Alt - How To?

[BJCP Education Director]

I NEVER said refer to the guidelines. I didnt write them and most of them dont do justice to the style. Im talking from past experience brewing and also from experience drinking directly out of a cask of Zum Uerige Alt...directly I mean my mouth right under it

The whole idea of the alt was not that it was any differently made from the other german beers at the time. Think back, this was before the isolation of a pure lager yeast.

They made the beer the same way they would make a 'lager'. This mixed strain of yeast could ferment at warmer conditions and lager at cool ones. I prefer to use a lager strain b/c I get a much nicer malt profile.

Here is a really good article on Alt beers:

http://www.allaboutbeer.com/style/24.1-altbier.html

 

[Batz]

Alt or Alt or Alt

Style , style , style

I make a boodly nice beer that I believe is something vaguely like an Alt ( of which I have never tried)

And I love it and I am going to call it an Alt ! No matter who says what!

It will not win a comp. , that's ok with me as I will not enter it in a comp.

I think some people forget that brewing is to make beer you enjoy

Batz

 

[kitkat]

I make a boodly nice beer that I believe is something vaguely like an Alt ( of which I have never tried)

just make sure you specify that when you give the recipe to someone who has actually tasted an alt and wants to reproduce it

 

[barfridge]

This is sounding more and more like the IPA/american IPA argument. So lets just call an alt with a lager yeast an american alt, as the word american fits comfortably in the name of any bastardised style.

 

[Batz]

[
just make sure you specify that when you give the recipe to someone who has actually tasted an alt and wants to reproduce it

[post="50783"][/post]​

[/quote]

Oh YES SIR !! <_<

 

[chiller]

I NEVER said refer to the guidelines. I didnt write them and most of them dont do justice to the style. Im talking from past experience brewing and also from experience drinking directly out of a cask of Zum Uerige Alt...directly I mean my mouth right under it

I have a major problem with this post.

The poster asks me by his signature to believe he is the Education director of the BJCP -- now while I have some personal misgivings about some of the guidlines as the education director of the BJCP you should be doing all you can to promote an organisation that has done a great deal to standardise homebrewing in YOUR country. Your attitude is not reflective of such a responsible office.

Your advice is not sound as a representative of a respected organisation. You can only fuel uncertainty in the minds of people who choose to follow the current BJCP guidlines.

Steve

 

[Trough Lolly]

...So lets just call an alt with a lager yeast an american alt, as the word american fits comfortably in the name of any bastardised style.

[post="50803"][/post]​

Bwaah hah hah! :lol:
Thanks for that barfridge - The monitor needed a good beer wash anyway!

TL

 

[chiller]

...So lets just call an alt with a lager yeast an american alt, as the word american fits comfortably in the name of any bastardised style.

[post="50803"][/post]​

Bwaah hah hah! :lol:
Thanks for that barfridge - The monitor needed a good beer wash anyway!

TL

[post="50820"][/post]​

I've run out of beer in the keg [long sad story] so mine got a wash with Earl Grey tea.

:beer:

Steve

 

[wee stu]

I NEVER said refer to the guidelines. I didnt write them and most of them dont do justice to the style.

[post="50774"][/post]​

Strange thing for the purported eductation director of the organisation to say, is it not? Or perhaps you have a lot of remedial eductation to direct in your new role

Barfridge - I like it :beer:

 

[BJCP Education Director]

Steve, for whatever Ive done to you and yours I apologize. Your disappointment and misgivings of me have started from day one, of which you will hopefully help me change.

As for the guidelines, what I mean is that they are just that...guidelines. One cannot truely represent a style by just reading them. One of the best Foreign Extra Stouts Ive had is Sheaf Stout and most people have never tried it. If you go directly by the guidelines you will not come close to it.

Ones needs to get their hands on the beer, taste it, feel it and try different recipes to accomplish a clone if one wishes. The numbers and ingredients are a general reflection of the style as a whole, inasmuch the entire guidelines are such. One of my jobs is to educate people in how to 'read' them and use them. They are a good starting point for starting a style.

As for remedial eduation, I hope to start at the bottom...old dogs and such.

Its very hard to put inflection into email or a post...of which I am poorly inadequate.

Hopefully my my response has answered 2 very good points.

 

[jgriffin]

OK, i'm a bit confused now. I thought an Alt was an ale brewed with a top fermenting ale yeast at low lager type temperatures.

If you brew it with a lager yeast, aren't you making, well, a lager?

 

[BJCP Education Director]

You are absolutely correct.

An alt is an ale fermented at the cooler end of ale temperatures and then cold conditioned (e.g. lager). What my post meant was that I get the best results just using a lager yeast and treating it as a lager. My method is not the original way but seems to make my recipe much more 'alt-ish' that when I try to use the ale yeast. Personal preference.

The decoction that I do seems to give an extrordinary malt depth that my single infusions just dont give. It does a much better job of balancing the bitterness that without.

 

[wee stu]

the 2 most important things that most people dont know is 1) use a lager yeast and treat it like lager and 2) decotion.

[post="50665"][/post]​

Mr England, it was not clear from your post, at all, that you were only talking about your methods.
Rather it sounded very definitive, even directive, and potentially misleading to other brewers trying to replicate, with any degree of authenticity, the style.

Maybe we should all develop the habit of rereading our posts before we submit them. So as we are more clear in our mind how we think others might understand them.

BTW, inflection is much like self-reflexivity, a gift many people from other English speaking cultures often seem sadly lacking in