of those brews had a "dry" aftertaste. I can't put any other name or description to it. Similar to the aftertaste on the back of the tongue when you drink a nice dry cabernet.

If I'm not totally nuts and someone out there can actually figure out what I'm trying to describe, what can I add to what style of beer to create that 'dry' aftertaste? I believe the originals were ales, but perhaps a lager or two.
jayhawk
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Adjuncts

Post by jayhawk »

The beers probably had adjuncts like rice and corn in them. These add fermentables but impart little flavour or sweetness, helping bring about a lighter, drier taste (especially rice). Lots of mainstream commercial beers are heavy adjunct brewers. For extract brewing you can use rice and corn syrup. I know of one semi major Canadian brewery that uses syrups. For all grain you can flaked corn and rice or do a more complex cereal mash. This process has been outlined by 'Thrills in a previous post. Search the archives if you want to see it.
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Push Eject
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Sour Mashing or Hops?

Post by Push Eject »

Assuming the dryness you remember wasn't related to a low-bodied or highly hopped beer perhaps you experienced the joys of a soured mash.

To the first point, you can thin your mouthfeel out by mashing at a slightly lower temperature -- this will produce a beer with higher alcohol content and less body than the same mash at a higher temperature.

On the other hand, that bitter bite might have been a sour mash; that is a portion of your mash left to sour for, say, 14 hours. It will start to smell really bad, but go with it and blend it with your standard mash into your kettle and brew as normal.

Guiness, I believe, achieves it's dry bite this way.

Cheers!
jayhawk
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Experience?

Post by jayhawk »

Sounds interesting. Have you ever tried this? Do you have a recipe? What proportion of mash do you sour?
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Push Eject
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Links

Post by Push Eject »

There have been some brief discussions here -- a search for "sour" turns up good results.

Here are links to 2 recipes for your perusal:
http://www.stoutbillys.com/stout/recipe ... 1F55BE.htm

http://www.skotrat.com/skotrat/recipes/ ... es/17.html

No fear! Jump on in and try it -- just be sure and let us know how it goes.

Cheers!
Ollie
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My Goodness!

Post by Gravity Thrills »

To the best of my knowledge, Guiness uses partial-wort souring and not a sour mash to get that trademark tang. I think Papazian and others have estimated the soured wort to be around 2% of the entire wort volume, and I have used this amount with good results. Usually i just pour a couple of pints of commercial Guiness, cover with cheesecloth and put them in a closet for 2 days. The aroma of the flat, spoiled beer is completely reminiscent of a frat house basement the day after a keg party. When you add this to your boiling wort it will kill off any microbeasties and add that little bit of tang to your stout. Beamish and Murphy's don't do this, and a side-by-side tasting of Guiness and one of the others allows a good sensory evaluation of the subtle sour component in Guinness.

I have also seen full wort souring described as a way to get the sour flavor characteristic desired in Flemmish brown ales and pseudo-lambics. Conduct your kettle boil as usual, but then run the wort to a fermenter (preferably a bucket not a carboy, since you want to maximize exposed surface area), cover with cheesecloth without pitching yeast and put in a dark closet for 1-2 days depending on the degree of sourness desired. Then put the soured wort back into the kettle and boil for 15-20 minutes to pasteurize, run it to your fermenter, cool, pitch, and ferment. I have yet to try it, but I like the partial wort souring for dry stouts and with some trial and error this could produce some interesting beers.

Cheers,
Jim
BobbyK
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Not Hops, for sure

Post by BobbyK »

Based on everything I've seen here, I'm betting is was some sort of adjunct. I guess I'll do a little experimenting.
Brewer2001
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One word...Rheingold!

Post by Brewer2001 »

Bobby,

Rheingold (not sure of spelling) was cotton in a can! It was a light lager that had a large addition of corn added as a adjunct part of the mash. I am not sure of the mash regiment or the type of yeast or hops that were used. It was dust dry and tangy. That would be one to model if you wanted to recreate this style. I will keep checking.

Tom F.
BobbyK
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That's the one...

Post by BobbyK »

Rheingold was my favorite daily drinker back in the old days. I was really sorry to see them go. They knew what they had because if you remember one of their jingles was, "My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer!"
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