Dry Stout Recipe Check Please

[newguy]

You're right. It's been a long time since I read the passage about Scottish brewers (and it took me a while to find it again), but here it is, from Ray Daniels' Designing Great Beers:

"Long after the English had conceded to use hops, the Scots continued to prefer other bittering substances. There can be little doubt that a portion of this preference was born of economy, because hops had to be imported and were no doubt expensive. In addition, the Scots and the English have been far from friendly during much of their history, and Scottish brewers were most likely reluctant to adopt a practice embraced by their Southern neighbours." [pg 284]

Somehow the fog of time twisted that passage in my head into English hops being heavily taxed for export to Scotland.

However, the issue of a lack of taxes on unmalted roasted barley being the reason why Guinness started using it is true according to Alan Moen's article in All About Beer magazine (May 2003) called Taxing the Pour: How Taxes Have Changed Our Beer:

"The Stout Solution

Taxesor the avoidance of themalso helped create Irish-style stout. In his book, Classic Stout and Porter, Roger Protz notes that Arthur Guinness II developed his famous recipe by using non-taxed unmalted roasted barley in the place of black malt in his porters to reduce their cost. The bitterness of the roasted barley set his brews apart from those of his competitors in England and Scotland. It was instrumental in making Guinness Foreign Extra Porter Stout, a stronger version that became popular in the colonies. Guinness Double Stout came to dominate the London market. Here again taxes were a factor. As Protz notes:

Guinnesspriced Double Stout midway between those of London porter and Burton pale ale, which led to complaints from the English brewers about the tax-dodging activities of their Irish competitors. (page 51)

Unfortunately for those London brewers, unmalted barley did not receive a tax exemption in England, which gave Guinness a real advantage in the British trade." [Quote found here.]

 

[wessmith]

OK, here is a bit more reading for you: http://www.ivo.se/guinness/

I think this info is in the article above but Guinness sold in Germany has always been made with RM - rheinheitsgebot rules!

These days you wont find any actual RB or RM in a Guinness - its all done with a flavour/colour extract that comes from Dublin. Frankly the current Guinness is but a shadow of its former self - lighter in colour, lower BU and sweeter.

This is great inspiration to do another brew of my '70s recipe with RB and FB....

Wes

 

[warrenlw63]

This is great inspiration to do another brew of my '70s recipe with RB and FB....

Wes

With big mutton chop sideys and flares Wes?

Thanks for the info re; the colour extract. Being a Guinness fancier that sucks! <_<

Warren -

 

[wessmith]

With big mutton chop sideys and flares Wes?

Thanks for the info re; the colour extract. Being a Guinness fancier that sucks! <_<

Warren -

Bought my first 4 pack of widgit cans in quite a while recently and could not believe the sweetness. I also suspect the FB has been replaced by a malto dextrin adjunct. Great shame. And also great sadness about the flares - turns out they went in the rag bag some years back. I was keeping them until the fashion came back... Damn. What about the ties though Warren? Have you kept any???

Wes

 

[warrenlw63]

What about the ties though Warren? Have you kept any???

Only time I ever wore a tie Wes was when I was a defendant. B)

Warren -

 

[wessmith]

Not going to touch that one Warren!

But i just went out to the brewhouse and pulled out my TF samples and tried both the RB and RM. The RM is definitely more "softer" and richer in flavour than the RB which has a more acrid background "bite". Thats what I miss in the Guinness of today.

While we are on about black beers, I also notice that many Schwarz beer styles have also gone "soft". Monteiths black has become noticeably sweeter and a couple of imports from Czech and Polish breweries recently tried also lacked any real depth of roasted character.

Is it me or more dumbing down...

Wes

 

[warrenlw63]

I'll take the dumbing down.

Edit: Wes are these flavour/colour additives you're talking about similar to brewer's caramel colouring?

Warren -

 

[Stuster]

Is it me or more dumbing down...

Could be this. h34r:

Actually, I think it's far more likely that you're right and the recipes have been changed to appeal to a wider market.

 

[wessmith]

I'll take the dumbing down.

Edit: Wes are these flavour/colour additives you're talking about similar to brewer's caramel colouring?

Warren -

Sort of, but usually derived from malted grains of some description - a bit like Weyermann Sinamar. There is a company in Scotland that produces a range of colouring/flavour agents - Pure Malt Products (http://www.puremalt.com/). Have a look under Farbebiers and see how you can make different beers from a single wort stream. Chilling stuff. That said, Guinness probably produce there own extracts under great secrecy. Sort of reminds you about Coke and the smiling Colonel...

But hey, thats what beverage engineering is all about.

Wes

 

[SJW]

But i just went out to the brewhouse and pulled out my TF samples and tried both the RB and RM. The RM is definitely more "softer" and richer in flavour than the RB which has a more acrid background "bite". Thats what I miss in the Guinness of today.

Thats interesting, Beersmith describes these two as below, after brewing. Both pretty similar to me.


Roast Malt (Black) -
Yield: 74.00 %
Type: Grain
Potential: 1.034
Color: 660.0
Coarse Fine Diff: 1.50 % Max In Batch: 10.00 %
Moisture: 3.00 Must Mash: FALSE
Diastatic Power: 0.0 Protein: 13.00
Inventory: 0.00 gm
IBU: 0.000
Notes: Malted black barley adds a strong burnt coffee flavor - suitable for stouts and porters. Unmalted barley roasted at high temperature to create a dry, coffee like flavor.
Imparts a sharp acrid flavor characteristic of dry stouts.
Gives "dryness" to a stout or porter -- much more so than regular Roasted Barley




Roast Barley
Yield: 74.80 %
Type: Grain
Potential: 1.034
Color: 710.0
Coarse Fine Diff: 1.50 % Max In Batch: 10.00 %
Moisture: 5.10 Must Mash: FALSE
Diastatic Power: 0.0 Protein: 0.00
Inventory: 0.00 gm
IBU: 0.000
Notes: Dry, slightly astringent roasted flavour. Classic stouts (5%) , background colouring (1%).
Roasted at high temperature to create a burnt, grainy, coffee like flavor.
Imparts a red to deep brown color to beer, and very strong roasted flavor.
Use 2-4% in Brown ales to add a nutty flavor, or 3-10% in Porters and Stouts for coffee flavor.


This is a quote from am earlier link in refer to Guinness and RB.

The particular point to note today about all these beers is that they used roasted malt, not the roasted barley that commentators such as Roger Bergen, writing in Brewing Techniques in November 1993 say is “critical” to the Guinness palate. In fact Guinness could not have used roasted barley when John G was working there, because it was illegal: no grains could go into the brewing of beer that had not been malted, and paid the malt tax.

That only changed with the passing of the Free Mash Tun Act of 1880. But there seems to have been no rush by Guinness to use (cheaper) roasted barley in place of roasted malt. The experts seem to have been against the idea: Henry Stopes, writing in his 600-page bible Malt and Malting, published in 1885, insisted that roasted barley did not give as permanent a colour as roasted malt, and “the flavour is also very inferior; and the aroma can bear no comparison.”

So when, as Ron Pattinson has been asking, did the roasted malt change to roasted barley? Alfred Barnard, when he visited St James’s Gate in 1889, still found the brewery using “patent” malt. But opinion on roasted barley was shifting away from Henry Stopes’s dismissive view: Alfred Henry Allen wrote in Allen’s Commercial Organic Analysis in 1912 that: “Roasted barley is now largely taking the place of roasted malt, the latter being used mostly in the brewing of export stouts.”

All the same, Guinness looks to have held on for a couple of decades more. A guidebook for visitors to the St James’s Gate brewery published in 1928 said: “The chief difference between Ales and Stout are … in the use of roasted malt, which imparts both colour and flavour to the stout.” In the 1939 edition, however, the copy had changed to read “… the use of roasted malt, or barley” (my emphasis). It looks, therefore, as if Guinness began using roasted barley only in the 10 years between 1928 and 1938.

By now, it appears roasted barley was replacing roasted malt generally: Herbert Lloyd Hind’s Brewing: Science and Practice, published in 1938, says: “There are a number of distinct types of stout and porter, for which different blends of materials are used. On the one hand, are the stouts brewed from malt only, or from malt and roasted barley, On the other are the sweeter stouts, for which a fairly high percentage of sugar is employed … Roasted barley gives a drier flavour than roasted malt and is preferred by many.”

So: it looks like Guinness only started using roasted barley to make “Irish stout” in the late 1920s or 1930s, and began using flaked barley in the early 1950s. Expert commentary suggests roasted malt Guinness would have tasted very different from roasted barley Guinness – did anybody notice?

 

[wessmith]

Thats interesting, Beersmith describes these two as below, after brewing.

SJW, I tried to keep the comparo to an English maltster as that is about the closest you will get to what Guinness was likely to have used. There is a pretty dramatic difference in roasted profiles between the UK, Germany, Australia and I suspect the US as well. Without knowing what brand of product Beersmith is quoting from it is a bit difficult to really compare.

For the record, Aussies roasted (malts and barley) are pretty harsh in flavour compared with the likes of TF. It seems that our barley strains dont take too well to heavy roasting. That is why JW deloped "Chocolate Chit" in an effort to try and minimise the harsher flavours.

Wes

 

[SJW]

For the record, Aussies roasted (malts and barley) are pretty harsh in flavour compared with the likes of TF. It seems that our barley strains dont take too well to heavy roasting. That is why JW deloped "Chocolate Chit" in an effort to try and minimise the harsher flavours.

Wes

Thanks mate, you learn something everyday. Another reason why I don't use Aussie specialty malts. I am not a fan of JW Ale or Pils either.