This is from Moncrieff.
MONCRIEFF – MOVIES AND BOOZE
BOTTLE CONDITIONED ALES
Introduction –
In current times, most people expect beer to be bright. Most mass-produced beer is filtered, and so, with only experience of mass produced beers, many expect that when they look through a beer in a glass held up to light that the liquid will not contain sediment, small particles, or be cloudy. Beer connoisseurs know that if they are drinking bottle conditioned beer that this is not necessarily going to be the case.
The beers for to-day are contract brewed for an enterprising man who is looking to revitalize Ireland with distinctive beer – starting on the island of Arainn Mhor off the coast of Donegal, and working through the rest of our island, and ultimately the world. The two beers are both brewed for the Arainn Mhor Brewing Company – a new venture which was set up in 2006. Arainn Mhor Rua is a bottle conditioned red ale. Arainn Mhor Ban is a bottle conditioned Blonde Ale.
Bottle Conditioned Beer and Cloudy Beer –
Many people have heard of bottle conditioning. What does this mean?
In the brewing process, a sugary liquid called wort (unfermented beer) is pitched with yeast, and the yeast ferments to produce beer. During the fermentation process, the yeast converts sugar into carbon dioxide and alcohol, and a number of flavours are produced in the course of the process to contribute to the beers own individual character. After fermentation, (tank conditioned) beer is allowed a period of time to settle and rest. During this time (in a process called conditioning), sediment from various ingredients used in the beer (hops and yeast, primarily) settles out of the beer. After conditioning, the beer is filtered and packaged into a bottle or keg.
If this is the process for tank conditioned beer, then it is not that difficult to understand the process for bottle (or cask) conditioned beer – essentially, the steps of packaging and conditioning are reversed. With bottle (or cask) conditioned beer, the unfiltered beer is first packaged in a bottle or cask. The conditioning process then happens in the beers final container. There is no filtration involved before packaging, so the sediment and particles that are naturally contained in the beer are preserved in the beer into the bottle. This can give the beer a cloudy appearance – this is a natural cloudiness, and it is exactly the way the beer should be.
Sometimes, people refer to bottle conditioned beers undergoing a secondary fermentation. The primary fermentation is the fermentation that produces most of the alcohol in the beer. After the primary fermentation, and before packaging, the beer to be bottle conditioned is primed – a small quantity of sugar is added to the beer. The yeast remaining in the liquid then ferments this priming sugar in the bottle, producing a more complex range of flavours in the beer – this process is the process referred to by secondary fermentation.
So is all cloudy beer good beer?
Just like saying that all cloudy beer is bad beer, it would be equally incorrect to assume that all beer that is cloudy is meant to be. In modern times, brewers know enough about quality control to ensure that beer is of reliable quality. However, there are three basic reasons why a beer can be cloudy – one meaning that the beer is as it should be, one meaning that the beer has turned bad, and one meaning that there is nothing physically wrong with the taste of the beer, but it has developed a haze that people would prefer not to see in the beer.
1. If beer is bottle conditioned, then it is meant to be cloudy. If the words ‘Bottle Conditioned Ale / Beer / Lager’ appear on the packaging, then one can expect the beer to be cloudy. Similarly, if the beer is described as ‘Hefe-weiss’, then this is indicating that the beer contains yeast (hefe), and it is going to be cloudy.
2. If a beer has a bacterial infection, then it is likely to turn cloudy. The words ‘bacterial infection’ don’t sound that appetizing, so it is not surprising to find that this situation means that (in most cases) the beer has turned bad. Beer contains sugar, and bacteria like sugar. If bacteria is present in sufficient quantities in a beer, then over time, it will multiply, and react with residual sugar and the alcohol in the beer. The result is typically a sour taste in the beer (for example, a sour milk flavour, if the bacteria is lacto-bacillus, or vinegar, if the bacteria is acetobacter aceti). This is a quality problem in the beer, and the beer has turned bad. The exception to this would be a beer (such as a Belgian Lambic), which uses more unorthadox brewing processes to introduce flavours which would more commonly be considered flavour defects into an unusual (or eccentric) beer.
3. If a beer has developed a chill haze, then this means that two materials in the beer have combined, and are settling out of the beer. In mass produced beers, large breweries often use a type of chemical (PVPP or Silica Hydrogel) to remove one or other of these two materials from the beer. The ironic thing about chill haze is that, while it makes filtered beer look cloudy, it has no effect on the taste of the beer. However, it is generally considered to be a quality defect in filtered beer.
Arainn Mhor Rua –
Beer Style - Irish Red Ale
Alcohol by Volume - 5.2% a.b.v.
Brewer - Brewed under contract for Arainn Mhor Brewing Company
Country of Origin - The Arainn Mhor Brewing Company is Irish-based.
The beer is brewed under contract by a leading Belgian
Micro-brewer.
Arainn Mhor Rua is the first of the two bottle conditioned ales that we are tasting from the Arainn Mhor Brewing Company. As one would expect from the name, it is an Irish Red Ale, and it pours with a red brown colour and a tight, well formed head.
In taste, the beer is quite complex, with a blend of malt flavours combining with organic flavours deriving from the primary and secondary fermentation. The beer has a combination of toffee-sweetness, (which comes through on the aroma and on the palate) and a very subtle roast bitterness. Hop character is subdued – there is very little hop bitterness that comes through in the beer, but the caramel / toffee sweetness is very well balanced against other malt flavours, and giving a complex, and pleasing taste. As one would expect from an above average strength beer brewed in Belgium, the flavours deriving from the fermentation profile (mild fruit sweetness, combining with deeper organic flavours verging on phenolic in character) are diverse and interesting.
Overall, Arainn Mhor Rua is a complex beer with an array of flavours very well balanced against eachother. It is true to style – overall a malty beer – a good example of an Irish Red Ale.
Arainn Mhor Ban –
Beer Style - Blonde Ale
Alcohol by Volume - 4.2% a.b.v.
Brewer - Brewed under contract for Arainn Mhor Brewing Company
Country of Origin - The Arainn Mhor Brewing Company is Irish-based.
The beer is brewed under contract by a leading Belgian
Micro-brewer.
The second of the beers from Arainn Mhor is a blonde ale, slightly lower in alcohol content at 4.2% a.b.v. Arainn Mhor Ban is a blonde ale that presents with a straw gold appearance, and, again, a good head. This beer is lighter in character than its stronger partner, and again very well balanced.
Arainn Mhor Ban has a soft fruit character to it – peach, apricot or sweet apple in flavour. The hop character is more pronounced in this beer – there is a slight bitterness on the back of the tongue, but again, the beer is very well balanced, so this is in no way overpowering. While Arainn Mhor Rua would benefit from being served on the warmer side of chilled, this is a beer that can be served cold or warm – cold to deliver a more refreshing flavour, warm to accentuate the soft fruit flavour in the beer.
Availability –
Bull and Castle, Christchurch, Dublin
Redmond’s, Ranelagh, Dublin
Foggy Dew, Templebar, Dublin
The Vintry, Rathgar Road, Dublin
Eatery 120, Ranelagh, Dublin
The Mill Wine Cellar, Maynooth, Kildare
O’Brien’s, Leeson St., Dublin
McCabes, Mount Merrion Ave, Dublin
O’Connell’s, Eyre Square, Galway
Gibney’s, Malahide, County Dublin
The Cottage, Lower Salthill Road, Galway
McHugh’s, Kilbarrack, Dublin
Dicey Riley’s, Ballyshannon, Co Donegal
Harvest Off-Licence, Cladagh, Galway
Sweeney’s, Ballyshannon, County Donegal
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