Micro Alt in Düsseldorf

Altbier

So there I was, in the Rhein und Ruhr Megalopolis last week to give the Germans a piece of my mind, at a philosophy conference in beautiful Bonn. Of course the area is well known for two of Germany’s more interesting beers, Kölsch from Köln, and Altbier from Düsseldorf, neither of which is a lager as commonly conceived (at least, they are not fermented with Saccharomyces pastorianus which is responsible in part for the familiar taste that many lagers have, although they probably are Lagered, that is, stored at cold temperatures after primary fermentation is complete, just as most modern beers are.) which is nice to see, not that I didn’t enjoy a couple of perfectly good glasses of Stauder Pils, the local beer in Essen, where I was staying.

On my final day, Sunday, we ventured in to Düsseldorf before I flew home in the evening, and as seems to always be the case in German towns I visit, they were having a big party in the city centre. We mingled around the bustling squares, there was some sort of “Jazz Marathon” afoot, and plenty of music. We ate Thuringer bratwurst, and sampled fine altbiers from the iconic Uerige, from Frankenheimer, and  Schlüssel at least, probably Diebels, and I may be leaving some out. Just as in Köln where we saw them filling the little 20cl glasses of Kölsch from a fast pouring tap, 20 or so at a time without turning off the tap, the stand outside the Uerige brewery had a simple cask up on the table, when one ran out, they hoisted another up, slammed in an old style tap and hammered what I presumed was some sort of spile in to the top, and the tap was opened and I didn’t see it shut off while I was there at least. One barman poured and the other served.

A Barrel of Alt

My favourite alt of the day was one from a small microbrewery, the Kürzer Brauerei, on Kurze Strasse, which

Shiny

only had a 2000L capacity, although from what I could see it had a pretty hi tech setup. It was a real microbrewery, the brewing gear was in the back of the slightly industrial, functionally furnished bar, it wasn’t behind glass, but merely roped off. The alt was tasty, it was malty and well hopped, similar to Uerige which I think is the bitterest of the well known varieties. It may even have been more hopped still.

I asked could I poke around, no problem I was told. In fact, I had a good chat with the friendly young barman, who I took for an Australian but who in fact had grown up in Papua New Guinea. At least he took my Australian comment as a compliment.

The setup was very interesting. As far as I could make out, the beer was brewed as normal, except I think they harvested the c02 from fermentation. It was secondaried in conicals at roof height I guessed, and then passed through a rather large plate filter. At this stage the barman wasn’t sure of the procedure, “I only sell it” he told me. What he could tell me was that they didn’t use kegs, instead there was a rather large (I would estimate 200L) horizontal tank suspended from the roof near the bar, and the beer was fed from that to a glass container that refilled automatically, and had an adjustable level sensor. It looked a bit like one those things that has margherita mix or something like that in some bars, you can make it out in the picture, as well as the holding tank. So as far as I could see, the beer was probably filtered and recarbonated with the harvested c02 in one of those smaller tanks, then pumped to the holding tank at the bar, where it fed by gravity to the glass serving vessel, which then poured by gravity also. There was no external serving gas used.

Holding tank top-left, serving yoke bottom-right.

The bar was only open since October, I don’t know if they had been brewing before that. The friendly barman was delighted with this system, they didn’t need to use kegs anymore, so no more lifting for him. They Also owned a bar down the road, and the one directly across the street. “We still fill kegs for the bar down the road” he told me, but the bar across the street is equipped with a similar serving system. “We just use a giant hose to fill it from here!” he told me.

Kölschy Bogman!

This weekend I brewed a Kölsch. Kölsch just means Cologne-ish, and it is also the name of the dialect they speak there. During Carnival, the festival that starts in november (at 11.11 on the 11th of November- hilarious Germans!) and runs until Ash Wednesday, hoards of Köln folk wander around under the twin towers of the Dom, swilling lots of this beer from a little glasses called a stange. They dress up in odd costumes and listen to extremely silly oompah music, and for some bizarre reason three men pay lots of money each year to dress up as Virgin, a Prince, and a Farmer. they look very silly, particularly the virgin.

In any case, the beer is quite nice, so I decided to brew some. It is a light beer, not too hoppy, very pale in colour, displaying some of the dry crispness of a lager. Mostly though, I wanted to brew it because I like a good pun in the title of a beer. It has long been my belief that you should think of a witty title, and then brew the beer to fit. I apply this maxim to my academic philosophical studies also.

The beer is called “Culchie Bogman”. For those non-Irish among you, a “culchie” is how Dubliners refer affectionately to our rural cousins. sometimes they embrace it, sometimes they don’t, it doesn’t tend to bother us. If any of you want to read up more on the culchie, here is a link to their annual festival.

To make matters even more fantastic, my friend Maeve, the talented artist kindly offered to do a label for the beer. I will handsomely reward her with… em… beer. When it’s ready. Here is Maeve’s blog containing some beautiful artwork.

I think the label is fantastic, so I hope the beer can live up to it. Anyway here is my recipe:

“Culchie Bogman” Kölsch. 35L

Pilsener Malt 2.9KG

Pale Malt 2.5KG

Wheat Malt 750G

Munich Malt 680G

Hops: Taurus 21G, 60 mins

Saaz 28g, 15 mins

Hallertauer Mittlefruh 33g, 15 mins

1.5 tsp Irish Moss, 15 mins

Wyeast “Kölsch” 4L starter.

Other Notes: .5 tsp Calcium Chloride, Calcium Sulphate added to filtered strike water. Mash at 65c for 60 minutes. Ferment at 17c, Lager at 7c (or whatever temperature it is in my shed in a week or so’s time!) for 3-4 weeks

A further note: the Taurus and the Hallertauer hops are my own homegrown ones, and as such I have no idea how bitter they are. I guessed 12% aa for the Taurus, and 4% aa for the Hallertauer. I suspect that even though that is the lower end of the guideline for Taurus, that they are not in fact that bitter. In any case hop bitterness is not the most important factor in a Kölsch, and I was only shooting for 25 bittering units.

Here are some pictures of the brewing process.

This is my mash vessel, a picnic cooler with a stainless steel false bottom. I fill the cooler with the grains and start to add the water, stiring as I go.

the temperature is 65c so I close the lid, cover with a blanket and leave it for 60 minutes. It lost about 2 or 3 degrees but that’s ok when the weather is cold.

I start to run off the liquid into the boiler. I have to recirculate the first couple of litres because they are usually a little grainy, the grain bed starts to act as a filter after a little while. When the liquid gets near the top of the grain bed I start to add more water, being careful not to disturb the grain bed itself, so I use a plastic lid to stop this happening. This is called “sparging” . I switch on the boil kettle which is a converted Keg. When it starts to boil, I add the first hops addition, in a muslin bag so they don’t clog up later. I add the other hops at 15 minutes to go, along with irish moss, a seaweed (not in fact moss) that clumps some of the protein molecules together that cause hazy beer, thus allowing for a clearer beer. It’s important to cool the liquid as quickly as possible once the boil is over, because it is unstable when hot and prone to oxidisation, picking up other bad or stale flavours, but worst of all, if it cools slowly it is far more likely to pick up airborne microbes and nasties that might spoil it. I use a copper coil that attaches to a hose, which cold tap water runs through acting as a heat exchange. This cools it down pretty quick. The cooler goes in the boil for 15 minutes before the end to sanitise it also. When it’s all cool enough I open the floodgates and it pours forth in a beery stream that would make your heart race. The plastic storage box is what I use these days as a primary fermenter, it has a capacity of 80L, which means plenty of headspace. It is made from food grade polypropylene, same as normal homebrew fermenters, but it was very cheap, and it’s see through so I can see all the action. This method also aerates the wort (the unfermented beer) which is very important, because although the whole yeast conversion is normally an anaerobic process, it does need oxygen to get started. All that frothing and pouring from a height is perfect for my purposes! 10 hours or so later, and it has already started to ferment, there are little bubbles exploding up from the bottom and shooting up to the top, where all the yeast eating the sugar and multiplying themselves cause the bear to have a frothy creamy head. It’s only getting started in this picture but now, a day or two later it is about 5cm thick. It smells fantastic. My yeast strain, Wyeast’s “Kölsch” is supposed to have an almost winey charater to it, but it should produce a fairly dry beer at the same time. I’ll just have to wait.